Questions here: an inquiry thread! [Updated Sep 15th, 2014]

[Tereglith]

I'm messing around with an idea for a new Rock ship, and want to include a fire beam. To fit with all the other shield-piercing starting weapons on rock ships, I want to make it so that it doesn't have to worry about one layer of shields. I know that the <sp> tag is the shield piercing value, and I tried changing it to 1, but that seems to have no effect in-game. Is there something I'm missing here, or is shield piercing for beams an all-or-nothing affair?

Here's the current code for the weapon:

Code: Select all

<weaponBlueprint name="BEAM_FIRE_2">
   <type>BEAM</type>
   <tip>tip_fire_beam</tip>
   <title>Advanced Fire Beam</title>   <!-- Induction beam? -->
   <short>Adv. Fire</short>
   <desc>This terrifying beam does no physical damage but ignites fires, even through a shield.</desc>
   <tooltip>Beam weapon that starts fires.</tooltip>
   <damage>0</damage>
   <sp>1</sp>
   <fireChance>9</fireChance>
   <breachChance>0</breachChance>
   <cooldown>18</cooldown>
   <power>2</power>
   <cost>60</cost>
   <bp>6</bp>
   <rarity>0</rarity>
   <length>100</length>
   <image>beam_contact</image>
   <launchSounds>
      <sound>beam2</sound>
   </launchSounds>
   <weaponArt>beam_fire</weaponArt>
   <iconImage>beam</iconImage>
</weaponBlueprint>

[kartoFlane]

IIRC the <sp> tag is somewhat iffy when it comes to special effects like fire and breach on beams. Not sure if it works at all if the beam deals no damage. Or maybe you need to set the <sp> tag to 2 instead of 1 for the effects to be applied correctly... I really don't remember :/

[stylesrj]

So how big of a ship would I have to make in order for it to fill up half the screen and more?

I attempted it here and it's really awful.
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=27774#p94818

Basically how big would I need that picture of Moonbase Alpha (or actually, any picture of the lunar surface) to be so that when I play, not only does it fill up half the screen for the ship, but when the game zooms out from FTL jumps, it really does look like the moon is jumping?

[kartoFlane]

A quick test later...

When jumping, the game zooms out so that the ship is around 25% of its original size. FTL's game window's height (the smaller dimension) is 748 pixels. Assuming you'd want the moon image to fill all that space, you'd need a (748 * 4) = 2992, so a 2992x2992 image of the moon. That's an overkill though, and from what I recall, FTL seemed to have problems with loading images that were around 2048 in size...
A 1024x1024 should be acceptable, and the game should be able to load it without too much trouble.

[Gencool]

I've had a search around but can't find anything;
Is there a way to skip straight to the final (boss) sector, for testing stuff?

[kartoFlane]

@Gencool
None that I'm aware of. Your best bet would be to have a save file right before the boss battle.
Though now that I think about it, it's something that Vhati's profile editor should be able to handle...

Quick test later...

Success!
In the profile editor:

1. Go to Saved Game tab
2. Click on Open and select the continue.sav file
3. Go to Sector Tree tab
4. In the Preview dropdown menu select Expanded
5. Click Apply
6. Click your way through the sector tree to the last sector
7. Click Save and save the modified file.

Though do keep in mind that this particular feature is not guaranteed to work correctly. Read the disclaimer at the bottom of the Sector Tree tab for more info.

[Gencool]

Ahha! I'd looked at the save editor but couldn't see how to do it.
Much obliged!

[mr_easy_money]

I'm confused about how to make a new Flak weapon;

sure most of the things are the same as other weapons except for a few tags which I'm not sure what they do:
pulling the example of Flak II

Code: Select all

<weaponBlueprint name="SHOTGUN_2">
   <type>BURST</type>
   <flavorType>Physical Projectile Blast</flavorType>
   <drone_targetable>1</drone_targetable>
   <title>Flak Gun Mark II</title>
   <short>Flak II</short>
   <tip>tip_flak</tip>
   <desc>Fires a blast of debris across a random area doing up to 7 damage. Good at taking down shields but hard to aim.</desc>
   <tooltip>Fires a blast of debris across a random area doing up to 7 damage.</tooltip>
   <radius>55</radius>
   <damage>1</damage>
   <spin>720</spin>
   <shots>1</shots>
   <sp>0</sp>
   <fireChance>0</fireChance>
   <breachChance>0</breachChance>
   <cooldown>21</cooldown>
   <power>3</power>
   <cost>80</cost>
   <bp>10</bp>
   <speed>26</speed>
   <rarity>4</rarity>
   <projectiles>
      <projectile count="3" fake="false">debris_large</projectile>
      <projectile count="4" fake="false">debris_med</projectile>
      <projectile count="6" fake="true">debris_small</projectile>
   </projectiles>
   <launchSounds>
      <sound>flak</sound>
   </launchSounds>
   <hitShipSounds>
      <sound>flakImpact1</sound>
      <sound>flakImpact2</sound>
      <sound>flakImpact3</sound>
      <sound>flakImpact4</sound>
   </hitShipSounds>
   <hitShieldSounds>
      <sound>hitShield1</sound>
      <sound>hitShield2</sound>
      <sound>hitShield3</sound>
   </hitShieldSounds>
   <missSounds>
      <sound>miss</sound>
   </missSounds>
   <weaponArt>shotgun_2</weaponArt>
   <iconImage>flak</iconImage>
</weaponBlueprint>

<spin> ? what does this even mean pertaining to flak

<radius> I know what this does: radius of where the flak can fall

<projectiles> ? I'm not sure what this does or even what any of the things inside the tag mean

[stylesrj]

<spin> ? what does this even mean pertaining to flak

I think that's how fast the projectiles spin in flight.

<radius> I know what this does: radius of where the flak can fall

Yup. The flak could hit anywhere within that circle. From the very edge to the middle and missing most of the enemy ship every time you need to use it like right now because there's a Hermes Missile with "Kestrel's Shields" written on the warhead!

<projectiles> ? I'm not sure what this does or even what any of the things inside the tag mean

That determines how many shots are actually fired from the gun. A flak gun shoots many projectiles, but only 3 of them will do damage. The rest are considered to be "fake" and Defense Drones might shoot them instead of the actual damaging shot.

This also means you could create rainbow projectiles if you wanted, each shot a different colour.

[mr_easy_money]

I'm also confused about where to put the Flak weapon

so right now I'm making a ship that fits into type A so it goes into blueprints.xml.append

but I don't know where to put the Flak? does it go into dlcBlueprints.xml.append? but then how would it be used in type A

so confused about this...