[Modding]Creating your own weapons

[Lord0fHam]

How do I make my weapon start on a ship but for a mod to distribute. If I edit the STARTING WEAPONS and put it in a .append, won't it overwrite the original one?

[speedoflight]

I believe thats the purpose of the append file, it adds instead of replace, but since im new to this game and modding i dont know for sure lol.

Guys a question,if i create a new weapon, but i dont add it to the autoblueprints.xml, its ok right?? i mean, the purpose is to make that weapon available to player ships or shops, but not in the ai fleet. Or do i need to add it to the autoblueprints.xml for the weapon to be available on shops?

[kartoFlane]

If you want your weapon to be available to enemies or in shops, you have to add its blueprint name to appropriate blueprint lists; basically, the STARTING_WEAPONS blueprint lists has all the weapons - I'm not sure, but I think it's the one that shops use to determine what weapons they sell. For enemies to be able to use your weapon, you have to add your blueprint name to the appropriate list. For example, engi ships use CIRCLE_WEAPONS list - adding your weapon to this list will make it available to all ships that use this blueprint list as their weapon loadout.

[speedoflight]

If you want your weapon to be available to enemies or in shops, you have to add its blueprint name to appropriate blueprint lists; basically, the STARTING_WEAPONS blueprint lists has all the weapons - I'm not sure, but I think it's the one that shops use to determine what weapons they sell. For enemies to be able to use your weapon, you have to add your blueprint name to the appropriate list. For example, engi ships use CIRCLE_WEAPONS list - adding your weapon to this list will make it available to all ships that use this blueprint list as their weapon loadout.

So, if i add my custom weapon to the starting_weapons blueprint list, it will be available in shops and player ships but not in AI ships right?? Lets say i am working on a star trek mod (already working on the defiant ship with custom weapon grapchics and sounds, lets see if i can get it done..) and i want the pulse phasers and the photon torpedoes available only (as it should be) to the Federation player ships / or shops. So if i keep my custom weapons out of the autoblueprint list, thats the way to do it?

Thanks in advance.

[kartoFlane]

Correction: I meant the WEAPONS_STANDARD list in autoBlueprints.xml, not the STARTING_WEAPONS list. So, the shops use WEAPONS_STANDARD as their list.
Also, I don't think it's actually neccessary to add a weapon to the starting list, if it's meant to be available to the player exclusively (but I haven't tested that, so it's just a guess).

And yes, your custom weapon won't be available to the AI ships; to understand why, take a look at Auto-Scout's weapon declaration:

Code: Select all

<weaponList missiles="10" load="WEAPONS_AUTO"/>

This means that whenever the player encounters that ship, the game looks at the WEAPONS_AUTO blueprint list and randomly picks weapons from it for the ship to use. So as long as you don't add your weapon's blueprint name to that list, the AI ship won't use it.
However, if you have added your weapon's blueprint name to a list, and there is an enemy ship that uses this list as its loadout, then it will be possible for that ship to use your custom weapon.

[speedoflight]

Oh, i see, now i got it thx KartoFlane

[speedoflight]

Well, im making progress. But stil a lot to work to do.. i got the ship working in-game, and the weapons are correctly recognized, but the graphic of the photon torpedo missile is showed deformed, like if the graphic is made with the wrong size or something, but it has the same exact size of any missile strip graphic, and the different frames are exactly in the same position as the missile graphic. Maybe its something about the png format?? the pulse-phaser works perfect, the graphic is ok and i did the same steps as the missile graphic. Any ideas?

I also dont know if any value on the blueprint file will affect the appearance of the graphic...

The idea is to change the missile graphic for a stylez photon torpedo one, so the final aspect in-game looks like a real photon torpedo.. i thought it will be easy, but apparently its not lol.

This is a default missile strip of the game ->



And this is the photon torpedo strip - >



They have exact size, format and the divisions between frames are correct.
Any clue?

And i cant get the audio effects to work, all seems fine, but i just cant hear anything lol.

Btw, few more questions.. Did someone discovered wat BP means in the weapon parameters?

And, is there any value that controls the probability of hit?? Or that is only managed by the capabilities of the ship to avoid hits?

And.. is there any list with ALL the possible parameters that a different kind of weapon could have?? i mean, is there any hidden parameter that is not showing up in the default weapons of the game? (i only ask this cuz i had that very same experience in other games i modded for).

[mcbmaestro]

How do I make my weapon start on a ship but for a mod to distribute. If I edit the STARTING WEAPONS and put it in a .append, won't it overwrite the original one?

not sure

[speedoflight]

How do I make my weapon start on a ship but for a mod to distribute. If I edit the STARTING WEAPONS and put it in a .append, won't it overwrite the original one?

not sure

Yes, but the point is, the starting weapon list should be the same as the game one, so u should not be worried about that part of the code being replaced. The only thing u do is to add other weapons to the list, but the original list is kept intact. Thats the reason if u look at weapon mods, all of em have the same layout, first the original game weapon list, and after that the mod weapons added.

[speedoflight]

Well, i solved my problem, i finally got the photon torpedo strip graphic working. The problem was just a wrong value on the horizontal size lol. Didnt notice until now..

But, now another problem :p, i dont see the photon torpedo rotating, its supossed, like a missile strip that u can see the fire flowing frame by frame, i cant get the rotating effect of the photon strip graphic.

Wat values do i need to modify to make that effect?? (i tried to change the "time" value with no results...).

Thx in advance.