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

[TaxiService]

I think even Chrome and Firefox can read .ogg files! Programs like Audacity or Audition let you edit and export sounds. And i think VLC can convert stuff to .ogg too.

@styles: I ran the test you proposed. With an intact hull the augment refrains from subtracting the scrap. That's positive, i guess!



...also, dammit! I wanted to have an event require a dude skilled in engines! >_< Then... what about healing an enemy ship using only events?
If anyone finds any useful info about these things please let me know..!

[stylesrj]

@styles: I ran the test you proposed. With an intact hull the augment refrains from subtracting the scrap. That's positive, i guess!

Holy crap. You mean that now it's not as bad as I thought it was?

It's still the worst augment out there (although I wouldn't mind having it in the Last Stand) but that's good to know.

[Biohazard063]

EDIT: Also, while i'm at it, does anyone know if it's possible to heal the enemy ship via events? :0

Well, I read the following :

Dealing damage to enemy ships is impossible unfortunately.

So I'm guessing the reverse is impossible as well unless you create like ASB that actually heals the ship...
Or you could do it with a weapon on the ship like a hull repair bomb with a small cooldown and no missile requirement. Depends on what you need the repairs for though...
It's not an event, but if it's for MTE, you could set it as a ship coming equipped with one of those. Pretty sure the hull repair drones are good enough though.

[TaxiService]

That's a shame! Unfortunately, i don't think i can use the other enemy-healing methods for what i need to do. :( I am revamping an OP ship that i made, and in the process i gave it an augment able to trigger alternative options in some vanilla events. I needed to heal the enemy ship in a specific event but, alas! Thanks for the heads up, though! I won't lose time trying to accomplish impossible things and work around the limitations. :P

If anyone somehow finds out info about events requiring a crewmember with a specific skill, they should let me know!

[Biohazard063]

That's a shame! Unfortunately, i don't think i can use the other enemy-healing methods for what i need to do. I am revamping an OP ship that i made, and in the process i gave it an augment able to trigger alternative options in some vanilla events. I needed to heal the enemy ship in a specific event but, alas! Thanks for the heads up, though! I won't lose time trying to accomplish impossible things and work around the limitations.

If anyone somehow finds out info about events requiring a crewmember with a specific skill, they should let me know!

Just remembered though, CE has ships that can activate other systems during an event mid fight (instead of say surrendering or starting to run). Not entirely sure how he did it, but if you can use that to say have it power up an artillery weapon that heals the ship it could work... Enemy ships can go over the 8 systems cap without a problem anyway.

[stylesrj]

Just remembered though, CE has ships that can activate other systems during an event mid fight (instead of say surrendering or starting to run). Not entirely sure how he did it, but if you can use that to say have it power up an artillery weapon that heals the ship it could work... Enemy ships can go over the 8 systems cap without a problem anyway.

Or Drone Control might have 8 bars of power with one ionised and halfway through the encounter, the disabled system is restored and a 1-power Hull Repair Drone is activated.
Sure it won't work if they have no drones left but at least it won't be as obvious as "Sudden healing artillery activates!"

[TaxiService]

Well, here's the thing. The idea with the Hooker was to have a 'Towing Hook' augment that would be kind of like the damaged stasis pod. I'm appending special options to some vanilla events in which a towing hook would grant you new ways to get out of situations. :P I thought that'd be funny.

So, while fighting a ship in a specific event, they're supposed to hail you after taking a bit of damage. (they normally wouldn't, but i added a <surrender> tag to their <ship> that would do nothing unless you have the hook augment)
Your goal is to "secure the hook" on their hull, and I'm writing an event chain that would let you do that if you choose the right options. This event chain is called by the ship's <surrender> tag, so it happens mid-fight; and if you don't get the "good ending" they're supposed to turn hostile in all cases.

One of the choices you have is to deceive the enemy crew by fixing the damage you caused to their hull, and then 'hook them when they least expect it'.

Since all of this stuff is going to happen in an event chain, i need the healing to be done between events. (after you "hook them" they would turn hostile again, and you'd have to choose one final option to complete the event successfully.)

So, i wonder. Is there a way to use any of these methods you guys proposed to make the ship healing appear instantaneous, between an event and another? :0
...if not, it's not a big deal. I already wrote a number of different outcomes.




...also, on an unrelated note, i just noticed that some events can give you systems??????? That's a major frigging thing!!! I am working on an addition for MTE that would allow you to get specific systems for free! It's possibly the most important thing i always wished MTE would do! >_< So yeah, stay tuned for that i guess!

[Biohazard063]

Well, here's the thing. The idea with the Hooker was to have a 'Towing Hook' augment that would be kind of like the damaged stasis pod. I'm appending special options to some vanilla events in which a towing hook would grant you new ways to get out of situations. I thought that'd be funny.

So, while fighting a ship in a specific event, they're supposed to hail you after taking a bit of damage. (they normally wouldn't, but i added a <surrender> tag to their <ship> that would do nothing unless you have the hook augment)
Your goal is to "secure the hook" on their hull, and I'm writing an event chain that would let you do that if you choose the right options. This event chain is called by the ship's <surrender> tag, so it happens mid-fight; and if you don't get the "good ending" they're supposed to turn hostile in all cases.

One of the choices you have is to deceive the enemy crew by fixing the damage you caused to their hull, and then 'hook them when they least expect it'.

Since all of this stuff is going to happen in an event chain, i need the healing to be done between events. (after you "hook them" they would turn hostile again, and you'd have to choose one final option to complete the event successfully.)

So, i wonder. Is there a way to use any of these methods you guys proposed to make the ship healing appear instantaneous, between an event and another? :0
...if not, it's not a big deal. I already wrote a number of different outcomes.




...also, on an unrelated note, i just noticed that some events can give you systems??????? That's a major frigging thing!!! I am working on an addition for MTE that would allow you to get specific systems for free! It's possibly the most important thing i always wished MTE would do! >_< So yeah, stay tuned for that i guess!

You're creating a separate augment for that? Might be too late to suggest this, but I remember doing a showcase of "the hooker" on my channel. The one with the "slightly" OP ion beam artillery right? Anyway, been awhile since I checked out the ship, but if it still has the artillery weapon, wouldn't it be easier to set the requirement for the blue options to be the artillery weapon? (Not the artillery system, the actual weapon blueprint.) The ship starts with the weapon and can't be removed, combine that with the fact it doesn't take up an augment slot that can be sold. (A tow ship selling his hook... ) Using the weapon blueprint instead of the system blueprint means that not every ship with artillery gets the blue option. I know you can use the artillery's weapon blueprint as I have done that on the Mother Hen ship.

I'm going off of what we wrote a bit earlier that doing anything to the enemy hull would can't be done in an event and has to happen during a fight...
There are a bunch of ways to make it happen during a fight, but I don't think it can be done mid-event. Even so, you can set when a ship offers the surrender, so if you make it surrender early on you technically wouldn't need the repairs, and even so. There's the event where you can use a Zoltan to power up the shields of a friendly ship and nothing happens when you do that so...
It would indeed be cool if you could do it, but it seems to be impossible.

Yes, adding systems through events is possible and even allows you to go over the 8 systems cap I believe, with potential problems related to the UI off course...
I'm pretty sure that the option to get infinite amount of scrap + the option to spawn a store at every beacon suffices for MTE. You could say the same thing for your option to get fuel, missiles and drone parts, but stores tend not to carry 50 of those with them...
There aren't that many systems out there, so getting a store or 5 would probably get you all the systems you need. It would just be another cool thing you can do with MTE.

[TaxiService]

The one with the "slightly" OP ion beam artillery right?

Yep. That's the one. I've obviously been meaning to fix that beam as well. : \ I was thinking of making it fire a single bolt that pierces 1 shield, deals 4 ion damage and 1 normal damage. : \

In this video i show both the system picker and the hooker's new wip artillery. Thoughts? I am not really great at balancing things..! (also i killed the enemy shield for some reason, that was stupid)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtFw3NTr4p8

wouldn't it be easier to set the requirement for the blue options to be the artillery weapon?

*facepalms* why didn't I think about that?! D: Right now the augment costs -19998 scrap, so if you sell it it subtracts 9999 of your scrap. (if you have 0 scrap though, you can still sell it and lose nothing!)

Here's what i thought: "I'm going to give the player this thing. It's going to occupy a precious augment slot, making the game more challenging. They can sell it if they really want to, but if they do they'll (hopefully) get a scrap penalty and miss all the new keeewl events."
...the problem is that unless they really wanted to go look at my events, i doubt anyone wouldn't sell the thing if they had the chance!

But hey! Requiring the artillery weapon is frigging genius!!! I was considering doing a B layout without it, and in that case i would've used the same augment... but arghh... It's probably better that i don't start another ship project tbh. I'm currently working on, what, eight ships? Some of them are even ready to be released, more or less..!

I should probably make a thread asking for advice on how to balance this blasted thing. Thanks for your advice though!!!!!!! It wouldn't even be hard to switch the event requirements, so it's a great idea!


EDIT: New MTE development version up for grabs here! https://www.dropbox.com/s/ywd2nwat6q9v4 ... 1.zip?dl=0
Also the CCP: https://www.dropbox.com/s/7fzvvrqjtjna8 ... P.zip?dl=0

[Biohazard063]

*Snip*

Balancing is what I'm all about. Let's have a look.
That... artillery...looks...awesome. Too bad the projectile explodes when it's already halfway past the targeted room. Wouldn't you be able to fix that by lengthening the projectile image with some more transparency ? As in it now being like 2x8, make it 2x16 with those extra 8 being just more transparent space.
The effect reminds me of the pierce ions + advanced ion blasts from CE. (Don't worry though, CE has done practically everything when it comes down to weapon ideas...)
Just be careful to not overdo it with the shieldpiercing. As we learned from the CE pierce ions, if the shot goes through shields, it will do his ion damage to shield and whatever system it hits afterwards potentially hitting shields 2x. With just one shield piercing it shouldn't be a problem though. And makes for a nice niche way to make use of it, get their shields to 1 before it fires to keep them down for longer.
Should find some custom audio for it though... plenty of options to be found out there and not too hard to code in.
And maybe use the explosion from the ion bomb. It's main hook (see what I did there... ) is the ion damage nonetheless.

For the augment vs. artillery.
Not just that, but when you have 3 augments and you get another, you can just throw it out as well. And augment slots are pretty valuable...
Shouldn't be too hard to change the event to using the artillery weapon. All you really need to do is change all the requirements. I believe some word editing programs can actually do that for you... Again, the choice is yours if that's what you're going with.

Also, you helped me out a ton already, least I can do is return the favor right?