component question for vet moders

[Puke]

hey guys. im trying to make a engineering bay that will repair the command and control components on a ship. its actually not all that hard to do, I just made a component with 2 points per turn of regenerative ability (like organic armor) and assigned it to a family containing all the bridge, life sup, crew qtrs.

the problem is, even if all these are set to zero, only the Last one in the list displays (when listing latest components). since i have about a billion other things to do to get PCM going, and since i thought others might like to steal this idea, thought i would ask here rather than try to fix it myself.

i seem to remember something about component families having to be 'in order' to work right, so if i interspersed some non-family-member components between them, would they display properly (all show up)? would doing so break their regenerative ability?

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"...the green, sticky spawn of the stars"
(with apologies to H.P.L.)

[AJC]

The order of the components doesnt matter in the components.txt file - although if you add a new component to that file and it changes the order the components are listed in , this impacts your existing designs and You must totally restart the game you are using to test with , i.e. recreate the game like a new game. I recommend this anyway when testing.

I highly recommend using the same family for the components as the basic component you are basing the new ones off of. For instance - The regenerating Bridge component would be the same family as Bridge - this way you dont have to changes to the AI to get them to use the new component. When the component becomes available the AI will upgrade to that component IF it becomes available after the original bridge component.

I have done this with Regenerating engines, (the only way I could find to provide a defense against engine destroying weapons). I created regenerating engines (Under the guise of nano tech) at each tech level of engines- but the engines only becomes available after researching the correct prerequisites. For example I may require Ship contruction 7, Physics 4 in order to get regenerating engines.

I usually control when a new component becomes available by assigning prerequisite technologies. This avoids adding new levels of tech to the game - and avoids a major modification to all the AI research files.


For example - The Planetary Cloaking device I created requires Stellar manipulation 6, Cloaking 3, Physics 4 and Shields 10. I added this new component using the exisiting tech levels.

[Phoenix-D]

Component order DOES matter.

Let's say you have 5 Armor components, all the same family, and one life support.
Armor V
Armor I
Armor III
Armor II
Life Support
Armor IV

..if you go into the game, full tech, and hit "latest components" you will see Armor II and armor IV, with the life support in between. Move the life support past armor IV, and you see only armor Iv.

Phoenix-D

[Puke]

quote:

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Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
Component order DOES matter.

Let's say you have 5 Armor components, all the same family, and one life support.
Armor V
Armor I
Armor III
Armor II
Life Support
Armor IV

..if you go into the game, full tech, and hit "latest components" you will see Armor II and armor IV, with the life support in between. Move the life support past armor IV, and you see only armor Iv.

Phoenix-D

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cool, thats what i thought. I guess i will have to test it to see what that does to the regenerative ability.

[Phoenix-D]

It shouldn't affect the abilities, no. The AI may not use it right- if it replaces the bridge, LS, and quarters, the AI will still put crew quarters and LS on the ship along with it.

Phoenix-D

[Puke]

the AI is definitly not going to be able to handle this mod. its being designed from the begining as a multiplayer, humans only, mod. on the otherhand, i am trying to keep the interface and operation clean so anybody can jump right into it without having to work around bugs or limitations of the game.

------------------
"...the green, sticky spawn of the stars"
(with apologies to H.P.L.)

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

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the problem is, even if all these are set to zero, only the Last one in the list displays (when listing latest components). since i have about a billion other things to do to get PCM going, and since i thought others might like to steal this idea, thought i would ask here rather than try to fix it myself.

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For help, see how I did the same sort of thing in P&N.

In my case, it was much more complex, since I was combining multiple abilities, many compatible with each other. I've got 6 crew quarters components, for example.

In my setup, there is a clear heirarchy of which components are better than which, so When you "show only latest" only the best available will appear. Bridge vs LS vs CQ components don't cover each other up.

The only disadvantage of this method is that you cannot continue a game saved under any other mod (including SE4 original), due to ship design corruption.

If you try, you will suddenly find your ships have tachyon sensors for engines, a bridge made of Crystalline Armor, and WaveMotion Guns in the place of armor plating. Makes for a great bonanza of analysable tech .

EDIT: Forgot to attach the file

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 03 November 2001).]

[AJC]

whoops...I guess thats because I've never placed new components in between existing Groups of components and never caused them to go out of order. But I was under the impression family , tech level and vehicle type was controling where components displayed in the design window, not the order in the components file..oh well I guess that makes sense.



[This message has been edited by AJC (edited 03 November 2001).]