MOD: STA2 Upgrade Project 2014 - A stock A2 mod in FO

posted on June 8th, 2014, 9:14 pm

Got an issue cropped up.

Made it to the Klingon mission Unknown prize. I've wiped out all Cardassians and captured the QSS, but I can't get the blimmin thing through the wormhole. Tried both the Con ship and marine ship tractors, they let go just as they go in and the QSS stays put.

I've done this before in an earlier mission, Fedi, I think or in the first Klingon one so I know it worked earlier. Followed installation instructions to the letter and I haven't seen any issues beyond the Alternate Borg in IA. If I have to reload the mission, I'll probably modify the QSS so that it's engines work and save the headache.

[rifraf]

posted on June 9th, 2014, 3:29 am

Last edited by rifraf on June 9th, 2014, 7:25 am, edited 1 time in total.

This was reported previously and I'm not sure what is causing it? Does anyone recall this ever being an issue in stock A2 on this map with the wormhole? I know in stock play this does occasionally happen in instant action as well. I've checked my modded map, a modded map by someone else and the stock map for this mission and can't see any differences about the two wormholes. They all appear in the same place and seem to be at the same height on the map.

The only thing I altered with wormholes is the light settings. I haven't altered the tractor beams at all. Are you using the 3.2.7 FPQ loader or the 4.0 version?

I'm wondering if the range of the tractor beam is too small? In the odf/special weapons folder the gtracbm file has this:
// Range within which the weapon will fire.
range = 200.0f

and it's ordinance file tracbm has this:
// The target range
targetRange = 100.0f

So the tractor beam will fire within a range of 200, but once locked on the beam keeps the towed ship within a range of 100. I wonder if the quick maneuvering of the lead ship when it enters the wormhole is too fast for the towed ship to follow? The lead ship enters the wormhole, but the towed ship hasn't maneuvered into proper position for the wormhole to suck it in so the beam is broken and the towed ship doesn't go anywhere.

The special tractor beam for the omega particle, gtracbmo and tracbmo has a targetRange of 50. I wonder if lowering the value from 100 to something smaller will help the towed ship stay closer to the tractor ship when going into a wormhole? If you could try altering that for the campaign mission I'll try it for an instant action map. Not sure I'm good enough to last that far into the campaign.

On a brighter note here are some pics of the build buttons from update 1.7c in post 2 along with new race gui's that I will be releasing tomorrow. I was bored and started playing with the gui's Yacuzza did for his old Twilight and Tactical Assault mods. These will be temps until the gui's that Cabal did are ready.

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posted on June 9th, 2014, 7:22 am

Pics part 2. Again, I'll post the update tomorrow with the new gui's. Download if you like.

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posted on June 9th, 2014, 1:00 pm

3.2.7. loader. I didn't realize the 4.0 was available

I'll give it a try. If that doesn't work, I'll also try linking the kconst to that gtracbmo as well.

However, I'm sure about the range. In course of my attempts, I had the QSS right on the wormhole. I was hoping it would go in despite disabled engines, but no. I also tried to tractor it from that position. The tractor stops the instant you order the ship into the wormhole. Also tried the QSS Guard command on the lead ship. Nope.

If those solutions fail, I might set the tractor to some freakish cross-map range. Perhaps the code puts the lead ship at the other wormhole when the process starts and so the tractor goes out of range that way.

posted on June 10th, 2014, 3:30 am

Pics part 2. Again, I'll post the update tomorrow with the new gui's. Download if you like.

Hello,
I made a quick mockup for the klingon gui which I think look better:

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posted on June 10th, 2014, 4:40 am

Another update posted in 2nd post. Per the pics above it includes new race gui's and redone 8472 build buttons, again

I've also included fixes to the Alternate Borg and in turn the regular Borg races. I screwed them up when I made the Alternate Borg race and I'm really sorry about that. Both races now have access to and can use their regeneration, holding beam and technology assimilation beam specials.

@yochenhsieh: That looks pretty cool. I'm still learning how the gui's are put together so never would have been able to come up with what you did.

posted on June 10th, 2014, 3:45 pm

Tried updated AltBorg. Still crashes. Several cube fusions in progress at the time. I've experienced crashes with an unmodded stock STA:II while performing more than 2-3 fusions at once. Perhaps its more than the game can handle? Also, I believe the devs commented that the fusion code was poorly done.

Also corrected The Unknown Prize Instead of fiddling with tractor beams, I simply used the map editor and moved the QSS over to the other side next to the other wormhole. All objectives achieved. Make sure you at least get a ship in sensor range of the wormhole.

posted on June 10th, 2014, 4:24 pm

@Jinseta: So playing as the alternate borg crashes your game any time in general or only when fusing cubes? If you do 1 cube fusion only does it still crash or just on multiple ones at the same time?

I tested it several times last nite with 2 simultaneous fusions at once and didn't have any issues though I haven't tried more than 2 at the same time. I did 8 scout cubes into an attack cube and 8 attack cubes into an assimilation cube. I don't recall in my years of playing ever fusing more than 2 sets of cubes at a time though?

As for the wormhole/tractor beam issue I still don't know, but am emailing around to see if anyone has ideas or encountered this issue in the past.

There has been a lot of downloads of the mod, but only about 5 or so of you reporting problems so I really appreciate the feed back. I certainly try to fix everything anyone brings up so don't give up on me.

posted on June 10th, 2014, 5:56 pm

I've yet to see any crashing with just one fusion in progress, nor have I seen a crash otherwise. Three times I've tried AltBorg and it's crashed every time. And by crash, the whole thing freezes and has to be killed from the taskmngr.

Four seems to be the magic number, but I can't be certain. I had four yards with max queue going. While I'm thinking of it, I haven't found the hotkey for building sctcubes. If I remember, I had four simultaneous fusions during the crash, maybe more. I think the last fusion I ordered was 8x AtkCubes into an AssimCube. I already had one AssimCube and this would've made my second.

It's been while, but I remember my base swimming with Tactical Cubes and ordering several fusions at once for a huge blitz. Only once had 7 Hard AI destroyed one. 3 fleets converged on it. I might have saved it, but I had two more to replace it. What a light show

I like this idea. It's be neat to have some other ships linked together. Something like 5 scts to merge into an assimilator-type vessel that looks like 5 blocks suspended by a frame. It would be the Lego fleet from hell.

posted on June 20th, 2014, 2:49 am

First post updated with new v2.0 Full mod. Contains everything released so far and more. Hope you enjoy and let me know how you like or what you don't like or what issues the mod may be giving you.

posted on June 24th, 2014, 7:04 pm

Greetings to This Great Community,I Love FleetOperation Mod
Thank You So Much RIFRAF For Your MOd.Its AMAZING,Fantastic Job with new models,lights,improved gameplay ect
Just One Note,I was playing with Borg and at Modification Center the 6Th icon is missing(blank) Its Special Energy Recharger I think.

posted on June 25th, 2014, 7:45 pm

Glad you like it Benefactor. It's been fun working on.

As to the Borg special energy build button at the modification center apologies for that. There is an error in the gui_global sprite file. If you're comfortable editing it then scroll down to the Borg build buttons and look for this:

@reference=64
b_bhub gbbhub 0 0 64 64
b_borpod3 gbborpod3 0 0 64 64
b_borpod9 gbbpod900 0 0 64 64
b_borpod10 gbborpod10 0 0 64 64
b_borpod16
gbborpod16 0 0 64 64

As you can see the "gbborpod16 0 0 64 64" line is in the wrong place. Move it up so it comes after b_borpod16 like the other lines listed. Sorry everybody. If you don't know how to do that let me know and I'll attach a new gui_global sprite file

posted on June 26th, 2014, 8:48 am

If I upgraded from 1.0 to 1.7 gradually, does 1.7 equal to 2.0?

posted on June 26th, 2014, 4:25 pm

v2.0 added some extra ships/stations to most races so there's a little variety in instant action play. They are the same stats as their similar race's classes so only for visual variety. They can't be used in the missions either. I don't think there was anything else, perhaps some tweaks or whatnot, but nothing major. When I get home from work I can check the change log and let you know if there was anything important.

I just decided to go from 1.7 to 2.0 as the mod is now basically complete as is. I'll update new race GUI's once those are complete and fix any bugs that people point out/I find, but that's about it.

I'm now working on bringing another old mod over to FO like I did with this one.

Edit: Here is the change log from v2.0. Nothing critical-
__________________________________________________________________________________
< version 2.0 Full > June 14, 2014
__________________________________________________________________________________

-Changed ship based pulse weapons hit chance from .70 to .65 in pulse.odf

-Changed torpedo hitchance from .80 to .70 in photon.odf and left phasers at .75

-Replaced fbaseHQ model, textures, build button, wireframe, ship image, and odf (This station is very large in game and high poly so use with caution though it's not build-able just like it wasn't in stock. You can place it by using the map editor or alter your construction ship build list if you want to be able to build it)(***Please note that the ships inside build upside down, but right themselves once completed. I'm not sure if Aad_Moerman is aware of this?***)

-Recolored stock phaser to purplish color for Dominion ships

-Added flare, pulse and torpedo textures for Dominion ships and their requisite sprite edits.

-Added new ships to Cards, Feds, Klings, and Roms

-Duplicated cyard and used larger version for cyard2

posted on June 27th, 2014, 12:58 pm

i must say i'm very amazed,more and more with this mod,Brilliant Job RIFRAF!
Romulans: 1.Resource numbers of Crew and Centurions are a litebit out of border(Not really an issue,but it whould be nice if could be corrected)
2. Shield Inversion Beam(Warbird and Norexan class) giving a blank box infront of casting ship.
3. Energy Shileld Converter(Shadow class)- blank box at Targeted Ship/Station.
4. Myotronic Inhibitor (Raptor class) Is autocasting.