Master files for weapon hit percentages

posted on September 30th, 2011, 11:58 am

I know that Fleet Ops got away from using Include commands in the odf files, but here goes anyhow.

One of the most intimidating things about modding Fleet Ops is the weapons files - each weapon has a massive number hit chances and damages.  To add a single ship to the game and make it fit, you have to edit every weapon in the game. The first thing I did in my own game is bring all the weapons back to a single hit chance just to maintain my sanity as I add stuff to my game.

I was thinking, though, that there could be 30-40 master odf's that designate hit chances for all weapons - just include the appropriate file in each weapon, and then you only have to edit the master file to change hit percentages or add new ships to the game. 

The basic ship options would be small-light, small-medium, small-heavy, medium-light, medium-medium, medium-heavy, large-light, large-medium, large-heavy.  Additional files would be needed for stations, veterans, passives, and specials, but those would be the basics.  If all the files begin with hit_ (or whatever), they'll all be grouped toegther making for easy editing. 

So, for a Saber - its phasr file would not specify a hit chance.  Instead, the phaser odf would include the small-light odf, which would specify the hit chances for all ships of that size and class.  If I want to change hit chances or add a ship to the game, I only have to edit the small-light odf rather that every one of the Saber's weapons.

posted on September 30th, 2011, 12:21 pm

we are aware that the current odfs are quite hard to read.
readability improvements are planned

posted on September 30th, 2011, 1:16 pm

I was thinking that the "utilityWeapon" could be modified to auto-calculate the passives from each ship.  Here's are a couple of examples:

ADAI

Code: Select all

shipBaseRange = 400
shipBaseRangeLabel = "short"
shipClassSpecialAttackMultiplier = 0.61
shipClassSpecialDamageMultiplier = 1.24
shipRangeMediumDamageMultiplier = 0.69


HDSG

Code: Select all

shipBaseRange = 400
shipBaseRangeLabel = "short"
shipRangeLongDamageMultiplier = 0.50
shipRangeShortAttackMultiplier = 0.90


PS:  I like the idea of the hit chances being defined in a base ODF file, but for the actual damage values, I think it would be better to use the utilityWeapon or something similar.  And I'm glad to hear that there are improvements being made on the readability.  Can we have a peak at what they are?

posted on September 30th, 2011, 6:04 pm

Honestly the hit chances would only need 4 files.  There's small, medium, large, and invulnerable (sabers with cover fire) then the various special hit chances (vutpa, saber, Teutoburg) could just be added to the weapon odfs as normal.  If you wanted you could expand the files to include vutpa and saber classes, since it's easy to keep the teutoburg's differences in its own odf's.

posted on September 30th, 2011, 6:08 pm

As I understand it, the include instruction is not used often because with so many files Armada slows down.

posted on September 30th, 2011, 11:02 pm

PS:  I like the idea of the hit chances being defined in a base ODF file, but for the actual damage values, I think it would be better to use the utilityWeapon or something similar. 

Yeah, I meant to focus on hit chances for now.  Each weapon has to be able to do its own damage.

As I understand it, the include instruction is not used often because with so many files Armada slows down.

I didn't realize that - I wondered why you guys made it so hard on yourselves 

[jetnova16]

posted on October 1st, 2011, 2:03 am

Last edited by jetnova16 on October 1st, 2011, 2:08 am, edited 1 time in total.

As I understand it, the include instruction is not used often because with so many files Armada slows down.

This is also with the stock Armada II or is it involve Fleet Ops as well?
Does this count the files from other mods/races that aren't involved in the game (match) or even being played at the time? Or this related more to Weapons and what the files they include or does this involve ships ans stations as well?

*********************************************************************

we are aware that the current odfs are quite hard to read.
readability improvements are planned

On the mention of ODFs in Fleet Ops, I can't find the ship ODF files, I found the weapons it seems but that is all. I found them through the little program that opens the special kind of file, forgot both names at the moment. Was just wondering where the ships and stations are, I was hoping to try something new with one of the ships, namely the Sovereign-class.

posted on October 1st, 2011, 2:36 am

Include instruction affects everything - when you have 9000+ files stuff like that starts to matter 

The FO unit ODFs are named according to the corresponding unit in-game: aka, fed_sovereign
FO ODF Nomenclature - The Hitchhiker's Guide to Fleet Operations

posted on October 1st, 2011, 8:44 am

Yes, it heavily depends though. Sometimes files with include are fater, sometimes they are not. Internally armada 2 caches the last four read files. As you cannot influence the way these are loaded, many include files are likely slow down the loading process. That is lot less of a problem when deploying a mod with odf files packed in fleetops' fpq archive format.