Micromodding help

posted on March 26th, 2012, 3:26 pm

The time has come for me to start learning how to mod this wonderful game, and I'm starting with the basics of altering ship firing patterns and damage.

What I need to know is, how do I supplant a basic odf file in my mod?  For example, if I wanted to change the Romulan scout's weapon to deal 10,000 damage how would I do this?  I was hoping that if I simply copied the weapon odf to Mods/odf and modified it then the game would use it instead of the original file, but it does not.

I suspect I also need to modify the ship odf to somehow use my new weapon odf, and perhaps the shipyard odf to produce my new ship odf.  Can somebody give me some pointers?

posted on March 26th, 2012, 3:41 pm

First you need to use the same directory and a mod of your choosing

Mods/[mymod]/odf/system

As long as you use the same name of the weapon file, all will be used. This may help: Modification Modules - The Hitchhiker's Guide to Fleet Operations

posted on March 26th, 2012, 4:12 pm

lol thanks.  All I missed was the /system folder in my directory.  Can I use FPQEdit to package modified odf's that way?  And if I can, where should the fpq file go?

posted on March 26th, 2012, 4:16 pm

Yes you can, and mirroring the parent mod's system . Aka, if your FPQ file has a odf/system directory within it, then it would be Mods/[mymod]/MyNewODFFiles.FPQ . If no directory is given, then it should be Mods/[mymod]/odf/system/MyNewODFFiles.FPQ

posted on March 26th, 2012, 4:50 pm

The time has come for me to start learning how to mod this wonderful game, and I'm starting with the basics of altering ship firing patterns and damage.

What I need to know is, how do I supplant a basic odf file in my mod?  For example, if I wanted to change the Romulan scout's weapon to deal 10,000 damage how would I do this?  I was hoping that if I simply copied the weapon odf to Mods/odf and modified it then the game would use it instead of the original file, but it does not.

I suspect I also need to modify the ship odf to somehow use my new weapon odf, and perhaps the shipyard odf to produce my new ship odf.  Can somebody give me some pointers?

Yep, it is as simple as that.  If you made it a mod module, you could copy the ships weapon you want to mod, mod it, and then run the mod module.  It will automatically replace the weapon with yours.  No need to make a new ship that references your weapon unless you just want to. 

posted on March 26th, 2012, 5:22 pm

The next step is to write up a quick script to generate all the odf's I need based on more general changes.  I don't suppose the devs are willing to drop me any hints about their equations?

Here's what I remember off the top of my head:

Offense = speedmodifier * rangemodifier * passivemodifiers * shipspecialweaponmodifier * pulse/torp modifier * DPS

-Did you guys include any Offense modifiers based on the single shot damage vs rof?
-Does cloak get calculated for Offense or Defense, or both?  Or is it simply part of the cost equation and not considered for these values?

Shield Hitpoints = Defense*19^1.2*racialshieldpercentage
Hull Hitpoints = Defense*19^1.2*racialhullpercentage

-Is this right?  It's been forever since I learned it.
-Also, do the Borg follow the same equation with just hull?

System = ?

-If I recall correctly, the shield and hull regen has a linear relationship to system value that ignores the ship's total defense.  Is this the case?
-Also, I remember special energy regen being tied into total special energy, such that every non-support ship recovers from empty to full in the same amount of time?

posted on March 26th, 2012, 8:00 pm

The calculations are still on the guide as they were then, too: Editing Tooltips - The Hitchhiker's Guide to Fleet Operations

At some point we'll perhaps add in the more complex ones.

posted on March 26th, 2012, 10:03 pm

Wow, that's incredibly useful.  When did that go up?  Because I've watched at least 2 threads go by last year asking for those numbers with responses from the devs themselves saying that the formulas weren't available.

Not to whine about the Devs' methods, but why do they calculate Shield Defensive value and Hull Defensive value separately instead of simply calculating the total hitpoints and then splitting them between hull and shield?  According to my calculations, this causes random differences in the hitpoints of 50/50 and 70/30 splits vs the 60/40 split.

Defensive Value  50/50      70/30
            14              +3%      +8%
            35            -1.5%    -1.5%

Now obviously this isn't a very big error, but if you just used a simpler equation it wouldn't be there.  There is no benefit to the complexity.

posted on March 26th, 2012, 10:10 pm

Around two years those have been there.

Defensive Value is not calculated - that is the 'atomic unit' that determines the characteristics. I only provide a 'reversed calculation' there to make it easier for people to understand . We use rounded values as it's not really necessary to start showing decimals etc of things that are just designed to give you an overall feel.

[Tryptic]

posted on March 26th, 2012, 10:27 pm

Last edited by Tryptic on March 26th, 2012, 10:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Now I'm getting thoroughly confused.  I'm not talking about rounded values (although that's also a problem.  Why would you want the Serkas to have a defensive value of 13.5 and then tell us it's 14?  If your scale of measurement isn't precise enough, good practices demand that you expand the scale and continue to use discrete values)

It seems my calculations were thrown off by the fact that the Canaveral has a Shield Defensive value higher than its Hull Defensive value.  What is the point of giving Feds a higher Shield/Defensive ratio if you're just going to change the individual values anyway?  Why have a standard if you have no intention of following it?

Instead of utilizing multiple scales that do the same thing, I think you should EITHER give feds more shields/defense OR give them more Shield defense/Hull defense OR use the passive system to indicate that some ships like the Canaveral have extra shields OR just abandon the whole system and say that you're balancing it according to gameplay.  You can't be double-minded about this, it just creates an impenetrable mess that leaves you open to unnecessary possibilities for mistakes.

posted on March 26th, 2012, 10:46 pm

He means you go the opposite way.  You say you want a ship to have a defensive value of 10, and then make the stats off of that, rounding those not the value.

[Tryptic]

posted on March 26th, 2012, 11:03 pm

Last edited by Tryptic on March 27th, 2012, 12:07 am, edited 1 time in total.

I know, I got that.

-----------------

Okay, wow.  After further review, I have realized that the Federation shield balance is 75/25 and not 70/30 as I had thought for so long.  I look really stupid right now.  Time to go back and redo my math using the correct numbers.

posted on March 27th, 2012, 12:57 am

Now everything is starting to look better on my spreadsheet.  While it is true that the current formula produces error, the effect is tiny: 14 extra hitpoints on the Sovereign is the strongest effect so it's pretty much negligible.

Also, there is quite a lot of your "rounding."  I always thought that the Devs started out with the ship's Defensive value as a whole number and used that to calculate the hitpoints, then rounded the hitpoints to the nearest whole number which offsets the Defensive value a tiny bit.  I was pretty surprised when I saw that this is not the case, Defensive values are not atomic and I'm sorry if I was too critical.

In fact, the Defensive values I've looked at range from slightly rounded down, to completely rounded up (13.506 rounded to 14 on the Serkas and the Shrike).  If the Devs want to use fractional Defensive values that's their prerogative, although I personally will need to keep plugging the numbers into Excel so I can know the actual values, otherwise it will continue to bother me.  I'm just anal-retentive that way.

At least I'm one step closer to understanding Fleet Ops.  Next step, Offensive values...

posted on March 27th, 2012, 2:58 am

I'm not very familiar with the old scripting system, only the new one, so I don't know if there are other things taken into consideration for Defensive Value for the old system - I don't know what values were used in that system to derive the values you see.

All the values - Offensive, Defensive, System - are atomic => those are the values that other stuff is calculated by.

[Tryptic]

posted on March 27th, 2012, 4:11 am

Last edited by Tryptic on March 27th, 2012, 4:13 am, edited 1 time in total.

I realized while I was studying the numbers just how great the new system is going to be.  Previously, it would have made sense for Defensive value to count things like cloaking, speed, and defensive passives and I thought it was weird that it didn't.  But then I realized that the devs couldn't do that as long as targeting was based on Defensive value.  It would mean that having a defensive passive made a ship less likely to tank for its allies.  And while it would be nice for cloaking ships to be targeted less often, it would make cloakers even better at abusing their allies.

This new system will allow for Defensive value to consider cloaking and defensive passives without having to worry about tanking because that is handled by the profiles.  Admittedly the Romulans will benefit from having defensive profile allies in team games, but not more than they can right now.

As for the values being atomic, they aren't plain and simple.  They are supposed to be.  They are described as atomic.  But when a ship's stats can be traced directly to a defensive value of 13.51, it can be said that the system isn't holding to that standard.  And that may be the most extreme example, but at least half of the ships I've charted have had Defensive values 0.3 or more away from their listed number.  The cake is a lie.