Couple of modding questions » Forum Post by J808

More specifically I am wondering about stuff like AttackType "CAPITALSHIP". At first I was thinking that maybe this governs targetting priority, meaning that this weapon would target Capital Ships first when initially engaging a fleet. After looking through the ship files more though I came across armorType "CapitalShip" etc and thought maybe they are related to eachother. Maybe it's something like AttackType "ANTIMEDIUM" does reduced damage to armorType "CapitalShip"?

You're on the right track. Gameplay.constants contains a table of the percentage damage each AttackType does against each armorType.

Also I had questions about weapon banks and how it works exactly. TargetCountPerBank... not sure what this does. I was thinking that if I increase this number each weapon would fire at multiple targets per PreBuffCooldownTime. Ex. if I engage an enemy fleet consisting of 5 ships and I set the target count to 5 would each weapon fire at all 5 ships each time or... ? I hope that makes sense.

Each ship has 4 banks: FRONT, LEFT, RIGHT, BACK. Any given weapon may use one or all of these. For example, the Kol's Beams are only on the FRONT bank, but its Autocannon uses all four.

The TargetCountPerBank is how many simultaneous targets the ship can engage from that side, dealing the full bank damage to each. So, if you set TargetCountPerBank:FRONT to 2 on a Kol, its beams would attack 2 targets at once for the damage listed (along with any other weapon housed on that bank).

Hopefully that makes sense?

I asked if there was somewhere that has a compiled list of terminology for all this stuff because it just makes sense for something like that to exist but I haven't been able to find it anywhere. If anyone could point me into the right direction I wold greatly appreciate it.

It hasn't been updated in a while, but this will get you closer: https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/306405

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Thanks for the response!

So if I wanted to give a ship just a single weapon type but it still to have the effectiveness of having 3 of the same weapon all I would need to do is increase the TargetCountPerBank to 3 right?

Thanks for the link btw, I looked at that the other day. It lists all the stuff but doesn't describe what it does exactly and the relationships to other things i.e. Weapontype -> armortype. I guess most people just do it by trial and error which makes sense. Was just hoping someone may have compiled it all at this point. Like why exactly does it matter if the damage type is classified as Energy or Physical or what does the WeaponClassType have to do with anything. Well after typing it out I am assuming the WeaponClassType probably connects with the techtree and the upgrades, which is something I haven't messed with.

Anyways, thanks again for the reply!

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So if I wanted to give a ship just a single weapon type but it still to have the effectiveness of having 3 of the same weapon all I would need to do is increase the TargetCountPerBank to 3 right?

More or less, yeah. It'll attack 3 targets at the same time. It's basically what Starbases uses, if you look at how they attack. They have 3 weapons, but each of them hits a bunch of ships at once.

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The TargetCountPerBank is how many simultaneous targets the ship can engage from that side, dealing the full bank damage to each. So, if you set TargetCountPerBank:FRONT to 2 on a Kol, its beams would attack 2 targets at once for the damage listed (along with any other weapon housed on that bank).

Holy shit, I assume by the context this is Entrenchment only?

Weaponclasstype is only related to the strings afaik, except for PhaseMissile which is the only class that can have the phase-through-shields thing. Energy vs physical doesn't matter too as far as I know except for purposes of categorization.

Weapontype vs damagetype: all the relevant stuff is in gameplay.constants, it's just a damage modifier.

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Yeah, it's Entrenchment only

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Well I guess the next question would be if you could somehow modify it so that only one weapon type in any given bank could have more than a single target while the others don't?

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I don't want to start another thread so I will just hope someone will stumble upon this and give an answer.

I want to create an ability where a ship will use an energy weapon like a normal weapon. First question is how do I know where the weapon will originate from?

Second question is can I somehow tie this into a reduced shield mitigation factor? I was thinking along the lines of each time you use the weapon shield mitigation will be reduced for a period of time. In science fiction it's pretty typical to transfer power from weapons to shields etc., I want to do the opposite. Is this possible? Even if it was something to the effect of each time the ship uses this weapon it will eat it's own shield points. Hopefully this makes sense.

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Well I guess the next question would be if you could somehow modify it so that only one weapon type in any given bank could have more than a single target while the others don't?

Unfortunately, no.

I want to create an ability where a ship will use an energy weapon like a normal weapon. First question is how do I know where the weapon will originate from?

Normally, abilities only have a couple points for their particle effects: center, above, and aura. These are pretty self explanatory. Above shows the particle effect above the ship, aura below, and center originates from the center of the ships.

However, if you take a look at the Marza's Missile Barrage, it has this little bit:

hasWeaponEffects TRUE
    weaponEffectOriginType "Targetter"
    weaponEffectAttachInfo
        attachType "Ability"
        abilityIndex 3
    weaponEffectImpactOffsetType "RandomMesh"
    canWeaponEffectHitHull TRUE
    canWeaponEffectHitShields TRUE
    weaponEffectsDef
        weaponType "Missile"
        burstCount 3
        burstDelay 0.080000
        muzzleEffectName "Weapon_TechCapitalMissileHeavy_Muzzle"
        muzzleSoundMinRespawnTime 0.100000
        muzzleSounds
            soundCount 1
            sound "WEAPON_TECHCAPITALMISSILEHEAVY_MUZZLE"
        hitEffectName "Weapon_TechCapitalMissileHeavy_Hit"
        hitHullEffectSounds
            soundCount 1
            sound "WEAPONIMPACT_MISSILEHEAVY_HITGENERIC"
        hitShieldsEffectSounds
            soundCount 1
            sound "WEAPONIMPACT_MISSILEHEAVY_HITGENERIC"
        missileTravelEffectName "Weapon_TechCapitalMissileHeavy_Travel"
        missileStartTurningDistance 300.000000
        missileSlowTurnRate 0.708997
        missileMaxSlowTurnTime 4.000000

And as you would expect the missiles come out of the Marza's missile bays on the side of the ship. You probably could use something similar for your ability.

Second question is can I somehow tie this into a reduced shield mitigation factor? I was thinking along the lines of each time you use the weapon shield mitigation will be reduced for a period of time. In science fiction it's pretty typical to transfer power from weapons to shields etc., I want to do the opposite. Is this possible? Even if it was something to the effect of each time the ship uses this weapon it will eat it's own shield points. Hopefully this makes sense.

Well, you can attach abilities to weapon shots (see Vulkoras' siege upgrade ability, or Javelis' cluster warheads). An ability can also do more than one thing, so in theory you should be able to have this effect with your weapon-like ability. The Vasari Subverter cruiser has an ability that reduces mitigation, if you need the modifier for that.

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Another question. Where do I look to change the number of strikecraft a ship gets at the start and when it gets more as it levels up?

Edit: Having another problem with the weapon effect. I want it to look exactly like the beam weapons the TEC Kol does. The muzzle and hit effects show up on my ship and the ship being hit BUT the beam itself is nowhere to be seen. Not sure what's wrong. File looks like this:

weaponEffectOriginType "Targetter"
weaponEffectAttachInfo
    attachType "Ability"
    abilityIndex 0
weaponEffectImpactOffsetType "RandomMesh"
canWeaponEffectHitHull TRUE
canWeaponEffectHitShields TRUE
weaponEffectsDef
    weaponType "Beam"
        burstCount 1
        burstDelay 0.000000
        muzzleEffectName "Weapon_TechCapitalBeamHeavy_Muzzle"
        muzzleSoundMinRespawnTime 0.100000
        muzzleSounds
            soundCount 1
            sound ""
        hitEffectName "Weapon_TechCapitalBeamHeavy_Hit"
        hitHullEffectSounds
            soundCount 1
            sound ""
        hitShieldsEffectSounds
            soundCount 1sound ""
        hitShieldsEffectSounds
            soundCount 1
            sound ""
        beamEffectSounds
            soundCount 1
            sound "WEAPON_TECHCAPITALBEAMHEAVY_TRAVEL"
        beamGlowTextureName "TechCapitalBeam_Glow"
        beamCoreTextureName "TechCapitalBeam_Core"
        beamWidth 35.000000
        beamGlowColor ffffffff
        beamCoreColor ffffffff
        beamTilingRate 3.000000

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Where do I look to change the number of strikecraft a ship gets at the start and when it gets more as it levels up?

For capitals:

CommandPoints
StartValue 0.600000
ValueIncreasePerLevel 0.200000

CommandPoints is the engine's name for squad points. That was taken from a Kol and they aren't rounded. So a level 1 Kol has .6, level 2 .8, level 3 1.0 and can finally get a squad.

As for the weapon effect, I don't think I can help you - never tried to do that so I wouldn't be able to say what's wrong with that.

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