Modding the VoidExpanse

[Hammish]

That's about how I figured it worked, it just... doesn't seem to work in-game.

I actually get the same thing when I try to use the default Scatterpacks.  The mine seems to float out like it should for second and a half, looks like it explodes, but I never see any scattered projectiles come out.

[Lurler]

That's about how I figured it worked, it just... doesn't seem to work in-game.
I actually get the same thing when I try to use the default Scatterpacks.  The mine seems to float out like it should for second and a half, looks like it explodes, but I never see any scattered projectiles come out.

Hm, it could be a bug... But either way we rewrote the mine system internally to make it better so even if it was a bug it will now work for sure. It will be in the new release.

[Hammish]

Nice!  Will look forward to it, then, along with the new ship.  Anything else major coming in terms of the way the weapon scripting works?  (That's been the majority of work I've been putting in on my little side project; am actually very close to dropping a version 0.1 down for people to test out the new light-class weapons and a slightly-revised skill tree for them.)

[Lurler]

Nice!  Will look forward to it, then, along with the new ship.  Anything else major coming in terms of the way the weapon scripting works?  (That's been the majority of work I've been putting in on my little side project; am actually very close to dropping a version 0.1 down for people to test out the new light-class weapons and a slightly-revised skill tree for them.)

Well, there will be several new weapons along with GFX and SFX, including gauss cannons. You might use some of these resources in your mod.
But most of the new stuff is for the game in general. A whole lot of new stuff and fixes for the old things.

[Hammish]

Quick question of the day:

What does damage type actually influence?  Is there a difference between energy, ballistic and explosive in terms of how they interact with shields and hull/armor?

Also, as a thanks, the tracking_delay attribute is awesome.  I've made a fun little MIRV for the mod using that, as well as a (woefully unbalanced and thus not in the public release) drone that flies forward slowly, spitting other drones that activate after a moment to engage locked targets.  Fun stuff!

[Lurler]

Nothing at the moment We have some ideas for the future, so we decided to add it to allow for backwards compatibility.

[ai_enabled]

Projectiles with damage type "explosive" apply damage on area. The "radius" and "max_radius" parameters used to determine how much damage should be applied (if distance < radius, full damage will be applied, if > max_radius, no damage will be applied, and distance between radius and max_radius will reduce damage linearly, so it will be less damage if you far, but still inside the max_radius). Also there are parameter "impulse" - to control how much impulse should be applied to the ships in a explosion area.

[Lurler]

That's a different thing. It is projectile type. But I think he talks about the "dmg_type" property.
Either way, good explanation!

[Hammish]

Right right, the impulse I had figured out and I assumed radius and max_radius were used in the same way as range and max_range.. but it's good to have it confirmed.   I actually tweaked with both impulse and tracking_delay to make my MIRVs; the small impulse from the blast when the primary round detonates knocks all the submunitions outward a small distance in a scatter pattern before the tracking kicks in and leads them toward the target from multiple vectors.

Thanks for the info on damage types as well, too.  I saw something in one of the weapon descriptions about being 'effective against shields' so I thought mebbe something got changed.

[Hammish]

Time for a new Question of the Day!  Bet you missed these, eh?

How exactly do strafing, cruise and no_energy speed work in the game in terms of calculation?  Acceleration, max speed, maneuver... these all seem self-explanatory and can be modified by both flat amounts (on gear) and percentile amounts (normally on skills or hulls, it'd seem).   But strafe, cruise and no_energy all seem to be 'special' instead of 'calculate' and I have no idea what determines the base strafe speed of a given hull.  I thought maybe it was a derived value from acceleration or maneuvering, but I'm not sure.

Or, put another way, using the Advanced Strafing skill as an example, it says it provides 0.25 to strafe_speed_special.  Does this represent a 25% gain in strafe speed or is it the equivalent of 0.25 'force units' in the same way that engines apply force using maneuver/acceleration?

Sorry if the questions are worded confusingly.  Essentially I am trying to create both a hull and some equipment that are better at strafing.

[Hammish]

And then a second unrelated question: can a tech have multiple requirements like pieces of gear does?  For instance, can I require a capstone skill to require rank 3 in all of the previous skills, and if so, what's the format for the code?  Just use <requirement> tags nested inside the <requirements> overhead tag for each combo of skill name and required level?

[Lurler]

Hammish, sure, let me explain.

All these parameters work in a different way than most other as you noticed. They don't work by themselves, instead they work as a multiplier to the max speed.
By default, if I am not mistaken, it is: cruise 2X, reverse 0.6X, strafe 0.4X, no power 0.4X, so when you advance these skills they are basically adding value to these multipliers. So +20% to "something" actually gives you a bonus of 20% of your normal speed (thus +0.2 to a particular multiplier).

For skills - no, the skill can only have one prerequisite skill and character level requirements. It is done so because the trees are generated automatically, so we have to insure that the skills only have one parent to generate the tree properly.

Now, but in exchange for the answer could you please edit these answers into the wiki so other players could use the info as well? If it is not too much trouble of course.

[Hammish]

I can... try?  It's actually been ages since I worked with anything Wiki, but I'll hop over and see.

Just a quick follow-up, as well: does the same thing apply to acceleration as well, then?  IE, if your max strafe is 40% of your normal max speed, is your acceleration while strafing also 40% of normal, or is it just a max speed adjustment?

And thanks for the snappy answer.

[Lurler]

Just a quick follow-up, as well: does the same thing apply to acceleration as well, then?  IE, if your max strafe is 40% of your normal max speed, is your acceleration while strafing also 40% of normal, or is it just a max speed adjustment?

No, it doesn't change with increased speed since these are independent. So, even if you have 10X cruise speed the acceleration would still be the same. BUT! When you activate the cruise mode your acceleration is cut to 1/3, thus making you accelerate 3 times slower. This is a balancing measure to prevent people using cruise during combat, and to make fleeing pirates a bit more difficult.

And thanks for the snappy answer.

No problem

[Hammish]

That actually makes a lot of sense and explains some of the stuff I noticed in the game.  Flying earlier ships that are light, even with limited acceleration you tend to get to top cruise fairly quickly... but once you're in something big with a lot of mass it takes a loooong time to reach your top end.   That makes me think of another question, though: does the ship mass contribute directly to any sort of handling, or is it only used for things like collisions/ramming?  I always assumed that it at least offset acceleration, since the default ship hulls at the large end all seem to have negatives to max speed and maneuver but nothing for -acceleration.

Also, let me summarize here before I change anything for public consumption, just to make sure I have everything right!   Does this look correct?

Maximum normal speed forward is speed_max.
Maximum normal speed in reverse is speed_max * reverse modifier (default 0.6)
Acceleration toward maximum speed is dictated by Acceleration.
Turning ability per second is determined by Maneuver
Cruising maximum speed is speed_max * cruising modifier (which begins at 2.0)
Cruising acceleration is acceleration * 0.33 (roughly).
Strafing max speed is speed_max * strafing modifier (default 0.4)
Strafing acceleration is the same as acceleration.