Re: Squadron edits

[DragonShadow]

I've tried following this little tutorial here, and it doesn't work. Period. I followed it exactly, so any ideas on how to fix the squadrons and get 12 fighters in there?

 

Here's the link to the thread: http://pff.swrebellion.com/index.php?topic=1985.0

[Stellar_Magic]

Could you post your XML scripting, just plain saying it doesn't work, doesn't help...

[DragonShadow]

I attached a Word copy my modified squadrons.xml file.

[Stellar_Magic]

hmm... What exactly is the error? I'm looking at the file and the only possible problem I see is that the 12 isn't being read because of where it is in the script, maybe if you put it directly below the Squadron_Offsets... If thats whats happening you should see 2 squadrons of X-wings in game (1 of 10 the other of 2), if its not...

 

I sure hope you edited the XML in Notepad or Wordpad because if you did it in word the limits on characters per line may have screwed up your entire XML.

[DragonShadow]

Nope, the fighter squadrons were completely unaffected by the change. And I did it in notepad, but it wouldn't let me attach the file.

[Stellar_Magic]

Strange... Do you have a SWMOD.exe file which you're running. If not, find one because sometimes the game ignores the decompiled XML Files.  Run the game through the SWMOD.exe and it should work.  All you need is that file, and you can usually get it with one of the early mods.

 

I had to use one when I first started, then I downloaded Bryant's v2 Mod and I no longer needed it.  I'll have to find out what he did that made that happen.  Anyway, I've got a test tomorrow and have to get to bed.

[DragonShadow]

I tried moving the Max Capacity command up under the offset variants and used an swmod.exe file, still no change. I don't get it. Any suggestions?  ???

[DragonShadow]

Perhaps I have to change Squadron_Capacity or Number_per_Squadron in the SPACEUNITSFIGHTERS.xml to 12?

[Davynelord_pff]

Well, I'm not sure how many fighters you can get into one squadron without getting an error, all I know is that I have increased my squadrons before by simply going into the Squadrons.xml file and adding new lines.

 

For example, For x-wings, the default is five fighters and the section looks like this....(the red text is what I added for a seven fighter squadron)

 

X-Wing, X-Wing

X-Wing, X-Wing

X-Wing, X-Wing

X-Wing

 

30.0,0.0,0.0

0.0,15.0,0.0

0.0,-15.0,0.0

-30.0,30.0,0.0

-30.0,-30.0,0.0

-60.0,60.0,0.0

-60.0,-60.0,0.0

 

I wanted to stay with the same format the file already had since i wasn't sure if putting it all on one line would work or not.  When I played the game, sure enough there were 7 fighters in one squadron.  I didn't change anything else but those two sections.  For the Squadron_Offsets, I simply added 30 or -30 where needed for positioning the fighters in the formation.  Everything worked just fine.  I've only tried this once though and did not try more than 7 fighters yet.  I'm assuming you can do more.  I'm not sure if you need to change the squadron size in the spaceunitsfighters.xml file as well.  I didn't see any issues when I played with 7 fighters per squadron.

 

Hope this helps!

 

Oh by the way, I used the SWMOD.exe file with Bryant's Mod 2.0.  I haven't tried it with the original executable file.

[Davynelord_pff]

Sorry for not reading the link that you posted.  I just read it and saw it said the same thing as I posted above.  However, as I said, my game worked with 7 fighters without changing the max squadron size in the other file, but it may have something to do with having a squadron as large as 12 that might require that you need to change the max squadron size.  I'd do it anyway just to make sure.

 

I should also note that I did not use notepad or any text editor.  I used peter's xml editor which I use for all xml files.  I just like xml editors better because it's easier to read since all the tags get colored and such. 

[DragonShadow]

xml editor sounds cool. Wish I had that.

 

Anyway, tried changing the max squadron siz to 12, and it didn't work. Just got the same error message as before and had to remove the modified squadrons.xml file. I don't think changing the starfighters xml makes any difference.

 

But, I'm pretty sure none of the fighter groups Squadron_Units lines with more than three fighters, so mayber I'll try four lines of three units instead of three lines with four units.

 

If anyone has some other suggestions, I'll be glad to hear them. If I figure out a way that works for my game, I'll be sure to post it.

[Davynelord_pff]

I just got finished writing down some of the stats for the ships in the game and I realized that if your gonna put 12 ships in a squadron, you are gonna end up with some overpowered squadrons for the game.  For example, in the default squadron size of 5 x-wings, each x-wing has a damage value of 5.  A full squadron will do a total of 25 damage per shot (assuming they all hit the same target).  Now if you up the size of the squadron to 12, one squadron will then be able to do 60 damage per shot. 

 

Starbases do 75 damage

Mon Cal's do 60 damage

SD's do 70 damage

 

So having a single fighter squadron doing 60 damage is about as powerful as a capital ship, however the only difference maker would be that cap ships have more guns and fire at a faster rate which mean they can do around 120 - 240 damage depending on how many guns it has.  The fighters however are twice as fast and in the case of x-wings fighting a single SD, the SD can't fire from the rear, it has to turn to get shots off on targets behind it.  The speed and agility of fighters will have them running circle around cap ships and frigates.  corvettes classes are a different story as they are fighters nemesis.  However, this doesn't include the damage modifier from special abilities either.  Point being though, a squadron size of 12 is extremely powerful without modifying the damage values a bit.

 

So I think if you up the squadron size, you should also lower the damage rating from 5 to about 3 or even 2.  The best way to figure it out though is to play the game without any damage changes and see how everything goes.  I personally think that x-wings are powerful enough. I mean I can win a whole battle with nothing but x-wings and a single Mon cal cruiser.  Can't say the same for the empire side because their fighters don't have shields.

[Stellar_Magic]

The Damage markers in the unit files don't do anything as far as I can tell.  The amount of damage delivered is dictated by the projectile xml and the game constants xml.  The Projectile file tells how damaging each shot is, and the game constants xml includes the armor modifiers to make some shots do next to nothing against certain targets.

[DragonShadow]

If I get it to work, I'll probably lower their damage. But, I'm not sure X-wings can damage an SD very much even with shields down. And I'm keeping bomber squadrons at three fighters because it makes more sense.

[Davynelord_pff]

The Damage markers in the unit files don't do anything as far as I can tell.  The amount of damage delivered is dictated by the projectile xml and the game constants xml.  The Projectile file tells how damaging each shot is, and the game constants xml includes the armor modifiers to make some shots do next to nothing against certain targets.

 

I know what you mean, I thought the same thing at first too, but then after looking again, it didn't make sense.  Not all ships have listings in the GameConstants.xml, but there is a default listing for fighters.  Then in the projectiles.xml there isn't a separate projectile for each fighter.  So this would all mean that all the fighters do the exact same damage, including the bombers.  That does'nt sound logical given the fact that A-Wings are superior to X-Wings in fighter-to-fighter confrontations and bombers can't do jack against another bomber or fighter.  Of course this is a demo and all the code isn't in the game nor is the game fully balanced like the finished product will be.  So I can only make a guess to what file or combination of files handles the damage.  I just know it doesn't make sense to make the projectile the factor in determining damage when the projectiles are shared by all the ships.  Because if the projectile did determine the damage, that would mean a bomber and a fighter would do the same damage to another bomber or fighter and we know that isn't true.  The GameConstants.xml file doesn't seem to have any values for tie Fighters, Tie Scouts, bombers (other than missiles), X-wings, V-wings, Z95's...etc.  The A-Wing is in there though.  Even some of the cruisers are not listed.  So either some of the ships in the game are all doing the same damage if it works they way you say or the game is using all three values from all 3 files in some kind of formula.

[Bel_Iblis]

well for fun I edited the X-Wings armor and shield lvl and then i added the empire mod and now 3 x-wing squadron killed my two ISDs my Victory 5 acclumators and 6 tartans. Now before you go off saying that it was my poor tacticallyness i was literally watching it and they did so little dmg it was sad.. of course 1500 shield point is a little high...

[Davynelord_pff]

Curious, what file did you use to edit the shield and armor values?  And yes 1500 shields are very high for fighters, capital ships only have 2000..so you got fighters with capital ship quality shields...LOL  I bet it was cool to do though

[hakweakumlar]

Curious, what file did you use to edit the shield and armor values?   And yes 1500 shields are very high for fighters, capital ships only have 2000..so you got fighters with capital ship quality shields...LOL  I bet it was cool to do though

 

The unit files have spots for shield strength and and damage.

 

For in a-wing in the file Spacefighters.xml:

"30"

"3"

"600"

"300"

"7"

 

Shield refresh is how quickly the shields recharge, energy cap and refresh are for how long they can fire, and how long it takes to reload.

 

And the damage is how much damage is done by that unit. Of note is there there is also squadron size values in the unit file, which might be able to increase the squadron size as well, i've just never tried it.

[dw333]

keep in mind that damage is per shot, so a squad of 12 xwings each fire 4 shots every 1.5 sec (by default).

 

I prefer a .5 for shot timer!

[DragonShadow]

Can someone with a working squadron code post a link to it or something? I just need to compare to what I have to try and figure out what's different.

[DragonShadow]

Anyone?

[MD351]

What do you mean?

 

The code that Davynelord posted earlier on increasing squad size works.

[dw333]

TEXT_TIE_FIGHTER_2_SQUADRON

Y-Wing Z-95_Headhunter_Rebel

Corellian_Corvette X-wing A-Wing

TEXT_TOOLTIP_TIE_FIGHTER

TEXT_ENCYCLOPEDIA_CLASS_FIGHTER

i_button_tie_fighter.tga

 

1

EV_TieFighter.ALO

120

0 0 0

45

 

Empire

Yes

SmallShip

1

1

 

Yes

no

 

300

 

2

300.0

 

0

300

30

0

Yes

No

No

0

1

Orbital_Light_shipyard

 

12

TIE_Fighter, TIE_Fighter, TIE_Fighter, TIE_Fighter

      TIE_Fighter, TIE_Fighter, TIE_Fighter, TIE_Fighter

      TIE_Fighter, TIE_Fighter, TIE_Fighter, TIE_Fighter

      30.0,0.0,0.0

      0.0,15.0,0.0

      0.0,-15.0,0.0

      -30.0,30.0,0.0

      -30.0,-30.0,0.0

      -60.0,45.0,0.0

      -60.0,-45.0,0.0

      -90.0,60.0,0.0

      -90.0,-60.0,0.0

      -105.0,75.0,0.0

      -105.0,-75.0,0.0

      -120.0,90.0,0.0

 

35.0

1000.0

200.0

500.0

 

EHD_Build_Vehicle

EHD_Unit_Canceled

Unit_Complete_Tie_Fighter

 

DUMMY_SPACE_FIGHTER_SQUADRON

 

HUNT

 

300

5

Tactical_Units

 

 

420

 

[DragonShadow]

What do you mean?

 

The code that Davynelord posted earlier on increasing squad size works.

 

Not for me it didn't. Not a clue why though. I'll try dw333's code for now, see if that works. I can already see a few differences between his and mine.

[MD351]

Not for me it didn't. Not a clue why though. I'll try dw333's code for now, see if that works. I can already see a few differences between his and mine.

 

You have to make sure both parts of the code are in the file: Squadrons.xml

 

This is mine for X-Wing:

 

      X-Wing, X-Wing

      X-Wing, X-Wing

      X-Wing, X-Wing

      X-Wing, X-Wing

X-Wing

      30.0,0.0,0.0

      0.0,15.0,0.0

      0.0,-15.0,0.0

      -30.0,30.0,0.0

      -30.0,-30.0,0.0

      -60.0,60.0,0.0

      -60.0,-60.0,0.0

-90.0,90.0,0.0

-90.0,-90.0,0.0