help with how trancendence uses some data defined in xmls.

[Blitz]

1.
When defining a weapon, we have bullet speed and life time or in case of non-bullet weapons only lifetime. Does anyone know how these relate to the actual ingame range of a weapon when it is fired from a stationary ship.
2.
What exactly is firstplural?
3.
What are the different types of combat styles the AI has and how do they affect it. I've seen only standoff so far. Are there any others?
4.
What is weaponintensity?
5.
What are momentum and WMD? (I know WMD's been covered somewhere else but i didn't save the page and now i can't find it again)
6.
Does techorder of a ship have any bearing on the game at all?
7.
When exactly does the game use the frequency tag of an item and what are the different values (again this has been covered somewhere else with somebody asking for more values but all this info is scattered all over the place. I wish somebody would write a guide...)
8.
Why is missile speed equal to zero when defining fragments?
9.
What are all the different beam types and how does the game apply the colors? (and does someone know an easy way to find out which color different concentrations of RGB would result in)

[Yugi]

2.
What exactly is firstplural?

I have no idea, but getting rid of it in mods doesn't seem to affect the game in any way. I'm guessing it affect the item name in some way.

4. What is weaponintensity?

Weapon intensity increase the graphical size of the shots the weapon fires.

6. Does techorder of a ship have any bearing on the game at all?

I don't believe so, no.

7. When exactly does the game use the frequency tag of an item and what are the different values (again this has been covered somewhere else with somebody asking for more values but all this info is scattered all over the place. I wish somebody would write a guide...)

The game uses frequency values to say often something appears in the game. The known values are:
Always
VeryCommon
Common
Uncommon
Rare
VeryRare
Unique
Never

9.
What are all the different beam types and how does the game apply the colors? (and does someone know an easy way to find out which color different concentrations of RGB would result in)

These are the types I know of:
laser
blaster
lightning
greenparticle
heavyblaster
starblaster
blueparticle

There are probably more, but not used in-game.
To find out different colours, This is a handy site.

[Betelgeuse]

Always
VeryCommon
Common
Uncommon
Rare
VeryRare
Unique
Never

you missed notrandom
Never,Always, and verycommon are not frequency values.
Unique is a flag not a frequency value.

[goat not sheep]

5.
What are momentum and WMD? (I know WMD's been covered somewhere else but i didn't save the page and now i can't find it again)

WMD(weapon mass destruction) is basicly the power to terminate wrecks. I believe WMD7 means 100% of destroying ship wrecks. Momentium is basicly when you hit ship and wrecks, they move.

[Burzmali]

1.
When defining a weapon, we have bullet speed and life time or in case of non-bullet weapons only lifetime. Does anyone know how these relate to the actual ingame range of a weapon when it is fired from a stationary ship.

Speed * Lifetime = range
Speed of beam weapons = 100
Range will be in is in light-seconds/100.

2.
What exactly is firstplural?

This is used in the description.
For example
barrels of radioactive waste
vs.
Ares Archcannons

The default is to pluralize the last word in the description, but firstPlural and secondPlural can override it.

6.
Does techorder of a ship have any bearing on the game at all?

Not at the present time.

[Betelgeuse]

WMD also determines the damage you do to stations. Weapons without WMD do greatly reduced damage.

[Blitz]

Speed * Lifetime = range
Speed of beam weapons = 100
Range will be in is in light-seconds/100.

That's what I thought but then a laser cannon has a lifetime of 30 while it has an ingame range 60.

[Blitz]

I just did some testing with a mod I made and got the following results

Speed*Lifetime=Result,Actual range
125*24=3000,61(approx 60)
333*15=4995,99
500*16=8000,160
250*16=4000,81(approx 80)

So, the actual formula is
(Speed * Lifetime)/50 = range

[Blitz]

5.
What are momentum and WMD? (I know WMD's been covered somewhere else but i didn't save the page and now i can't find it again)

Okay I found the page. It was on UTF's FAQ page. I'll post it here for the sake of completion.

WMD Damage

Heres a quote from George:

Here are the (current) rules:

1. When hitting a large station, only WMD counts. WMD is some percentage of normal weapon damage, using this table:

WMD0 = 0%
WMD1 = 4%
WMD2 = 10%
WMD3 = 20%
WMD4 = 34%
WMD5 = 52%
WMD6 = 74%
WMD7 = 100%

For example, if 10 points of WMD3 damage hit a station, then the station only takes 20% of the damage or 2 points. Regardless of the above, any hit on a station causes at least 1 point of damage, so even weapons with no WMD do some damage (this may or may not change in the future).

Note that only stations with multiHull="true" count as "large stations"

2. Ships generally take full damage (regardless of WMD) but for ships that have "non critical" armor segments, WMD comes into play. The chance that a hit to a non critical segment will destroy the ship increases for WMD weapons (I might change this in the future to be more like large stations).

3. When hitting wrecks, etc. only WMD counts.