Transcendence Engine and Scripting. TLW's biggest questions

[TheLoneWolf]

First of all, if there is a cool name for the transcendence engine, do tell me. Otherwise, it urgently needs a cool name (Like Archcannon Engine, or simply ArchEngine, it has a pretty nice ring to it. I was going to use it for my engine, but Trans ftw)

Now be my guest and answer the following series of possibly -PERVERT- difficult questions.

How many of the following can the Trans engine support:

1. Systems
2. Entities (whole game)
3. Entities (system)
4. Objects (asteroids, system)
5. Objects (pre loaded, whole)
6. System dimensions (trying to make navigation a pain in the butt here)
7. Projectiles (system)
8. Ships (system)
9. Ships (screen)
10. Texture resolutions
11. Night clubs
12. Stations (system)
13. Effects (I mean how long a reactor trail can go)
14. Scripting (limit) (I want to introduce a thruster function, that consumes 1 ice water per 60 ticks, and gives x2 the thrust and x2 the max ship speed)



Some more questions later.

[TheLoneWolf]

Ah. Couldn't wait. Scripting questions:



1. What are all the different weapon effects? I have had orb, particle and beam. What are the other types, and how to use em?


2. How to make an effect? I want to make a projectile that looks like lightning (and strikes that fast due to hitscan), but not static. Think like watching tesla coils. Help? Btw I also want to have damage for EMP and/or Blind Weapons. There must be a difference between EMP and Damage + EMP.



3. A more noobish approach. How do I make a encounter (again) that is bound to happen? I mean if I want to station a particular fleet in a particular system?


4. What is generic damage class?


5. I want to make soul attributed items levelUpAble (guess why). Any sympathy the engine can give me?



6. Ramming our ship into enemy. I want to do that. And make it dependent on ship speed. It would require new graphics. Anybody up (to help me ofcourse)?


7. Where is the Changelog for modders?

[TheLoneWolf]

And I post yet again:


1. Can you fire more than one damage type from the same weapon? Say, having an area affect weapon that does blast damage on impact, but the shockwave does thermo?


2. How about coupling up hit effects? Say having a thermo explosion on impact, and then have a shockwave usher forth?



3. I can't seem to make the PK25 fire its projectile(s) in a straight line. I mean no spreading. Just a fat straight line.



4. How to configure weapons onto compartments? Like weapons go down with compartments?



5. An alternating + repeating weapon doesn't work.
Update. It does.



6. How to have a shield reflect fire, like Dwarg reflect particle?



7. I once -accidently- made a shield that regenerated by taking fire, but kept degenerating if you sit idle (cool, huh?). How do I reproduce that again? Also, if I wanted it to regenerate from a certain damage type only, how do I do that?

[TheLoneWolf]

F@ck me, be more questions:


1. Multi hull and multi shield, how to?


2. I want to show damage on enemies. Not just compartment leaks, but cracks here an there. Any help?



3. What do you think GoT season 6 holds?



4. I want to make weapons that charge down by holding spacebar. Again, I find myself lost.



5. There was a genius once who modded a weapon with counter. The weapon slowly increased its rate of fire, till the counter went to max. How do I reproduce that.


6. How do I configure the homing capabilities of my weapons? I don't understand the angle thingies.


7. Can you add black holes into the vanilla?



8. How to declare a new damage type?


9. Anybody made a tractor beam?


10. How to make a weapon fire pteravores? I have been trying for ages.


11. How do I decrease the distance between each projectile of an Iocrym Repeller?


12. Anybody mind sharing code to fix stealth armour?


Thats all folks!

Thats all

Is that what you f@cking say in the end? After that gorefest of our minds?

EXACTLY xD

[TheLoneWolf]

Somebody atleast answer the modding questions.

[DigaRW]

Poor Lone Wolf... Xd

And I post yet again:


1. Can you fire more than one damage type from the same weapon? Say, having an area affect weapon that does blast damage on impact, but the shockwave does therm

6. How to have a shield reflect fire, like Dwarg reflect particle?

1. You mean when missile hit enemy does blast damage? While shockwave effect does Thermo? You can change the Shockwave damage. See example of Ares micronuke, then change the damage type to blast damage.

6. Just add "reflect" configuration to Shield. You can see Ion Reflector as example.

[DigaRW]

Ah. Couldn't wait. Scripting questions:

2. How to make an effect? I want to make a projectile that looks like lightning (and strikes that fast due to hitscan), but not static. Think like watching tesla coils. Help? Btw I also want to have damage for EMP and/or Blind Weapons. There must be a difference between EMP and Damage + EMP.

7. Where is the Changelog for modders?

2. I was once asking something like that, but very different. You should add an event in weapon, and add <OnDamageArmor>
##(Number)
</OnDamageArmor>
to Event.
However, it's static damage. That's mean if you set 5, the damage is always 5.

7. Just create your own changelog with notepad, and write what you have done for your mod.

[digdug]

I'll try to answer as many questions as I can:

How many of the following can the Trans engine support:

I don't think anybody knows for sure, I can say that I tried to create 1 million variables and over 100 thousands ships in 1 system just to test if I could crash the engine, and it didn't crash. So I'm pretty sure that you will be safe with anything you will be modding.

1. What are all the different weapon effects? I have had orb, particle and beam. What are the other types, and how to use em?

There are 5 types of weapons: area, radius, missile, beam and particles. Each one of them can have different effects, some of them can be used only with a certain weapon type, others are more generic. This is because of how George implemented them during the years.
Please refer to this for additional informations: http://wiki.kronosaur.com/modding/xml/weapon_devices

2. How about coupling up hit effects? Say having a thermo explosion on impact, and then have a shockwave usher forth?

Hit effects in APIversion 29 are now automatically generated. So, unless you need special hiteffects, you don't need to fiddle with them.
A shockwave AFTER another effect such as a thermo explosion is a different thing, that's a fragment.

3. I can't seem to make the PK25 fire its projectile(s) in a straight line. I mean no spreading. Just a fat straight line.

change particleSpreadAngle="15" to a smaller number to reduce the spread.

4. How to configure weapons onto compartments? Like weapons go down with compartments?

I don't think it's possible at the moment, maybe with some clever use of DeviceSlot

5. An alternating + repeating weapon doesn't work.
Update. It does.

try with a configuration:

Code: Select all

<Configuration aimTolerance="0" alternating="true">
				<Shot posAngle="90" posRadius="14" angle="-1"/>
				<Shot posAngle="270" posRadius="14" angle="1"/>
			</Configuration>

6. How to have a shield reflect fire, like Dwarg reflect particle?

if you want it as enhancement for shields, the code is:
-- SHIELD -- DAMAGE REFLECT - Damage Bounces off shields
0x03YX - Refect damage type Y with X chance

if you want to have a shield with innate damagetype reflection, look at the Ion Reflector and add a similar line to your shield
in <Shields> add
reflect= "ion"

7. I once -accidently- made a shield that regenerated by taking fire, but kept degenerating if you sit idle (cool, huh?). How do I reproduce that again? Also, if I wanted it to regenerate from a certain damage type only, how do I do that?

I have a similar shield in my mod WE6 and it's not so easy to code.
you have to use <OnShieldDamage> event on the shield.
http://wiki.kronosaur.com/modding/xml/s ... ielddamage

1. Multi hull and multi shield, how to?

there is no support for that at this time.
you can simulate multihull with internal compartments or scripting. I never heard anybody trying to do multishields.

2. I want to show damage on enemies. Not just compartment leaks, but cracks here an there. Any help?

I never tinkered with those effects. I have the feeling that they are hardcoded. ovDeprezSiteSmall is never called explicitly anywhere in the code. I would be pleased if someone proves me wrong.

However, in your case (as well as George's damage effects), use Overlays. apply overlays when a ship is hit to mark the damage.

3. What do you think GoT season 6 holds?

Never watched GoT, read the book if you want spoilers, I suppose

4. I want to make weapons that charge down by holding spacebar. Again, I find myself lost.
5. There was a genius once who modded a weapon with counter. The weapon slowly increased its rate of fire, till the counter went to max. How do I reproduce that.

I think that Atarlost has a weapon like that in his mod: http://xelerus.de/index.php?s=mod&id=761
Plenty of advanced scripting in there.

6. How do I configure the homing capabilities of my weapons? I don't understand the angle thingies.

in your <Weapon> put
maneuverability = "10"
smaller numbers make nimbler missiles. Tracking to enemies is automatic.

7. Can you add black holes into the vanilla?

A black hole would be a cool addition. Gravity is possible to add. George added it in the game. RPC made a mod with Gravity.
http://xelerus.de/index.php?s=mod&id=1041

8. How to declare a new damage type?

you can't, they are hardcoded.
you can use the generic damagetype called... "generic". then with events on your weapon you can make it do anything you want.

9. Anybody made a tractor beam?

Several. http://xelerus.de/index.php?s=mod_searc ... =3&sortb=1
They are awesome.

10. How to make a weapon fire pteravores? I have been trying for ages.

Pteravores are already a missile. they are launched by the &vtPteravoreSporeLauncher; weapon.

11. How do I decrease the distance between each projectile of an Iocrym Repeller?

increase the firerate

12. Anybody mind sharing code to fix stealth armour?

is it broken... again ?

[DigaRW]

Black hole should be great if they have an event to kill player instantly.
But, if they spawn, they must be massive and spawned in outer system. It will not be a logic if Black hole placed near a planet (and it not sucked by him )

[TheLoneWolf]

ATLAST!!!


Thanks digdug and DigaRW! Exactly that! I want a shockwave AFTER the thermo explosion.

It worked with the PK

I'm going to study your mod. Care if I self reproduce it later? Would you file a lawsuit? Would you enforce copyright? Will you flay this poor wolf for a coat?

[DigaRW]

ATLAST!!!


Thanks digdug and DigaRW! Exactly that! I want a shockwave AFTER the thermo explosion.

It worked with the PK

I'm going to study your mod. Care if I self reproduce it later? Would you file a lawsuit? Would you enforce copyright? Will you flay this poor wolf for a coat?

Don't worry, I have no problem as long you aren't just copy them.
Make them unique, you may use sample of my weapon, like MG82 Series. You can add more damage and fire rate with penalty of accuracy.

[digdug]

As a general rule, if you are going to use parts from other mods, you must reference those mods and the authors.
If you don't, we might assume it's a stolen mod.

As for my mods, you are allowed to tinker and reuse any content of my mods on xelerus (since we are talking weapons, up to WE5). Please don't reuse anything from the partial release of WE6 alpha version that I did some time ago, as I have bigger plans for that.

[TheLoneWolf]

Don't worry, I have no problem as long you aren't just copy them.
Make them unique, you may use sample of my weapon, like MG82 Series. You can add more damage and fire rate with penalty of accuracy.

I know MG42s. Thats a new thing, though. What do they do? I hope they aren't kinetic fast firing miniguns, that I was planning to implement.

As for my mods, you are allowed to tinker and reuse any content of my mods on xelerus (since we are talking weapons, up to WE5). Please don't reuse anything from the partial release of WE6 alpha version that I did some time ago, as I have bigger plans for that.

Nah! All I would do is study your code as the old time "Solved Examples" and would never copy paste! Heck, even if I would have to write similar or exact things, I would type them out myself! Thank you for letting me keep my hide!

Btw does v1.7 expand the number of max system up from 50?

[Song]

To add on to this, in no particular order:

2. How about coupling up hit effects? Say having a thermo explosion on impact, and then have a shockwave usher forth?

Shockwaves can be handled as a graphics element (in a <HitEffect> tag), or as an area fragment (see: the Ares Micronuke). By mixing and matching hiteffects and fragments you can do a lot, although sometimes you need to use null hit effects to prevent lag on larger weapons. This also fixes issues when the default weapon hiteffects are the wrong color or size (cough all laser hiteffects). The same is true of FireEffects, although those have fewer options.

Explosions themselves can be handled two ways. Procedural explosions are used in 1.7 Alpha 1. They use an <Orb> effect, and are prone to lagging the game if they're too large, complex, or if there's a lot of them on screen. They also have a low level of detail. For greater detail, you can use pre-rendered graphics (look at the sourcecode in 1.6). These are rendered with a program written by George many years ago called "Luminous" (which I believe he's re-used as a name for things about 3 times since then) which is available on his website if you go digging. It's a bit finicky to use because George only really designed it for his own use. If you want a new random number seed for explosions, close and restart the program. Luminous graphics were used in all versions prior to 1.7 Alpha 1.

Generally speaking I prefer using procedural/in-engine effects for small-medium or simple effects, or when Luminous is not available. For larger, more complex explosions, luminous generally looks better and is less laggy. This may change as George improves the engine.

4. I want to make weapons that charge down by holding spacebar. Again, I find myself lost.

George has talked about this for years (probably at least a decade now), but the engine doesn't currently support it directly. It's possible to do with a lot of scripting though.

12. Anybody mind sharing code to fix stealth armour?

Stealth armor is broken because of the way the engine handles stealth. No amount of XML or tlisp can fix it: it's an engine limitation. Maybe in a year or three it'll get looked at.

3. A more noobish approach. How do I make a encounter (again) that is bound to happen? I mean if I want to station a particular fleet in a particular system?

This is actually surprisingly difficult at times. If the system has random and extra encounters enabled, simply use the encounter code from the station in Mission6.xml in the corporate command code and modify it to spec, then toss it on the relevant station that the encounter is attached to.

Code: Select all

<Encounter
				numberAppearing=	"1"
				systemCriteria=		"+nodeID:BeitAlgez;"
				locationCriteria=	"*outerSystem"
				enemyExclusionRadius="150"
				/>

If the system does NOT have random encounters and extra encounters enabled (eg. Rigel) it becomes harder. AP has a solution (and SM&M++ uses it) but I don't have the time to go diving for it right now.

Alternatively if it's a new system, you can copy how Point Juno does. But for existing systems it's generally a bad idea to overwrite them.

4. What is generic damage class?

Generic damage is damage "without" a damage type. But since the game engine always has a damage type, it instead has a separate type for that. Generic damage bypasses all immunities and resistance. Generally speaking you shouldn't be using generic damage for things unless there's no other option.

7. Where is the Changelog for modders?

Digdug has assembled a full changelog for all versions of Transcendence. Go looking in the modding resources forum and you'll find it.

[TheLoneWolf]

That was some insight! Ty Shrike! Now I'm going to play with HitEffects!