4.0
Introduction to the Mission Sphere Files
As we have
seen, the level file has (at least 3) lines that are prefaced
with "MissionSphere". These lines give information
about starting ships and the map's resources. The first MissionSphere
line in our example level file contains information about our
resources, including, most importantly, the name of the resource
file: "ResourceSphere_1.missphere" This file contains
every single resource element that we want to use in the map
including asteroids, dust clouds and particles.
The 'ResourceSphere'
holds all the resources, and any derelicts or ships. When ships
are placed in the ResourceSphere they go under AI control, even
when playing with no computer players. These are also where
the Distribution (*.dist) files are linked to (i.e. the *.dist
files are named in the ResourceSphere file). You need one Resource
Sphere file at least, even if your map doesn't have resources,
you can have more than one, but usually there is no point, unless
your ResourceSphere_*.missphere file is bigger than 64K
The next
two files in our example level are Mothership_*.missphere file,
these contain all the player starting fleets and the starting
location of those fleets. Again the most important aspect of
these lines it the fact that these lines contain the names of
the files containing the details for player one and player two;
the files Mothership_0.missphere and Mothership_1.missphere
consecutively.
These files
are our 'Mothership' files. You need the Mothership mission
sphere files in every directory, and you have to have one for
each player on that map. We
will begin with these Mothership files:
The "Mothership_0.missphere"
contains the list of ships/fighters etc that the player starts
with. Well lets take a gander at the 'Mothership_0.missphere'
file. Open it up and take a look around. Have a look at the
first three lines, again it's those MissionMan generated lines,
and they have to be there. Why? Nobody knows, just make sure
they are there, the only thing you can change here is on the
third line saying 'MissionSphere Object: R1,Mothership', you
can change the 'R1' to 'R2' if you need to (i.e. when all the
ships below are 'R2' ships you would change it, although its
not drastic and wont crash your game if you neglect this).
There are
three lines of ships in this file, lets take a closer look at
them;
Ships
,11633.0,-76504.0,36722.4,97.0,R1,Mothership,1,NULL_FORMATION|?|?,?,?
Ships
,7259.3,-76708.0,36722.4,97.0,R1,ResourceCollector,1,PARADE_FORMATION|?|?,?,?
Ships
,12875.4,-76018.5,36722.4,97.0,R1,ResearchShip,1,PARADE_FORMATION|?|?,?,?
"Ye
Gods! Yet more numbers and stuff! What's all that after the
'ships<tab>' leader?" I hear you ask. Well, these
too are simple once you know, let's go through them, they are;
Ships
Label,x,y,z,rot,race,ship,num,formation|flag|(color),properties,propertiesParam
Label:
|
AI
label (no spaces) or ?
|
x,y,z:
|
x,y,z
coordinates |
rot:
|
rotation
angle of ship (facing) |
race:
|
R1,
R2, P1, P2, P3, or Traders |
ship:
|
shiptype
(See The Ship
List for ship types you can use here) |
num:
|
number
of ships to place |
formation:
|
Formation
these ships will be in. |
flag |
UseAsMothership
or ? |
color |
?
or colorScheme(n) where n= 0 to 7 |
properties |
Integer
value See Properties more info. |
propertiesParam:
|
Some
properties (eg: Regrow)
have an attached value or 'propertiesParam' |
4.1.1
posx, posy, posz
Once again,
these are the x,y,z co-ordinates that designate the positions
of the ship(s) on the map. These will always be the bit you
fiddle about with most.
4.1.2
rot
This sets
the rotation angle of ship - it's facing. 0 degrees is always
along the positive x=0 axis of your map so if you have a ship
way out on the x axis, say with co-ordinates 80000,0,0, to have
it facing the centre you would have to turn it around at an
angle of 180 degrees. Ergo, if it is way back along the negative
x axis say -90000,0,0 then you would leave it at a facing of
0 degrees to have it facing the centre. Remember the angle is
measured anticlockwise.
4.1.3
race
This sets
the race of the ship where;
|
|
?
|
No
Race
|
R1
|
Kushan
|
R2
|
Taiidan
|
P1
|
Turanic
Raiders
|
P2
|
Kadeshi
Garden Protectors
|
P3
|
T-Mat
|
Traders
|
Bentusi
& assorted
|
This is
defined by the 'ship type', if you had a Kadeshi missile corvette
then its race would be P2, a defence field frigate would be
a R2 race ship and so on. It does not have anything to do with
the race as defined in the level file, only the ship type it
is and the ship type is defined by the next value;
4.1.4
shiptype
This sets
what type of ship it is. The list of ships available have already
been mentioned above and you can find the list again here
in Appendix A.
4.1.5
numShips
This value
sets the number of ship to place, theoretically there is no
limit to the amount of ships you place.
4.1.6
formation
Here
the starting formation of these ship(s) is assigned, the default
is NULL_FORMATION, but you can get some weird results using
this for more than one ship, although if you place proximity
sensors and there is more than one of them then I recommend
using this formation. Your best bet is PARADE_FORMATION, which
will place all the ships you want in the default parade formation
your ships assume around your mothership after being built,
this also reveals a shortcut that you need only define the x,y,z
position for your mothership, and put all the rest in parade
formation, no matter what position is listed for them. Set it
to anything else and they'll appear wherever they're representational
x,y,z co-ordinates designate in the level. Which could be interesting.
Or it could suck.
The available
formations are:
NULL_FORMATION
PARADE_FORMATION
DELTA_FORMATION
BROAD_FORMATION
DELTA3D_FORMATION
CLAW_FORMATION
WALL_FORMATION
SPHERE_FORMATION
PICKET_FORMATION
4.1.7
flag
You can
have any ship you want as the mothership. This value sets whether
the ship is the players mothership with 'UseAsMothership' or
'?' if its not. A word of warning though, if your designated
mothership is not a proper 'Mothership' or a Carrier then your
game will crash the second you or any opponent, including computer
opponents, enters the build manager.
4.1.8
Properties and porpertiesParam: colour
The
next three values, the '?,?,?' part at the end of the line concern
properties of that ship(s). These are covered in Gary's
Notes, and so will be discussed more fully there. There
is however one unique property concerning ships, namely the
colour.
You can
add a "colorScheme(n)" to explicitly control what
colour scheme the ship will be.
Here are the default colour schemes for the ships as
they stand now.
|
|
R1
(Kushan)
|
0 |
R2
(Taiidan)
|
1 |
P1
(Turanic Raiders)
|
4 |
P2
(Kadeshi Garden Protectors)
|
5 |
P3
(T-Mat)
|
6 |
Traders
(Bentusi & assorted)
|
7 |
Don't forget
that this all ties in with what you have set in the level file,
(see 'Determining
what colour schemes a ship can be' for a full explanation
of how its done.)
So that's
the ship lines. Pretty simple when you know how eh?
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