Explosion and ai questions

[eddieb]

Had a couple of questions

1) Have you guys decoded what the explosions fields mean yet?

There's this in each ship

FORM "EXPL"
{
CHUNK "TYPE"
{
long 21
long 9
long 15
}
}


which may be a set of indices into the explosions file


game\explsion\EXPLOS.IFF


But the questions is, what do the values in EXPLOS.iff mean? If you guys can figure this out, it could mean customized new explosions.



2) I asked this about a year ago, but couldn't find the response, so I'll ask again.
Someone on Standoff mentioned knowing what the ai values in PILOTS.IFF did. I'd appreciate it if you could post this info again.

 

[Quarto]

I don't think we've ever looked at either the EXPL chunk or explos.iff. As for the AI, here's all the info we have. Don't know how much use it will be for a new engine, given that all you really specify in pilots.iff is how good or bad a pilot is on a scale of 1-5 in some basic characteristics.

      CHUNK "ATTR"
      {
        long 1      // Number
        long 1      // XA
        long 0      // Language callsign string
        long 2      // Pilot type; 2 = fighter, 5 = capship
        long 4      // Loyalty
        long 4      // Verbosity
        long 5      // Flying
        long 4      // Gunnery
        long 0      // Ejection (0 = only if absolutely necessary?)
        long 1      // Special pilot = 1, generic = 0
        long 5      // Squadron; 0 = Diamondbacks, 1 = Wolfpack, 2= Black Widows, 3 = Kat, 4 = Bug, 5 = Confed Generic
        long 2      // Initial killboard count
        long 0      // Unknown (varies 0/1)
        long 0      // Unknown (always 0)
        long 0      // Unknown (always 0)
        long 0      // Unknown (always 0)
        long 0      // Unknown (always 0)
      }
      CHUNK "COMM"
      {
        cstring "spoons"  // ENG
        cstring "spoons"  // IFF
        cstring "spoons"  // IFF
        cstring "spoons"  // IFF
      }

 

[Iceblade]

Well, shoot. Looks like it's a job for good old trial and error to find out what those explosion values mean.

For pilots, this would probably be a good idea for an *.ai.xml file.

 

[Quarto]

Oh, and I forgot to mention - for those stats, 5 is the top end of the scale, 1 is the bottom. The only exception to this is ejection - this stat tells you how likely a pilot is to eject in reaction to his ship taking damage. A 5 in ejection means the pilot will almost never eject, and a 1 means he'll probably eject long before his ship's condition actually warrants it (and 0 seems to be special). So, the scale is kinda reversed here - but if you just consider it to be 'endurance' or something instead of 'ejection', and it makes sense.

 

[Lt.Overload]

Excuse me for the very old bump, just need some help with these values you mentioned.

I don't think we've ever looked at either the EXPL chunk or explos.iff. As for the AI, here's all the info we have. Don't know how much use it will be for a new engine, given that all you really specify in pilots.iff is how good or bad a pilot is on a scale of 1-5 in some basic characteristics.

      CHUNK "ATTR"
      {
        long 1      // Number
        long 1      // XA
        long 0      // Language callsign string
        long 2      // Pilot type; 2 = fighter, 5 = capship
        long 4      // Loyalty
        long 4      // Verbosity
        long 5      // Flying
        long 4      // Gunnery
        long 0      // Ejection (0 = only if absolutely necessary?)
        long 1      // Special pilot = 1, generic = 0
        long 5      // Squadron; 0 = Diamondbacks, 1 = Wolfpack, 2= Black Widows, 3 = Kat, 4 = Bug, 5 = Confed Generic
        long 2      // Initial killboard count
        long 0      // Unknown (varies 0/1)
        long 0      // Unknown (always 0)
        long 0      // Unknown (always 0)
        long 0      // Unknown (always 0)
        long 0      // Unknown (always 0)
      }
      CHUNK "COMM"
      {
        cstring "spoons"  // ENG
        cstring "spoons"  // IFF
        cstring "spoons"  // IFF
        cstring "spoons"  // IFF
      }

I tried editing some Simulator Humans into aliens. It works except they still show up as humans, even though I set their squadron/race to be bugs. Changing that value on any pilot doesn't seem to do anything. Is there something else I have to change that's overriding any race/squadron change I make in pilots.iff?

 

[Quarto]

I tried editing some Simulator Humans into aliens. It works except they still show up as humans, even though I set their squadron/race to be bugs. Changing that value on any pilot doesn't seem to do anything. Is there something else I have to change that's overriding any race/squadron change I make in pilots.iff?

I believe your problem may be related to the savegames. Squadron assignments are dynamic - you can reassign a pilot to a different squadron during the campaign. What this means is that the game has to keep track of squadron assignments inside the savegame, even if that particular pilot has never been reassigned. Furthermore, if this particular pilot does get assigned to another squadron during the course of the campaign, that assignment will override what you put inside the file (meaning: you can make Maestro in WCP look like a bug, but he'll stop being a bug the moment he becomes a Black Widow).

 

[Lt.Overload]

I believe your problem may be related to the savegames. Squadron assignments are dynamic - you can reassign a pilot to a different squadron during the campaign. What this means is that the game has to keep track of squadron assignments inside the savegame, even if that particular pilot has never been reassigned. Furthermore, if this particular pilot does get assigned to another squadron during the course of the campaign, that assignment will override what you put inside the file (meaning: you can make Maestro in WCP look like a bug, but he'll stop being a bug the moment he becomes a Black Widow).

I had a feeling something else was at work here, thanks. That also explains why every human pilot defaults to the generic no-squadron helmets in Secret Ops.

Any idea on how I can change the savegames to fix that?

 

[Quarto]

I had a feeling something else was at work here, thanks. That also explains why every human pilot defaults to the generic no-squadron helmets in Secret Ops.

Any idea on how I can change the savegames to fix that?

No, I don't. I think I tried looking at savegames once, and I think that they are ordinary IFF files that can be decoded and edited in WCPPas, but I know nothing about their internal structure. It's just not an area that anyone ever really needed to do research in.