Shield Question
 

I don't want the Borg to have shields so I comment out or // the shieldrate = whatever # and shieldprotection = 1.0 rates. I also give the shieldhitpoints line a 0 amount. However, in game whenever the borg are attacked there is still a shield impact animation played and no damage happens to them until their shields go down. Is this hard coded somehow or can I make this work properly for the borg?

Re: Shield Question
 

shieldProtection = 1 is a toggle command. Rather than commenting it out, change it to 0.

Re: Shield Question
 

Wow, never knew that thanks. So now it's half fixed. :) I changed it to shieldProtection = 0 and now the borg take damage right away and have no shield values shown in the GUI but the game still shows a shield impact animation. I've set the shieldhitPoints = 0 and the station takes damage right away but it still shows a shield being hit and decreasing in strength. I can't find where the borg access the shield texture so maybe it's hardcoded for everything to show a shield being hit?

Re: Shield Question
 

Try this:

"shieldGeneratorHitPoints = 0"

:cool:

Re: Shield Question
 

Oh man, I apologize, I did misspeak. It is shieldGeneratorHitPoints = 0. I typed it as shieldhitpoints = 0 above. My bad. So I made the shieldgeneratorhitpoints 0, made the shieldProtection 0 so why is the game showing a shield impact?

For instance the byard says to # include "station.odf" so I checked that base station.odf and the only effect file mentioned in there is xfireball.spr. That's the explosion sprite so I don't see where it's accessing the shield sprite? I must be missing something simple?

Re: Shield Question
 

Change shieldHitPoints to 0 aswell. Also, make sure that the shield point regen rate is at 0.

Re: Shield Question
 

Well, making a borg station have shieldgeneratorhitpoints = 0 makes it have the plasma leak sprite or whatever so all my stations look like they need repair. Very unsightly with all that gas/plasma venting animation. Making a borg ship have shieldgeneratorhitpoints = 0 seems to be ok until you repair it, then it just sits in the repair status at the yard as if it doesn't know what to do with a 0 hitpoint value because it can't repair it. Will keep experimenting.

Re: Shield Question
 

Personally, when I did my little BattleStar Galactica mini mod I worked around this problem by simply making the shields down animation blank.

However, I'll admit upfront that I only had two ships, both of which were without shields. It might not be desirable to do it this way if your wanting the shield down effects on your other units.

Re: Shield Question
 

Try also including "curShields = 0", and "maxShields = 0". The game automatically assumes shield strength equivalent to hitpoint strength (or 'health').

:cool:

Re: Shield Question
 

Well, I tried shieldgeneratorhitpoints = 0 and shieldprotection = 0 and shieldrate = 0 all at the same time and it took about 5 seconds each for every ship and station to be destroyed, even with a maxhealth = 20000, when hit so that was fail. I'm now trying a shieldgeneratorhitpoints equal to the other hit points and made shieldrate = 5 which seems a good round number compared to other races overall ship classes and left shieldprotection = 0. I may have to get used to seeing the shield impact animation on the borg. I'll see how that goes then try the curshields and maxshields you suggested KID.

What does curshields stand for? Current shield level?

Re: Shield Question
 

Yes, that's what it represents. Good luck, let us know how it turns out.

:cool:

Re: Shield Question
 

Well, I seem to have found some good compromises. I'll just have to deal with the borg having a shield hit animation. But, I gave them a shieldrate = 5 for all their ships and stations, may change to 4 so it's a smallish number and not too much of an advantage, I gave them a shieldgeneratorhitpoints value equal to their other hitpoint values but left shieldprotection = 0.

I copied the system damage distribution section from the craft.odf and station.odf and pasted it in each craft and station respectively and changed the crewhit % to a lower number than normal. I made mine 6.0 instead of the usual 13.0 and redistributed the %'s across the other systems to keep the 100% requirement. That way the crew doesn't really have shields per say and they still die off when the ship is attacked but just not as fast. A cube with no shields shouldn't have entire crew killed in 10 seconds. So far I like the way it plays and should just have some fine tuning to do here and there. Thanks everyone for the help.