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Docked objects and Physics Changes

Howdy All:

I'm working on my first campaign, GTI: Untold Sorties, that take place just before the events of FS1. A couple of missions require a Vasudan cruiser to be traveling with an escape pod docked to its underside. When I tested these missions however, I found that when the cruiser is hit by weapons fire, it is often bounced around like a beach ball. I thought it might be due to some accidental changes to the ships.tbl file, so I tested an earlier mission I'd created that uncluded the same type of cruiser (Aten) and the problem did not present itself. The in the problem missions was also dammaged in earlier missions so I used the SEXP that sets a threshold for random subsystem dammage. I hadn't used that feature before so I thought it might be the culprit. I decided to remove the SEXpressions and replicate the dammage manually, but it didn't make any difference. Is this a flaw in FS2, or is there an actualy solution to this problem? If it is a flaw having something to do with it being docked to an escape pod, I may have to change the campaign plot slightly.

Later!

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The Trivial Psychic Strikes Again!

who is shooting at it (ships) and what kind of weapons are being used?

if it is your own men shooting at it then make the sexp to ignore the target maybe that'll help. I'm not a pro at this stuff so I don't know if what I said will even work

Weapons are ML-16 and Disruptor weapons. The ship in question is required to escape in one mission and be intercepted, disabled, and disarmed in the following mission. Its kind of required that the ship be hit be weaponry so I can't script it out. The ship in question is enemy, thus those firing on it are my wingmen and other friendly ships.

Later!

__________________
The Trivial Psychic Strikes Again!

then make your wingmen's weapons disrupters and let them shoot away .

You could also make a sexp where you tell them to target only certain subsystems so they only attack those certain systems.

I'm not positive on this but Try it out!

I suspect your mission is corrupt somehow. Try making a simple mission that consists of just a docked pair of the same ships and friendly wings shooting at it. See if the same thing happens.

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I solved the problem by removing the escape pod from the equation. As soon as it was no longer present (and once I changed all the events that relate to it) the effect of the cruiser being bounced around like a beach ball was eliminated. There must be a glitch in Freespace 2 where, if a small ship (or perhaps just an escape pod, or perhaps just a Ra escape pod) is docked to a larger vessel, the larger ship takes on the mass properties of the smaller one, but with a larger surface area to amplify the effect, add leverage, etc. In the mission that follows this, an Isis docks to a Typhon so we'll see if this theory holds true.

Sorry Dragon, but changing to only disruptors wouldn't cut it, as my comrades are required to first be in combat with enemy fighters. Not only is it hard to destroy a large amount of fighters with only Disruptor cannons, but they tend to draw on the power a bit more.

In any case, I had another reason to remove the escape pod... in the 2nd mission you are required to disable it, and I found that escape pods are fragile enough to be destroyed by Disruptor fire alone... kinda puts a roadblock to the whole thing.

Thanks for your help.

Later!

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The Trivial Psychic Strikes Again!

i don't think that the prob is the cruiser takes the mass of the escape pod, but that since it's docked to the escape pod, it moves with it. so when you shoot the escape pod and it moves appropriatly, it drags the cruiser with it. it's the same effect with docking an Isis to a colossus. shoot the transport and the colossus bounces around with it.

i guess this would need a SC change to fix. maybe something like add the mass of the docked ships together and apply it to both automatically.....

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\/asudan /\dmiral
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I found that effect in my latest mission. I had an Isis dock to the port on a Typhon. As I shot at the Typhon, nothing happenned, but when I hit the Isis the Typhon spun around like a propeller... well, not quite that fast, but you get the idea. I guess I could have selected the "protect ship" option to keep people from hitting a smaller ship docked to a larger one, but that still wouldn't account for the problem of disableing the escape pod I was having. Anyway, in the case of the Isis docking to the Typhon, I just changed it to the Isis entering the destroyer's docking bay.

Later!

__________________
The Trivial Psychic Strikes Again!

Has anyone else noticed that it takes forever for an Isis to dock with a Typhon?

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