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Fire-Beam Problem

Not sure if this is the right forum, but I'm trying to make my first mission.

Basically I'm trying to get one ship to fire at another, while it ignores the other facilities insystem. At the same time I want the ship to stay still. But it simply doesn't work.

The only way I can get the ship to fire at the ship is if I set it to attack, and free all the beams.

I've tried fire-beam in combination with:

-When ship is <100 percent (the other one hits it), then fire.

-Time in mission.

-I freed all beams, and beam-protected the other two ships.

-When event is complete, should fire.

Many combinations but it simply will not fire without getting an attack order. If I free all beams it fires at the other two things and the mission becomes unwinnable, so has anyone else had this problem? I've checked the Beam Faq but it doesn't seem like I'm doing anything wrong.

I'm trying to fire Turret 07 on Lilith (the LRed)

Hmmm. One possibility could be that the ship isn't quite facing the enemy ship you want it to shoot at. When you give it the attack order it probably moves either into range or so that it faces the enemy ship.

You definately shouldn't need to issue an attack order for a capship to engage with beams. I was a little confused by your post though. What happened when you beam-free-all'd the Lilith and beam protected the other ships?

__________________
Questions about FS3? Questions about Fred? Questions about missions? Questions about adding new ships to your games?

[URL=http://homepage.ntlworld.com/karajorma/freespace/intro.html]Karajorma's Freespace FAQ [/URL] (now with added GE goodness)

Supreme Overlord of The Mercury Affair Campaign.

FREDder, Modder, Story design and general busybody for [URL=http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/mindgames/Background.html] Mind Games[/URL]

You definately shouldn't need to issue an attack order for a capship to engage with beams. I was a little confused by your post though. What happened when you beam-free-all'd the Lilith and beam protected the other ships?

Well when I just beam freed the ship and protected the others, it didnt fire for a REALLY long time, whereas I wanted it to fire right away. It's essential that it does.

I think one of the problems may have been that my events didn't quite make sense. I'd have an event freeing beams but also doing a few other things as well, I've kept it more simple.

After trying it about 25 times I finally got the mission to work, though the structure of the mission is really just in the preliminary stage. I've got a 14 mission campaign laid out on paper so we'll see how that goes. But one mission at a time of course.

Not to rain on your parade but if you're just starting out may I suggest not trying to make your own campaign but instead joining an existing campaign for 3-4 missions (maybe more) first.

That way you'll get experienced FREDders to go over your missions and explain how to improve things or easier ways to make certain events.

I'm not suggesting that you give up your own campaign by a long way. It's just that many of us start a campaign single-handed and only realise after a few months exactly how much we've bitten off. A single-handed campaign is a lot of work, especially if you're making very detailed missions. If you're sure you can do it we're all right behind you but if you're still dabbling it might be an idea to get some help from the more experienced FREDders.

__________________
Questions about FS3? Questions about Fred? Questions about missions? Questions about adding new ships to your games?

[URL=http://homepage.ntlworld.com/karajorma/freespace/intro.html]Karajorma's Freespace FAQ [/URL] (now with added GE goodness)

Supreme Overlord of The Mercury Affair Campaign.

FREDder, Modder, Story design and general busybody for [URL=http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/mindgames/Background.html] Mind Games[/URL]

Campaigns

Well I was considering that but since I don't have experience in making missions I didn't think they'd appreciate my services, so to speak.

But I dunno, I've made a bunch of missions in the past for other games like TIE Fighter and X-Wing so I thought "what the hell, do some here too". I usually only did it after everyone had basically lost interest in the game, but with Freespace the interest seems to be continuing.

I wasn't planning on doing .wavs or anything like that, just basically doing whatever there is in FRED2.