Couple of questions. 7 actually. 9 if you get technical.

[Ditch]

Is it possible to tell certain ranks what to attack/harass/colonise/protect when modding? ie. cap attack planets, flt cap attack ships etc. Anyone know what protect actually makes the ai protect?

I know you can tell ships to spawn at particular coordinates, do they only do so once, or every time they spawn? (I could check that one myself and will this weekend if I don't get an answer).

Is it possible to make an ai spawn once, and once only per game? Or, use x ship until it's first death then use y until the server resets?

What are the possible types of win conditions right now? hold # of planets for xmins, capture x, y and z for x mins. Anything else?

Can I lock modules for ai only use?

Can I have multiple races but only let humans use one of them?

Is there any way to make an ai or even ship type/colony invincible like the SB was?

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That's all.

[Sandtrooper]

Is it possible to tell certain ranks what to attack/harass/colonise/protect when modding? ie. cap attack planets, flt cap attack ships etc. Anyone know what protect actually makes the ai protect?

Just rename the "duty" in SF_data_ranks.sec (make a backup first), then you'll have bots do different things.

"Protect" assigns the bot to protect whatever planet it spawned from unless summoned to defense duty by a player, if it's "released from duty", it will return to the nearest friendly planet and start protecting it. (Some odd bugs can occur with the bot protecting an enemy colony, its almost common nowadays)

Duties are:
Protect
Escort
Defend
Harass
Attack
Colonize

(all duties must be lowercase in the SEC file)

I know you can tell ships to spawn at particular coordinates, do they only do so once, or every time they spawn? (I could check that one myself and will this weekend if I don't get an answer).

I do not know if NiteHawk fixed the location spawner, you might have to experiment with that.

Is it possible to make an ai spawn once, and once only per game? Or, use x ship until it's first death then use y until the server resets?

I have no idea how to do this, but to force him to use a upper-level ship, you have to give him a low rank so he can spawn with a small ship IF he spawns from the starbase. It's a bit hard to get this to work, but it sometimes works.

What are the possible types of win conditions right now? hold # of planets for xmins, capture x, y and z for x mins. Anything else?

Not really.

Can I lock modules for ai only use?

I don't know, it might not be possible

Can I have multiple races but only let humans use one of them?

Yes, just set the botcount for that race to zero. If it doesn't work, well you might wanna adjust the total botcount in the scenario to make the game force the bots on other races.

Is there any way to make an ai or even ship type/colony invincible like the SB was?

Invincible as in not able to kill it at all? Or the current way (super hard to kill)?
Well the way bases become that way is because they have TWO or MORE Tractors equipped on their ship.
Factories just make them functional docks.

[NiteHawk]

Is it possible to tell certain ranks what to attack/harass/colonise/protect when modding? ie. cap attack planets, flt cap attack ships etc. Anyone know what protect actually makes the ai protect?

Look at the ranks file lately? You can edit the ranks and what they do, so you could change all ranks to lets say, 'colonize only' via the sf_data_ranks or whatever ranks file your server has. Best to make your own though.

I know you can tell ships to spawn at particular coordinates, do they only do so once, or every time they spawn? (I could check that one myself and will this weekend if I don't get an answer).
Is it possible to make an ai spawn once, and once only per game? Or, use x ship until it's first death then use y until the server resets?

Right now the coord spawns a ship only once at the moment, you specify where, the name, etc. And it will spawn at the location, you can do coords or planet location. This spawn only happens once. As for multi spawning every time, not yet.

What are the possible types of win conditions right now? hold # of planets for xmins, capture x, y and z for x mins. Anything else?

Hold # of planets for min/sec/hour.
Hold these planets for min/sec/hour.

Theres something called 'conquer' instead of 'hold', so I'm wondering if you only have to capture the planet once, not sure, havent tested it. "conquer * planet*" same way as hold is use, just 'conquer'

Can I lock modules for ai only use?

No, not really. In the future there will be locked ships/modeules, but not anytime soon, better things to work on .

Can I have multiple races but only let humans use one of them?

Yeah, the new addition I added, you can set the AIPOP to 0, thus making it a human only race really.

Is there any way to make an ai or even ship type/colony invincible like the SB was?

Use super shields and make it high module room so you cannot use it unless on a colony. Making a ship 'SB' type is using more then one tractor and having a factory, it will turn it into a 'SB' type ship. Otherwise theres no easy way to do it. It would use the values that SB have in the scn/dat or the sf_data_game file.

[Mobious]

Can I lock modules for ai only use?

If you want to really be creative.... (lol)

1) Create a new rank, crazy properties
2) Spawn an AI of this rank
3) Define a ship type only pilot able by this high rank as that AI
4) Make modules not really fittable and define them to this ship
5) Yay?

This will definitely be something to tackle in the future, but that method should work for the time being if you are really in a bind for something.

[Ditch]

Right.

Look at the ranks file lately? You can edit the ranks and what they do, so you could change all ranks to lets say, 'colonize only' via the sf_data_ranks or whatever ranks file your server has. Best to make your own though.

I meant can you tell them what to attack in that file. If I wanted to make a mod where all drengin ai should be attacking earth (but not luna) for example...could it be done?

Mobious - that's exactly what I figured I'd have to do and was trying to avoid

Quote
Can I have multiple races but only let humans use one of them?
Yes, just set the botcount for that race to zero. If it doesn't work, well you might wanna adjust the total botcount in the scenario to make the game force the bots on other races.

Sorry, bad wording on my part. I want to know if I can make it so that humans can only use one race? ie. all humans must play terran, but all 4 races have ai. Though that's good to know

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Thanks for the other info.

[NiteHawk]

Right.

Look at the ranks file lately? You can edit the ranks and what they do, so you could change all ranks to lets say, 'colonize only' via the sf_data_ranks or whatever ranks file your server has. Best to make your own though.

I meant can you tell them what to attack in that file. If I wanted to make a mod where all drengin ai should be attacking earth (but not luna) for example...could it be done?

Mobious - that's exactly what I figured I'd have to do and was trying to avoid

Quote
Can I have multiple races but only let humans use one of them?
Yes, just set the botcount for that race to zero. If it doesn't work, well you might wanna adjust the total botcount in the scenario to make the game force the bots on other races.

Sorry, bad wording on my part. I want to know if I can make it so that humans can only use one race? ie. all humans must play terran, but all 4 races have ai. Though that's good to know

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Thanks for the other info.

Oh, you mean attacking a specific thing, then not possible at the moment. It's pretty basic at the moment, possibly ventually have 'race' alliances too and such, etc that would help this. But I'd most likely work on the AI races/modules before this though, so I'd rate that I'll be doing AI only races/modules first before 'attack specifics' rather.

Someone was talking about making scenarios and single player type maps, which would be interesting, but theres not much way to do it right now. I'll probably have it so you can script what AI do, spawn ai on the go, etc. Like a quest system, but for space.

[Ditch]

That's what I was thinking. An invasion scenario where you have to play as the invaders and take on a heavily defended planet(s) + defense fleet. I could make one right now along those lines but was wondering what other options I had.