Difficulty with search.

[dep88y]

I don't think I'm using the right words to search for my problem. I want to lower the strength of a ships weapons. They seem too powerful for their era. Please help me find the rescources.

[Nebula]

you want to modify a ships HP so either use the MPE to open the ships scripts/ships/hardpoints py file, or use notepad to modify the ships py, or use BCUT's built in HP modification tool.

[dep88y]

Thankyou for your response. I'm using Bcut at the moment. I don't know what those others you listed are, yet; but thats for another day

 However, I think I know what to ask a little better. The values like "Max Condition" and "Max Power" and the rest of them; has someone recorded what they change? I have been playing with them trying to learn but I'm not quite sure what affected what? Please, a little help?. Thankyou.

[JimmyB76]

this is from the SDK manual:

Reference for specific properties

Each of the properties you can add to a model has a specific purpose. Some of them can be very complex, and inherit features from other properties, while others are fairly simple. This section will start with the properties that are basic building blocks of others, and move on to more specialized ones.

Note: The names of these properties usually correspond with the tabs that appear in the property editing dialogs.

    * Subsystem Property: This cannot be created explicitly, but is part of almost all other properties. When selected, the subsystem is usually represented in the 3D view as a 3-dimensional crosshair.
          o Hit points. This is the amount of damage the system can take before being destroyed.
          o Repair complexity. This is a multiplier specifying how difficult it is to repair the system. 1.0 is normal, lower numbers will make the system repair faster, higher numbers will make it slower.
          o Disabled at (%). This specifies the percentage of hit points at which the system will be disabled. For some subsystems, this does nothing.
          o Radius. This specifies the radius of the sphere that this system occupies. Weapons fire that hits anywhere in this radius will damage this system.
          o Flags. Critical specifies whether destroying this system will destroy the ship. Targetable determines whether the system can be damaged, and targeted. Primary is used if you have multiple systems of the same type (only really usable for hulls), and marks which one is considered the main system.
          o 3D Position. This is the 3D position on the model that this system occupies. You can enter it either numerically, or by using the Locate mode of the viewer to choose a point, then clicking the Get Position button. Clicking and dragging on the Slide button with the left mouse button will move it along two axes, and dragging with the right mouse button will move it along the third. Holding down the Shift or Ctrl key will constrain the movement to a particular axis.
          o 2D Overlay Position. This indicates the location, in pixels, of the icon representing the system on the 2D damage display.
    * Position/Orientation Property: This is a position/orientation pair used on a model. This, or similar editing controls, are used in a couple of places, such as weapons. These are usually represented in the 3D view as a set of axes, with the red line being forward, green being up, and blue being right.
          o Direction, Up, Right. These are the three unit vectors that define the orientation, or which way the thing is pointing. It's probably easiest to edit this using the Spin drag control, which works similarly to the Slide button mentioned above -- click and drag with either the left or right mouse button. Clicking the Normal button will fill in this information with the normal set using Locate mode in the editor.
          o 3D Position. Same as above.
    * Emitter properties.: These are basically identical to Position/Orientation properties, and are currently only used for the bridge models.
    * Ship Property: This is used to hold some general information about a ship.
          o Ship genus: Used to specify whether a ship belongs to the "ship", "station", or "asteroid" groups. Look for "GENUS_" in scripts/App.py for the values, or just copy them from other ships.
          o Ship species: Used to specify the species type of a ship. Used to determine which icon to show in the target displays, for example. Again, look in scripts/App.py for "SPECIES_" for some values. Anything not defined is fair game, but be careful not to cause conflicts between two ships.
          o Mass: how massive the ship is. Affects collisions.
          o Rotational inertia: Affects the ship's ability to stop turning.
          o Stationary: Set this for objects that will never move.
          o Ship name, Model file name, Damage resolution, Affiliation: Unused. Most of these are specified in the "ship file", not the hardpoint file.
          o AI String: specifies the script to use for the default attack AI. i.e. FedAttack, NonFedAttack, StarbaseAttack.
          o Death explosion sound: specifies the sound name (not the file name) to use for death explosions.
    * Powered Subsystem: like Subsystem Properties, cannot be created directly, but is used by many other things.
          o Normal power/second: how much power is drained by this system per second, at 100% power.
    * Cloaking Subsystem: Adding this will add a cloaking system to the ship.
          o Cloak strength: not used.
    * Sensor Subsystem: Any flyable ship needs this.
          o Sensor base range: the normal sensor range, at 100% power, in game units. Objects within this range will be detected. Objects within half of this range will be identified.
          o Max # of probes: the number of probes this ship can carry at once.
    * Impulse Engine System: Any ship that wants to move under its own power needs this.
          o Max speed: the maximum speed this ship can attain under its own power, in game units/second.
          o Max acceleration: the maximum acceleration this ship can apply per second.
          o Max angular velocity: the maximum speed at which the ship can turn.
          o Max angular acceleration: the maximum acceleration this ship which this ship can apply for turning.
          o Engine sound name: the name of the sound (not the file name) for the engine noise.
    * Warp Engine System: any ship that wants to warp needs one.
    * Engine Property: this is a single engine on the ship. (Warp or impulse)
    * Power System: this produces and distributes power on the ship, to all of the powered subsystems.
          o Power output/second: This is how much power is produced per second, if the system is not damaged.
          o Main battery limit: This is how much power can be stored in the main battery.
          o Backup battery limit: This is how much power can be stored in the backup battery.
          o Main conduit capacity: This is how much power can be drawn from the main battery per second.
          o Backup conduit capacity: This is how much power can be drawn from the backup battery per second.
    * Repair System: if the ship has one, damage will be repaired over time.
          o Maximum repair points: this is how many points of damage can be repaired per second.
          o Repair teams: this is how many systems can be repaired at once. The repair points available will be divided among the repair teams.
    * Shield system: this protects a ship from damage.
          o Glow color: this is the color that the shields glow when they are hit by weapons fire. Clicking Pick Color will bring up a standard color selector for you to make your choice.
          o Glow decay time: unused.
          o Shield strength: Here you specify the amount of damage points each shield can take when fully charged.
          o Charge rate: this is the amount of points that will be restored per second to this shield, if the system is powered at 100%.
    * Weapon systems: You must have a weapon system for each type of weapon on the ship. i.e. a torpedo system if you have torps on the ship, a phaser system if you have phasers, etc. You can only have one system of each type, although you can have as many weapons as you like.
          o Type: Select the type of weapon system that this is.
          o Single fire only: if this is checked, the weapon system can only fire one of its weapons at once.
          o Slow weapon (AI needs to aim): modifies AI behavior so it knows that it needs to aim this weapon for best effect.
          o Firing chain string: used to implement torpedo spread modes. It's a semicolon-delimited string, with weapon group numbers followed by a string used to display the name of the spread. (Zero is used for the group of all weapons, single-firing.)
    * Weapons: These are things common to all weapons.
          o Weapon ID: can be used to 'tag' weapons for mission-specific purposes. (you can determine which weapon fired by its ID)
          o Dumb-fire capable: whether the weapon can fire without a target (torps, disruptors).
          o Groups: which weapon groups this weapon belongs to. Used for building firing chains in Weapon Systems, as noted above.
          o Damage radius factor: the radius of damage caused by this weapon. Anything within this range of a weapon strike will be damaged by this weapon. This also affects the radius of visible damage.
          o Icon number: specifies the icon (from the WeaponIcons icon group) to use for this weapon on the player's weapons display.
          o Icon above ship: specifies that the weapon icon should be in the layer above the ship icon, rather than below the ship icon.
          o Icon position: specifies the x,y position for the weapon status icon in the player's weapons display.
    * Energy Weapons: These are things common to all energy weapons (phasers, disruptors, tractors).
          o Max charge: The maximum amount of charge that can be stored in this weapon. Not applicable for tractor beams.
          o Max damage: The maximum amount of damage that can be dealt by this weapon, in ideal conditions. For tractor beams, this is the amount of force applied.
          o Max damage distance: The maximum distance at which full damage will be done by this weapon. (or in which the tractor beam will fire)
          o Min. firing charge: The minimum amount of charge needed to fire this weapon. Used to prevent cases where weapons fire for a fraction of a second, drain, recharge, fire, etc. Not applicable for tractor beams.
          o Normal discharge rate: The amount of charge drained per second, while the weapon is firing. Not applicable for tractor beams.
          o Recharge rate: The amount of charge this weapon regains per second, if the weapon system is powered at 100%. Not applicable for tractor beams.
          o Fire sound: the name of the sound (not the file name) used when the weapon fires.
          o Firing arc icon number: icon number for icon used to indicate when the target is in this weapon's firing arc.
          o Icon offset: offset from the weapon's icon for the firing arc icon.
    * Phasers: These are your primary beam weapons.
          o Orientation: see Position/Orientation Property above. This affects the direction the phaser faces. As you change the orientation, you'll notice that the firing cone in the model viewer changes.
          o Ellipse size: Phasers arcs are specified in terms of angles along an ellipse (to make phasers for Federation ships easier to implement). This specifies the length and width of the ellipse.
          o Texture numbers: no longer used.
          o Angles: These specify the angles along the ellipse that the phaser covers. Vertical angles are perpendicular to the plane of the ellipse. Changing these angles will change the firing cone in the model viewer, so you can keep an eye on how the firing arc looks.
          o Colors: Here you can specify the colors for the phaser effect.
          o Sides, Main radius, Taper radius, Core scale, Taper ratio, Taper min length, Taper max length, length texture tile/unit, perimeter tile, texture speed, texture name: These all specify how the phaser should look. Most of them are somewhat self-explanatory, so it is recommended that you just experiment with these values.
    * Torpedoes:
          o Direction, Right: see Position/Orientation Property above. Note that the right vector will be used to change the firing direction slightly if torpedoes are fired in non-single-fire mode.
          o Immediate delay: the amount of time you must wait between firing torpedoes.
          o Reload delay: how long it takes to reload a torpedo in this tube.
          o Maximum ready: how many torpedoes can be loaded in this tube at once.
    * Pulse weapons: these are disruptor-type weapons.
          o Direction, Up, Right: see Position/Orientation Property above.
          o Angles: similar to phaser firing arcs, except that these originate from a point rather than an ellipse. Like with phasers, you'll see a representation of the firing arc in the viewer window.
          o Cooldown time: how long you must wait between shots.
          o Script: the script used for whatever shoots out of this gun. i.e. Tactical.Projectiles.FusionBolt.

[dep88y]

Thankyou very much. I've started to learn Python but I haven't made it as far as downloading the SDK and everything.

[JimmyB76]

as far as editing HPs (hardpoints), you can use BCUT (which is simplest) to edit them, or use MPE (Model Property Editor) that comes with BCSDK (BCSDK can be found at BCFiles)...
you dont really need to learn Python for HP alteration; you can learn Python for writing up scripts for BC, but not really needed to edit ship hps...