Please help with some basic editing questions.

[ddriscoll90]

I am not new to BC but I am new to modding it. So far i have successfully downloaded and installed all the ships from all the different star trek eras I could ever want. The only problem is, they balancing between the ships is so far out of whack it isn't funny. I have TOS ships knocking down Sovereigns like flies and I really need to switch everything around. I remember when I was messing around with Star Trek Armada 2, editing things like a certain ship's sheilds, weapon strength, ect. was fairly easy. Is there a similar way to do this in BC? Whether it is similar or not can someone please explain to me how to edit a certain ships in-game stats? I do not need to modify the 3D models or textures at all just the in game values like sheild strength and such.

[moed]

Unfortunately, it takes A LOT of time to balance all the ships you've most likely got. Why? Because there's never really been a "standard" for balancing any type of mod (such as ships, stations, etc), ever established by any of the many modders out there since the inception of modding for BC. 

I can't tell you how many ships I have individually modded the HP's (Hard Points) for to be as balanced as possible to each other and to the era.  I have a folder with over 100+ ship mods that I haven't even installed yet still waiting to be tweaked just the way I want them... trouble is, as I said, it takes a lot of time and I haven't had much of that luxury for quite a while.  I'm lucky if I can do maybe 2 in a month.  So, it's a never ending project 

Welcome to modded BC.  You have some good work ahead of you.  My advice, patience brother 

[baz1701]

Hi and welcome. To start with you will need the MPE (model property editor) from the SDK which is easy enough to find. All you need to do is load a ships nif file and the ships hard point file and just edit the values to get what you looking for. I agree with Moed this is no small undertaking. I would suggest looking at the SFRD and SFSY ships as we have a nice spread different era ships and may give you some idea of what needs tweaking also these were all hp'd by TiqHud so also pm him of you have any questions. Hope this helps.

[ddriscoll90]

Okay thanks for that. I will get the MPE. I was confused because I was opening the Python files and there was nothing like what i was looking for. I do have a few more questions though sorry for being a noob. In the MPE can I change the values for everything like shield strength and weapon strenth? or only the amount of damage the ship's hardpoints can take?

[Mario]

If you're just going to edit the shield strength, weapon strength and such MPE might be too much for this, use BCUT instead. It allow you to edit those numeric values through a more easy to use UI.

In the MPE can I change the values for everything like shield strength and weapon strenth? or only the amount of damage the ship's hardpoints can take?

Both tools allow you to edit shield strength, recharge, weapon strength, recharge etc. MPE only allows you to reposition the weapons or add new weapons\new subsystems etc.

[ddriscoll90]

I tried Bcut and could not find any way to edit those values. Or really do anything at all with it. BCMP seemed to make sense at least. prehaps you can give me a few pointers on how to do that with bcut? But anyways, using MPE, I can easily see how to edit the shield strength, and hardpoint strengths which has helped me greatly thanks very much for that!

 I still do not see any way to adjust the range or power of any of the weapons, however. All I can figure out how to do is change the amount of damage the hardpoints can take before being disabled. I didn't see anything about weapon strength or damage in any of the tabs.


EDIT: Okay scratch that I see now the option i was looking for in BCUT and I think I have it all figured out now except for one detail: Torpedo damage. I see where you can edit the hitpoints, the recharge rate, ect. but no damage. Granted I may just be overlooking something since, after all, it took me that long to figure out where to alter phaser damage. But I really think I checked all the options there and I still see no way to change torpedo damage. I even went looking to the torpedo's script file itself but it was unreadable. Any tips?

[Mario]

BCMP is way too old and in general doesn't work all to well with modern operating systems such as Vista\7\8, it simply doesn't know what UAC is. Finally it doesn't support the evolved BC with all the new cool features other mods added into it.

Simplest way to open an HP: Install BCUT (get from bcs-tng.com I keep the latest version over there, other versions floating around are old I believe), during installation procedure associate py files with BCUT. Double click on any HP file and program will load it up accordingly and recognize it as an HP file, alternatively you can use the Hardpoint Tweaker section of it. The program in general is composed of many different components added over the years as people suggested features to me.

[hobbs]

the arrow is pointing to the Damage.

i think you were looking at the Phaser system not the phaser emitter.

[ddriscoll90]

Thanks that explains a lot. I have already gotten underway here, but I still have that one problem. How do I edit torpedo damage? Thats the one option I can't seem to find with either tool. All the other HPs were self explanitory but I can't see how to edit torpedo damage.

[ACES_HIGH]

torpedoes are in their own scripts, in the Tactical/Projectiles folder, unfortunately, there isn't a tool for editing them (to my knowledge) so you'll have to open the .PYs.

Python is actually really easy once you know what to look for, each attribute is labeled in plain english, if you're just changing values of existing attributes, you need almost no coding skill whatsoever, you can even tweak the Hardpoints like this if you know what system you're looking for.  Torpedoes are really easy to edit, there's only like a couple dozen lines of code in each of the torpedo files that you need to worry about.  For damage you'll be looking for the "GetDamage" Attribute.  Torpedoes are also modular, you can set any torpedo to any ship by editing the Torpedoes system in the hardpoint.

[moed]

Use notepad to open the .py's and study the scripts.  As you have already begun to learn with BCUT, you will find more and more editable sections/lines that alter the functions of different things.

I would suggest first opening the py of something simple such as a shuttlecraft.  They usually only have a small number of weapons and other components that allow you to more easily "size up" what you would like to modify and to learn the basics of HP modification.

From there you can graduate to more complex HP's.

Also, as Aces_High stated, torpedo damage yields are in the Tactical/Projectiles folder and are named for whatever particular type of torpedo that any given ship is using - you can find the path to the specific torpedo file name at the bottom of the torpedo lines within the main HP for a ship.  Go find and open (once again in Notepad), that said torpedo script, then study its contents.  You will see usually towards the lower part of the script that that is where the damage, speed, and other parameters are displayed.

Good luck!

[Nighthawk]

Why? Because there's never really been a "standard" for balancing any type of mod

ahem....

I've been working on ... something...



but ssshhhh.... :angel

[nxadam1701]

 : Awesome!!!!!!!

I mean, ok shhhhhhhh


Adam

[ddriscoll90]

I just want to say how grateful I am for all the replies first of all. But sadly I'm still stumped. I was looking at the script file for just the regular old photon torpedo like what is on most of the stock fed ships. The only thing even remotely close to what I am looking for was the getDamage() function call you already mentioned.......but thats it. The function just says get damage and is empty. No value to edit.

I will keep trying find out what to do, since I feel bad asking for more dumbed down instructions you guys have done plenty. I am definitely making headway with my balancing (at least enough to make sense, though I'm sure not perfectly canon). It's really just that darn torpedo damage. My TOS ships are properly balanced with my TMP ships in all respects except torpedoes. The TOS photon that came with one of the ships I downloaded is considerably stronger than the one I've been giving to the TMP ships. So even though all the sheilds, phasers, and HPs are balanced nicely, the battles aren't turning out as they should due to the torpedoes. (Though there is a certain degree of fanboy guilty pleasure in watching Kirks original 1701 survive just long enough to kill a refit connie thanks to the incorrect torpedoes. lol)

[tiqhud]

AND, TIP:  Be very vEry VERY careful, editting any of  th PY files in Notepad, it is SO Terribly easy to remove a . or , or ] , the the ship will not work or worse BC will not
[[OH, BCUT is an excellent tool, quite handy ]]
WELCOME to our little community

[ddriscoll90]

Okay I finally found everything, I must have been blind to not see that before. You guys have been very helpful. I am not free to modify any of the stock torpedoes as a please. But alas, ultimately I am foiled again. The two photons I've been using for the TMP and TOS era, as I mentioned before came with ship downloads., and now that I see how this works I can see that I'm doomed. The mods only included the .pyc files for the torpedoes, not the .py files. So when I try to open these two files it's still in giberish. Figures, the two files that are arguably the most important ones to my goal of balancing and I lack their .py files is there any way to create my own .py file from the .pyc? I expect there is, but also expect it to be pretty confusing. I'm so close I will try anything though.

[moed]

ahem....

I've been working on ... something...



but ssshhhh.... :angel

Looks promising Nighthawk.  I look forward to seeing more.... once we have Top Level Security Clearance 1A that is 

[starfox1701]

There are plenty of free python readers that can open those files and let you mod them.

[hobbs]

Okay I finally found everything, I must have been blind to not see that before. You guys have been very helpful. I am not free to modify any of the stock torpedoes as a please. But alas, ultimately I am foiled again. The two photons I've been using for the TMP and TOS era, as I mentioned before came with ship downloads., and now that I see how this works I can see that I'm doomed. The mods only included the .pyc files for the torpedoes, not the .py files. So when I try to open these two files it's still in giberish. Figures, the two files that are arguably the most important ones to my goal of balancing and I lack their .py files is there any way to create my own .py file from the .pyc? I expect there is, but also expect it to be pretty confusing. I'm so close I will try anything though.

if you're using KM i think you may find the tactical py files in the src folder (that will be "bridge commander/src/scripts")

[hobbs]

SFRD and SFSY have released our specification sheets we use to HP our ships, i thought it would be ok to post.

I know you are working on something more advanced than a simple sheet Nighthawk but im guessing you have a lot of work to do... hope you dont mind this being released.

http://bc-central.net/forums/index.php/topic,9783.msg206363.html#msg206363