Part Four: Overview

In this section you will deal with the Mothership Mission Sphere Files: 'Mothership_0.missphere and Mothership_1.missphere'.

4.0 The Mothership File

Mothership files contain all the player starting fleets and the starting location of those fleets. The most important aspect of these files is the fact that these files are named in the level file and the game will seek out these named files, if they are not included as listed in the level file (case and spelling again!) then the game will crash.

4.1 - Set up the Mothership_0.missphere and Mothership_1.missphere files.

Once again let’s use the example given in the Tutorial Map Files folder, go into it and copy both the Mothership_#.missphere files into your DSpiral2 folder.

4.1.1 - Make sure each is named;

Mothership_0.missphere
Mothership_1.missphere.

These files will concern ship details for player one and player two consecutively.

4.1.2 - Open both these files, we will edit both simultaneously, it’s easier that way.

4.2 - Add more shiptypes and set their numbers and formation.

Okay lets take a look at our starting fleets. The basic start up kit; along with the Mothership we have three workers and three recons. Let’s add more. Now, the simplest way would be to copy the starting fleet we want from another Mothership_#.missphere file and change the fleets starting location and facing to fit the map, but we are going to do this the hard way.

We will deal with one file at a time here to speed things up, so starting with the Mothership_0.missphere file (Player One).

4.2.1 - Copy the last line twice, leaving no blank line gaps. So we now have 5 lines of ships looking not unlike this:

Ships ,-66010.0,-51316.0,-68.0,40.0,RACE_SECT,sMothership,1,NULL_FORMATION|?|?,0,?
Ships ,-63854.3,-49323.3,-68.0,-106.0,RACE_SECT,sRecon,3,PARADE_FORMATION|?|?,0,?
Ships ,-64948.8,-49054.3,-68.0,-106.0,RACE_SECT,sWorker,3,PARADE_FORMATION|?|?,0,?
Ships ,-64948.8,-49054.3,-68.0,-106.0,RACE_SECT,sWorker,3,PARADE_FORMATION|?|?,0,?
Ships ,-64948.8,-49054.3,-68.0,-106.0,RACE_SECT,sWorker,3,PARADE_FORMATION|?|?,0,?

We want to have a processor in there, as well as some Super Acolytes, and a few more recons.

4.2.2 - First off, we will rename the ships in the last two lines, using BD’s Ship list in Appendix A, (and being-ware of case and spelling!)

Rename your newly copied ship lines to the ships you want. The third line in the header that read: 'MissionSphere Object: RACE_SECT,sMothership' says this file is dealing with Somtaaw. So, use somtaaw ships from the ship list. they will still all appear as beast versions if a beast player should end up in this starting position. Anyway, you want to change these last two lines, respectively changing ‘sWorker’ to:

sProcessor
dAcolyte

4.2.3 - Okay, change the race for the Super Acolyte, this is a derelict shiptype remember, so its race should be RACE_DERELICT.

4.2.4 - Okay, change the numbers of each ship type, we want;

2 sWorkers
1 sProcessor
5 sRecons
12 dAcolytes

We are happy with the rest of the lines for the moment, just make sure they are all in PARADE_FORMATION, so the position will not matter, the facing we will deal with shortly (see 4.3) and the race is "RACE_SECT"(Somtaaw) for all ships other than the Super Acolyte. Cool. Right, ignore the player 2 Missphere for the moment, we will move on and set up the facing and location for player 1.

*Top Tip* - Ok at this juncture I know when it comes to putting in the resources I am going to be jumping in and out of HW:C like a yo-yo. So what I do here is give Player 1; One Worker and Player 2; Two workers, with the random starts I can tell at a glance which player position I am in. Simple but effective and useful, if you do this just dont forget to change them all back to three again when you are adding those finishing touches...

4.3 - Set the ships position and facing.

Position and facing (or location and ship heading) using the posx, posy and posz co-ordinates (position) and rot (rotation) parameters. We want one player set up to the ‘eastern edge’ of the spiral (left of the drawn out map) and the second player to the ‘western edge’ (right of the drawn out map). Also, we don’t want the players to start too far apart, perhaps 150km will be more than plenty (and we can always change this once we have seen our map). 

We will be using PARADE_FORMATION throughout because all ships that begin in PARADE_FORMATION, their posx, posy and posz values and their facing will be the same. You only need to set up the co-ordinates for the sMothership and any included ships will default in the same positions they attain when they are built in the game.

4.3.1 - For Player One (the Mothership_0.missphere file) change the x,y,z co-ordinates to; -75000,0,0.

4.3.2 - Dealing with the facing (rot), remembering that x=0 and the angle is measured anticlockwise, we can see from our drawing that to have player 1 on the ‘minus’ x-axis (at co-ord.-75000,0,0.) he is already facing the centre (so would be 0°), for player 2 on the +x axis this turn will be 180° (or -180°). Just remember your trigonometry and you can’t go wrong.

4.4 - Repeating 4.2 and 4.3 for the Player Two (Mothership_1.missphere) file.

Repeat parts 4.2 and 4.3 for the Mothership_1.missphere file (Player Two).

The easiest and quickest way to do this is just by copying the entire contents of the Player One missphere file over the entire contents of the Player Two missphere file and then changing merely;

(4.3.1) The location co-ordinates of the sMothership (to;75000,0, 0,)
(4.3.2) The position (rot) value of the sMothership (to;180)

 

4.5 - Summary

OK then, now you’re Mothership_0.missphere file (for Player One) should look like this;

; MissionMan script, Friday, Sep 3 1999, 12:14:43 PM
; Copyright (c) 1998-99, Relic Entertainment Inc.
; MissionSphere Object: RACE_SECT,sMothership 

Ships     ,,-75000.00.0,0.0,0.0,RACE_SECT,sMothership,1,NULL_FORMATION|?|?,0,?
Ships     ,-63854.3,-49323.3,-68.0,-106.0,RACE_SECT,sRecon,5,PARADE_FORMATION|?|?,0,?
Ships     ,-64948.8,-49054.3,-68.0,-106.0,RACE_SECT,sWorker,3,PARADE_FORMATION|?|?,0,?
Ships     ,-64948.8,-49054.3,-68.0,-106.0,RACE_SECT,sProcessor,1,PARADE_FORMATION|?|?,0,?
Ships     ,-64948.8,-49054.3,-68.0,-106.0,RACE_DERELICT,dAcolyte,12,PARADE_FORMATION|?|?,0,?

; MissionMan script, Friday, Sep 3 1999, 12:14:43 PM
; Copyright (c) 1998-99, Relic Entertainment Inc.
; MissionSphere Object: RACE_SECT,sMothership  

Ships ,75000.0,0.0,0.0,180.0,RACE_SECT,sMothership,1,NULL_FORMATION|?|?,0,?
Ships ,-63854.3,-49323.3,-68.0,-106.0,RACE_SECT,sRecon,5,PARADE_FORMATION|?|?,0,?
Ships ,-64948.8,-49054.3,-68.0,-106.0,RACE_SECT,sWorker,3,PARADE_FORMATION|?|?,0,?
Ships ,-64948.8,-49054.3,-68.0,-106.0,RACE_SECT,sProcessor,1,PARADE_FORMATION|?|?,0,?
Ships ,-64948.8,-49054.3,-68.0,-106.0,RACE_DERELICT,dAcolyte,12,PARADE_FORMATION|?|?,0,?

And that's that. Simple. We have set up two starting fleets, for Players One and Two, sitting facing one another in the basic starting formations around their Motherships and at 150km apart.

You could if you wish have the other ships, say the recons for instance, in any of the viable formations other than PARADE and the co-ordinates will locate the central or 'lead' ship in that formation. Just be careful that your ships are not too close together.

[top] [On to Part Five - The Level File] [Back to Part Three] [Main]