That's what I was thinking. Maybe just try giving your bombers a second weapon that deals 1 damage and use that for range, see if that changes anything.

Still getting this issue again....thought it was because of the illusion entries but apparently not...

This time, I eventually did get a MD after 10 minutes or so of this error popping up every once in a while...I can only assume it is because of something to do with SC...

Still seems to be an advent only issue...

Judging by the error, it may have something to do with the squad entity somehow, rather than the SC entity.

It's the carrier.  I'm not really sure what the error is anymore, I knew at one point but the sleep cycle has been greatly disturbed.

I can point you in the right direction though.  It has to do with strike craft being on a ship that isn't properly set for them.  It's also an AI specific error.  To test out the problem, you can't just spawn your own ships and build strike craft.

I'd figure out what the error is again, but work of the paying kind has left spare brain cells in short supply the last few days.

It definitely is an AI issue...could it be the frigate role types on the carrier frigates?

Doubtful; I haven't ever seen that error in SoGE, and we have ships with strikecraft that don't have the carrier role type, and ships that have multiple role types including the carrier one.

Well I never get the error from anything I do...if I turn off the AI, there error never comes up no matter what I do with SC....but some games the error just keeps coming up even if I'm doing absolutely nothing (like, I have no assets at all)....so, whatever it is, it does affect only the AI....

If it isn't roletypes, then I am at a complete loss....

Actually, now that I think about it, maybe. The AI has big problems if you give a minelayer role to a carrier with strikecraft and then do not give it a minelaying squadron. Perhaps it is something like that?

It could have been...there was a time where I had removed the minelaying squadron from aerias, but hadn't changed the frigate roles....I have changed the frigate roles since then, but I also haven't really tested it since then either....if I don't see the problem again I'll assume it must have been that....

Was wondering if someone knows how to get an ability to fire from more than one point either simultaneously or in quick succession?

I'm wanting to make a dual forward beam weapon as an ability

Use a weapon effect, have multiple mesh points with the same ability name?

Most ships have a mesh point named something like ability 0...if you had 2 mesh points named that (or more) then the weapon effect should emanate from all those points....

I don't think you can do dual means unless you make a custom particle effect.

Nah, I figured that out a year or two back. The trick is you need to have separate ability points called from separate files.  For the best coordination, I suggest one spawning file that calls the two(or more) files with the beam effects in them.  Beam effects, like persistent attached effects, are one per file.

Check out the designs for the beam weapon abilities in SGI if you need an example.

What's the easiest way to downscale particle files? I'm sure that this has been asked before, but I'm a fairly stupid guy when it comes to particles, having only edited ones that already exist to make "new" particles.

you can do that in the particle text file but I recommend Particle Forge as the lifetime of some of the emitters will need to be shortened as well.

Most emitters will have in the text file

ParticleWidth 500.000000
ParticleHeight 500.000000

when we half scaled all the ships I think psy just went though and halved all these values.

in Particle Forge those would be set by
Size-  Width
Size+ Hieght 

Check each emitter 

Yeah, I hand edited them all in text.

You have to be careful, some things are determined by velocity, a single point with particles shooting out of it needs all the particle sizes down scaled, along with their velocity.  Be wary of doubling your shrinkage too, oscillations and such that are based on the original size of the emitter they're adjusting can't be shrunk along with them, only the ones that set a particular velocity.

I never changed lifetimes, only sizes and speeds.

Gstar on particle meshes isn't producing any light or bloom. In fact, I can't get any textures to produce bloom at all. The data sheet's bloom channel is pure white, and I've tried having light pure white or variable or black with no change. What's wrong?

Yes, bloom is enabled, and the Undead work fine. But it's like the bloom doesn't want to display against the other meshes or something.

I figured that was likely the case... Time for experimentation I guess. That and trying to get this tractor beam ability to work right.

Hey guys, quick question for you! I have worked on some imported models in xsi and properly converted them into SOASE and everything is great except that when I choose to not give them a shield mesh....the models "hitbox" seems to always be a small circle to the right of the 0,0,0 (x,y,z) coordiates? and lasts until a ships shield hitpoints reach 0....then once the armor or hull takes hits the hitbox becomes fine and the lasers impact all over the model properly....so it seems to be the lack of a shield mesh that creates an off-kilter hitbox? I am certain the models are properly aligned in XSI etc I double checked the mesh's coordinates and the null-points etc for P001-Center and the rootpoint one etc? is there something I'm missing? I'd appreciate any and all assistance! thanks!

Yes, you need a shield mesh for that reason. You can always, as a temp measure, set the shield mesh to be the model's own mesh, just set the render shield option to false.

Is there a way to ensure that only a single super weapon can be built at once? Would setting cannonGravityWellRatioDenominator to an absurd number work? I know in 1.04 fixed limits could be applied, I'm wondering if something similar can be done in 1.1. Edit: Turns out this cannot be done, kudos to GoaFan for the help.

I suppose you could have an ability that disables all other friendly cannons so that only the first one works....

Is it possible to give population to a structure? I know there is an upgrade for starbases that does it, but i would like to give a structure pop from the beginning.

Not directly, best you could do is give it an ability that increased the population of the planet it is orbiting. 

Sounds fair enough. Would you mind giving me an example, how the ability has to look like? I dont know how to make abilities from scratch. I just copied already existing abilities and modified them so far.