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Ship Editor Guide
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Introduction
A few years ago, I came across a map which had a Sovereign Class vessel - the
Enterprise-E, which had the ability to cloak. At the time I did a little
research, but could not replicate the ship.
October 2004, and once again I come across an 8 player map : cgs1-1.bzn
This map included one Enterprise-E vessel in the top middle sector- which
could cloak - quite a stunning thing to see.
After much research and editing at
the ASCII code level, it was discovered how to recode a federation sovereign
class ship into an 'f6ente' vessel
Q. What is f6ente ?
In the core Armada ODF files there is an Enterprise-E Vessel that was designed
by the original game producers - although it is not available to build in the
main game. Neither is the ship listed in the Star Trek Armada Map Editor menu.
So....after a fair bit of work, a program was created that can batch file
convert any Enter-E, into a cloakable version - pretty clever huh !
The Ship Editor software was produced as a collaboration between myself (Philip Calrissian, aka : Mighty Santa) and Mighty Digitotialis. The original hope was to at least replicate the original cloaked Sov' as found in the CgS map, and maybe create a few fun fleet/mini-war maps where players could make good use of a cloaked sovereign.
Hopefully, you can come up with
some interesting maps that will make use of the Sovereign's cloaking ability.
There is certainly some good potential for fleetwar maps, and maybe
'osama'/'Bushwar' type maps where the enemy could start off with a few fleets of
cloaked sovs. Happy map making.
Well, here we go.... first things first.........
The software that you need to convert ships is the 'cloaking_device_ship_editor'
program : size 328kb. 1min @ 56k
Download the following file directly to your desktop.
|
A suggestion... |
Once downloaded, you should now have on your desktop this little icon....
The file is an executable file, and you may well wish to scan it with a virus checker before you run it.
Converting Ships to cloak technology
First, start up the program.
You should now type in the name of the map which contains the Enterprise-E
vessels which you wish to have the cloaking ability. The map name must end with
.bzn You should now click on 'CLOAK'. The program will now edit the
.bzn file and convert any Enterprise-E ships to a cloaking variety. It is an
essentially instantaneous process.
You should have now received a message which confirmed whether any ships were converted.
*'type 1' enterprises are
Sovereign Class vessels of the Enterprise-E variety - i.e Capt. Picards Ship
Ship Converter Notes - for Map Makers
1. At present the ONLY ship that you can convert to cloaking technology is the Enterprise-E Sovereign Class vessel.
Ordinary Sovereign Class ships are NOT able to be converted using this software. If you are a map maker, then you will need to be using Picard's ship - which is found via the F10 key in the map editor.
2. There is a trade-off to be made
for Sov's that are able to cloak.
At present any Enterprise-E Vessel that is converted to Cloak loses it's
Corbomite shield weapon. This may seem like a real big loss, but any map maker
can always boost the shield strength of a ship to counter the lack of this
useful technology.
3. For a ship to Cloak, it needs 100 units of energy. Some maps will have Enterprise class vessels that start off with zero energy, and thus a ship may need 5-10 seconds from the start of a game to charge up enough power to be able to cloak.
4. Does converting the ships mean
my customised .bmp image will revert to the basic unedited version ?
No. You can cloak/uncloak your Enter-E class ships as often as you like, and it
will NOT change the .bmp image of your map. The software only edits the .bzn
file of the map (note that each map is made up of a .bmp, .bzn. and an .mdf
file).
5. For ALL map makers, please do
NOT over-write or convert ships for any existing Armada map. To do so is to
destroy the work of a previous map maker.
For instance, you may wish to create your own version of a map. The first thing
you should do is load the map via the armada map editor, and then save the map
as a different name. Thus, you have preserved the original map, but you now have
your own version which you can mess around with all you like.
*it remains a real problem in
armada, that there are a few people who edit maps someone else has made, but who
then save their version of the map under the same name - thus destroying the
original authors work. Worst still, in multiplayer, if this same map maker is
hosting the map, anyone with the older version will have their copy
over-written. Frankly, this drives me utterly insane with rage !
Do not destroy others work !
6. When the map is hosted in
instant action or multiplayer, does 'free tech' need to be on ?
No. You do not need free tech on for the cloak to work, although of course if
you have other ships on the map - Cubes for instance, if you want them to have
their special weapons working, then 'Free tech' WILL need to be on.
7. Further developments ?
Yes, myself and Digitotialis are researching whether it is possible to also
cloak a Locutus Cube ;) and any other ship for that matter.
Screenshots
Click on the thumbnail for a full size version.
Cloaked Enterprise-E Sov. Fleet (the map is ms_cloak8a)
Cloaked Enterprise-E : note the stars you can see through the hull of the ship,
it is cloaked !
Cloaked trio. Two 'Enterprise-E' Sov. Class Vessels, and an ordinary Sovereign
Class ship.
Release Notes/Acknowledgements
Latest version : 1.0 : released
19.10.2004
The Cloaking Device Ship Editor program was written by 'Mighty Digitotialis' - a
computer programmer from the USA. Any person who wishes to 'mod' this software
should at least acknowledge & retain the original designers name on any modded
version.
I would like to thank CgS clan - or whom ever it was, that originally researched
and produced the cloaking Enterprise E'.
*If you have any comments/suggestions about the ship editor software, then
please post them in the Calrissian.com
Armada Forum, or you
can Contact 'Calrissian' aka
'Mighty Santa'.
Return to Calrissian.com Home
Last updated :
27/07/05