Betting on fleet battles

I am attempting to make a plug-in which adds a mission which allows you to bet on large battles between Fed and Rebel fleets.
Currently I have it set up so that the Rebels are the auxilary ships and follow me.
The Feds are the special ships and they show up in the system where I accept the mission, I have the job of killing them.
To avoid the possibility of cheating ie. blowing up the Feds or Rebels in order to win, I created a new dude resource for the Feds and Rebels with the flag of never attacking me and I cannot attack them. This also fixes the problem of the Feds attacking me.
My problem is that the Feds seem to always flee after a few seconds, not enough time for a battle. To fix this I edited the Fed ship flags so that they would not run away if out of ammo and so that they would not favor standoff attacks. I also changed the Fed governments so that they would not flee if their shields dropped below a certain level. Yet they still run away.
I could fix this with a longer time limit so that the Rebels get a second shot at them, but the Rebels (auxilary ships) don't seem to reappear.

How can I get the Feds to stay until the fight is over?
And also, how do I make it so that if I fail the mission (through time running out, I know no other way) I lose the same amount as the amount that I would win if I won the bet (Feds getting destroyed).

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Check the Dude resource. If the AI type is 3, it will run away.

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Quote

Originally posted by The Cheat:
**Check the Dude resource. If the AI type is 3, it will run away.

**

Really? I thought it would make them fight. Maybe I'll try 4-Interceptor.
Thank you.

Eh, now they just wander the system and seem to have no interest in fighting Rebels, even when getting bombarded. And it seems that them getting destroyed doesn't complete the mission. Could this be related to me being unable to destroy them myself? They are a dude that I cannot destroy.

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Support USA Patriot Act let real Americans take away our rights before those darn foreigners can try.
All the problems of the world can be solved by good parents and good water.
Depression was depressing, but insanity, now that's something I can get really get into!
"And in this their similarities diverged"

(This message has been edited by Klepsacovic (edited 03-20-2004).)

Shouldn't that only apply if the mission script specifically requires you to kill 'em? I mean, I never killed a durned thing during most of the blockade runs I did, so it's not like it's a universal to all missions...

Rebels should really always attack Feds and vice versa unless there's something getting in the way... hmm, come to think of it, are you sure that in making them impossible for the player to hit you didn't make it so that they can't hurt each other, either? It's too bad you can't revert the ship-replacement functions, I'd say swapping out the player's vessel for a Shuttle or something for the duration of the battle would do it...

(This message has been edited by Coyote (edited 03-20-2004).)

Just wondering: How do you intend to handle the possiblity of the Feds killing the Rebels?

This would be best done with two missions: ine with the SpecialShip as the Rebels, and one with a Fed SpecialShip. Both have theirs set to destroy the SpecialShips. Then, in the OnShipDone field, abort the other mission and do whatever is necessary.

You'll need four missions for this, though: a Rebels-won-I-win-the-bet, a Rebels-won-I-lose-the-bet, a Feds-won-I-win-the-bet, and a Feds-won-I-lose-the-bet.

This may even fix your problem. Go ahead and try it.

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