Mission destinations for combat missions & planet graphics

Hi, I'm having a problem with combat missions. I can set up the missions to work just fine, but I can't get a red flag for the destination system to show up unless i require the player to land on a planet there. How do I get around this problem? It seems like the player would be totally lost if they hadn't discovered the system the fight is going to be in.

I also cannot figure out how to change planet graphics intelligibly. The field for the planet graphic displayed from space appears to be a number other than the rlëD resource of the planet graphic, but I can't figure out what the number represents. What is it?

By the way I'm not sure if posting in the general forum is the right place for small questions like this, but I can't figure it out on my own and I don't see a subforum for questions

Thanks-
martin

@martinkuk, on 16 January 2012 - 04:37 PM, said in Mission destinations for combat missions & planet graphics:

Hi, I'm having a problem with combat missions. I can set up the missions to work just fine, but I can't get a red flag for the destination system to show up unless i require the player to land on a planet there. How do I get around this problem? It seems like the player would be totally lost if they hadn't discovered the system the fight is going to be in.

Yes, the default ‘destination’ marking only flags systems where the player has to land. There’s a separate option for marking the system in which the mission’s special ships are found.

(In MissionComputer, it’s a check box immediately below the pop-up menu for where the ships appear, called ‘Mark special ship(s) on stellar map’.)

@martinkuk, on 16 January 2012 - 04:37 PM, said in Mission destinations for combat missions & planet graphics:

I also cannot figure out how to change planet graphics intelligibly. The field for the planet graphic displayed from space appears to be a number other than the rlëD resource of the planet graphic, but I can't figure out what the number represents. What is it?

It’s a two-stage process. The engine adds 1000 to the number in ‘Type’, and looks at the spïn resource with that ID. Within that spïn resource is the ID of the rlëD or PICT resource containing the actual graphic.

(If this seems unnecessarily complicated, it’s because it probably is. In the first two games, spïn resources played a much more essential role, but the introduction of rlëD and shän resources in EV Nova left them nearly redundant.)

@martinkuk, on 16 January 2012 - 04:37 PM, said in Mission destinations for combat missions & planet graphics:

By the way I'm not sure if posting in the general forum is the right place for small questions like this, but I can't figure it out on my own and I don't see a subforum for questions

Yes, questions like this are well within the normal functions of the Developer’s Corner.

Thank you! That was extremely helpful.

I have another question. I'm trying to add independent systems and planets. I note that systems turn "independent" when you set their government to -1, but they seem to have an infinite tolerance for crime. Do i need to create a separate gövt resource for independent planets if I want them to behave the way they did in EV1/EVO?

No, there’s no gövt resource for independent planets. The Nova Bible still says that they base their crime tolerance on that of gövt ID 128, just like in the previous games. Does this not match your experience?

Have you checked the MinStatus value for the affected planets? (In MissionComputer, it’s in the ‘Landing’ tab of the spöb editor, marked ‘Minimum legal status’.)

I noticed that I changed the system gov't, so that it showed up on the stellar map as independent, but didn't change the planet gov't. Doh. Well now that's fixed. Thanks again.