Asteroid Question: How To Mod?

[dhague@cfo]

While I issue Great Praise for Privateer Remake 1.2, the default asteroid fields wreck havoc with old reflexes. It does seem a bit extreme that my ship can be hit from behind by asteroids while doing 200KPS(F5 view key so I saw it coming in like a missile). Yes, I have tried modding asteroid difficulty in vegastrike.config and in the *.system files with no obvious change visable to me(unless I am doing it wrong). My search of the FS forums failed to find a how-to on asteroids.

Game PC: Just in case it is applicable, I am running the game on a Dual P4-1000, 1GB-DRAM, ATI Radeon 9600-Pro with W2K-SP4 (stripped-clean version) that benchmarks favorably with most standard P4-2.4G systems.

Question: If it even possible, could some kind soul post how/where to modify the game files to reduce asteroid density and speed?

Thanks in advance.

[Dilloh]

/Privateer/units/objects/asteroids/AFieldBasePriv

is the file where a standard asteroid file is defined. I suppose, but I didn't test that you can change values here, e.g. by taking out subunit lines (should reduce density) or by changing values - don't ask me which ones. Maybe someone else knows that.

Else, try
/Privateer/sectors/Gemini

and take out the lines that niput the AFieldBasePriv - this will take away the whole asteroid field.

Both accessible with notepad. For a better overview, have a look at them with your IE.

Hope that will help a bit.

I also don't like the current asteroids - Flying through them is like russian roulette, you don't stand a chance evading the asteroids. I observed merchant orions afterburning to Nexus, asteroid from starbord, boom, merchant gone.

[dhague@cfo]

Dilloh, thanks for your response. It helped me understand the "asteroid" structure better.

What helped even more was another scan of all forum entries. In particular I found http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forum ... php?t=4166 which showed me that I had not made a large enough change in asteroid difficulty setting to get the change that I wanted. Don't know how I missed this topic on my previous two scans. Think I will just blame it on being cross-eyed from too many asteroid collisions.

[dhague@cfo]

Quick Postscript: Just ran a series of quick tests for Pender's Star with asteroid difficulty settings of 0.0/0.01/0.02/0.03/etc. I can get the asteroid motion that seems reasonable to me.

Noting that lots of people seem to be arguing about what is the "correct value", I surmise that the "asteroid routine" is a background task that does not self-adjust for the host-PC (CPU speed, memory size, etc). Thus a "reasonable setting" for one PC is not reasonable for another PC. Maybe the Privateer Setup program should have a slider-bar for asteroid difficulty. Just a thought!!

[Dilloh]

So if you're familiar in creating so-called masks why don't you do it? It could be a stand-alone program since there is no necessarity to implement it into the setup. PR_asteroid_tuner_by_dhague@cfo.exe?

[dhague@cfo]

Nice recruiting try Dilloh! But I am a retired computer "hardware" engineer. I did some Algol programming in the 60s, Fortran/Ratfor in the 70s, and assembly-level device drivers for my hardware designs. I became "programmer obsolete" at Ada, C++, and the Windows GUI. My software time in the 80s and 90s could best be described as being the translater between actual programmers and ignorant managers. While I can still figure out small hacks, I think that it would take me two years of study before I could do what you suggest. By that time I suspect that it will have become appropriate to drop of the net, trash your computers, and start wearing a tin-foil hat.

and Cheery Bye

[Dilloh]

Well I know the tunes, although I'm a little bit younger than you. There was a time I really considered studying into this direction, but I gladly kept my fingers away from it. With a laughing and a whining eye. On the one hand, you always have to keep your knowledge up to date - which eats up a lot of your free time. On the other hand, I would now have a much safer job, MUCH better payment, and I wouldn't have to work at xmas, newyear, etc.

But I'd better stop whining... Maybe someone else wants to do the program job. I'm thinking of a prog that makes modding easier, some sort of CSV editor which tells you what you're doing (e.g. unit editing: checkbox for afterburner capability), plus a foundation (as seen at bridgecommander.filefront.com) which allows you to implement a MOD without overwriting all CSVs. Advantage would be that you can easily melt several MODs without overwriting old ones.

Anybody else who would appreciate that?

[loki1950]

i also wrote my first code in the days of punch cards but there is such a tool beta dropped this morning http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forum ... php?t=7615 windoz and linux binaries available also GAlex's cvs_editor v2 http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forum ... php?t=7143 either should do the job.

Enjoy the Choice

[Dilloh]

I'm familiar with the first one. Checking out the 2nd one. Still a foundation would be nice.