Spawn ships utility

[Xansta]

Spawn ships utility features

• Spawn groups of ships including the ones in the CPU ship diversification utility from the GM screen
  • Set fleet faction
  • Set fleet strength/type
  • Relative to the player ship(s) strength
  • Fixed value
  • Formation flying fleet
• Spawn individual ship from the CPU ship diversification utility
• Spawn fighters from a selected CPU ship (instant carrier)
  • Specify number of fighters to spawn
  • Specify type of fighter to spawn

The relative strength fleets create a fleet whose strength is measured relative to the player ships present. The default ratio is 1:1, but that can be configured: 1/4:1, 1/2:1, 1:1, 2:1, 3:1, 4:1, 5:1, 6:1, 7:1, 8:1. If a fleet that is eight times as strong as the players is insufficient, you can switch to a fixed strength fleet and set fixed values from between 50 and 2000 in increments of 50. The default fixed fleet strength is 250.

Configuration options for relative strength and fixed strength fleets

• Select category of ships to spawn:
  • Random (default)
  • Fighters
  • Frigates
  • Adders
  • Drones
  • Chasers (those with a jump or warp drive)
  • Beamers (those with only beam weapons)
  • Missilers (those with only missile weapons
  • Non-DB (those that are in the CPU diversification utility or otherwise not in the stock library)
• Exclude ships with certain characteristics (default is no exclusions)
  • Warp
  • Jump
  • Nuke
• Weighted selectivity
  • full (default) - all possible ships could be selected at random
  • less/heavy - fewer ships at the high end of the strengths of the possible ships could be selected
  • specify size of selection pool - default: 5 ship types
  • more/light - more ships at the low end of the strengths of the possible ships could be selected
  • specify size of selection pool - default: 5 ship types
• Randomly modified ship capabilities (hull, shields, number of missiles, impulse speed, maneuverability, beams)
  • Unmodified (default)
  • Improved - random ship capabilities improved by between 10% and 25%
  • Degraded - random ship capabilities degraded by between 10% and 25%
  • Tinkered - random ship capabilities improved or degraded by between 10% and 25%
  • Set chance of modification of each system to between 10% and 100% (default: 20%)
• Fleet orders when spawned
  • Stand Ground (default)
  • Roaming
  • Idle
• Spawned fleet placement
  • At Click (default) - spawns fleet where the GM clicks on the screen
  • Ambush - spawns fleet around the selected object (often a player ship). You may configure the ambush placement distance

Configuration options for formation fleets

• Shape - where the followers fly in relation to the leader
  • V - the leader is at the point and the followers are in front of the leader
  • A - the leader is at the point and the followers are behind the leader
  • Line - the leader is in the middle and the followers form a line on the leader
  • hyphen - the followers are on the left and right of the leader
  • vertical bar - the followers are in front of and behind the leader
  • slash - the followers form an angled line with the leader in the middle
  • M - the leader is at the point and the followers form angled lines preceding the leader on each side
  • W - the leader is at the point and the followers form angled lines following the leader on each side
  • X - the leader is in the center and the followers form four lines radiating out from the leader
  • H - the leader is in the middle and the followers form vertical lines on each side
  • asterisk - the leader is in the middle and the followers form six lines radiating out from the leader
  • O - the leader is in the middle and the followers surround the leader in rings
• Composition
  • Leader (various ships without warp or jump since formation flying does not handle warp or jump well)
  • Follower - generally the followers should have a faster impulse speed than the leader to maintain formation
• Spacing - how far apart the ships space themselves when flying in formation

When spawning the formation, first specify the center of the formation with a click, then specify the target of the formation fleet.

How to use this utility is documented in the comments of the utility, but is also included here. First, you need to require the utility:

require("spawn_ships_scenario_utility.lua")

Then, you need a function named mainGMButtons called from init:

function init()
    mainGMButtons()
end
function mainGMButtons()
    clearGMFunctions()
    -- other GM functions can go here
    addGMFunction("+Spawn Ship(s)",spawnGMShips)
    -- other GM functions can go here
end