kurush wrote:This is one awesome resource, thank you very much for putting it together.
And how thoughtful of you to say so, kurush!
Many people read Ship Tricks, but few bother to comment on it. I never know, for sure, whether the small number of questions means that I have explained things well, or whether it means that I have confused everyone with a wall of text.
Does it also mean that having main guns for example on an I that has a dedicated missile turret will kill its barrage command as well?
Yes.
To clarify my earlier statement, the only way the game knows that a missile turret is a missile turret is because it has no "
Compatible guns". And by "it" I mean the
definition of that cockpit type, including the "Compatible guns" tab in TShips, which overrides the "Compatible guns" tab in TCockpits.
M7M's typically use SS_COCKPIT_DEFAULT for their missile turrets. That is the same definition that is used for the "cockpit" viewport in most ships.
So, when you add "Compatible guns" in TShips, you effectively convert your missile turrets into gun turrets.
Interestingly, it appears that the "Compatible guns" tab in TShips also overrides *other* "empty" turret definitions -- not just the "cockpit" turret, and not just SS_COCKPIT_DEFAULT.
As a test, I changed one of the missile turrets on a Cobra to SS_COCKPIT_S_FRONT_M7, which also has no compatible guns defined in TCockpits. So the Cobra had one missile turret with SS_COCKPIT_DEFAULT and the other with SS_COCKPIT_S_FRONT_M7. Unfortunately, when I added a "Compatible gun" in TShips, that gun type became available to both missile turrets.
So it would appear that you cannot cheat your way around this effect. At least, not with any trick that I know.
I am contemplating adding a front missile turret with 1 or 2 barrels to some M7 to allow them barrage commands.
An alternative to adding a turret would be to remove the "Compatible guns" from your M7. That should have the effect of converting the main guns into missile tubes. Since you cannot have both Main Guns and Missile Tubes anyway, that is the much easier mod to do.
Any tutorials on adding turrets BTW? Can I just add it using X3 Editor or are there additional tricks?
I have specifically avoided adding turrets, because it is hard to do without a 3D modeling program. You must add the turret to the scene before you can use it in X3 Editor. I have not had the patience to do it because there are already models that have all available turrets in place.
However, if you really want to do it, the technique is the same as adding main guns. The difference is that you would copy a turret from an existing scene, paste it into your ship's scene, adjust the ordinals, then adjust the placement and rotation values. The rotation values are the next three numbers after the location values.
If you want to dive into the 3D modeling world, Killjaeden wrote a couple of guides that look tempting:
Creating Custom Turrets
Advice on placing turrets
An easier solution for your M7 might be to give it STANDARD docking ports so that you can dock an M8 on it.