Can the flagship ship ID be a shiplist?

[Sleeper Service]

Hi modding folk, long time no see. There was this comment in the russian mega mod thread that got me thinking:

and apparently a way to randomize the final boss without the use of Java programs. (Ran-Flagship)

It could be that this was accomplished by changing the .exe, apparently the mod does that but I have no way to check since I didn't find I download link for the mod right now...

But I was wondering if this could also be done by using the Flagship ship ID's as names for ship lists instead. If that works, these lists could contain dozens to hundreds of variants for the flagship, which could be drawn randomly ingame without the need for external tools. As was discovered recently, this works to some extend for player ships as well, so there is some indication that this could work for the flagship. Food for thought, I'm not going to test this myself, but maybe someone is interested in picking up the idea. I'm also not sure if this hasn't been tested before after all, but if so I don't remember.

I'll quickly recap what might play into this:
- We know that the flagship can't use equipment lists in it's blueprint (right?). Its unclear if equipment lists would work for flagships in flagship lists.
- The flagship doesn't have an exposed ship event, but It night have a hard-coded ship event that it uses to call it's ship IDs.
- In vanilla ship events, we can observe they can call both ship lists (which almost all of the ship events do) and individual ship ID's (which is only done a few times). If the flagship has a hidden ship event then that is strong indication that it can also use lists.

[meklozz]

Huh, I thought I saw you write that you considered alternative ways of doing the random flagship before?
I figured the reason you didn't is because there would be no way to keep the consistency throughout multiple phases, that it would just pick a new one each time.

Also, I'm seeing the same randomizer program on that russian forum, just adjusted for that mod's weapons from the looks of it.

[Sleeper Service]

Huh, I thought I saw you write that you considered alternative ways of doing the random flagship before?
I figured the reason you didn't is because there would be no way to keep the consistency throughout multiple phases, that it would just pick a new one each time.

Also, I'm seeing the same randomizer program on that russian forum, just adjusted for that mod's weapons from the looks of it.

Yeah, we haven't tried the list thing though. But you are right, it wouldn’t remain consistent throughout the phases when using lists.

[bamalf]

In Arsenal + flagship uses drones blueprient lists in second phase

Code: Select all

<droneList count="4" drones="8">
	<drone name="BOSS_DRONES_1_SLOT_NORMAL"/>
	<drone name="BOSS_DRONES_2_SLOT_NORMAL"/>
	<drone name="BOSS_DRONES_3_SLOT_NORMAL"/>
	<drone name="BOSS_DRONES_4_SLOT_NORMAL"/>
</droneList>

Code: Select all

<blueprintList name="BOSS_DRONES_1_SLOT_NORMAL">
	<name>BOSS_DEFENSE_NORMAL</name>
	<name>BOSS_ANTI_NORMAL</name>
	<name>BOSS_SHIELD_NORMAL</name>
	<name>BOSS_COMBAT_NORMAL</name>
	<name>BOSS_BOARDER_NORMAL</name>
	<name>BOSS_LOCKER_NORMAL</name>
</blueprintList>
<blueprintList name="BOSS_DRONES_2_SLOT_NORMAL">
	<name>BOSS_COMBAT_NORMAL</name>
	<name>BOSS_BEAM_NORMAL</name>
	<name>BOSS_PLASMA_NORMAL</name>
	<name>BOSS_DEFENSE_NORMAL</name>
	<name>BOARDER_ION</name>
	<name>BOSS_STUN_NORMAL</name>
</blueprintList>
<blueprintList name="BOSS_DRONES_3_SLOT_NORMAL">
	<name>BOSS_BOARDER_NORMAL</name>
	<name>BOARDER_ION</name>
	<name>BOSS_ION_NORMAL</name>
	<name>BOSS_ANTI_NORMAL</name>
	<name>BOSS_BEAM_NORMAL</name>
	<name>BOSS_INFERNO_NORMAL</name>
</blueprintList>
<blueprintList name="BOSS_DRONES_4_SLOT_NORMAL">
	<name>BOSS_LOCKER_NORMAL</name>
	<name>BOSS_STUN_NORMAL</name>
	<name>BOSS_INFERNO_NORMAL</name>
	<name>BOSS_SHIELD_NORMAL</name>
	<name>BOSS_PLASMA_NORMAL</name>
	<name>BOSS_ION_NORMAL</name>
</blueprintList>