[7:09 PM] Durandal †: For the loot drops, here's how I would want to do that.
[7:10 PM] Durandal †: This is actually trickier than it sounds because it involves vanilla ini files as well.
[7:10 PM] Durandal †: We'd likely need to add new lines to them.
[7:10 PM] Durandal †: Now - I'm an art guy. I do models, textures, and I also do story and balance stuff.
[7:10 PM] Durandal †: I don't know my way around NPC or system files too well.
[7:10 PM] Durandal †: Could you tell me which ini file NPC loot drops are specified in?
[7:11 PM] Raikkonen: C:\Users\Oliver.Pechey\Documents\Freelancer\Freelancer - Vanilla Multibox\DATA\MISSIONS\lootprops.ini
[7:12 PM] Raikkonen: I can imagine you'd need to pretty much wipe that file and convert the majority of looting to FLHook if you wanted to go below 1%
[7:13 PM] Raikkonen: Have a .cfg file that looks similar to that but with 0.1% instead of 1% for e.g.
[7:13 PM] Durandal †: Hold up.
[7:14 PM] Durandal †: Okay this isn't what I'm looking for.
[7:14 PM] Durandal †: I'm looking for the NPC file which specifies what loot the ship has.
[7:14 PM] Raikkonen: ohhhhhhh 1 sec
[7:15 PM] Raikkonen: C:\Users\Oliver.Pechey\Documents\Freelancer\Freelancer - Vanilla Multibox\DATA\SHIPS\loadouts.ini has the majority
[7:15 PM] Raikkonen: then you have 2 more for special and utility ships
[7:16 PM] Durandal †: Okay.
[7:16 PM] Durandal †: So I'm going to give you an example for how I'd like to see this done.
[7:17 PM] Durandal †: nickname = br_n_lf_easy_l1_d1_d4
archetype = dsy_br_fighter2
equip = ge_bf_engine_01
equip = infinite_power
equip = LargeWhiteSpecial, HpHeadlight
equip = SlowSmallBlue, HpRunningLight01
equip = SlowSmallBlue, HpRunningLight02
equip = SlowSmallBlue, HpRunningLight03
equip = contrail01, HpContrail01
equip = contrail01, HpContrail02
equip = DockingLightRedSmall, HpDockLight01
equip = DockingLightRedSmall, HpDockLight02
equip = ge_s_scanner_02
equip = ge_s_tractor_01
equip = ge_s_thruster_01_npc, HpThruster01
equip = ge_s_cm_01_npc, HpCM01
equip = mine01_mark01_npc, HpMine01
;equip = armor_scale_0
cargo = commodity_bn, 1
; Vary per level
equip = npc_shield03_mark05, HpShield01
cargo = ge_s_battery_01, 1
cargo = ge_s_repair_01, 1
equip = br_gun01_mark01_npc, HpWeapon01
equip = br_gun01_mark01_npc, HpWeapon02
lootbox = [LOOTBOX NAME], [PERCENT CHANCE TO DROP]
[7:18 PM] Durandal †: So that's where we specify which lootboxes a ship can drop and their chance to drop them.
[7:18 PM] Durandal †: THen in the lootbox cfg we define the lootboxes and their possible contents.
[7:19 PM] Raikkonen: ah okay, i see what you mean. I suppose it depends on whether you can detect which loadout an NPC has assigned after they have been created
[7:19 PM] Durandal †: Awkward....
[7:20 PM] Durandal †: I hadn't considered that.
[7:20 PM] Durandal †: I figured we'd be intercepting it on kill.
[7:20 PM] Raikkonen: so a hook fires when you kill an NPC, can you then pull the loadout name and therefore the lootbox name?
[7:20 PM] Raikkonen: we'd need to figure out if that is possible
[7:20 PM] Raikkonen: can certainly take a look
[7:20 PM] Durandal †: I'm 95% sure that's possible.
[7:21 PM] Durandal †: If absolutely necessary we can hack it a bit.
[7:21 PM] Durandal †: Use custom shiparch entries.
[7:21 PM] Durandal †: So if we need the hook to detect, say, a specific ship type killed instead of an NPC loadout,
[7:21 PM] Durandal †: We can do that.
[7:21 PM] Raikkonen: so there's a iLoadout ID in the shipinfo struct so should be possible, assuming that it stores an ID in there for FL generated NPCs (as opposed to plugin generated NPCs)
[7:22 PM] Raikkonen: ahhh ok
[7:22 PM] Durandal †: Like this is my preferred way of doing it, but if we need to create custom shiparchs we can and will.
[7:23 PM] Durandal †: There's all kinds of ways we could hack this actually.
[7:23 PM] Durandal †: I'm just going for the cleanest one.
[7:23 PM] Raikkonen: just to get an idea of what you are going for, say we could implement that exactly as you say, what would you plan to do with regular drops?
[7:24 PM] Raikkonen: set all the drop changes to 0% or keep some / all?
[7:24 PM] Durandal †: Leave them in. This would only be for new, special, rare items.
[7:24 PM] Raikkonen: is this intended as a replacement or additional loot
[7:24 PM] Raikkonen: ahhh ok
[7:24 PM] Durandal †: Yeah. We're not reworking everything.
[7:24 PM] Raikkonen: makes sense
[7:25 PM] Raikkonen: i suppose the other question is, say you did specify custom paramters in loadouts.ini that the regular game can't read e.g. lootbox = bla bla bla
[7:25 PM] Raikkonen: will the game crash? or will it ignore it
[7:25 PM] Durandal †: Oh lmao
[7:26 PM] Durandal †: Dude you can put as much bullshit text as you want in there.
[7:26 PM] Durandal †: I could shove a novel in there.
[7:26 PM] Durandal †: The one that really blows my mind is fx files.
[7:26 PM] Raikkonen: haha brilliant
[7:26 PM] Durandal †: You can shove an entire novel into an alchemy file and it'll still work fine.
[7:26 PM] Durandal †: O_o
[7:26 PM] Durandal †: o_O
[7:27 PM] Durandal †: And if it does cause wonky shit to happen, we can always use a commented line.
[7:27 PM] Durandal †: Which is... odd.
[7:27 PM] Durandal †: Commenting things out specifically so that hook detects them and the game does not.
[7:27 PM] Durandal †: But it would work.
[7:28 PM] Durandal †: I've been told I'm a brilliant engineer but the problem is that actual programming is anathema to me.
[7:28 PM] Raikkonen: thats true, if worse comes to worse we can just parse the .ini file and not rely of the shipinfo struct
[7:28 PM] Durandal †: I can tell you exactly how I want a system to work and every way you can manipulate it.
[7:28 PM] Durandal †: But understanding the languages to do it?
[7:28 PM] Durandal †: I have... tried.
[7:29 PM] Raikkonen: c++ is particularly mind blowing, not my favourite language by a long shot...
[7:29 PM] Raikkonen: sounds good tho, once I've put to bed my pull request for the NPC plugin I'll see if I can come up with a proof of concept for lootboxes
[7:29 PM] Raikkonen: I'd like the feature on my server too
[7:30 PM] Durandal †: Excellent.
[7:30 PM] Durandal †: Thank you so much.