Is there a good way to add custom pirate ships?

[Xavori]

And by good way, I mean actually works :P

After googling and reading various threads, I come in desperation to y'all. I really want to make the pirates harder, but don't want to give them access to all player ships. I figure a few 75 mass shielded fighters, some upgraded existing ships, and maybe a light frigate of 300-400 mass. Enough extra challenge that the current pirates on my server are something to actually be a threat to my players without just curb stomping them.

I tried going into the admin tab on the catalog and setting the ships' permissions I wanted to use to enemy. I then went and attacked a pirate station but got nothing but isanths. I did consider turning off isanths, but if I can't turn them back on...well...not having any pirates at all would be a BadThing™.

So is there some config file I can edit or a folder where I can stick blueprints or a menu button I missed that will actually get the custom ships working?

 

[Criss]

I am pretty sure doing it through the catalog is the only way. Turning off the isanths should not prevent you from turning them back on.

Turn of the isanths, turn it on for your own ships and see if they spawn. Your ships might not have had good odds in spawning because there are like 20 isanth variants already.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

First off I highly recommend a refit pack of the default Isanth, some of them cannot even use their weapons and none of them have shield rechargers. The pack should drop in and overwrite your default ships without issue.

http://starmadedock.net/content/isanth-type-zero-refit-pack.2093/

I've been trying to figure out how the game determines what to spawn but I have not gone much into adding new ships into their arsenal.

Pirates do have wave strengths based on I can only assume what the ships cost. Higher value ships spawn in higher waves. In fact the Isanth Mb doesn't spawn until like wave strength 6 or 7. I'm not sure how the game determines what wave strength to spawn when they are invading, randomly flying around, or defending a station.

 

[Xavori]

Thanks all for the replies.

Defintiely going to add the new Isants, Sven. Thanks. That alone should up them for a bit.

 

[Xavori]

Sven,

quick question on that Isanth pack...

If I switch to those, do they still drop loot, and more importantly, can I still reduce it in the config file?

 

[CyberTao]

Loot drops depend in very little,
>Is it part if faction ID -1 [A pirate]
>Is it active (AI is on and shooting at stuff)
If the answer is yes to both, it should drop loot (scale-able in the config) upon death, depending on it's size (bigger ships give bigger lootz) . You could also make a backup or a 2nd SP install in order to test/check things if you are not sure if need be.

 

[Groovrider]

It seems to be: Select 8 ships you want to spawn. 4 isanths and 4 of yours. You should start to see your ships attacking.