CreatingFleets

Introduction

The syntax for the definition of a fleet is:

fleet <name>
	government <name>
	names <phrase>
	fighters
		names <phrase>
		personality <type>...
			<type>...
			confusion <amount#>
	cargo <cargo#>
	commodities <commodity>...
	outfitters <outfitter>...
	"cargo settings"
		cargo <cargo#>
		commodities <commodity>...
		outfitters <outfitter>...
	personality <type>...
		<type>...
		confusion <amount#>
	variant [<weight#>]
		<model> [<count#>]
		...

Basic fleet characteristics

fleet <name>

The fleet name must be unique. Using this fleet name, this fleet can be spawned by systems or missions.

government <name>

The name of the government that this fleet is a part of. All ships spawned by this fleet will be a part of this government.

names <phrase>

Prior to v. 0.10.3:

fighters <phrase>

The names of the ships in this fleet, constructed from the given phrase. If only names is listed, then all ships in the fleet will pull their name from that phrase. If fighters is also listed (prior to v. 0.10.3), then the fighters and drones in the fleet will pull their names from that phrase, while all other ships will still use the names phrase.

From v. 0.10.3 onwards, fighters <phrase> is deprecated. The name phrase to be used for fighters and drones should instead be provided as follows:

fighters
	names <phrase>
	personality <type>...
		<type>...
		confusion <amount#>

Beginning in v. 0.10.3, it is also possible to specify a personality definition for fighters and drones separately to that used for other ships. If a fighter personality definition is not present, the same personality as is used for other ships will be assigned to the fighters and drones.

It is acceptable for the fighter personality to simply be empty:

fighters
	personality

This specifies that no special personalities should be given to the fighters and drones, even if there are special personalities for the other ships in the fleet.

Cargo

cargo <cargo#>
commodities <commodity>...

The number of types of commodities that this fleet will carry as cargo and a list of the types of those commodities. If no cargo number is given, then the default number of commodity types carried is 3. If no particular commodities are listed and no outfitter lists are specified, then the commodities can be of any type. The amount of each commodity will be a random number from 0 to the cargo capacity of the ship.

(Specifying outfitters but not commodities will prevent fleet ships from carrying commodities. Specifying either both or neither results in a higher chance of carrying commodities.)

outfitters <outfitter>...

Ships can also carry outfits as cargo, specified by the outfitters listed here. If no particular outfitters are listed and no commodities are specified, then ships may carry outfits from the outfitters of the system they spawn in and the outfitters of all systems linked directly to the spawn system.

(Specifying commodities but not outfitters will prevent fleet ships from carrying outfits. Specifying either both or neither results in a higher chance of carrying commodities.)

"cargo settings"
	cargo <cargo#>
	commodities <commodity>...
	outfitters <outfitter>...

Beginning in v. 0.10.1, the above three keys, cargo, commodities, and outfitters, can also be defined under a "cargo settings" node.

personality <type>...
	<type>...
	<type>
	...
	confusion <amount#>

The personalities that specify how this fleet acts. Personality types can be listed on the same line as the personality node in a list separated by spaces, as a list that is a child of personality, and/or one type on each line as a child of personality, but confusion must be listed as a child of personality alone on its own line. The default confusion if not listed is 10.

Variants

variant [<weight#>]
	<model> [<count#>]
	...

Variants define what model and number of ships are spawned by this fleet. A number of variants can be listed under a single fleet. When the fleet is spawned, one of these variants will be chosen at random according to their weights. The chance for any single variant to be spawned is variant weight / sum of all variant weights. For example, if a variant has a weight of 4 and the sum of all variant weights in the fleet is 20, then that variant has a 4/20 chance of being spawned.

If no weight is given for the variant (or no count for a ship model), then the weight (or count) is 1.