You can have a squadron's ability apply a buff that targets fighters, but you cannot have squads buff themselves (ApplyBuffToSelf). An example of the former:

buffInstantActionType "ApplyBuffToTargetsAtOrbitBody"
instantActionTriggerType "AlwaysPerform"
buffType "BuffHeroicFighter"
targetFilter
	numOwnerships 1
	ownership "Player"
	numObjects 1
	object "Fighter"

this will apply the "BuffHeroicFighter" to all fighters in the gravity well. I'm assuming that you could also use "ApplyBuffToTargetsInRadius" and perhaps a few others without causing the game to crash, but don't quote me on that.

If "ApplyBuffToTargetsInRadius" also works, then you run into the issue that when attacking, fighters are never within X radius of the squadron center, so it would be impossible to apply a buff to only that squadron's members using "ApplyBuffToTargetsInRadius".

Unfortunately, I don't know of anyway to manage an ability on a squad-by-squad basis (but would be curious to hear if you figure it out).

Hope that helps.

edited for clarity

Philothanic is correct, there is no way to ensure that one specific squad gets a buff (unless someone found a clever way to do this without telling anyone). At best you can limit it to one specific type of fighter if you can get a targeting constraint that works.

Well, in this case, the squads only consist of one ship, so if I set the range to something like 1, it should work pretty reliably...

Remember, the "squad" gets affected--not just specific ships in it.  If it's one striek craft within the squad, then that one is effected but if its three then all three get impacted.  No way to have a mixed squad--its always treated as a single entity regardless of the number of strike craft in it.

The squad can generate an area effect from itself or carry the buff from some other entity.  These are the only choices.

I think if you provide a squad ability/buff then that a squad can be buffed by other squads in range--a squad just can't directly buff itself.

It should be possible to make a synergistic squad ability--where each squad bumps up the buff of all others nearby.

I still don't think you guys are understanding...

I wasn't trying to make the squad buff the squad.  I was making the squad buff a single fighter within a radius of one (and since I set the squad's number of fighters to one) so it will buff just that fighter.  For whatever reason, that fighter was not then using the applyorremovebufftoself correctly.  It never applied the buff to itself.  That said, when I cut out that step and made the squad directly buff a fighter within a range of one, and gave it a duration of 10 seconds (rather than the toggle I wanted), it worked just fine.  ApplyBuffToTargetsInRadius works fine when used by squads.  I wanted to know why ApplyOrRemoveBuffToSelf wouldn't work.

And I am aware that the thing could potentially pick up the buff from another squad instead of itself, but that is unlikely unless you park multiple squads on top of each other (which is doubtful in combat).  Beyond that, I'm going to add a constraint to make sure it is the only squad capable of being buffed because the new fighters have phase missiles and pulse beams on them (so the energy weapons constraint will work).

So your radius effect was able to buff the fighter within the squad where the buff was originated?

Can you paste bin the ability/buff?

Because the squad only had one fighter, the fighter and the squad were always located in the same place. Thus he could use a very small range with ABTTIR and essentially it will only buff the given fighter unless another strikecraft flew right threw it, which I do see happen quite a lot actually, but with the constraint it shouldn't get to many extra targets.

I had been under the impression that a squad couldn't buff its own fighters under any circumstances--only apply buffs to others.  Good to know.

Would still like to see his ability-buff.  Sounds interesting.

FYI, I notice you can jiggle quite a few ability mixes for squads but they seem to generate errors (even in other mods)--usually the same three errors.  No minidumps but I have been trying to get my minimod error free.

The problem with fighters is that is not that they can't buff themselves, but its almost impossible to ensure that they only buff themselves and work 100% of the time. With a conventional squad using a ApplyBuffToTargetsInRadius, sometimes the buff will be given to other fighters that happened to fly close by and sometimes that squad will be so far apart you'll miss some of the fighters. With a solo fighter, you can ensure you always buff the intended target while using a small radius that makes it far less likely you'll get unintended targets, which is good but still not quite perfect.

Is it the same something about a spawner that spams up Developer logs? Yeah I don't know what the problem is, though I'd be interested to know too.

http://pastebin.com/uVvb6Lf2 there's the buff.  The ability is just a simple ABTTIR.

At this point, I've gotten all the SC abilities to function properly.

TEC: active direct damage AoE

Advent: Bestow shields to fellow SC and increase DPS (two separate abilities, both passive)

Vasari: active DPS increase and passive slowdown of enemy SC within range

I may end up doing something to TEC again, but I haven't decided yet.

Regardless, thanks for the help.

could anyone point me to a buff that has stacking so I can see how it works?

buffStackingLimitType "ForAllPlayers"
stackingLimit 1

That is all you need. -1 is limitless.

Um, did you actually test this in a combat situation? Lavo tried making an ability like that but it caused a crash whenever a fighter with shields took damage.

Oh, so *that's* what the -1 means. thanks.

Oh, so *that's* what the -1 means. Thanks.

No I hadn't...  Kind of assumed they'd work...  Just tried it and it crashed.  Is there a particular reason for the crash?

From what I can find, strike craft having shields seems to be an incompatible combination with the hard coding.

Pretty much it. While the graphic interface seems to be able to handle showing fighter having shields just fine, internally the game engine just can't handle it. It doesn't expect strikecraft to have shields, and thus just gives up when the damage calculations come around because it doesn't know how to handle it. Whether its the shields or the shield mitigation causing the problem its anyone's guess, but regardless shields on fighters are impossible. You'll just have to come up with something else, say a damage reduction buff, instead.

I was thinking about armor, but damage reduction works too...  I just got done reading a series of articles about collapsing wave functions and naked singulatities, so as I read 

I started thinking of the computer in a quantum sense...  It was a really weird feeling and made my head feel fuzzy for a few seconds...

Back on topic...   I'm assuming that the engine can't handle the shields..  The .entity files list mitigation as a quality (which is why I assumed shields could work in the first place), but no shield points value or shield regen rate.

EDIT: and just so you know it wasn't a confused fuzzy... It was a "why is the inside of my skull coated in velvet" fuzzy.

It sees a fighter with shields as essentially an error--it is not supposed to happen and seems to have been coded to be this way.

Alternatives are high hit points and/or fast hull regeneration.

Well, I want something that can reduce damage while its in the area, but the moment the other SC flies away from it, the buff is lost.  Hull doesn't really do that.  As for regen, maybe, but I'm trying armor out now.

Yeah, the game does not like shielded fighters. Maybe IC can change this for Rebellion, I really hope they do, even if it's just so modders can use it.

Just an idea, you might want to look at one of those damage distribution abilities the Advent has (iirc one of the support cruisers has it) and consider putting that onto the squadron; this would essentially make an individual fighter last longer.

I ended up settling on DamageAsDamageTarget.

I also ended up putting a flares ability on the TEC supremacy fighter.

where can I find the addons mentioned here?

And how do you disable XSI from mirroring everything you do to a polygon?  For instance, I try to distort one side of it and it immediately thinks I'm trying to mirror it on the other side.  This is fine sometimes, but idk how to get rid of it because it makes extruding impossible to do.  Other times, I wish I had it on...  How do you do that?  I'm assuming It's just a matter of me accidentally hitting some key, but I don't know what key that is...

This thread is my only hope.

:'(

What is the process of taking ships from X3 Terran conflict and coverting them to use in Sins.

what software would i need?

Is this process beyond the abilities of a novice?

I fear for the answer!

:')

Theo

Theo, this depends a lot on what file extension/type the X3 ships are in. Would you be able to get that and tell us? Or better yet, give us an example to work with.