How to make Shivan ships playable?

[A Flying Brick]

Is there a way to make Shivan Ships playable for all the missions? I also want to make their armament avalible to other ships too.

[TParis]

Not sure about modding the existing missions but how about a full campaign playing as the Shivans? https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=94689.0#new

[Apple3.14159]

You have to add the "player_ship" flag in ships.tbl to make it flyable. To allow other ships and the player to mount Shivan weapons, you have to add "Player allowed" to the weapon's flags in weapons.tbl and add the name of the weapon to $Allowed PBanks (for guns) or $Allowed SBanks (for missiles) in ships.tbl.
These .tbl files can be found in the VP files in the folder where FS2 is installed and can be viewed using something like VPView. They should not be modified at all. The modified tables go in the data/tables subdirectory of the FS2 root folder.
The Hard-Light wiki has a good rundown on tabling.
http://wiki.hard-light.net/index.php/Tables
If you want to play as a Shivan, Trimurti is a good recent campaign.
https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=94689.0#new

[A Flying Brick]

Thanks for responding.

I did everything in the list but I still can't find any Shivan Ships in my fighter loadout. Do I have to Edit the missions. And if so how do I do that?

[Apple3.14159]

Extract the missions from the VP files and open the desired ones in FRED, the mission editor. Then go to the Editors menu and open Team Loadout. Check the ships and weapons you want to be available. Save the modified mission(s) in data/missions.

[A Flying Brick]

I added two Manticore fighters, and it's armaments to the Team Loadout, but It still doesn't show. Do you think it may be my computer?

[Apple3.14159]

Try scrolling through all the available ships in the loadout.
If that doesn't work, you could try changing the ship class in FRED.
To do the second, bring up the Ships editor and cycle through the ships until you find the one you want to change. The player ship is pretty much always first in the list and part of Alpha wing. You can give the player and other fighter wings a Manticore through the "Ship Class" dropdown. You can edit the weapons that the ship mounts in the Ships editor as well.
Here's a basic rundown of the Ships editor:
http://fredzone.hard-light.net/freddocs/editors.html#ships

[A Flying Brick]

I figured out how to use FRED, and changed my fighter to the Mara. The problem is when I click on the ship loadout, my game crashes. Is there a fix for that?

[A Flying Brick]

Good news! If I just hit the start button, it works, and I am able to use the shivan fighter.
The problem is I can't use Shivan weaponry.

[Apple3.14159]

Huh. Sorry, but I have no idea what the problem is. Try asking on the Hard-Light forums or Discord server.

[A Flying Brick]

Okay. Thank you so much for your help. I wouldn't have gotten this far without you.