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what happens to the AI when it trys to go from place to place? i dont think the AI is programmed to use boosters on long trips unless its a capital. Not all of the AI traffic is fake.

Jack08 wrote:what happens to the AI when it trys to go from place to place? i dont think the AI is programmed to use boosters on long trips unless its a capital.

nothing, this involves player ship only. I my be wrong but other ships don't use the lanes, the trader either jump from sector to sector or use a fast drive inside the zone, they don't use the lanes. If you ever stay on the freighter while travelling (give order to the captain) you see it.

Realspace wrote:

Jack08 wrote:what happens to the AI when it trys to go from place to place? i dont think the AI is programmed to use boosters on long trips unless its a capital.

nothing, this involves only player ship. I my be wrong but other ships don't use the lanes, the trader erither jump from sector to sector ore use a fast drive inside the zone, they don't use the lanes. If you ever stayed on the freighter you see it.

Acording to the game code, ai ships do use them - especially player controlled AI ships. Otherwise there would be no need for move.generic to even handle highways like it does.

as i said not all ships in the highways are fake, some are real, just watch from the outside of a highway - you see the real ships go through it they have HUD icons.

Its possible there may be a way to modify move.generic to teach AI subcapitals how to use boosters.

Jack08 wrote:

Realspace wrote:

Jack08 wrote:what happens to the AI when it trys to go from place to place? i dont think the AI is programmed to use boosters on long trips unless its a capital.

nothing, this involves only player ship. I my be wrong but other ships don't use the lanes, the trader erither jump from sector to sector ore use a fast drive inside the zone, they don't use the lanes. If you ever stayed on the freighter you see it.

Acording to the game code, ai ships do use them - especially player controlled AI ships. Otherwise there would be no need for move.generic to even handle highways like it does.

as i said not all ships in the highways are fake, some are real, just watch from the outside of a highway - you see the real ships go through it they have HUD icons.

not the trader nor the capitalship, that's for sure. The ships you see in the lane are just fake minigames.

mmm yes we need to investigate, are you sure the ships entering the lanes are real?

the big freighter you have during the plot e.g. is using a drive of its own, mybe all the big ships have it

I know what your saying, and yes, im aware of the fake ships inside the highway - however what im saying is that there are definitely real ships using it too - and because you have removed them, the code suggests that they will either just sit where they are because they cant path, or try to fly to there destination extremely slowly.

Not all ships in the game are capital, the player can capture fighters too btw, keep an eye out for side effects

Also! i just realized - the game uses them as spawn locations for mission ships.

I have definitely seen real ships use the highways. You can see them flying through it outside the highways. They have a real body and a border. I never bothered to stare long enough to find them going in/out of the highway. However I have jumped into one and fired enough to knock one out.

The big ships with jump drives can't use local highways anyway, they just go right through them as if they're not there. Not sure about super highways.

There is also pathfinding code that I found with flags for using the highway. So removing it entirely is not quite right unless you modify that portion of the code as well.

As a first step I would try to just remove all the fake traffic from the highways.

All M class ships use the highways instead of boosting from Zone to Zone. Watch the traffic coming from superhighways sometime. Ships pop out of them, slowly lumber over to the next highway, jump in there, then go elsewhere.

Gigurum freighters for example are M class. If you tell them to go somewhere, they take the highway.

You sometimes see ships leave highways of their own accord, or join in (and knock you around) while you're in there. Those are real, too.

Any ship you leftclick and target in the highway that actually carries cargo (it has nonzero occupied storage) is actually doing it's part for the economy, too.

I can vouch for real ships using the highways. I was doing an escort mission and sat right behind the freighter as it entered the highway. Moments later I was in the highway and lo and behold, sat behind it in the all the way to the exit.

On another occasion my my constructor ship was on its way to me (it was quite a few zones away). I did some flying around and entered some highway and there it was in the highway, in the distance. I exited the prematurely and bam .... so did the constructor.

To confirm, I've seen my own little trade ship (given in the plot) use highways, I've even followed it myself through a highway. Not sure how such a ship would handle this mod. Good idea though!

Scoob.

Scoob wrote:To confirm, I've seen my own little trade ship (given in the plot) use highways, I've even followed it myself through a highway. Not sure how such a ship would handle this mod. Good idea though!

Scoob.

This is quite bizarre, in my game during plot the given freighter NEVER used the lanes once, I also stayed on board to see how it goes, it JUMPS for sector to sector and USES BOOSTER for zone to zone


Thanks for the inputs guys! Ok so this is premature, just tag this mod as xperiment. A solution would be to make all ships use the booster used by big ships. I found the xml during my experiments, must try. I think it is possible, if freighters do it also M class ships can do...just I'm tired of messing with the xml as long as we don't have a clue how the hierarchy of the game is.

Please if you are interested in this feature help me investigating how to make ALL ships use booster instead, install the mod and make some test.
I'm just a player as you are, just would like to play this game at its better potentiality and zone lanes are quite nonsense and ugly. Thanks!

Consider using this.

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enenra wrote:Consider using this.

[ external image ]

yup..thanks, using now!

Realspace wrote:

Scoob wrote:To confirm, I've seen my own little trade ship (given in the plot) use highways, I've even followed it myself through a highway. Not sure how such a ship would handle this mod. Good idea though!

Scoob.

This is quite bizarre, in my game during plot the given freighter NEVER used the lanes once, I also stayed on board to see how it goes, it JUMPS for sector to sector and USES BOOSTER for zone to zone


Thanks for the inputs guys! Ok so this is premature, just tag this mod as xperiment. A solution would be to make all ships use the booster used by big ships. I found the xml during my experiments, must try. I think it is possible, if freighters do it also M class ships can do...just I'm tired of messing with the xml as long as we don't have a clue how the hierarchy of the game is.

Please if you are interested in this feature help me investigating how to make ALL ships use booster instead, install the mod and make some test.
I'm just a player as you are, just would like to play this game at its better potentiality and zone lanes are quite nonsense and ugly. Thanks!

The BIG freighter you nearly start with jumps and boosts; the smaller freighter you get in DeVries doesn't have a jump drive and uses the highways.

MutantDwarf wrote:

Realspace wrote:

Scoob wrote:To confirm, I've seen my own little trade ship (given in the plot) use highways, I've even followed it myself through a highway. Not sure how such a ship would handle this mod. Good idea though!

Scoob.

This is quite bizarre, in my game during plot the given freighter NEVER used the lanes once, I also stayed on board to see how it goes, it JUMPS for sector to sector and USES BOOSTER for zone to zone


Thanks for the inputs guys! Ok so this is premature, just tag this mod as xperiment. A solution would be to make all ships use the booster used by big ships. I found the xml during my experiments, must try. I think it is possible, if freighters do it also M class ships can do...just I'm tired of messing with the xml as long as we don't have a clue how the hierarchy of the game is.

Please if you are interested in this feature help me investigating how to make ALL ships use booster instead, install the mod and make some test.
I'm just a player as you are, just would like to play this game at its better potentiality and zone lanes are quite nonsense and ugly. Thanks!

The BIG freighter you nearly start with jumps and boosts; the smaller freighter you get in DeVries doesn't have a jump drive and uses the highways.

oooook that explains, I still did not get there, wasting my time to mod instead of playing!! it is just that...highways are so boring, game is targeting from a lane to another, you can't even target the destination, have to use the highway to find the destination and can not even uderstand where you are, claustrophobic at least, I'm ok with them for long distances but inside the sector is terrible

Good news!..I think. I checked the engine booster of other ships, apparently only player's ship has the limitations (that I've removed with the mod) so there is no reasons why ANY ship in the game can't use the booster to travel longer distances. They do not drain the shield nor stop. AT LEAST ALL THOSE SHIPS THAT HAVE A BOOSTER

Now AI, we should check what happens when the highways are no more there. If M class ships don't look for the lane but simply boost to the target, then we are there.

Please somebody already deep in the game and having some M ship under control can check this? Thanks

As an idea, if you can't get this to work, can you just massively increase the speed of the player ship in the highways? It'd be more interesting to be overtaking ships rather than having to try and slipstream. Also, if you could cut the phantom traffic in half that would be great.

Another Idea: Dont remove the Highways, give yourself only inside the highway unlimited boost and double the speed you would get so you arent completly bound to those other ships to get FAST through the highway.

Realspace wrote:Good news!..I think. I checked the engine booster of other ships, apparently only player's ship has the limitations (that I've removed with the mod) so there is no reasons why ANY ship in the game can't use the booster to travel longer distances. They do not drain the shield nor stop. AT LEAST ALL THOSE SHIPS THAT HAVE A BOOSTER

Now AI, we should check what happens when the highways are no more there. If M class ships don't look for the lane but simply boost to the target, then we are there.

Please somebody already deep in the game and having some M ship under control can check this? Thanks

I am guessing the AI MD can be changed to make ships use boosters instead of highways if that's not the case. May be worth a look ?

edit: I have found what I think is the AI script to disable the use of highways. I can make the patch and upload it if you want realspace ?

Edit2: Just had a quick test and it seems to work lots of slow traders moving around space

killerog wrote:

Realspace wrote:Good news!..I think. I checked the engine booster of other ships, apparently only player's ship has the limitations (that I've removed with the mod) so there is no reasons why ANY ship in the game can't use the booster to travel longer distances. They do not drain the shield nor stop. AT LEAST ALL THOSE SHIPS THAT HAVE A BOOSTER

Now AI, we should check what happens when the highways are no more there. If M class ships don't look for the lane but simply boost to the target, then we are there.

Please somebody already deep in the game and having some M ship under control can check this? Thanks

I am guessing the AI MD can be changed to make ships use boosters instead of highways if that's not the case. May be worth a look ?

edit: I have found what I think is the AI script to disable the use of highways. I can make the patch and upload it if you want realspace ?

Edit2: Just had a quick test and it seems to work lots of slow traders moving around space

WOW ! just hearing that brings me joy. then it will feel like space