[MOD] Explore and Salvage v1.0 (4.0 Update)

[ezra-r]

This is exactly what Rebirth needs, and in quantities, keep up the awesome work

[iforgotmysocks]

Important! If you want to update an existing save you have to perform following steps!
Replace the old mod with the new one, then open the config file (Extensions\ExploreAndSalvage\md\ES_Config.xml)
and set the value "global.$ES_InitUpdate" to exact="true" and save the file before closing.
Load your save now so the old mod content is going to be removed. Save your game!
Now remove the mod and load the savegame without Explore and Salvage installed. Save again!
Now just add the latest version again, make sure "global.$ES_InitUpdate" is set back to "false" and keep playing.


New in v0.003:
- Added Salvagedrones
- Fixed a (vanilla) bug regarding spawned capitalships in zones that contain jumpbeacons
- Adjusted some shipgraveyard spawn options


Salvage Drones:
Pics: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/i7141o7jh8sz ... 5tdAa?dl=0
(This kind of drone aren't the industrial drones for salvage ships,
which are gonna be able to salvage industry-type loot, they are just my warm-up to get into aiscripts )

Salvage Drones can be bought at your friendly neighbourhood Equipment Vendor. They are't entirely cheap, but they are worth it.
I created them as inventory items, so they wouldn't stop the player from taking combat drones.
They work completly on their own, and don't need any playerattention. (Except protection)
If the playership finds wrecks in range (default 20km), up to (default 20) drones are launched which start salvaging the wrecks in range.
If the player moves too far away (default >30km), they will take it as a recall and return, unload their cargo and dock.
A drone will also return to the player if its cargo is full (250 items), but will continue salvaging after dropping of the salvageloot.
If a player enters a highway, drones will "jump to the playership and dock automaticly".
Drones can also leave illegal wares behind, if activated in the config file. (This will prevent being killed by stations while afk salvaging ^^)


The config file is only a temporary solution until i figured out how to work with the new menu (Extensions\ExploreAndSalvage\md\ES_Config.xml)
Options which can be set in the config file:
- drone limit (default 20) - The amount of drones with can be active at once
- drone launch distance (default 20km) - The Range upon drones are launched to start salvaging
- call back range (default 30km) - The range upon drones return to the playership to dock
- only legal wares (default false) - If set to "true", drones will only collect legal wares


Known Bugs:
- Sometimes wrecks or entire wreckfields won't be recognized by drones. This only happens rarly and i'm working on it.


Planned:
- More realistic salvage animation
- Menu options including a autolaunch (on/off) option

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

Although iforgotmysunglasses, I still enjoyed reading that over a light grey forum background

Sounds great!

[iforgotmysocks]

Although iforgotmysunglasses, I still enjoyed reading that over a light grey forum background

Sounds great!

Awww, sorry. xD
Hope its a little better now. ^^

Sadly its a wall of text, combined with the rest of the thread, so i had to colour it to keep it overseeable. >.>

[iforgotmysocks]

Update 0.04 fixed a problem where salvagers weren't removed and messed up the weapon layout.

Its pretty much just:
1. Replace the old mod with the new version.
2. Set global.$ES_InitUpdate" to "true".
3. Load the savegame and save.
4. Remove the Mod.
5. Load the savegame and save again.
6. Install the new version again and set"global.$ES_InitUpdate" back to "false".

I'm sorry if you updated to 0.03 already.
If you had salvagers installed, your weaponlayout is gonna be messed up, sorry about that. If you didn't have salvagers, you are fine.
The new version removes them correctly.

[xXPhantomFenix]

Loving this mod. Adds more feel and immersion to this universe . I think you should consider the following:

Alot more distance of salvage sites from station. I found a lot salvage sites only several KMs away from station which looked werid. (Imo)

Drones seem to kill themselves ( sometimes ) due to collision probably due to speed.

Are large/medium size salvage sites more rarer than the smallest? I keep finding ones that I think are large and took a hr or so to AFK salvage.

Other than that, one of the best Alpha mods I have come across. Good job.

[escondido]

hello. "Lot A distance of more salvage items from station" I am of the same opinion ..
far enough away, perhaps to empty space so that it is not possible to visualize the sites of exploration .I think it would create more expectation for the player would find .Moreover not know if it would be possible to have varying difficulty, the more abundant materials sites were more enemies the player would have to face and if it were a capital ship without a pilot, be impossible not to save without having to take other capital ships with him.
(Google translator) ...

[iforgotmysocks]

@xXPhantomFenix

Sorry, somehow my quote function is bugged currently.

Hey there. ^^ Ya, sites are spawning all over the place currently, because i need some feedback about then being close to stations.
I'm still waiting for some "Ey socks, what did you do there? That field at the stations makes me ctd all day long" post. ^^
If all works well they'll spawn in a distance.

Do you rly loose those drones? Usually drones don't have collisiondamage.
If you enter a highway they disappear, ya, but they "disappear back into your inventory and also drop of their loot. ^^
They may also disappear and return to your inventory, if you are too far away, but they usually shouldnt have a problem to catch up.

And nope, there are more small wreckfields than medium sized or big ones, you probably just don't find them as easily. ^^ I'll add more small ones at future releases. Needs more testing.

Thanks for your feedback, i could use alot more. ^^ Keep me posted on your experiance.

[iforgotmysocks]

@escondido

Ya, thats pretty much how its structured already, i just have to work alot on npcs spawns and that kinda stuff... currently its just xenons, and they don't have much intelligent behaviour yet. ^^

[xXPhantomFenix]

@xXPhantomFenix

Sorry, somehow my quote function is bugged currently.

Hey there. ^^ Ya, sites are spawning all over the place currently, because i need some feedback about then being close to stations.
I'm still waiting for some "Ey socks, what did you do there? That field at the stations makes me ctd all day long" post. ^^
If all works well they'll spawn in a distance.

Do you rly loose those drones? Usually drones don't have collisiondamage.
If you enter a highway they disappear, ya, but they "disappear back into your inventory and also drop of their loot. ^^
They may also disappear and return to your inventory, if you are too far away, but they usually shouldnt have a problem to catch up.

And nope, there are more small wreckfields than medium sized or big ones, you probably just don't find them as easily. ^^ I'll add more small ones at future releases. Needs more testing.

Thanks for your feedback, i could use alot more. ^^ Keep me posted on your experiance.

No problem.

Usually I afk in the middle of the field all safe and they usually come back in half the work force that I sent out. ( From 20 ). But the $$ you get from salvaging benefit greatly so the lost is fine I suppose. Gotta need some risk and $$ sink . I'm not sure what exactly is making them get damaged slowly and implode though but I would leave it at that I guess unless the problem gets out of hand.

Watching the swarm of piranhas appearing and speeding to the site within range is funny at the very least.

[iforgotmysocks]

@xXPhantomFenix

Sorry, somehow my quote function is bugged currently.

Hey there. ^^ Ya, sites are spawning all over the place currently, because i need some feedback about then being close to stations.
I'm still waiting for some "Ey socks, what did you do there? That field at the stations makes me ctd all day long" post. ^^
If all works well they'll spawn in a distance.

Do you rly loose those drones? Usually drones don't have collisiondamage.
If you enter a highway they disappear, ya, but they "disappear back into your inventory and also drop of their loot. ^^
They may also disappear and return to your inventory, if you are too far away, but they usually shouldnt have a problem to catch up.

And nope, there are more small wreckfields than medium sized or big ones, you probably just don't find them as easily. ^^ I'll add more small ones at future releases. Needs more testing.

Thanks for your feedback, i could use alot more. ^^ Keep me posted on your experiance.

No problem.

Usually I afk in the middle of the field all safe and they usually come back in half the work force that I sent out. ( From 20 ). But the $$ you get from salvaging benefit greatly so the lost is fine I suppose. Gotta need some risk and $$ sink . I'm not sure what exactly is making them get damaged slowly and implode though but I would leave it at that I guess unless the problem gets out of hand.

Watching the swarm of piranhas appearing and speeding to the site within range is funny at the very least.

Hm, gotta look into that. Usually they shouldn't take damage if they are not attacked. ^^
And ya, prolly you make too much money currently, that also needs some balancing.

[escondido]

ok.today a give a try on this mod

1- I saw two sites recs near each other.1 with three xenon (n) and the other with three (n) and xenon k

2-the salvage drone run to fast...lookc like they run with plain fuel

3- the nenon dont atack my salvagers

4-the npcs dont show on the radar of the shunk

5-only at 6k of the k he shot at my ship. but if i move a bit far away the nps stil in the same place and the comand is none

this way is safe to salvage al the lot without danger, not a chalenger there

6- salvager drones with a PILOT, REALY

7-name-salvage drones mk2 mk2, twice mk2

8-to many salvage itens on this smal site.hum this way I will be quick millionaire

9- dont know if is this mod but my radar is broken.only show stations near of them.no space lanes or ships..also dont pup up any message for the existing rec site
sorry for the bad english

[iforgotmysocks]

ok.today a give a try on this mod

1- I saw two sites recs near each other.1 with three xenon (n) and the other with three (n) and xenon k

2-the salvage drone run to fast...lookc like they run with plain fuel

3- the nenon dont atack my salvagers

4-the npcs dont show on the radar of the shunk

5-only at 6k of the k he shot at my ship. but if i move a bit far away the nps stil in the same place and the comand is none

this way is safe to salvage al the lot without danger, not a chalenger there

6- salvager drones with a PILOT, REALY

7-name-salvage drones mk2 mk2, twice mk2

8-to many salvage itens on this smal site.hum this way I will be quick millionaire

9- dont know if is this mod but my radar is broken.only show stations near of them.no space lanes or ships..also dont pup up any message for the existing rec site
sorry for the bad english

Wow, thats a big one, thanks.

1. Jap, thats kinda random. ^^
2. They are supposed to be fast.
3. As i mentioned before, the npc ai currently behaves like "sleepers" and only attacks the playership if it comes in range, i didn't have time to write a proper ai for them yet.
4. They should, you seem to have radar problems. My mod doesnt touch the radar at all. ^^
5. -> 3.
6. Since they are not really launched by a ship, they need one, coding-wise it dousn't work another way just yet. I'm gonna look into it!
7. Yap, already on the list, thanks. ^^
8. Already on my to-do list too. ^^
9. Sorry, but that shouldn't be triggered by my mod. :< It rly doesn't do any changes to the radar at all.

Thanks for all that feedback. Helped me alot.

[iforgotmysocks]

New in v0.05:
- Added menuoption to en/disable drone autolaunch
- Added menuoption to en/disable drone ware selection (legal/illegal)
- Nerfed collectingspeed of drones
- Fixed the drone animation (they actually only pull out their arms if they are working now)
- Fixed a bug which caused errors in legal ware collections
- Fixed the drone's name
- Requires SideBarExtender now (if you don't want to use the SideBarExtender,
you can also set the drone launch and ware type options in the config file.

This mod uses SideBarExtender by Philipp Offensand, so please download his mod first.
Otherwise EaS's menuoption won't be available.
If you don't want to use it, set the last 2 options in the config file.

[escondido]

maby it conflits with one of my mods.

they are.

1-butterRangers
2-CopilotConvo
3.Capital ship Bridge
4-Player Shipyards
5-Safer trading
6-Titurel redesign
7-world War X
8-XR nebulas
9-XR Planets

thats all

[iforgotmysocks]

maby it conflits with one of my mods.

they are.

1-butterRangers
2-CopilotConvo
3.Capital ship Bridge
4-Player Shipyards
5-Safer trading
6-Titurel redesign
7-world War X
8-XR nebulas
9-XR Planets

thats all

Butter Ranges is actually the only mod which comes close to changing the gravidar, since its changing scan ranges and stuff like that.
I'm just suggesting, i can't say for sure.

[XexrelFenix]

Too much salvage drone drops. 640mils worth lol, needs a nerf hammer soon.

[iforgotmysocks]

Too much salvage drone drops. 640mils worth lol, needs a nerf hammer soon.

Ya, was planned for this weekend, i already created some realistic droplists, i just didn't have any time yet duo to other projects, but i'll get to it soon. ^^

[iforgotmysocks]

New in v0.06:
- Different enemies now, not just your daily xenon ;x
- Slightly improved enemy ai (i didnt have much time, this is just a quick solution until i can focus on that)
- Removed salvage items and created a loottable which contains items that actually make sense

Please let me know if the cash from salvagedrones is still too much. ^^

[XexrelFenix]

New in v0.06:
- Different enemies now, not just your daily xenon ;x
- Slightly improved enemy ai (i didnt have much time, this is just a quick solution until i can focus on that)
- Removed salvage items and created a loottable which contains items that actually make sense

Please let me know if the cash from salvagedrones is still too much. ^^

Testing time