Hey Rubini,
was talking with Phezzan here, and I just got an idea. Wouldn't it be cool if stations had finite funds (possibly defined in their managers' accounts), and that fleets were spawned relative to stations, and dependent on what funds a station has sort of a la Mount and Blade?
I seem to remember BlackRain mentioning that he was planning something like this for inclusion with WWX, but I'm not sure how resources are taken into account.
Would fit in well with your tying ship spawns with loss of resources from shipyards thus creating a more direct, albeit abstract, connection between ships spawned in the universe and resources produced by the economy.
[MOD] X:R Conquer mod v0.19s Updated 29/09/2015
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Hi w.evans,w.evans wrote:Hey Rubini,
was talking with Phezzan here, and I just got an idea. Wouldn't it be cool if stations had finite funds (possibly defined in their managers' accounts), and that fleets were spawned relative to stations, and dependent on what funds a station has sort of a la Mount and Blade?
I seem to remember BlackRain mentioning that he was planning something like this for inclusion with WWX, but I'm not sure how resources are taken into account.
Would fit in well with your tying ship spawns with loss of resources from shipyards thus creating a more direct, albeit abstract, connection between ships spawned in the universe and resources produced by the economy.
I guess that we can think in a lot of ways to direct X:R gameplay. It´s an open (until certain depth) code and this way it have "infinite" possibilities. My intention is to stay more near possible to the Devs idea. Using the shipyard resources is the better way, IMO, to maintain the economy as they are the ones that use all (or the majority) of end products. So, all the production chain will be moved with shipyards consume. The problem is that as it is now, the ship production is very slow or, for real ... all we know that it is just fake. The majority of NPC ships on vanilla are just spawns that don´t consumes anything in the production chain. And this is why in late game ppl have not more do to, they are full of wares and nobody to buy these wares.
My solution isn´t new and isn´t the best possible. But works, because the mod is about combat, then fleets will be made (in a pace and relatively slow time as the game needs it) and the end products will be consumed. It works with the premise that at least three Shipyards will stay on the war: player´s faction because you will defend it, Ledda and JSS because they are neutral on Conquer_mod, so if the war destroy all enemies shipyards and you survive, the economy will continues ahead again because the enemy factions will then "buy" their ships from the neutral shipyards automatically until they (enemy factions) die (if they have not more any station).
Sorry by my english and the bit off topic of your suggestion, but this is how I see the game now. Shipyard end wares consume based economy motor, not based on stations.
Last edited by Rubini on Thu, 23. Apr 15, 20:15, edited 1 time in total.
Hey Rubini,
I think I might have failed to communicate the idea. Sorry, busy with something ongoing and my head's in the clouds all the time nowadays.
I agree with using up resources from shipyards. I even think it would be better to have ships actually built by shipyards, but understand that your solution is a good compromise since limiting spawns to only ships built by shipyards would probably make building time too long.
The idea was to give the factions a limited amount of funds, distributed through station officers' accounts (got the idea from Yorrick, by the way), and have ship spawns be limited by the money those stations have. So PMC, for example, would have actual accounts which would be replenished by their trading, and they would actually have to pay money to build ships.
To be more specific, if I were to hit the notorious PMC gas station in Wrecksville, the PMC manager (or defence officer, or someone else) working in that station would have to actually pay a shipyard to build a ship.
It's only an idea, of course. Just too busy to take it up right now, and thought that it would be a good fit in your mod since you're working on how ships are spawned. Of course, feel free to discard the idea if it doesn't interest you.
I think I might have failed to communicate the idea. Sorry, busy with something ongoing and my head's in the clouds all the time nowadays.
I agree with using up resources from shipyards. I even think it would be better to have ships actually built by shipyards, but understand that your solution is a good compromise since limiting spawns to only ships built by shipyards would probably make building time too long.
The idea was to give the factions a limited amount of funds, distributed through station officers' accounts (got the idea from Yorrick, by the way), and have ship spawns be limited by the money those stations have. So PMC, for example, would have actual accounts which would be replenished by their trading, and they would actually have to pay money to build ships.
To be more specific, if I were to hit the notorious PMC gas station in Wrecksville, the PMC manager (or defence officer, or someone else) working in that station would have to actually pay a shipyard to build a ship.
- Money is transferred from the station officer's account and transferred to someone working at a shipyard;
- then, poof, resources are removed from the shipyard;
- and, poof, a ship is spawned assigned to that station.
It's only an idea, of course. Just too busy to take it up right now, and thought that it would be a good fit in your mod since you're working on how ships are spawned. Of course, feel free to discard the idea if it doesn't interest you.
@w.evans,
I understood your idea. Is obviously possible to make what you suggested, but this need a new hard work&much free time as any complex mod demands. And i even don´t know yet if Conquer_mod will work as intend in long term game.
Just to clarify, what i made on Conquer_mod is not the "ideal and complete solution graal" to really have an "real" working economy where all constructions/ships are linked to money/production as in real world. Although this can be possible, I guess that this will demand a deep rework of almost all areas of the vanilla code and is an effort for a mod team.
What conquer_mod is trying to do is a compromise. It uses a smart code to be in the same line of the vanilla game, but spawning ships (fleets) that consumes shipyards resources and goodies. The trick is that we are not limited by the slow rate that shipyards build ships on vanilla game, because if so, no enough ships will be built and probably this "wares consume" will not make any real effect on game economy - just because it is really too slow. Instead, the mod fleets uses a lot (humm ...a good amount) of resources and this will be enough (i guess) to make the economy chain goes on. Also if the "war" becomes too strength or too quick you will not have time to make any economy empire. So, it must be in line with the pace and slow game that X:R is. Another virtue of Conquer_mod is that it is very simple but also that smart (or try to be)
@DaveDee
Please, wait until the next release to try it (in one or two days) because these features in discussion here will be present only in the new version.
And to clarify again: Conquer_mod don´t have "real life like" uses of the in game money. See my reply above for w.evans for more info. It´s a compromise.
I understood your idea. Is obviously possible to make what you suggested, but this need a new hard work&much free time as any complex mod demands. And i even don´t know yet if Conquer_mod will work as intend in long term game.
Just to clarify, what i made on Conquer_mod is not the "ideal and complete solution graal" to really have an "real" working economy where all constructions/ships are linked to money/production as in real world. Although this can be possible, I guess that this will demand a deep rework of almost all areas of the vanilla code and is an effort for a mod team.
What conquer_mod is trying to do is a compromise. It uses a smart code to be in the same line of the vanilla game, but spawning ships (fleets) that consumes shipyards resources and goodies. The trick is that we are not limited by the slow rate that shipyards build ships on vanilla game, because if so, no enough ships will be built and probably this "wares consume" will not make any real effect on game economy - just because it is really too slow. Instead, the mod fleets uses a lot (humm ...a good amount) of resources and this will be enough (i guess) to make the economy chain goes on. Also if the "war" becomes too strength or too quick you will not have time to make any economy empire. So, it must be in line with the pace and slow game that X:R is. Another virtue of Conquer_mod is that it is very simple but also that smart (or try to be)
@DaveDee
Please, wait until the next release to try it (in one or two days) because these features in discussion here will be present only in the new version.
And to clarify again: Conquer_mod don´t have "real life like" uses of the in game money. See my reply above for w.evans for more info. It´s a compromise.
Last edited by Rubini on Thu, 23. Apr 15, 20:16, edited 1 time in total.
Cool! And agreed that having NPC factions use funds is going to require lots of testing to make sure that the economy doesn't eventually break down completely -- still a possibility since the station-based trading AI, while better than before, still doesn't make the smartest decisions.
Would like to reiterate however that what you did in tying ship spawns to shipyard resources is a huge improvement to vanilla. Would be interesting to see if it could be sustained in the long-term. Thanks for sharing your work!
Would like to reiterate however that what you did in tying ship spawns to shipyard resources is a huge improvement to vanilla. Would be interesting to see if it could be sustained in the long-term. Thanks for sharing your work!
Uff! next update is done!
Here the final changelog for v0.13:
- A voiced Global Early Warning System, that will inform you about any single enemy capship that enters any player&allied zones, any enemy capship that was encountered by player&allied when in travel, any enemy invasion in player&allied zones, and about any station destructed on galaxy by a spy net report. This EWS works also for vanilla ships (not only for this mod ships), what is very good! It´s voiced info is complemented with PDA and logbook detailed infos.
- All capships created by this mod consumes shipyards resources, what will maintain the economy chain "forever".
- Factions without shipyards (or that loses its own) will "buy" ships from neutral shipyards (Ledda and JSS)
- config file with a lot more possible settings and a special one that can delay the init of the war (Invasions) until the player have a minimum amount of military capships (well, xl trade ships will count by half). With this feature you can adjust the war to your needs. You can have enough time to make at least a minimum force and money or go directly to the conflict. The choice is yours.
Edited: forgot to say:
- all forces (capships and fighters) that are jumpin in, have a fx effect if you see them close enough.
If I have the time, in some hours to download.
Here the final changelog for v0.13:
- A voiced Global Early Warning System, that will inform you about any single enemy capship that enters any player&allied zones, any enemy capship that was encountered by player&allied when in travel, any enemy invasion in player&allied zones, and about any station destructed on galaxy by a spy net report. This EWS works also for vanilla ships (not only for this mod ships), what is very good! It´s voiced info is complemented with PDA and logbook detailed infos.
- All capships created by this mod consumes shipyards resources, what will maintain the economy chain "forever".
- Factions without shipyards (or that loses its own) will "buy" ships from neutral shipyards (Ledda and JSS)
- config file with a lot more possible settings and a special one that can delay the init of the war (Invasions) until the player have a minimum amount of military capships (well, xl trade ships will count by half). With this feature you can adjust the war to your needs. You can have enough time to make at least a minimum force and money or go directly to the conflict. The choice is yours.
Edited: forgot to say:
- all forces (capships and fighters) that are jumpin in, have a fx effect if you see them close enough.
If I have the time, in some hours to download.
I'm totally agree with your way. I know how much time and testing may take attempt to develop a fair economy system, cause i'm game designer and that is part of my work. Even if you're making your own game, not trying to modify someone else's code.
But anyway, what about stations?
Ah, and how you solved the problem with too rapid outflow of resources? I mean, NPC fleet may loose ships to often, so they will try to buy more at shipyards, depleating wares. In this situation player just can't biuld something.
Or shipyard will keep wares after placed order, intil ship is builded? In that case, SY faction reinforcement will be blocked for that time?
But anyway, what about stations?
Ah, and how you solved the problem with too rapid outflow of resources? I mean, NPC fleet may loose ships to often, so they will try to buy more at shipyards, depleating wares. In this situation player just can't biuld something.
Or shipyard will keep wares after placed order, intil ship is builded? In that case, SY faction reinforcement will be blocked for that time?
Hi mate,DaveDee wrote:I'm totally agree with your way. I know how much time and testing may take attempt to develop a fair economy system, cause i'm game designer and that is part of my work. Even if you're making your own game, not trying to modify someone else's code.
But anyway, what about stations?
Ah, and how you solved the problem with too rapid outflow of resources? I mean, NPC fleet may loose ships to often, so they will try to buy more at shipyards, depleating wares. In this situation player just can't biuld something.
Or shipyard will keep wares after placed order, intil ship is builded? In that case, SY faction reinforcement will be blocked for that time?
As i said the consume of wares is by code, not really "in game". I guess that you know that almost all ships on X:R vanilla are also not built for "real". They don't consume wares, so in late game - i don't know if you already arrive at late game - you will be plenty of wares in all your stations with almost nobody to buy them, just because all the chain of production is full galaxy wide. The unique "sink" are the shipyards because only them use the majority of end products. But in vanilla they are slow. Very slow. After some hours you can sold 5, 12 or something small like this, of one of yours wares. I guess that you get the point.
So, we can think about this feature on this mod as a fix. The good is that as this mod mess exactly with ships then it fits it very well.
Obviously all changes on this mod are absolutely recent, a fine adjust probably will be needed. I can´t reply you for sure about your question on "depleting wares", if it will occurs or not. Exactly because this I added a setting on config file just for this. Will be possible to make very, very fine adjust with it by yourself. Let´s see the result ! And, please, if you play with it post feedbacks!
I promisse this new version for today in some hours ahead , ok?
Conquer_mod Updated for version 0.13.
If you use it, please post feedbacks.
Be awared that I can't guarantee compatibility between save game versions in this stage of the mod as i´m yet adding functionalities into it. Anyhow, unless something needs a quick fix, i will make a pause on it´s development. We need feedbacks now, so is time to play the game a bit.
Cheers!
Rubini.
If you use it, please post feedbacks.
Be awared that I can't guarantee compatibility between save game versions in this stage of the mod as i´m yet adding functionalities into it. Anyhow, unless something needs a quick fix, i will make a pause on it´s development. We need feedbacks now, so is time to play the game a bit.
Cheers!
Rubini.
Hi mate,tomchk wrote:@Rubini: Awesome. What kind of feedback would be most useful to you?
Thanks by the interest on this mod. Well, as this is a core mod that changes a bit the gameplay, all yours observations and suggestions are welcome.
Taking in mind that the default settings are adapted for a slow pace game (all about X games, no?) and that to really "see" changes you need some hours of gameplay,
- What you think about the EWS, it´s working as intend, it´s frequency?
- How about the rate of the invasions forces, the size of the forces?
- Do you have any problem with the mod?
- In late game, what you feel about the consume of wares from shipyards?
- Do you noticed how the mod is working OOZ? Are the stations being eventually destroyed OOZ?
If you want a quick test just turn on the debug messages and make the retaliation and invasion forces rate and chances a bit more agressive. In few minutes you will notice a lot of things happening in background and perhaps at yours zones. You also can go and see "in real time" any event that is related by EWS or Debug. You can also try to destroy some rievers stations and see what happens.
Well, so much things, lets going talking about any issue, goodies , doubts or suggestions. This can clarify things for all ppl.
At my end all works as intend, no errors on debuglogs, and the gameplay is much more interesting and challenge.
Sounds good. Now I just need to see if I can remove World War X from my save game for now so I can test this.
@BlackRain: I saw you say on Steam that WWX is save game compatible. Does that mean I can remove it safely and try this mod on the same save game? Is that still true if I own one of the WWX-specific ships?
@BlackRain: I saw you say on Steam that WWX is save game compatible. Does that mean I can remove it safely and try this mod on the same save game? Is that still true if I own one of the WWX-specific ships?
@tomchk,
I really suggest that you start a new free game without WWX for now. We yet don´t know how are the footprints from both mod together on a save game. You can have/continue your current game and in another save just start a new one. I use devries Freestart from Yorruck, it start more or less where the main plot campaign finished, working as a continue for the campaign. it´s 3.53 compatible. But I guess that any start point with more or less same vanilla faction interaction will be good too.
I really suggest that you start a new free game without WWX for now. We yet don´t know how are the footprints from both mod together on a save game. You can have/continue your current game and in another save just start a new one. I use devries Freestart from Yorruck, it start more or less where the main plot campaign finished, working as a continue for the campaign. it´s 3.53 compatible. But I guess that any start point with more or less same vanilla faction interaction will be good too.
I will tell you exactly what will happen if you uninstall WWX from your game. All ships added by my mod and all stations added by my mod that the player owns will disappear as if they never existed. The ships my mod spawns through jobs will remain for a time but have no scripts running on them, they will just sit there doing nothing until they expire. While they are sitting there, whatever ships this mod adds will load in with the ships spawned by WWX(which will be doing nothing). Eventually all ships spawned by WWX will disappear for good and there will be no trace of WWX left in your game.tomchk wrote:Sounds good. Now I just need to see if I can remove World War X from my save game for now so I can test this.
@BlackRain: I saw you say on Steam that WWX is save game compatible. Does that mean I can remove it safely and try this mod on the same save game? Is that still true if I own one of the WWX-specific ships?
So, you could do things this way, but, depending on how powerful your pc is and how many ships this mod adds, etc. there may be slow down for you, not sure. You could drop WWX from your save, then just load your save up with vanilla, wait like 30 minutes or so, and then try loading up this mod. That should clean mostly everything out.
@Rubini: This mod is great work and will be a huge contribution to the game. I do have some thoughts that I hope you find useful. Please let me know if I should clarify anything.
EWS Frequency: I've noticed that if I have assets in more than a few zones (say 10), I often get EWS alerts multiple times per minute. This is especially an issue for players who choose to be enemies with the Teladi Pirates and leave destroyers in Serpentine Haze (as those pirates keep sending Phoenixes there). I believe the default should be lower. Are you able to make the alert go off only when player assets in the zone are weaker than the detected enemy forces? Alternatively, could you make the alert go off only if the enemy forces are at least 2 or more cap ships? Either way, I think for late game players, the alerts should go off much less. If this is a setting I can change, I recommend changing the default.
Xenon: I noticed that Xenon fleets include Maelchon and other pirate fighters. Is this intended? I was thinking not.
Log: I love the log entries, but I think less line breaks in them would be better. Could you remove those? I also think it would be great to remove recommendations from the log, such as the one like "This is an opportunity to build" and "Try to send help" (I'm just paraphrasing). I think these recommendations are good for the actual alerts, but they end up using a lot of space in the log. Less importantly, I saw a typo or two that I can show later. I might be able to help you polish the text if you would find that helpful.
Station Destruction: I blew up some stations (pirate and Xenon) in zone and noticed that they just seemed to disappear after a certain amount of damage. I recall seeing mention of this in the thread, but is it able to be made smoother?
SpyNet: Could you include who destroyed the station? I think that would be very good to know.
Some features I have not been able to test yet, but I will post when I do. Please keep up the amazing work!
EWS Frequency: I've noticed that if I have assets in more than a few zones (say 10), I often get EWS alerts multiple times per minute. This is especially an issue for players who choose to be enemies with the Teladi Pirates and leave destroyers in Serpentine Haze (as those pirates keep sending Phoenixes there). I believe the default should be lower. Are you able to make the alert go off only when player assets in the zone are weaker than the detected enemy forces? Alternatively, could you make the alert go off only if the enemy forces are at least 2 or more cap ships? Either way, I think for late game players, the alerts should go off much less. If this is a setting I can change, I recommend changing the default.
Xenon: I noticed that Xenon fleets include Maelchon and other pirate fighters. Is this intended? I was thinking not.
Log: I love the log entries, but I think less line breaks in them would be better. Could you remove those? I also think it would be great to remove recommendations from the log, such as the one like "This is an opportunity to build" and "Try to send help" (I'm just paraphrasing). I think these recommendations are good for the actual alerts, but they end up using a lot of space in the log. Less importantly, I saw a typo or two that I can show later. I might be able to help you polish the text if you would find that helpful.
Station Destruction: I blew up some stations (pirate and Xenon) in zone and noticed that they just seemed to disappear after a certain amount of damage. I recall seeing mention of this in the thread, but is it able to be made smoother?
SpyNet: Could you include who destroyed the station? I think that would be very good to know.
Some features I have not been able to test yet, but I will post when I do. Please keep up the amazing work!
Thanks by the feedback tomchk. Please continue to post anything that you want, including suggestions and ideas!tomchk wrote:@Rubini: This mod is great work and will be a huge contribution to the game. I do have some thoughts that I hope you find useful. Please let me know if I should clarify anything.
For now you can only change its frequency. I didn't enable exactly this feature on Config file to avoid compatibility issues between versions. But you can open the Conquer_mod.xml, locate the EWS cue and change it´s delay. It´s now 120s. So even if you have a lot of units in different zones it must be not alert you in less than 2 minutes interval (not a lot of time per minute as you said, because this cue isn't instantiated ) - Please check this again . Anyhow, your suggestion is noted and I will refined the routine to be less sensible or be adaptive on next release. This will be a good adjust.EWS Frequency: I've noticed that if I have assets in more than a few zones (say 10), I often get EWS alerts multiple times per minute. This is especially an issue for players who choose to be enemies with the Teladi Pirates and leave destroyers in Serpentine Haze (as those pirates keep sending Phoenixes there). I believe the default should be lower. Are you able to make the alert go off only when player assets in the zone are weaker than the detected enemy forces? Alternatively, could you make the alert go off only if the enemy forces are at least 2 or more cap ships? Either way, I think for late game players, the alerts should go off much less. If this is a setting I can change, I recommend changing the default.
For now, the forces are generated only using correct capships per faction but not the fighters - they are generic. Issue noted and will fix it.Xenon: I noticed that Xenon fleets include Maelchon and other pirate fighters. Is this intended? I was thinking not.
About space between some lines, for non english native folks, this make things a bit easier to read and to understand. It´s obviously an aesthetic thing. It's recommended that you clear your logbook in game from time to time (even for vanilla game) because these messages amount will be carry from save to save, for vanilla plus all others mods including this one. IIRC it is not cleared by default after some time as EGO should make it.Log: I love the log entries, but I think less line breaks in them would be better. Could you remove those? I also think it would be great to remove recommendations from the log, such as the one like "This is an opportunity to build" and "Try to send help" (I'm just paraphrasing). I think these recommendations are good for the actual alerts, but they end up using a lot of space in the log. Less importantly, I saw a typo or two that I can show later. I might be able to help you polish the text if you would find that helpful.
And, yes, please, can you send me a polished&corrected messages?
Do you not saw it exploding and letting debris on its places? The original routine from VanFIm have just a crude disappear of the station without any Fx. I added them (fx), so you you must saw them. But the really final end is a vanish, leaving debris on its place. This is true for all objects in the game. You never noticed it because vanilla let a skull of the dead object in place, I opted to just let debris (and dropped containers if any) to clean the area. What you think?Station Destruction: I blew up some stations (pirate and Xenon) in zone and noticed that they just seemed to disappear after a certain amount of damage. I recall seeing mention of this in the thread, but is it able to be made smoother?
Yes, its possible and easy to do. But I made it this way to not shown so much spoiler for the player, to instigate him to investigate. What you think?SpyNet: Could you include who destroyed the station? I think that would be very good to know.
Do you have interest in make some "beta" on the run, as you play your game? If so, i can send to you the betas with the above fixes or adjusts asap.
Thanks again mate!
Rubini.
@tomchk,
Done!
v013a:
- rised the boarding resistance for non pirates enemy fleets
- all fighters are now faction specific
- EWS have now (infinite) levels:
level 1: will always warning if at least one enemy military xl or l ship is present in a zone which player have a capitalship or station (as it is now on V013)
level 2: 50% chance for 1 enemy capship present and 100% chance when 2 or more enemy capship are present (the default now)
level 3: 33% for 1 enemy capship present, 50% when 2 enemy capship are present, 100% chance when 3 or more are present
level 4: 25% for 1 enemy capship present, 50% for 2 enemy capship present, 75% when 3 enemy capship is present and 100% when 4 or more enemy capship is present
and so on. Infinite levels. Can be set on config file.
-EWS messages are now queued, what means that they never will showed/voiced one over another. The minimum interval is 25s and the check round each 3 min.
Edited: forgot to say that added also a EWS_Level cutoff: the minimum number of enemy ships to the EWS works anyway. So, you can have it to level 4 but a cutoff of 1. It will works with chances as above but only for 2 or more enemy units and so on.
Cheers!
Let me know if you want to use/test this update. Save game compatible with version 0.13. The official ETA for a new version is in 2 weeks.
Done!
v013a:
- rised the boarding resistance for non pirates enemy fleets
- all fighters are now faction specific
- EWS have now (infinite) levels:
level 1: will always warning if at least one enemy military xl or l ship is present in a zone which player have a capitalship or station (as it is now on V013)
level 2: 50% chance for 1 enemy capship present and 100% chance when 2 or more enemy capship are present (the default now)
level 3: 33% for 1 enemy capship present, 50% when 2 enemy capship are present, 100% chance when 3 or more are present
level 4: 25% for 1 enemy capship present, 50% for 2 enemy capship present, 75% when 3 enemy capship is present and 100% when 4 or more enemy capship is present
and so on. Infinite levels. Can be set on config file.
-EWS messages are now queued, what means that they never will showed/voiced one over another. The minimum interval is 25s and the check round each 3 min.
Edited: forgot to say that added also a EWS_Level cutoff: the minimum number of enemy ships to the EWS works anyway. So, you can have it to level 4 but a cutoff of 1. It will works with chances as above but only for 2 or more enemy units and so on.
Cheers!
Let me know if you want to use/test this update. Save game compatible with version 0.13. The official ETA for a new version is in 2 weeks.
Last edited by Rubini on Sat, 25. Apr 15, 23:12, edited 1 time in total.