[MOD] X:R Conquer mod v0.19s Updated 29/09/2015

[Rubini]

The mod is online!
Please, if you try it post feedbacks.

And read the %$&* readme please!:P

Thanks and have fun!
Rubini.

[w.evans]

Got it, thanks! No idea when I'll be able to take a look, though. Extremely hectic for the next couple of months. But I'll try to squeeze in an hour or twenty on the weekend.

[Rubini]

Thanks to try it mate!

Please put it on dissection table and take a look inside. Any commnets or suggestions are welcome.

Also forget to say (and I´m updating the first post now):
- the strongohold is now just a smaller vanilla station, a "Warehouse". I already started to make a new exclusive one just for the mod.

- If you (or the AI) destroy vanilla stations is important that you build new ones to maintain the economy alive. Perhaps, in future updates, just change hands (for AI OOZ) could be a good idea. But I need to be sure that the trade will works ok after change stations hands before adopt it.

[HyperCube]

Suggested mods to go with?
==================
Yes, at least these two:

1. Yorrick's DeVries Freelancer Start
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =283749478

2. Nidaren's Titurel Engine Fix (because pirates forces uses it as main force and it's engines are really broken on vanilla)
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =249312552

I have installed your mod and it works fine so far, i need to play more in order to revew it though

I just wanted to say that DeVries freelancer mod is outdated and doesnt work with the 3.53

I'll report back once i get deeper into the conquer mod!

[Rubini]

Suggested mods to go with?
==================
Yes, at least these two:

1. Yorrick's DeVries Freelancer Start
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =283749478

2. Nidaren's Titurel Engine Fix (because pirates forces uses it as main force and it's engines are really broken on vanilla)
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =249312552

I have installed your mod and it works fine so far, i need to play more in order to revew it though

I just wanted to say that DeVries freelancer mod is outdated and doesnt work with the 3.53

I'll report back once i get deeper into the conquer mod!

Thanks by the feedback mate!
I´m using DeVries freelancer mod (3.53) without problems here. Thanks by the info anyway, I already asked Yorrick about this, let´s wait his reply.

Anyhow, DeVries freelancer mod is recommended but not mandatory. Conquer mod will work with vanilla freegame and probaly with any other freegame "scenario" mod.

By the way, i´m cooking the first update:

Already done:
- ships now have marines inside to rise their boarding resistance
- the strongohold is now more "unique", seems really a small outpost but very well armed (although continues named as "warehouse")
- a settings section, now is easy to the usesr adjust Retaliation Forces and Invasion Forces frequency, delay and size.

To be done:
- minefields
- Forces adapted to each faction.

Cheers!
Rubini.

[StumblingDrunk]

This sounds amazing! Its exactly what XR needs and I would be back in the game in no time

[Rubini]

This sounds amazing! Its exactly what XR needs and I would be back in the game in no time

Thanks mate!
I´m finishing to cook the first update with a much more robust code with all promised additions and more. So, if you can, wait one more day to play with.
Here the main changelog for V0.12:

1. added Retaliation&Invasion forces capships types per faction. They can use xl or l ships (if any) with a chance. Xenon will only spawn in small number (1 or 2) because they are too powerful. It's configurable.
2. the Stronghold is now really a small outpost but very well armed
3. EWS (early warning system) for when enemy forces invade any player zone in the galaxy.
4. Spy Net Report, that will report when any station is destroyed in any place. This provide the type of station, so, you can late build one of the same type to preserve the economy if you want it. Or in a future release help an ally to build it.
5. Now any destroyed station will generate Retaliation Force for any faction ( before, this was true only for player faction)
6. fixed an issue where in rare cases a Retaliation Force was create for player faction. Also checked the code for rebuild Stations, Invasions Forces, Stronghold : the idea is that all player faction intervention must be done by the player itself (when and where attack, build stations, etc)
7. An OOZ (out of zone) combat intervention on code, because the vanilla game have poor OOZ AI, yet worse for CapShips x Stations. Now the game force a result (if needed) with a chance. It's configurable.
8. added a routine to stop to generate Invasion Forces for factions that don´t have at least one station. So, if no more stations this faction will die in time (note that vanilla code will continues to spawn this faction ships here and there, but will be not more a threat)
9. forget to say, enemy forces ships have now marines inside to prevent easy boarding.
10. Finally, a Config file where you can change various aspects of the mod like the chance and frequency of Enemy Forces, turn on/off OOZ intervention, change the Xenon Inv. forces ship's number, etc

Uff! I guess that it's all!
To be released in one or two days!

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

Wow, that's pretty epic

[Rubini]

Version 0.12 is online, first post updated!
A lot of new additions and refinements, it´s not more a beta from now on.

[Rubini]

Version 0.13 is being cooked:

- A much better and galaxy wise Early Warning System - done!
X:R have not a functional EWS at all, but now you will be always correctly warning by Betty when any zone that contains yours&allies main ships ( class_l and class_xl) and or stations becomes dangerous - good examples are these two situations: an invasion force that arrive or if a ship (l or xl) enters a zone with considerable enemy forces. The result is a much more interesting and fluid combat game side for X:R

- Force consume of end wares from shipyards any time that an Fleet force is created. - in test.
The idea is to help the economy. We known that X:R in late game have not a good consume of final end products and this blocks all economy, making yours stations becomes full of wares and nobody to buy. I guess that consuming end products on shipyards can work, at least will be better than nothing. The idea: canteran shypyards will consume wares for canteran and player's ships (if you use player shipyard mod it will works too). PMC and its allies will consume PMC Shipyards wares and so on. Before create a Fleet force the mod will check the minimum amount of wares. (perhaps this is even not necessary because the main focus is to help economy at first).
Xenon and Pirates will use another type of constriction. This obviously needs to be test in its functionality. We need to be sure that npc shipyards will also really consume it´s wares chain production too.

[tomchk]

This mod sounds truly game-changing in the best ways possible. Please keep up the great work! I cannot wait until this works with World War X!

[DaveDee]

few more updates, and i'll be forced to return back to game after two months.

[R-TEAM]

Hi,

can i use this mod with the WWX mod ?
Or it is ATM only planed to integrate WWX compatibility ....?
And the same is going with the IZ combat and OOZ combat mods from w.evans ...

This are the 3 mods that i have running, that would imho maybe inflict with your mod .....
(and i would not run X:R without this mods - so i can only test your VERY promising mod if it is compatible ..)

Regards
R-TEAM

[Rubini]

Hi,

can i use this mod with the WWX mod ?
Or it is ATM only planed to integrate WWX compatibility ....?
And the same is going with the IZ combat and OOZ combat mods from w.evans ...

This are the 3 mods that i have running, that would imho maybe inflict with your mod .....
(and i would not run X:R without this mods - so i can only test your VERY promising mod if it is compatible ..)

Regards
R-TEAM

Hi mate,
IZ and OOZ are compatible, no problems.
WWX is not, but as you said they both can become compatible in near future.

Anyhow, version 0.13 is almost ready and i will release it in one or two days. With two main new features that are just a "must", IMHO:

- A global Early Warning voice System, what makes the "war" side of the game much more interesting and fun.

- All ships that are generated by this mod now consumes resources from shipyards, what will bring X:R to a new playable level. This is the "sink" that was absent on the game. It will help a lot to maintain the economy alive and full of work even on medium/late game.

Cheers!
Rubini.

[w.evans]

- All ships that are generated by this mod now consumes resources from shipyards, what will bring X:R to a new playable level. This is the "sink" that was absent on the game. It will help a lot to maintain the economy alive and full of work even on medium/late game.

Cool! Would be interesting to see if the economy can keep up.

Also interesting, there are ramifications in that if the player were to increase production of ship-building equipment, the player would indirectly increase the number of ships potentially arrayed against him. I imagine this would create demand for a trade filter: define which factions your managers and traders can trade with rather than just the on/off (trade with NPCs / do not trade with NPCs) switch we have now. Embargoes would now make sense too.

[w.evans]

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.

[Rubini]

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.

Hi w.evans,

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.

[w.evans]

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.

• 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.

Just thought that this would make the game more strategic since it would be possible, for example, to attack a faction's economy by hitting their freighters and embargoing their stations, and that will actually reduce or remove their ability to spawn ships.

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.

[DaveDee]

Are newly builded stations produced by standart algorithm (using CV, trade offers etc) or they are just magically popping out of subspace?

Think i'm going to test your mod tomorrow, prepare for complex feedback

[Rubini]

@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.