[Script] TRACKER Minefields and SQUASH Catapult v2.35

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Gazz
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[Script] TRACKER Minefields and SQUASH Catapult v2.35

Post by Gazz » Thu, 8. Feb 07, 12:27

Das entsprechende deutsche topic ist hier.
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TRACKER Minefields and SQUASH Catapult v2.35 by... Gazz

What the script does:
This script allows you to lay TRACKER minefields. These have Friend/Foe recognition and do NOT blow up half the minefield when a lone M4 tries to pass through.

Special Command Software is required.

So you think Beta Flak is a useless peashooter?
(Mis-)Using the Ore Collector, regular SQUASH Mines with a timed fuse can be accelerated towards enemy ships.
These actually deserve the title of "Flak Grenade". (See damage table below)

This does also work for stations. A SQUASH mine factory is quite effective at protecting your complex from... pests.

For the player ship this can be turned on and off with a hotkey as well as manually launching mines at the current target.


Minefields:
Your sector view is not cluttered with hundreds of mine objects. They are organized into minefields, represented by one marker each.
There are not hundreds or thousands of mines tracking for enemies at the same time since all is run by one script.

Targets: These mines only attack fighters, transporters, M6 and TL.
M1 and M2 are immune to mines for all practical purposes.
Assuming they could be hurt by mines - which does not happen due to a bug in the damage calculation - it would take 100k mines and more to crack the shields of such a ship.

All minefields keep a frag counter now. Never before has that term fit better.
This may not be 100 % accurate but space mines are not your surgical kinda weapon.

Usage and commands:

Laying TRACKER Mines uses 1 SQUASH Mine and 1 Microchip for the improved logic circuits.

Laying mines within 6km of an existing minefield will add mines to that one.
The diameter of a MF increases with the number of mines and there is no limit to that size. Except that space is a big place to be trying to fill with something.

All minefields can be remote detonated if you should wish that by using the Mine Laying button, selecting the minefield as the position and entering "X" for the number of mines.

You can see the actual size of a minefield in the sector view by selecting the minefield as the position and entering "size" for the number of mines. These Nav Beacons disappear after 5 min.

With "set displacement x" you tell the script to place all minefield markers x km above the minefields.

"set hide" hides all minefield markers of all minefields.
"set show" will display them again.

Detonating a minefield also works with a hotkey you can assign.
Using that hotkey will either detonate the minefield (marker) you have targeted or the closest one in the system.
There is a safety timer built into the hotkey so it should be very hard to accidentially blow up a minefield and/or yourself.

For those wanting to try this script: There is an option "set deinstall" to completely terminate the script, all it's actors, buttons, and whatnot without having to search through any scripts.
Of course, this will not remove the actual script files from the folders.

The number of mines deployed does not affect your game's speed.
The number of minefields deployed does not affect it, either. If you should deploy a whole lot of different minefields and they require more CPU time then the minefields will work slower and fewer ships will get hit by mines.


SQUASH Catapult
Hard working teladi engineers found that they could reverse the polarity of the gravity field used in the Ore Collector.
Overloading a device like that produces a catapult that can launch cargo at a target.
Now if that cargo happens to be a time fused SQUASH mine...

In addition to 1 SQUASH Mine, 1 Energy Cell is required to overload the Ore Collector.
For a station 1 SQUASH Mine and 50 Energy Cells are required.
There is a small chance of damaging the equipment with continous overloading.

This weapon system can be installed on stations, too.
A SQUASH Mine Factory turns into a rather deadly defensive installation.

The range of this catapult is 4km on a ship, 25km on a station.
Friendly fire is unlikely but your own M1/2 and TL are ignored.

Valid targets are all small ships, M6, mines and lasertowers.

If the current shields of a ship are <1 GJ then close targets are not engaged to prevent the ship from blowing itself to tiny bits.

Usage
To install the catapult on a station execute the script normally from a ship but select one of your stations as a position.
The station should be able to store mines, of course.
Installing this system on a station costs a one time charge of 1.000.000 Cr.
If none of your own factories are selected (within 200m), the catapult will be started on the ship that executed the command.

"on" Activates the catapult in full auto mode. It will continue to engage targets for as long as mines are available.
"off" Deactivates it.
"+" More power! Increases the range but also energy consumption and chance of burnout.
"-" Normal operation.
"ship" All catapult malfunctions will be logged. This setting causes an immediate notification as well.
"station" Same thing for station catapults.

For the player ship the catapult can be turned on and off with a hotkey.

Also the player can manually launch mines at the current target. There is no check for any friend/foe settings in thie case.
Your ship. Your orders.

Xtended Mod (optional)
The Tern Frigate is specialized mine laying ship.
It will lay TRACKER minefields faster than every other ship and without the need for extra Microchips.
Where other ships might use a rigged ore collector as a mine catapult the Tern uses it's own built in deployment catapult which is far more accurate and reliable.

Tech stuff
If you do not like the text commands: they are found in t\**7014.xml. Feel free to edit them.

This script uses T-File 7014
Cmd Button Piracy 27
Cmd slot 7014 on the ships running the catapult system.

Code: Select all

This is how much damage these things cause:
Range  Damage / MJ
    0   74.5
  250   67.3
  500   55.2
  750   43.1
 1000   31.0
 1250   18.9
 1500    6.8
 1550    4.4
 1609    1.5
 1610    0.0
An M5 will be destroyed at 1550m and an M4 at 1250m.
Some M3 can survive a single mine.
Last edited by Gazz on Sat, 26. May 07, 18:44, edited 22 times in total.
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Post by Gazz » Sat, 10. Feb 07, 02:13

1.02 adds a frag counter so you can see if your mines are actually doing something while you're not looking.

Also added an option to show the size of a MF in the sector view.
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wiz555
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Post by wiz555 » Sun, 11. Feb 07, 19:25

I like the sound of this script, and i was just wondering if the minefield would work OOS? Because i've had problems with normal mines not working while i was OOS.

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Post by Gazz » Sun, 11. Feb 07, 22:11

I'm aware of that and these mines treat IS and OOS differently.
TRACKER are about 85 % on target when OOS. I think that's good enough for a not exactly surgical weapon system. =P

SQUASH can not work (most of the time) OOS because a ship must get within 750m.
Since ships jump every 30 sec OOS instead of flying from A to B, they rarely end up in the trigger range.
Also, when deploying the stupid SQUASH variety you can catch 2 or 3 ships per minefield tops.
Then the mines have all blown up each other or at least a corridor along the usual paths between jump gates has been cleared.

TRACKER may have a severe suicidal disorder but they are also patient predators. They creep into a ship's flight path and wait til they see the white in the pilot's eyes.
Instead of detonating at 750m they get very close and personal with their targets which means they do a whole lot more damage, too.

Another advantage of TRACKERs is that everything is run by exactly one script. You could deploy 5000 mines and your game wouldn't slow down one bit because there will not be 5000 actors tracking for targets.
Worst case is if you deploy a lot of different minefields. Maybe 100+.
Then the game still won't get any slower but the minefield script will slow down instead.
This means that a minefield might launch one mine per 10 sec instead of 8sec or so... nothing to lose sleep over.
I chose this way because it won't help you any to have this particular script run efficiently when your game slows down to a halt. =P
My complete script download page. . . . . . I AM THE LAW!
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Post by Gazz » Tue, 13. Feb 07, 03:04

Released v1.04 which mostly fixes display bugs and some rare exceptions.

Debug info is turned off by default now.
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defiant1
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Post by defiant1 » Fri, 16. Feb 07, 01:04

i like this nice toy :D:D one question...think you could make it into .SPK? i like to try and keep track of my mods with out trying to edit a whole lot of files...
Teladi Next Minute Shipping®

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Post by Gazz » Fri, 16. Feb 07, 18:21

Yeah, yeah. So I put up the gizmofied version, too.

Personally I dont like this installer thingy because it does not show me the files before it installs everything but simply starts copying "stuff" when clicked.
A ZIP I can just look at...
My complete script download page. . . . . . I AM THE LAW!
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Khaak_Slayer
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Post by Khaak_Slayer » Sat, 17. Feb 07, 20:42

This sounds fantastic! Very clever, great idea dude.
They creep into a ship's flight path and wait til they see the white in the pilot's eyes.
Love it.

Getting this now ;D thanks a lot!
Rawr.

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Post by Gazz » Fri, 4. May 07, 18:37

Version 1.05 released.

Hide / Show commands added and some flexibility on the text input.
I MUCH prefer a decluttered ship list which is why I needed stealth laser towers and mines in the first place.
Now the minefield markers can be turned off, too.


Added chart for mine damage. This damage is constant.
I HATE guessing at how hard something hits. =)
My complete script download page. . . . . . I AM THE LAW!
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Post by Gazz » Sun, 6. May 07, 09:23

Version 2.08 released.

The SQUASH Catapult is online.

Sure it uses ammo and costs 10 kCr a shot. Sure that ammo is even illegal in some places.

But fighters who dare attack your M1 are in for a world of hurt.

Mines are now visible while they are flying toward the target.

Hotkeys added for convenience.

Note that the Ore Collector is XL cargo. No superflak for your Nova. =)

Whole wings of M4 and M5 are obliterated with this kinda firepower. This is Flak. =)

Version 2.09 released.

There was a bug that prevented enabling the catapult without using the hotkey.
Now it can be used normally by your AI ships.
My complete script download page. . . . . . I AM THE LAW!
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Post by Gazz » Sun, 6. May 07, 16:20

Version 2.11 released.

Inspired by Binford's Tooltime there is now a MORE POWER mode.
(Real men don't read instructions!)

Testing, tweaking, cleanup...

Cleanup of some display issues like the Mine name that is displayed during deployment and the likes.

Added M6 and stationary ships (mines, LT) to the list of valid targets.
Target classes can be changed in plugin.gz.mines.catapult if you wish.

Removed own M1/M2/TL from the list of friendly targets so their presence no longer vetos a firing solution.
Their size prevents them taking much damage from mines anyway.
My complete script download page. . . . . . I AM THE LAW!
There is no sense crying over every mistake. You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.

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Post by Gazz » Fri, 11. May 07, 00:18

Version 2.15 released.

Catapults now available for stations.
The first real offensive weapon for a station... without a mod. =)
My complete script download page. . . . . . I AM THE LAW!
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SoloX
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Post by SoloX » Wed, 8. Aug 07, 13:17

**FIXED** Thanks


Download link is broken.. when i click on it i get

Warning: mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: Access denied for user 'hentschke'@'localhost' (using password: YES) in /home/kunden/hentschke-keramik.de/include/init_katalog.php3 on line 3

Warning: mysql_db_query(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in /home/kunden/hentschke-keramik.de/include/cookieverwaltung.php3 on line 28
Access denied for user 'hentschke'@'localhost' (using password: YES)

LordAlrik
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Post by LordAlrik » Fri, 20. Jun 08, 22:43

A question: How do you get the Tern to lay TRACKER mines without microchips, as in the description? I build and lay minefields, but they're all SQUASH mines. (At least, all it says is "SQUASH Mine"). Are the mines all TRACKER mines, the name is simply different?

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