AL Plugin : Escort 1.71 13/10/06

[smiley]

I haven't got my copy of X3 yet, and I am already drooling. This is the sort of thing that should be in the game.

Just a note to Sandalpocalypse. Some missions should be a lot more difficult than others. Pirates would send tough ships to take out their target. You shouldn't be able to complete every single mission easily.

Having said that, I haven't even seen it yet, so you could be right.

Smiley

[LV]

Hello there,
Some criticism.

Pirate Busters generated by the escort program are too powerful and make the missions too hard to complete, especially when the enemies start swarming, which does happen. Just IMO. I think they are generated with 6 PACs, and some of the weaker freighters dissappear in one burst of fire, which is very irritating if there's a lot going on and you cant stop that first burst.

I've been doing Escorts at the combat ranks of Instructor and Specialist, if that's pertinent.

Other than that, enjoying it very much.

Is this a general consensus by you guys as I can tone them down some, I don't really want to explain the code but value of cargo does affect the spawned ships, ships should also spawn at different distances between the mark, is this too close?

It's also set up so although they do tag the mark their primary objective is to take away the sector defense ships.

Feeback please

My game crashes when payment is due. Any advice?

System:
2.5 ghrtz p4
768 Mb ram
xfx gf 6600 128mb

Can you give me any more info, as most are playing without issue's it's hard to guess what is causing a crash for you.

[Sandalpocalypse]

Yes, that's kind of what I'm getting it. I split off from the target to blast incoming ships before they enter firing range and then a Buster spawns practically on top of the target and annihilates it in one go. Escort mission failed! Mind you, thats with me in a Buster with 2 Discoverer wingmen. who are both assigned to protect the target.

I think it would work out better if the Pirate Busters were using a mix of PACs and IREs (2 and 4 say), but I have no idea how hard that would be.

I did experience one game crash that might be related to the script. I was escorting a ship to a station in Cloudbase Southeast and when I entered the Cloudbase Southeast jumpgate the game crashed. I couldn't tell you more than that, I am not sure it was related to the escort.

One problem: A freighter I was escorting got dinged up during the mission and decided to dock with some random station for about 5 minutes, but pirate ships were still spawning. Turkey shoot. Heh.

I think too many pirate ships spawn sometimes. That's not really a difficulty issue, because they're spawning in multiple waves, and if you can stop one wave you can generally stop them all. But I think it does lead to a lot of captured pirate ships.

I bet having both random hails and BBS mission escorts could work out well.

[Sandalpocalypse]

Hmm.. Had it again. I was sitting in space watching my escort target fumble around trying to dock to an Argon Shipyard (autopilot sometimes just can't seem to do it, dunno why, this is problematic when your reward is contigent on docking), a Yaki Buster spawns 2 KM from the ship and rips it apart before I can do more than close 500m and start firing. Arrrrrrrr-gh

But why I'm really posting is I think I had another script-related crash. It took an escort to Elena's Fortune for 110,000 cr. I get there, but no payoff quite yet. I continue escorting the ship and.. CTD. (X3 1.2.1)

[LV]

a Yaki Buster spawns 2 KM from the ship and rips it apart before I can .....

are you really sure it spawns?, or are you forgetting who made this plugin

[Sandalpocalypse]

All I can say is what I saw. I wasn't even SETAing. Maybe not 2KM, but really close regardless. It wasn't a very valuable escort anyways

But! I do have a SAVE of that escort mission I just related. I just did it again and it crashed again.

http://www.deadlyshoe.com/x05.zip (NOT a ZIP file - rename to SAV!)

The ship being escorted is the Gourmet Express, it is not the ship targeted... I was just scanning passing freighters in hopes of getting something to capture without wrecking my reputation further

Hope that helps.[/url]

[LV]

for some reason that link wants to download as a .htm for me

[Sandalpocalypse]

One moment. POS webhost won't allow some extensions to be downloaded. I'll change the extension but you'll have to change it back.

[DemaeRamen]

I find that a lot of the time too.

I'm busy elsewhere and something pops up right next to the mark and kills him.

I even had it where I was following him on protect with wingmen attacking my target. So I was just watching the sector map choosing which Yaki should die next (made me thing of that old arcade game (Armageddon?) where you shoot down missiles over a city. But I digress, I was watching the sector map and a buster either sneaked past me as non-hostile and with a different name or spawned in and took out the mark in one single attack run.

Escorting a courier is easier as it will mostly outrun the interception effort but these freighters at 60M/s with 10MJ of shields are too easily destroyed IMO.

[prophet360]

I keep running into a problem where after I receve the message and accept the mission, I go into autopilot mode and target something totally different. If I break the AP (bumping the mouse) I have to find him by ship #. That is kinda lame, it should automatically target it but, the thing is, most of the time it is not there. or in any connecting sectors. Then after a few minutes I get the escort cancelled message.

One time I swear I saw it jump!

Another thing; when I started a new game I got offered 3 17k+ escorts and now that I am a proffesional, i keep getting 2k or less. What gives?

Other than that its a great script. Could you have it appear on the plyer info scrreen (like, BBS)? And, wouldn't it be nice to have it give noteriety?

[Lothmorg]

made me thing of that old arcade game (Armageddon?) where you shoot down missiles over a city.

Missile Command.

I too, have noticed that the pirates seem to "appear" really close to the mark. Is there a way to have them spawn next to a gate and fly in?

It would be a bummer to have 2 waves come in from East/West gates at the same time. Which group to attack first?

Thanks for a very enjoyable script.

[LV]

ZIP download
Here

A slight update

Yaki/Pirate ships should not spawn too close to you now

The autopilot the above poster refers to is where your ship is set to "Attack Nearest Enemy To" your mark, the ego stock command only allows you to ANE to one of your ships.

[Lothmorg]

[Tents fingers]

Excellent!

[/Tents fingers]

[DemaeRamen]

'Dzooks!

Excellent.


@Lothmorg: Good game check.

[Lothmorg]

@Lothmorg: Good game check.

I am a treasure trove of useless information.

[tiamdal]

More info. I take on mission, defeats enemies ranging from one M3 to ten assorted fighters for each sector. When we reach the target sector the game crashes.
I believe this is caused by a trigger in the script, like payment or spawning more enemies in sector.


Its a great script when it works for me

[Bane_v2]

I did my first escort mission tonight. I docked for e-cells, accepted the incoming message and autopilot kicked in. I'm in formation, there's a few pirate 20km off but we sailed through the gate no problem.

The next sector is clear and we both dock at their destination. An easy 17k right? The incoming message said the escort was aborted because I was too far from the ship.

Look to the right man, I'm docked next to you. Now pay up.

[DemaeRamen]

LV, I just got what you meant about spawning.

Spoiler

Show

I was trying to capture the attackers after a failed mission. Their Nova was down to about 20% hull and jumped out before I could get him

Crafty.

[Lothmorg]

The incoming message said the escort was aborted because I was too far from the ship.
Look to the right man, I'm docked next to you.

Don't dock. You might have to wait until the ship undocks before you get paid. It's happened to me a few times already.

[AfroOfDoom]

I too am getting an occasional crash with this script at the end of a mission (when i would normally get the payment message)

next time it happens ill write down the error and post it here.