[SCRIPT] NPC Bailing Addon v1.7.8 [2010-09-21]

Staberind · Post by **Staberind** » Thu, 24. Jan 13, 20:57

Please try to relax, its unwise to get all huffy and offended by a post on the net,
Might I suggest finding the cheapest gig to £$yen whatever hd anyway?
I had to save for a while to get my new machine up and running, so I know what you mean. but I have an i5 running of an ssd, so, until I get a second ssd thats dedicated to games, I am super happy. wrt the scripts, there is already a npc bailing thing in xrm, although I have not yet experimented with it. I have downloaded the older script to check it out.
Finally, your English is excellent, so, don't worry about it.

Huillam · Post by **Huillam** » Sat, 25. May 13, 03:49

Just to clarify:
20 bail rate ensure the biggest chance of bailing?
20 hull rate ensure the chance can happen with hull mostly intact?

I just ran some test on a xenon J (because it became blue and half a second later became space dust with 1 at the bail rate and 5 at the hull rate and that was not the first who made me that bad joke!) with 20/20: it just fight to the end (even made few attempt at 0% hull without success). Does existing ships need some time to update their bailing chance?

Edit:
Okay jumping out and jumping back updated the setting (or I was just lucky).
Any advice for some recommended settings? I'd like cap ships bailing to remain rare but at least happens when they have enough hull to survive.

Edit2:
The formulae is used twice. I missed that part. So with 1 at the bailing rate and 10 at the full factor a pilot with 85 bravado has 1% chance to bail around 50%. But is this calculated every X seconds? Every time the hull take damage? Only once?

Paingod · Post by **Paingod** » Thu, 13. Jun 13, 15:11

I tried out this mod last night and ended up uninstalling it. I had two issues.

1. NPC Salvagers aren't active enough. Just through the course of normal travel, I ran into 5 TP and TS ships in three sectors drifting pilot-less after pirate/yaki attacks. I never felt like I was in competition with the salvagers and only saw two "salvage" tagged ships - both Xenon L's and both under Boron command, flying together. All in all, if I left the mod running I'd have a windfall of spare ships to manage.

2. I started having issues capping ships I forced to bail during combat. The ships would be stopped, show as having no pilot, and an astronaut would be drifting nearby but the "Claim" command was simply gone. If I got close enough, the ship would fly away randomly for a little while at low speeds and then stop again. This was particularly frustrating when I finally forced a couple Terran pilots to bail but couldn't claim their ships (which I wanted to Reverse Engineer and didn't have yet).

It might be worthwhile to re-install this late-late-late game when I have a couple carriers and can scoop up a lot of smaller ships just to recycle them or RE them if I don't yet have the blueprint, but early on when money is still tight this is a serious balance issue.

Larxyz · Post by **Larxyz** » Sat, 15. Jun 13, 10:50

anyone else having issues with menus now showing up after 3.0 patch?

Larxyz · Post by **Larxyz** » Sat, 15. Jun 13, 12:17

nvm, forgot to install JSON libraries. lol

nap_rz · Post by **nap_rz** » Mon, 17. Jun 13, 10:01

figured out how to

Honved · Post by **Honved** » Tue, 25. Jun 13, 16:23

Paingod wrote:I tried out this mod last night and ended up uninstalling it. I had two issues.

1. NPC Salvagers aren't active enough. Just through the course of normal travel, I ran into 5 TP and TS ships in three sectors drifting pilot-less after pirate/yaki attacks.
.....

2. I started having issues capping ships I forced to bail during combat. The ships would be stopped, show as having no pilot, and an astronaut would be drifting nearby but the "Claim" command was simply gone. If I got close enough, the ship would fly away randomly for a little while at low speeds and then stop again.

1 - The first issue can be compensated for by changing the bail setting down to about 20 (the default 40 or 50 will leave the universe littered with ships). The settings seem to be exponential, so at 20, I run into one or two "third party combat" bails a day at most (most of those spotted in far sectors while checking on my other assets remotely), and get a few extra bails in combat now and then. I end up with almost as many bails stolen out from under me by NPC salvagers (with their remote claim software) than I get from the extra bails. I'm now learning to spot the salvagers and pick my fights (or draw them away) so I've got enough time to finish the fight and claim the salvage before the salvagers reach it. At a bail setting of 30, abandoned ships are somewhat common, but the salvagers usually keep up with it unless you're quick to get there.

I set the capital ship bail rate one notch higher, because they rarely survive long enough to bail, once the shields drop. There's usually more than sufficient ordinance already in flight to finish off the ship even if the crew does decide to eject, so it's a rare thing to find an abandoned capital ship (after 5 days, my current game left an abandoned Ares M7M in a Pirate sector with about 2% hull, and I had to abandon my mission at the time to get there before the competition), but you'll probably get an M6 bail during combat once or twice a game. I suspect that the mod would be absurd at settings over 50.

2 - If you try using your suit repair laser before you claim a ship, it will consider it an attack and take evasive action. I've never seem one fly off except when some other salvager remotely claimed it out from under me. I will agree with you as to the other point: I saw fighters two or three times that couldn't be claimed at all; the Claim option simply did not appear either with the Override software or by going EVA and flying up to it. They never flew away from me, though.

cryptonite1 · Post by **cryptonite1** » Tue, 2. Jul 13, 18:16

great script, working nicely, just to ask something,

I dont really get how the "bail rate factor" and the "hull bail factor" affect each other and how they affect "bravado", and even what they actually mean lol....yes, i read the instructions and some of the posts in this thread, but they are'nt specific enough...like exactly what number in the settings = what % of bail

but after some testing,

1. Even if ALL the factors are set to one. 5 out of 5 M2s bail at a hull of an average of 50%, one at 90%, isn't this bail rate too high? i mean, the factor is both set to 1...and the percentage after calculating using the formula is like 2%...there must be something wrong?

2. If "bail hull factor" is how much hull the ship has left for the NPC to bail, why is the MAX of this option 20? does 20 mean NPC will consider bailing when hull reach 20%? what if someone want NPC to bail at 50% or higher? or is there another meaning?

3. "Equipment Damage" have 2 options, one is hull dependant and one is default, whats default? is it vanilla? and whats hull dependant? i know its plain english, but can it be more specific? like how much damage will provide how much equipment, etc? or make an example?

4.

ThisIsHarsh wrote:Use the Community Configuration Menu to configure the plugin. Most options should be self explanatory. The option "Non-standard ship bailing", if enabled, could cause unintended side-effects, such as not being able to claim certain abandoned ships without using a third-party plugin.

I thought in vanilla, you already CANNOT clain a ship bigger than an M6, you can only board it. so whats this option for if theres already an option for big/huge ship bailing? isn't it obvious that if enabling big/huge ship bailing also means that the person wants non-standard ship bailing on too" since big/huge ships are considered "non-standard" by ur description.

5. what is small/big/huge ships? exactly? i thought small would be M5-M3, TS, TP. big would be M6-M7, TM. huge would be M1-M2, and where does a TL fit in? but after testing, i may be wrong, because turning huge ships on/off does not affect a M1 from bailing or not, but turning big ships on/off do affects M1, if this is true, does this mean there is something bigger classified as "huge ships"? and that M6-7 = small ships?

erevo · Post by **erevo** » Sun, 11. Aug 13, 01:26

I found a bunch of abandoned ships from npc battles but it felt cheap and like cheating to take and use or sell them so I just decided to blow them up. Really, I was just looking for ways to change bailing mechanics a bit for myself, but there seems to be nothing out there but this. Though I can't seem to disable NPC vs NPC bailing. RP-wise it doesn't really makes sense that everybody leaves functioning ships behind anyway (it doesn't do that even with the other mod mentioned in the starting post). It also unbalances the game if you can make millions from just flying around and taking a few ships from other peoples battles.

firestorm79 · Post by **firestorm79** » Thu, 7. Nov 13, 10:56

Larxyz wrote:anyone else having issues with menus now showing up after 3.0 patch?

I have this problem too... I can't configure the npc bail settings it just comes up with an empty blue menu!

can anyone assist??

edit: doh!! just read your second post!!! installed JSON parser library, now working fine!

firestorm79 · Post by **firestorm79** » Thu, 7. Nov 13, 11:13

ThisIsHarsh wrote: Pilots may bail from their ships during combat when their hull is severely damaged. A pilot's bravado is based on a combination of their morale, aggression and fight skill. The chance of bailing is based on the bravado and the bail rate factor. The amount of hull damage they must suffer before bailing is based on the bravado and the bail hull factor. A higher number indicates higher probability/hull percent. The bail rate and hull factors are configurable through the menu.

firstly, great script! my universe has suddenly filled with bailed ships!

ok noob questions here... so if bail rate is higher then they bail more often?

bail hull factor is set at 5 on default... can i set this at random? also if i reduce the hull factor will they bail at lower hull??

thx

edit: read through the posts a bit... I think I get it now. settings are from 1 - 20 (why were they not just set at percentages?!?) and therefore 1 = 5%. So the default hull factor of 5 means they will consider bailing at 25% hull?

surefire_ven0m · Post by **surefire_ven0m** » Fri, 22. Nov 13, 18:00

Hi all, please can someone tell me which i directory i place the spk in ? I am using an XRM 'fake patch' game so i cant instal with plugin manager without switching save directories.

joelR · Post by **joelR** » Sat, 23. Nov 13, 03:49

surefire_ven0m wrote:Hi all, please can someone tell me which i directory i place the spk in ? I am using an XRM 'fake patch' game so i cant instal with plugin manager without switching save directories.

This isnt a mod so using the PM wont screw anything up

Barleyman · Post by **Barleyman** » Thu, 28. Nov 13, 00:40

Could someone suggest reasonable settings?

Default spawns whole a bunch of loot all over the place. I started a new game and was soon a proud owner of 4 Xenon Ls, Scimitar, Nova, Falcon, Buster etc etc.

I'm using XRM with "medium" hull adjustment, apparently this breaks things more?

To start with I suppose Xenons should be adjusted to 10% bail rate. It should be an anomaly.

For Khaak, 20% might be reasonable?

On top of that, bail rate factor for small ships is 6 and hull rate is 5.

Setting both to "3" should trim trigger happiness a lot? It's exponential scale, so..

Formula in the 1st post is a bit unclear. As already stated here we do not know how often the probability is tested or just once. Bravado is also unknown quantity unless you have a bio scanner.

It's also not quite clear how the hull rating is used. Are we supposed to take it at face value and assume this gives a static "bail here" percentage? It seems a bit odd if that's the case.

..

After taking a look at the script, it really works like that. The only value which affects "bail, do not bail" decision is the bail rate. Hull rate then gives a static hull condition where NPC will eject.

Depending on what "bravado" actually works out to, you can calculate the percentage.

Sorkvild · Post by **Sorkvild** » Thu, 28. Nov 13, 01:19

After a while of playing with this mod - I dumped it and reverted to vanilla bail settings (the best ones IMO)

I used really, really strict settings (very low chances) and after some time the whole universe was littered with garbage ships. Sometimes I could even find an Ozias with few percents of hull

Bail rate is too high.

It breaks the game balance in my opinion, because player can make serious cash by picking up hulls and sell for big cash at no effort.

Barleyman · Post by **Barleyman** » Thu, 28. Nov 13, 02:27

I spent some time scanning ships and annoying people. It looks like bravado is usually 60-something. So armed with that knowledge we can deduce..

With default settings (5 and 6) fighter pilots with 62 bravado will bail 29% of the time and if they do, they'll do it when their hull is at 37%

If we lower that to 3 and 3 it's 12,7% for both.

So perhaps 2 and 3 (6% bail rate) would be reasonable. However it'd be very hard to make someome bail by yourself then.

It'd be nice if this differentiated between "I'm under attack by player" situation where normal rules would apply and NPC-NPC engagements would get the rates defined here.

I'm not sure if this script runs in addition to the normal bail mechanism so you'd still get normal bails by yourself.

Barleyman · Post by **Barleyman** » Sun, 1. Dec 13, 00:30

Answering myself.. Yes, it seems the player-initiated bailing works just fine even if you adjust NPC-NPC bail to a rare probability. So far so good then.

VaporSnake · Post by **VaporSnake** » Sun, 1. Dec 13, 03:02

Barleyman wrote:So perhaps 2 and 3 (6% bail rate) would be reasonable. However it'd be very hard to make someome bail by yourself then.

When you say 2 and 3, is 2 supposed to be the bail hull factor or the bail rate?

Barleyman · Post by **Barleyman** » Sun, 1. Dec 13, 05:18

VaporSnake wrote:
Barleyman wrote:So perhaps 2 and 3 (6% bail rate) would be reasonable. However it'd be very hard to make someome bail by yourself then.
When you say 2 and 3, is 2 supposed to be the bail hull factor or the bail rate?

2 bail rate (6% bail rate) and 3 hull factor (12,5% hull left at bail). That's maybe a bit too little, I've been using 3 and 5 now, I don't really see excessive bailing even so. I've set kha'ak and xenon to 20% factor so you should get a bail from them occasionally but it's not common.

I think the changed values do not kick in until you restart X3. I wrote simple (libreoffice) sheet to calculate the odds, grab it if you like.

Most people seem to have bravado in 60s, teladi are cowards and they are in 40s. For 60 bravado the bail rate with 3 and 5 would be 13% chance and jump at 29% hull.

akruppa · Post by **akruppa** » Wed, 11. Dec 13, 23:13

This is only partially on-topic, but this thread is probably one of the best places to look for an answer.

What are the game mechanics in vanilla X3AP for bailing, anyway? Which factors affect the probability of an AI pilot bailing? His morale, aggressiveness, hull damage, equipment damage? Weapons, shield and hull on player ship, maybe? Anyone know the actual algorithm used to decide bailing? I'd like to know what I can do to optimise my chance of capping my trophy ships before I resort to installing scripts to let me set the probability to whatever I want (which for me would kinda take the fun out of it).

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[SCRIPT] NPC Bailing Addon v1.7.8 [2010-09-21]

Re: [SCRIPT] NPC Bailing Addon v1.7.8 [2010-09-21]