[AL PLUGIN] The Marauder Shipyard - v0.5 - updated: 23.01.2009

[Teladidrone]

Yeah, what he said.
The message should provide enough information to guess the sector. If you know your universe that is.
And...

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It should not be too far away from the main trade lanes to find once you've figured out the sector - always inside a 50x90x50 km wide cuboid around some sector's center.

[Rhadamant]

Does this mod require anything else other than itself and the installer? I activated it, figured out where the shipyard should be but it isn't there, however the mod is showing up in AL

[Tiberiumkyle]

Mod works for me. Found the station easily enough, and thanks to it, I'm on my way to taking over the Nvidium market. The mechanic has also been getting regular business tuning my frigates. Awesome work!

[Woundweaver]

Ah B****s knew i should have taken more notice of the message when script activated. I just deleted it Someone give me a clue....please

[Ravenholme]

It's Random, I believe.

You could try

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Bala-Gi's Joy

, that's where mine is.

[Teladidrone]

No one can give you a hint that fits to your particular game, the location will be different for every game.

* Always a sector owned by the Pirates.
* Always within a 50/90/50 km wide cuboid.

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* The incoming message will tell you the name/sector of the closest Paranid military outpost to the shipyard - that should point you to the general area of the universe as there are only so many Pirate sectors and Outposts.
* The incoming message will tell you the first 2 letters of some sector that is directly connected to the Marauder sector and the name of the gate that leads FROM the Marauder sector into that "2-letter" sector. Then bring up your map and start looking...

* The shipyard may be destroyed... Pirates like to kill stuff in their sectors, even if it is a station owned by themselves. They are crazy, you know...
* If the shipyard is destroyed, it will respawn somewhere else after a while. When exactly this will happen depends on how long the shipyard has existed before; however this should never take longer than 1 hour (game time).

* If everything does not help, turn off the plugin for a few seconds (that will nuke the shipyard if it exists somewhere) and then turn it on again (this will respawn it at some different location and you should get a new message with the hints).

[Hieronymos]

Great script Teladidrone.
Did you ever think of making access to new ships harder than just via race rep?
One idea is as per Voxol's Player-Friendly Ship Yard for X3R: player needed to provide SY with an actual ship for reverse engineering (which was destroyed in process)..once completed, SY could stock new vessel.

[Teladidrone]

"Borrowing" the player's race rank was just a quick and easy hack because everything else was ready for a first release.
Frankly, I remembered how long it took to raise your rank in Reunion and did not bother to consider how ridiculously fast you can raise your rank in TC now...

I originally had planned to maintain my own "Marauder rank" that should decide which items the shipyard stocks - only increased if you complete certain missions for The Don himself.
Well, that was before I had to learn that the communication/synchronization between the AL plugin and the MD is... "limited" and more or less only possible in one direction.
And how long it takes to write and test MD missions. No wonder Ego's own missions are full of bugs...


However, the Marauder rank idea is still around and I may get back to that some day... maybe. That reverse engineering thingy sounds funny, too.
Only problem I see is that the damage has already been done - the player has already bought everything he wanted and I guess changing the stock now would not have a noticeable effect.

[Luckychuck]

Hi Teladidrone. Just getting around to trying this script.

I was thinking, instead of "borrowing" the player's race rank, what if you used the player's combat rank? After all, it is pirates we're dealing with, and they like to fight.

[Teladidrone]

I was thinking, instead of "borrowing" the player's race rank, what if you used the player's combat rank? After all, it is pirates we're dealing with, and they like to fight.

I was considering that at first, too - however, that would not really be very suitable for the factories stocked.
If someone wants to play a trader only game then his combat rank may as well stay at zero for ever...
Still, I like this idea - maybe combat rank for ships, trader rank for factories?

But... oh well, there's always a "but" isn't there?
What about the PHQ?
Force a fighting-style player to get a high trading rank to be able to buy the PHQ may not be such a wise idea.
What if he decides to send his mighty fleet over instead to discuss this matter in person?

[Luckychuck]

I hadn't thought about the PHQ, but I do like your idea of having the combat rank for ships and the trade rank for factories. In X3-R I used one of my PHQs for military applications and another for trade applications. Maybe a high trade and combat rank for the PHQ since it is the ultimate installation. Any way, just my thoughts............Keep up the good work.

[ChrisCorr]

Pretty neat script you got here.

The first time I ran the script everything was fine. The shipyard spawned and I could buy from it at upgrade my ship. Then I went on with my life and a few (quite a lot actually) game hours later I got a new "MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY" message. I thought that the shipyard must have been destroyed or maybe removed by God, but then I went to take a look in the sector were it supposedly spawned again and it is nowhere to be found.

Should I run the script again? I only used the shipyard once so maybe it did get removed by god, since I guess it had no other customers. ^^

[Teladidrone]

You'll only get a new Mayday if the script had to respawn the shipyard - for whatever reason, most likely a random Pirate patrol on the loose.
If you are sure it is not there where the message indicated turn off the plugin and turn it on again.
This should always force a respawn with new Mayday message.

[Hieronymos]

The DDRS mod for X3R has a pirate base providing missions (assassination, escort, etc.), that if successful, unlocks special ships at 6 special SY's (1 for each race + Yaki), that are independant of regular rep (i.e., you can buy ship, but may not get it out of a hostile sector alive).

Voxol's PFSY, allowed you to buy and place the SY, which then would build any ships for which it had blueprints, charging normal game price for said ships..

If the Marauder SY has ship access solely based on any race rep, then it's waaaaay easy. You'll probably need some additional hurdle(s)..like mission completions. Or a 30% surcharge on inventory..

[xiriod]

I searched all over for a gate connected to 'Me...' with the Marauder in it, but nothing. I guess I would have to restart the AL plugin? If the Marauder somehow is somewhere else, will restarting the AL just destroy the first one and make it appear somewhere else with no adverse effects?

[ChrisCorr]

I got the Mayday message a few more times, apparently the thing was jumping around a lot. After a while I stopped getting messages but the shipyard isn't at it's last supposed location.

How do I restart the plugin?

[Teladidrone]

I searched all over for a gate connected to 'Me...' with the Marauder in it, but nothing. I guess I would have to restart the AL plugin? If the Marauder somehow is somewhere else, will restarting the AL just destroy the first one and make it appear somewhere else with no adverse effects?

The only effect should be that the script nukes the shipyard if it exists somewhere and then respawn it at some different location.
I did that a lot times testing here and it always worked as planned.

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Does it say "North Gate"? Then probably Me = Merchant Heaven which means your Marauder should be in sector Maelstrom.

How do I restart the plugin?

All plugin settings are under Gameplay-Artificial Life Settings.
Its just a toggle yes/no.
Turn it off for 1 minute and then turn it on again.
After a few seconds you should get the incoming message with the location hints again.

[amirite]

I always glaze over this thread in S&M but now that I've actually read your post it sounds awesome. I like how you are making these existing ships available in a creative way.

When you impliment the Paranid attacks, will the shipyard stay put as long as it is safe? I like the part about it jumping to random sectors, but it would be even cooler if the player could get some control over that eventually.

[Hieronymos]

Another way of locating, or at least fine-tuning your search, would be to use Cycrow's cheat script. Save your game, then activate cheatscript, use 'discover entire universe' cheat, then examine each of the pirate/unknown sectors for the M SY. Then reload your your earlier gamesave.

[Teladidrone]

I always glaze over this thread in S&M but now that I've actually read your post it sounds awesome. I like how you are making these existing ships available in a creative way.

When you impliment the Paranid attacks, will the shipyard stay put as long as it is safe? I like the part about it jumping to random sectors, but it would be even cooler if the player could get some control over that eventually.

Yeah, something like that is the plan.
The shipyard will stay in place until destroyed.
I also installed low shielding to the shipyard because I actually WANT it to be destroyed from time to time.
As of now, only random attacks may happen; that is very location dependant - some Xenon, Khaak or Pirate patrols may decide that its sitting in their way and try to relocate it.
Depending on location that could happen frequently - or never.
Once the Paranid attacks are in place, they will directly aim at it and try to nuke it... unless something stops them dead in their tracks.