[SCR] CODEA Weapon System [13th May 2010 X³:TC 3.1.14]

[Saetan]

Hi Topcross

First off all, if you have a big escort of corvettes/frigates/destroyes (like I have) it is a pain to move around without hitting your own ships:D So maybe if possible could you add an option so your escort flys in some kind of formation too, like this they keep their distance from eachother and the carrier.

I see, with terran ships that problem gets more important. Once upon a time we already discussed that in the german board. The problem is the transporter device. It's quite limited in his range of about 4 kilometers. Lucike already extended this range for his script, but he doesn't like to develop "cheat" scripts.
Now I got the idea that could be solved by handling the wares from one ship to another to extend the range an indirect way. But I guess that wouldn't be easy to implement into the script.

Second one, when I want to start my patrol, I gotta do that in two different carriers (since they are spread out over two carriers). Would it be possible to link every ship on your support carriers to the codea of the main carrier? (Maybe this is already possible and then I must have missed that function, if so could anyone explain me how to do this please:D)

Yet the additional carrier is a quite independant carrier which just follows your carrier and gets his equipment from there. The routines for not attacking the same targets by multiple codea carriers are older.
It has also been already been a wish in the german board to use that carrier only als "extension" and control it from your own one.
I don't know if Lucike will ever change this but if he does, I guess with low priority. But maybe he talks about that by himself the next time he is here.

Third one, could you make it possible to have more than one supply tender and supply base because supplying sometimes goes quite slow with only one ship moving between the fleet and my base and since equipment docks can only stock a few of some missilies.

Vanilla EQ's are one of the largest craps in this game, in my opinion. You are already modified. You could also mod the storage capacity of your docks, buy a headquarter in the marodeur shipyard by teladidrone or buy an enhanced equipmentdock by myself. Then you would have enough cargo space for your supply. If you don't want to mod but only to use scripts, you could also assign your supplier to a own supply-complex.
Just as a hint from me.

Anyway, my first plan was to fill one carrier with bombers but once i started hiring the personnel needed to man them (Mechanics and Technicens (or however you write that lol)) I soon gave up as it is a pain to recruit them : first fly to a station and then sometimes wait for ages till they get there (or wait in seta just outside the target station and risk to miss em because they leave before you can dock). I then tried with a few scabbards but it was also quite hard to recruit em fast.

Firstly, you can only use one squadron of four bombers per carrier per time. Im not sure, if you liked to fill your carrier with more than that.
Anyway you can also let your personell be recruited automatically. Set a Lieutnant as pilot for a TP and send this TP to an argon equipmentdock, outpost or company headquarter. Everytime a military transport docks he will take every personell of his own race he can get. After some time of waiting and doing other things, you should have enough personell. Personell which you got to much can be fired after.

Regards,
Saetan

[xWolfzx]

A couple of issues,

I've equipped my m3+ fighters with this loadout: front hept, turrets pac (kea experimental) and i discovered that when they fire their turrets, they stow away their hept even if they are able to fire it at the enemy (which is infront of them) so i tested out one of them with pacs all around and that problem did not happen. So is it possible to switch off weapon switching or at least have an option for it? (Or whatever that is causing the problem =O)

Also, whenever i activate codea on my carrier, seta seems to go screwy, as in whenever i activate seta, the npc and my fleet, other then my playership decide to stop and not move, and they only move again when seta is deactivated. Deactivating codea seems to fix this problem for me.

[Saetan]

I've equipped my m3+ fighters with this loadout: front hept, turrets pac (kea experimental) and i discovered that when they fire their turrets, they stow away their hept even if they are able to fire it at the enemy (which is infront of them) so i tested out one of them with pacs all around and that problem did not happen.

Do the HEPT's stop to fire overall or do they just get reduced? This may be caused because of low laser energy. HEPT's are quite energy hungry and so they get reduced if laser energy is to low.

Also, whenever i activate codea on my carrier, seta seems to go screwy, as in whenever i activate seta, the npc and my fleet, other then my playership decide to stop and not move, and they only move again when seta is deactivated. Deactivating codea seems to fix this problem for me.

That's an X performance problem overall ... if your computer is under to much load X starts to stop/pause scripts. Especially SETA is affected often. You could try to reduce SETA factor.

[Commander Zane]

Had the same problem with my Heavy Centaurs, they'd just remove their Plasma Throwers and only use their Concussion Impulse Generator turrets.

[xWolfzx]

Thanks for the quick reply Saeten, regarding the hept problem, i opened the gun loadout window of my m3+ and the hept aren't install at all, they just sat inside the cargobay.

So i try removing them from my codea list, remove the weapons, put it back in, then add them back in. I checked my m3+ to make sure that the weapons are properly equipped and i launch them at an enemy. When my m3+ engage the enemy, i check their weapon loadout again and the hept were again sent back into their cargobays.

[Saetan]

After which time do they?

For examples, I just tested energy usage for HEPTs

HEPT:
Energy usage: 188MJ/s



Argon Nova Vanguard:
Max. Laserenergy: 5600MJ
Energy reload: 140MW

4x HEPT => 188 * 4 = 752MJ/s

I have been able to shoot just with front lasers for about 9 seconds until they were empty.

9s * 140MW + 5600MJ = 1260 + 5600 = 6860MJ
6860MJ / 752MJ/s = 9,12s



Argon Heavy Centaur:
Max Laserenergy: 14500MJ
Energy reload: 435MW

6x HEPT = 188 * 6 = 1128MJ/s

Only with the front lasers I could fire this time for about 21 seconds. If the turrets were equipped and firing, it would have been less.

21s * 435MW + 14500MJ = 9135 + 14500 = 23635MJ
23635MJ / 1128MJ/s = 20,9s

If the turrets would also fight with HEPTs, there would be 6 additional HEPT's ... double of energy usage, about the half of time firing.



So, it is sure they will stop using all their HEPTs for fighting as they don't have enough energy anymore which can be quite soon. If they have less hungry alternatives to fight they will use them if necessary, until there is enough of energy again. But afterwards they should use them again.

Until now I don't think that is a bug.


--- edit ---

When my m3+ engage the enemy, i check their weapon loadout again and the hept were again sent back into their cargobays.

Do you have other weapons as well on your M3+? Where they installed instead? What kind of target they were engaging? Did they have their HEPT's already fired?

What you could also look: How much weapon energy did they still have, while engaging/having the HEPTs uninstalled?

[xWolfzx]

They were engaging fighters, they were using their turreted pac, since they have a forward turret as they are m3+, and yes their energy are full/nearly full.

It happen the moment they launch from my carrier, and as mention they tuck their hept into the cargobay hence they are aren't even used.

[Saetan]

Just a summary to see if I understood correct:

You have the HEPT assigned to your kea experimental for front lasers. No other lasers have been asigned there. You have assigned PAC to the turrets and no other weapons too.

When starting to engage they have nothing installed in their front laser bays and are only fighting with their turrets?



Or did you have HEPT's and PAC's assigned to the front laser bays and there are just the PAC's installed but no HEPT's while fighting other fighters?

[xWolfzx]

Yup the 1st assumption is the correct one.

[Commander Zane]

So ships under CODEA can only use one weapon type for all slots?

[Saetan]

Yup the 1st assumption is the correct one.

That's seems to be weird. I guess we have to wait for Lucike here. As far as I know, that shouldn't be.

So ships under CODEA can only use one weapon type for all slots?

Per turret / front only one kind of lasers will be used because of different speeds of the lasers (and turret rotation). The slower laser would be very ineffective because the enemy would start to avoid getting hit before the slower ones would hit it. Only exception are HEPT and EBC which can be used the same time because of nearly similar speeds. Also EBC will be used if available if the energy for HEPT is low, as EBC needs no energy but ammunition instead.

[Commander Zane]

What you said before about xWolfzx problem, is the same thing I'm going through, I explained it before, with the Heavy Centaur having all HEPTs on foward ports and CIGs on the turrets then the HEPTs being removed in combat (With any ship, even capitals), so that's what I was asking on my previous post, if all weapons to include the turrets must be the same, like all [insert number of foward weapons + turrets] must be the same weapon.

[Saetan]

No, they don't have to be the same. I use Argon Nova's ... attacker version, don't know their english name ... equipped with HEPT's and PRG's in the front and PRG's in their turrets. I never recognized a problem ... but maybe because of the PRG's in the front I didn't recognize?

I will point Lucike to that problem.

[xWolfzx]

Most likely that only happen if they have turrets which have the same arc of fire as their main guns so if the turrets fire and are of different weapons than the main guns, the main guns does not fire. I've tried using a wing of venti and nothing went wrong with them.

Another thing i found out is that my keas will actually fire their main gun but only if the front turrets does not fire (it's on missile defence mode), but the problem will occur when the enemy start to fire back (as then the turrets will activate).

[Commander Zane]

You've given me an idea.

[Topcross]

Firstly, you can only use one squadron of four bombers per carrier per time. Im not sure, if you liked to fill your carrier with more than that.
Anyway you can also let your personell be recruited automatically. Set a Lieutnant as pilot for a TP and send this TP to an argon equipmentdock, outpost or company headquarter. Everytime a military transport docks he will take every personell of his own race he can get. After some time of waiting and doing other things, you should have enough personell. Personell which you got to much can be fired after.

Sure about that you can only have 4? as I got eight of them and do think they work quite fine... (haven't used the bombers much yet) Yes I know about the TP thing, i checked the german thread for that but to do it efficient you gotta keep checking your MEFOS control pannel to see where the transporters are going to next which makes it too much off a pain in my oppinion. Maybe a special station like I first suggested is indeed not needed but maybe adding some kind of command so you can send a TP with MEFOS system and a Lieutnant to collect crew. I mean, not just let em sit in one station but rather that he will check all transporters himself and go to the nearest one or something like that. Like that you would get more personnel andwithout having to look into it all the time.

As for the other things, I understand Lucike ,I myself try to avoid anything that comes near cheating too as that would make the game not realy fun anymore. That brings me also to my last point the supply issue, I did use the FDN mod in my old game but disabled it in the game i'm currently playing as it was total cheating in my oppinion (no offence to the maker), the Nodes were excellent warehouses but they where able to link to other Nodes in a rang of max 8 sectors without having any ships moving between em. As for the enhanced equiment docks, are there any scripts outthere to do this atm, I don't think there is one in the english forums as far as I know off.

[Saetan]

Sure about that you can only have 4? as I got eight of them and do think they work quite fine...

Did you start multiple squadrons the same time? I remember Lucike saying, that only one squadron will be able to get starting. Additional bombers just would wait, until the active squadron is back in hangar.



As for the personell thing: From my expirience ... when using one TP and docking it to a station, I've got quite a lot of personell in a short time. Without having them to travel to military personell transport targets. You can shorten that time by using more than one TP too. Just let them wait and look after them later.
Of course if you need your personell urgently thats no good solution.

As for the enhanced equiment docks, are there any scripts outthere to do this atm, I don't think there is one in the english forums as far as I know off.

Here some links:
Enhanced Equipment Docks by myself
The Marauder Shipyard by Teladidrone

I didn't find the mod for extended storage space in regular docks, but that would be a simple change in a text file. Unpacking and repacking it of course too.

[Topcross]

Ah that might be it, I don't think I saw em both attacking at the same moment yet:D And for the personnel, if I can only use 4 bombers at a time there is no point in having a lot of em anyway:D thanks for the scripts i'll look into em right away, though I know that shipyard, the only modded shipyard I don't have in use atm lol dunno why, the few bugs that remain in it scared me away I think, unless those have been fixed now too:D. Also thank you for your quick replies every time, support on this is realy excellent.

[Saetan]

xWolfzx & Commander Zane:

For your interest: Lucike found your bug, nobody ever discovered it yet.

If there are only HEPT's in the front and PAC's in the turrets and the target is of the fighter-class, the front weapons will get uninstalled. As far as I understood Lucike, other situations won't cause this behavior. Im still excited how specialised bugs can be.

Thx for your bug reports,
I think there will be a fix soon.

[Commander Zane]

I don't know, but I think it happens regardless of the ship class, I've even watched my Corvettes do this to K's.