[SCR][MD][TC][AP] LIFE-V0.95b (update: 06-May-2014)

[Pierre'70]

Also, (rather amusingly), with the latest version of DrBullwinkle's Drone Carrier Software 2 the drones are talking! They chat away as 'Computer Components' as they fight.

User Tiek suggested naming the drone pilots "Computer Components". I thought it was a good suggestion, so I added it. I believe that the choice of the name was because it is already in the language file. If it causes trouble, then I can just as easily change the name to custom text, such as "Drone AI".

'Computer Components' is a fine name for drone 'pilots' - I just don't think they should be quoting Terminator 2 while they're fighting!

[DrBullwinkle]

What do they say?

I would think that Terminator 2 chatter would be perfect. The Terminator is a fancy drone, after all.

[Pierre'70]

What do they say?

I would think that Terminator 2 chatter would be perfect. The Terminator is a fancy drone, after all.

If you haven't tried this, one of the things it adds is radio chatter between ships in combat - it's really atmospheric. The modder has used lots of audio samples that aren't used in vanilla - some of them are movie quotes! You're dead right about Terminator I have to say!

[Shush]

Thanx for the update and the great work, just yesterday I started a new game in AP 3.1, will see how that works out for me:), this time I will test it with my own fighters, but that may take a while as I do like to personally do the dogfighting etc.
In my previous game I just tested the mods, not the leveling of my own fighters as my X-universe was quite save with the RRF and MBBR around, so this time will see about adding more fights with own fighters/big ships and see how they level up.
But it may take some time as I love to take time to get into a new game, just enjoying the new things.

That's very similar style as to how I play the X series. You might want to grab the new 0.76a that is I've just uploaded to my DropBox. It fixes a few NPC leveling issues.

Edit: just started a new game and while doing an attack mission for the Paranid involving some Yaki ships and after destroying them, the GNS News stated in skirmish news that the Yaki destroyed my player consortium ships, hmm, remaining Yaki: 1 M6 (which is my ship), but I am not Yaki and my M6 ship destroyed the Yaki ships.
Something got switched in that news article.
Never seen that before.

Edit 2: just now I killed some pirate ships, also in Paranid space, and again the GNS stated that the Pirate ships killed my ship, and left was Pirates: 1 M6, which was my ship who killed the pirates, not the other way around, something is stated wrong in the GNS News in Paranid space.

Edit 3: figured out that it's the same in pirate sector's, just killed some yaki and the GNS news stated that the Yaki killed my ship, which is not the case.

Yup, a silly bug introduced with the colouring of the News text, it should be all good in 0.76a.

[Shush]

I haven't run into any serious problems with recent versions of this (I no longer explode in Kingdom End!) but I've noticed a couple of compatibilty issues. Salvage Command Suite adds a few Automatic Repair Bases to the universe and I got a readtext newsagent at one of them. Also, (rather amusingly), with the latest version of DrBullwinkle's Drone Carrier Software 2 the drones are talking! They chat away as 'Computer Components' as they fight. I don't think they were able to gain levels though.

Keep up the good work - who knew the pilots of the X universe were such big fans of twentieth-century Earth movies?! (Especially the Paranid ones, it seems!)

Let me guess they were player owned drones right? It's fixed in 0.76a no more drone chatter, I completely forgot to add non piloted ship filters to the player owned stuff.

Yeah it amazes me how much of the X series audio you never hear and it also amazes me that they didn't record really basic generic stuff, like greetings, thankyou's, insults etc. With a little more variation I could have gone to town with this mod :/

That particular sample, one of Arnie's best quotes from T2 being spoken by a Paranid NPC as he levels up, always cracks me up

[Pierre'70]

Thanks for the quick fix Shush! A quick question - as I use a conversations.xml file from TC plots for AP, is it necessary to copy/paste the conversations file contents from conversations_insert every time I update the script? It's not really a problem but it'd be faster if I only had to do it when necessary.

[Shush]

Thanks for the quick fix Shush! A quick question - as I use a conversations.xml file from TC plots for AP, is it necessary to copy/paste the conversations file contents from conversations_insert every time I update the script? It's not really a problem but it'd be faster if I only had to do it when necessary.

You only need to update it if the actual conversation file has changed, just do a quick file size and file date check and if they haven't changed then you are golden.

[PDouma39]

Well just tested the latest version, and allthough the GNS News stated facts right, it also said (after I killed all the Xenon ships) remaining: Xenon 1 M6, which is my ship. So that part is still not right I guess, but will give it more time, I did however updated and initialised LIFE again.

[Shush]

Well just tested the latest version, and allthough the GNS News stated facts right, it also said (after I killed all the Xenon ships) remaining: Xenon 1 M6, which is my ship. So that part is still not right I guess, but will give it more time, I did however updated and initialised LIFE again.

Uuuungh ok, I'll have to sort this one out after work, nearly 1am here and it's time for night nights.

[PDouma39]

Well take your time and sleep, that's more important.
I did also test the latest version on my previous save-game from my earlier game and alas, in there things are stated the same in the GNS news, just now I have become a Xenon who fought a mini (or something like that) fleet of Thyn's Abyss, in the frontier system of "player-name" (in this case Joranas Hurilis Lotunis XII). Things got mixed up real badly:).
I think because of the coloring things got messed up, but that's just me guessing. Love the extra audio-samples though.

edit: in this new game things are really heating up between the different races, love the extra audio chatter, just a warning though, while doing the plotmissions in AP(or TC), you'd better disable the LIFE-audio during a plotmission or you miss out on some of the related plot info via that particular plot-related audio info. Offcourse the md will guide you through the plot, but nevertheless if you don't want to be intterrupted by the LIFE-audio chatter temporarily disable audio in the LIFE-configuration menu.

[theknapps]

Shush,
Sorry for the delay in relpying - "real life" took over!!
Before the battle my Barracuda had no kills. The Nova had L1 K0.
After the battle: Barracuda was K3 L1 with -41 fighter drones on board;
the Nova was K2 L1 with -56 fighter drones.

[Mad_CatMk2]

What if you set a global threshold variable limit with chatter, and before each time chatter is played you poll this limit. If it will exceed or already reached, then skip the chatter?

Do you mean like an analog noise squelch, but dependent on audio samples fired per some fixed time period rather than noise amplitude?

Hmmm interesting idea.

Yeah that sounds like an interesting/fun approach!

[Shush]

Shush,
Sorry for the delay in relpying - "real life" took over!!
Before the battle my Barracuda had no kills. The Nova had L1 K0.
After the battle: Barracuda was K3 L1 with -41 fighter drones on board;
the Nova was K2 L1 with -56 fighter drones.

This bug is now fixed, check out 0.77a, unfortunately there's nothing I can do about ships in your save games that already have this malady.

You can clone-destroy them manually using cheat scripts or just wait until they die a natural death.

Yeah that sounds like an interesting/fun approach!

For now I've added a squelch audio key, so that you can instantly enable/disable the emergency broadcast channel without having to visit the configuration menu each time.

Yeah I know it's a cop-out, but it was trivial to add in and will give me time to come up with a better solution

[PDouma39]

Thanx for the update, the GNS News now states everything as it should, great work.

[theknapps]

Shush,
Sorry for the delay in relpying - "real life" took over!!
Before the battle my Barracuda had no kills. The Nova had L1 K0.
After the battle: Barracuda was K3 L1 with -41 fighter drones on board;
the Nova was K2 L1 with -56 fighter drones.

This bug is now fixed, check out 0.77a, unfortunately there's nothing I can do about ships in your save games that already have this malady.

You can clone-destroy them manually using cheat scripts or just wait until they die a natural death.

Yeah that sounds like an interesting/fun approach!

For now I've added a squelch audio key, so that you can instantly enable/disable the emergency broadcast channel without having to visit the configuration menu each time.

Yeah I know it's a cop-out, but it was trivial to add in and will give me time to come up with a better solution

Sush - Thanks for the continued and prompt responses/updates.
Your hard work shows one benefit of Rebirth's launch...without it 'Life' may not have become what it is today!

With all the time you must be spending bug-fixing and updating, I hope you have a forgiving family!!

[Larxyz]

Wow, this just keeps getting more amazing!!

and... your throwing out new additions faster then i can play them!

GREAT WORK!

[Shush]

Thanx for the update, the GNS News now states everything as it should, great work.

Sush - Thanks for the continued and prompt responses/updates.
Your hard work shows one benefit of Rebirth's launch...without it 'Life' may not have become what it is today!

With all the time you must be spending bug-fixing and updating, I hope you have a forgiving family!!

Wow, this just keeps getting more amazing!!

and... your throwing out new additions faster then i can play them!

GREAT WORK! Laughing

Thanks for the kind words guys, I honestly just figured with my timing that LIFE would just fall by the wayside and not be used much if at all. You guys have inspired me to fix, add and expand, which is great as I really enjoy messing with X3 and it's obtuse development environment.

I was really just releasing LIFE for closure, you know when you've run 42km of a marathon and you get distracted with a couple hundred metres to go. Well it feels like I have come back over 3 years later to crawl those last few hundred metres

P.S. I'm a single father with two late teens kids, so I have plenty of spare time these days.

[PDouma39]

well enjoying your mod, everything works okay, just one tiny flaw in the GNS News of the Split, in the conflict headlines me playername, has vapourised a medium sized wing of 'Cho's Defeat(which should have been the pirates), in the border sector of Pirates (which should have been the sectorname). Just something you should know, haven't found other flaws, will keep you posted as I play through my game.

[firestorm79]

I've noticed something strange Shush... dunno if it's a combination of mods that I causing it, but I often get incoming messages (I assume, and strongly suspect these are LIFE incoming messages) and when I open them I get a blank dialogue box.

A bit strange, otherwise everything else in LIFE is working fine!

[Shush]

well enjoying your mod, everything works okay, just one tiny flaw in the GNS News of the Split, in the conflict headlines me playername, has vapourised a medium sized wing of 'Cho's Defeat(which should have been the pirates), in the border sector of Pirates (which should have been the sectorname). Just something you should know, haven't found other flaws, will keep you posted as I play through my game.

Thanks PDouma, this is fixed for the next version.

I've noticed something strange Shush... dunno if it's a combination of mods that I causing it, but I often get incoming messages (I assume, and strongly suspect these are LIFE incoming messages) and when I open them I get a blank dialogue box.

A bit strange, otherwise everything else in LIFE is working fine!

Hmmm this one is strange, I haven't personally seen this one and haven't received any other reports about it either. Is there any chance you could list the mods/scripts you are using and I'll see if I can track down what is causing it.