Litcube's Universe

[Joubarbe]

So unless you can tell me how I can adjust the bail rates on all ship types in LU which i'd love, I ended up using the NPC Bail one.

X3\addon\scripts\Cmd.BailMaybe.xml

[OneOfMany]

Look, simply put, only a map file can rearrange the map, and there's only one mod, that I know of, that does that.
So if sectors are in wrong locations it's not the game start mod. You have a rougue map file somewhere. Remap didn't use cat/dat files, it was always extracted. Check addon/maps.

Sectors are not in the wrong location, stations and jump gates aren't even in the "wrong" location, they are just randomly orientated, as in they are rotated on an x,y,z axis, not moved to a different coordinate.

Out of curiosity, why would you want a bailing addon for LU?

Because sometimes I want to relax and snoop around large battles and find a treasure of a big ship and play the game that way.
So unless you can tell me how I can adjust the bail rates on all ship types in LU which i'd love, I ended up using the NPC Bail one.

How did you install the bail addon and the other 2 scripts?

[Zasso]

So unless you can tell me how I can adjust the bail rates on all ship types in LU which i'd love, I ended up using the NPC Bail one.

X3\addon\scripts\Cmd.BailMaybe.xml

Thank you for pointing me in the right direction.
I'm trying to decipher what I'm seeing.
I'm seeing a random number generator from 0 to 100, and I'm seeing classes for TM/M6/M8 and so on, with some variables like 30/45.
I'm seeing a bunch of $Bail and indent=" " and array references, but I'm not very adapt at reading what I'm seeing and figuring out which linenr goes with what ship class seems a bit unclear.
From what I understand the bail value follows the ship class.
Am I correct in thinking that for example the M3 class at line 139 seems to bail if the value is either 20 or below as per line 150?

So if I would change the value of 4 on line 422 for the M2 to for example to 45, would each M2 ship have a 45% chance to bail? And would this bail chance be hull % dependant too or would an M2 at 99% health randomly bail too?

How did you install the bail addon and the other 2 scripts?

A combination of the Pugin Manager for the JSONparserlibrary and manual installations using the false patch method.

Out of curiosity, why would you want a bailing addon for LU?

To expand on my previous answer to this: I did not know of any other way to adjust the bail rates as hundreds/thousands of lines of code are too overwhelming for me at times.
And I did not get over the hurdle of daring to ask here on the forums back then as some of my other attempts at for example requesting help with an FoV setting for X4 were met with...less helpful answers.
I did not know and still barely know about how LU itself handles bailing, what the odds of bailing were, if hull % was factored in and how it differs between a player ship being the attacker, or an NPC ship being the attacker.
With different moods and different daily struggles I have different wishes for the availability of ships in a play-through, so with a lack of knowledge on how to do this on a clean install of LU, I found a visual less imposing way to do this through the NPC Bail addon and did not look further once I did and not noticing things going wrong with LU after installing the script until I tried the alternate starts.


An additional question: is there a reason the Terran M7C (Maccana in AP, Hayabusa in LU) doesn't spawn naturally in the early-mid game compared to other M7's?

[OneOfMany]

From past experiences, Plugin manager messes up LU. I'm sure that somewhere on these pages Cycrow has made comment on this.

[Zasso]

From past experiences, Plugin manager messes up LU. I'm sure that somewhere on these pages Cycrow has made comment on this.

Once I learned how to adjust the bail values to my liking using X3\addon\scripts\Cmd.BailMaybe.xml as per posted above, I'll do a reinstall without it and see if that fixes my alternate start misaligned stations issue.

[Joubarbe]

Use X-Studio or the in-game script editor to edit the game scripts.

Code: Select all

if [THIS]-> is of class [M5]
do if $Ran < 12
$Bail = [TRUE]
else if [THIS]-> is of class [M4]
do if $Ran < 12
$Bail = [TRUE]
else if [THIS]-> is of class [M3]
do if $Ran < 12
$Bail = [TRUE]
else if [THIS]-> is of class [Freighter]
do if $Ran < 15
$Bail = [TRUE]
else if [THIS]-> is of class [TM]
do if $Ran < 8
$Bail = [TRUE]
else if [THIS]-> is of class [M8]
do if $Ran < 6
$Bail = [TRUE]
else if [THIS]-> is of class [M6]
do if $Ran < 6
$Bail = [TRUE]
end

That's the current values for Mayhem, which drastically reduces bailing rates. Increase these values to have more bailed ships.

[Zasso]

Use X-Studio or the in-game script editor to edit the game scripts.

That's the current values for Mayhem, which drastically reduces bailing rates. Increase these values to have more bailed ships.

Thanks for the tip I'll have a look at it.
What do those values represent? A flat chance to bail per ship from 0-100?
And is the value affected by hull % i.e. can a 90% hull ship bail just as easily as a 5% hull ship?

edit: I just did a full reinstall, installed nothing but LU 1.7.2 and the alternate starts addon and this is the result of the Boron M5 Simple Lar start: https://i.imgur.com/RyLREct.jpg
This is the orientation of a jumpgate while looking at it from a horizontal angle: https://i.imgur.com/u9UZvpO.jpg
Relative to the other gate and showing the orientation of the other gate: https://i.imgur.com/gucd3QB.jpg
Still the exact same with all stations and jumpgates being randomly rotated on a full fresh install with all files deleted and nothing installed bar LU 1.7.2 and the alternate starts.

[Whiskiz]

Is there a way to change the amount of "points" required to rank up your trade and fight rank?

It's absolutely silly to complete one trade run in a TS and go from Rank 0 to Rank 8. Similarly, destroying a single M5 instantly bumps you to fight rank 5-6.
It also makes the progression all sorts of wonky because if you're running combat missions regularly, you will VERY quickly hit a point where they're throwing M7's at you but the income from the missions barely allows you to buy a few M3's.

I've tried to find an answer and haven't really come up with much information at all...

What combat rank were you when M7 started spawning?

I think i was around 23 and it takes a long while to get there. Sure the first 10 ranks or so are quick to pop and it's weird at first, but you understand a little later that those early levels don't mean much in the bigger scheme of things, that you still have alot of work ahead of you.

I was also grinding combat missions, but for rep to unlock bigger and better things - but as you touched on yourself salvaging/ship-flipping is by far the best and most efficient way to make money. So you need to do both. I was doing both and by the time i started facing M7 in an M6, i could afford an M7 after a bit longer. Same in my M7 once i started seeing M2. (i could afford a cheap M2 anyway.)

The balance is definitely way out of whack, but not in the way you came across - if you only spam combat then of course your combat rank will get too high: your economy can't handle the level you are trying to fight at. You need to find a balance between economy and combat activities - you can't rely on one thing (especially in a sandbox) to give you the best of both/everything.

The problem though is that salvaging/ship-flipping is as you mentioned in another post, boring - but is by far the quickest, easiest and most efficient way of making money early. I'm not a big fan of such design/balance either and did mention this a few forum pages ago, just recently.

1mil - 5mil in 5min with minimal to no investment, as opposed to the massive investment to minimal returns of a TL + ore mining fleet, TL + SCH's (and Plutarch) to sell/construct stuff and ST/UT (especially when UT regularly throw away 600k worth of fighter drones to get away from being attacked instead of just, you know, jumping away like every other ship ever haha) Making the rest of those options obsolete.

And if you think salvaging is OP, just wait until you see the mid-game+ absolutely insane and completely passive money making process (after a bit of setup.) You'll never need to touch economy again (except to increase the size of the operation once or twice.)

So the clearest and best option for your economy early, is to boringly salvage/ship flip repeatedly - then you figure out a crazy passive way of making money - and that about sums up the economy/money making. Not very exciting, not very fulfilling, not very challenging.

But you can't rely on combat mission money to support you alone: there's already clearly 2 best options - being able to live off combat money alone would reduce this further, to 1.

Edit: Litcubes mod is still awesome, i'm having a great time and the weapons/ship balance is some of the best i've ever seen (love it as a min-maxer/theorycrafter, not being able to find one single best setup) and the additions and upgrades he's made to features and gameplay in general is awesome, but the economy balance and challenge need alot of work (imo.)

About challenge: Even with Phanon+ mod you're rarely attacked by them, by lowbie stuff and then there's pirates that you choose when and where to engage and then it's the AFK (if slowly expanding and very strong) OCV end-game enemy, that sits there and waits for you to amass an army and go (eventually) fight and/or obliterate them.

[Gergin]

@Whiskiz

I think M7's started spawning around 21 for me.

I totally understand that you can't just do one thing and be successful. I actually really enjoy setting up factories, merchant fleets, and mining operations but when I'm not doing that, I want to be fighting and not just going through the sectors claiming bailed ships that I had absolutely no interaction with other than AFKing them with a repair laser.

It seems like there would be an array somewhere that has the point values required for each combat rank and if I could just tweak that, I'd be able to play the way I'd like without the game throwing a massive brick wall in my face.

[Whiskiz]

The idea of setting up mining fleets, factories, complex hubs and merchant fleets is awesome, but i found in practice for it to be a bit of a letdown because of just how much the investment is to how little return, how pointless it is when you can just as you said - AFK salvage/ship-flip (some argue salvage isn't AFK, but it's mostly a case of just holding down the repair button) to almost instantly gain alot more with alot less invested and set up.

You'd think a big complex setup would be more rewarding, instead of say a size 20 Saturn Complex Hub of a lower quicker profitable weapon like impulse ray emitter forge costing 80mil (with 500% sun) as well as 30mil - 40mil for a TL and 40mil for plutrach tractor system, only providing a return of roughly 3.5mil an hour.

Even after the initial costs of the TL and Plutarch Tractor, that's still almost 23 hours just for the SCH before you begin to start making profit - of 3.5mil an hour. Whereas you could gain that in maybe 2 ship-flips in 10min..

I set up my mining fleet for ore/silicone mining and thought it was pretty cool while doing so, but then when i finished i thought what was the point? Not worth the tens of millions to do so, for the minimal return. Probably not what you should feel haha. Went on to sell the entire thing and went back to salvage spam, i should have kept it but and repurposed it..

But i digress. You got up to combat rank of 21 while only being able to afford a few M3s? Damn you must have really smashed out combat missions only. Tweaking the value may def be the way to go for you then if you're that keen on it. Not sure how to personally but peeps around here are pretty awesome.

[Gergin]

You got up to combat rank of 21 while only being able to afford a few M3s?

I'm doing a Yaki Ronin playthrough. Yakis gonna Yak.

[Whiskiz]

Is there a certain way to handle security complaints from UT and interceptions of them? - i'm learning all about MLCC currently (awesome write-up on the wiki by the way) and am testing it out currently.

Is there a way to automate it? I ordered an interception and apparently nothing was available, then tried again in 10 seconds and there was something, or are you just meant to regularly check the complaints/send the order?

If you need to do it manually, is there a way to get complaint notifications or a way to remove old/completed complaints? It's hard to tell what's new or current and what's old or already taken care of.

[respaekt]

Does someone know where i can add text id's to Litcubes Universe?!
I want to add a few ship maually and after the a few ship names that i add to 0001-L044, my game is a big readtext error. I didnt test how much i can add, but at least one i get in the game without readtext error, after that....

Thanks for help!

[respaekt]

Does someone know where i can add text id's to Litcubes Universe?!
I want to add a few ship maually and after the a few ship names that i add to 0001-L044, my game is a big readtext error. I didnt test how much i can add, but at least one i get in the game without readtext error, after that....

Thanks for help!

I think i figured it out:

Everything seems to go into t->8383-L044 ->to: <!--Text Corrections Go Here-->

[dizzy]

The issue is that your combat rank skyrockets and you're very quickly facing M7's while having been paid enough to acquire a handful of M3's up to that point. Your rank and all the algorithms tied to it outruns your actual progression and you basically have to stop doing combat missions completely until you can build up the wealth through other means (basically salvaging which is honestly pretty boring) to get a fleet. I understand that the later levels require some serious work and that's okay, it's the fact that you gain 6 combat ranks from destroying a single M5 that is completely out of whack. Why even have ranks 1-5?

Agreed this is an issue. XRM tries to deal with this by providing plenty of bounties and ways of getting money out of combat and game starts with some decent combat hardware. This issue of combat rank scaling combat mission enemies beyond what they pay you to upgrade your own hardware to match was the cause of breaking my first ever (vanilla) Terran Conflict game to the point I gave up on it, it was impossible to do combat missions anymore and that's the only thing I wanted to do.

That said X3 in general is not designed to be played doing only one thing, the tagline does mention 3 other actions besides "fight". I think the game needs to be considered and played holistically, true it provides so many mechanics that you can ignore some of them but you cannot ignore all but one, it's simply not going to work long term. For a mod like LU that's even more true as mods tend to focus on improving certain aspects of the existing gameplay, in the case of LU being the endgame so it's obviously geared towards empire building to be able to play the endgame. And note that you can't just go about and mod that issue and it will magically just make things better, making combat missions pay much more means it throws out the balance of other things and it may be too easy to get money (like in X4 is in terms of how much money combat missions pay vs the cost of ships, you can acquire entire fleets doing a few hours of combat missions). I'd rather have a game where I'm required to use every trick in the book (well, at least a number of them larger than 1) to make progress and reach the endgame.

[Whiskiz]

Is there a way to save prices you set for wares in a trading station, when you go to set it in "adjust station parameters" or otherwise?

I have a mining fleet and a courier set to constantly drop off all the minerals to the trading station, to then be sold off, but every time they're cleared out and replaced - the price seems to revert back to the average. Same for salvaged stuff and in general. I keep having to regularly check back to reset the price of each thing.

Is there also a way to set prices/capacities for things without having to have a copy of that ware on the station?

Especially when going to set up ware capacities to store stuff for your fleet - otherwise you'd have to grab one of each thing each time from around the universe, first.

Edit: I also have my solar complex selling solar power to my trading station and equipment dock ("station is open to your traders" set to on) and they seem to keep selling the solar power there, regardless of having a set capacity and overstock set to no. Is this intended?

I have my stations set to allow my own traders (to sell there) so i can just use the 1 or 2 solar station agents to supply all my stuff with power, instead of needing an individual TS for every other station set to freighter, or by courier (since courier doesn't seem to be able to keep a set amount of e-cells on board for jumping themselves, otherwise i would)

One of the stations was on 30k with a 10k capacity and overstock set to no and one of my solar agents just sold another 20k there..

[Just_Dan]

Hopefully this is the right option to post. I have been trying to get my sector trader to work but the order just isn't going through. I use the command console on the mercury, go to trade, ST, select the sector, set the input range to 1, and then I press enter. When I check the screen with all my ships, it shows "None" as the current order but the name has changed to ST 001 Mercury. They should have all the recommended software and I'll have a link to my save if anyone wants to give it a go. It's a fresh install of litcube's, and a fresh install of x3ap since I just installed it. Searching this site, google, and reddit havn't turned up fruitful yet.

Here is the save: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wNlGEm ... sp=sharing

Edit: I've downloaded the mk3 mod in the mods page link and that seems to have fixed it.

[Whiskiz]

I had that same problem. What i did was just set sector range to 0 instead of 1+, keeping it in sector only for ST until lvl 8 for UT when it didn't matter anyway (when they're able to trade around the entire universe.)

It's odd when it gives you a bit of range options (did for me anyway, i had a few pilot levels already) but the command won't actually work.

Otherwise setting to 1+ for me would also make the ST do nothing.

Hope that helps.

[Zasso]

So no ideas regarding the randomly aligned stations with the Alternate Starts script with a fresh LU install?

[dizzy]

@just_dan You can use more than 0 for sector trading range after the ST levels up a bit, initially it has to be 0. I'm quite surprised it prompts for the trading range when you start a brand new ST, I thought it was supposed to prompt only after leveling up once at least. Anyway, being able to configure STs to trade a few sectors around a central one is a very useful feature:
- it hugely speeds up ST leveling up because it can potentially do larger (and more profitable) trades, so I recommend that you re-issue the ST command on a ST that got to level 3+ and give it a trading range of 1 or 2 so it will be leveling it up faster
- it makes it possible to use your traders to boost up targeted local economy
- it's a more direct way to keep your traders safe ensuring that they don't wonder into enemy sectors