[Mayhem 3.21b] Zero Hour 2.2

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aurelcourt
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Re: [Mayhem 3.21b] Zero Hour 1.8b

Post by aurelcourt » Tue, 29. Nov 22, 19:31

sataricon wrote:
Tue, 29. Nov 22, 17:53
For example in mayhem 2 i had 3 fleets each of them was 3 M2 and 2 M1 who each carried 40 M3 fighters each.
I have the feeling that i can't field such force in mayhem 3 or zero hour.

Then again in mayhem 3 the AI used to just spawn fleets of ships out of thin air.
No issue fielding these fleets, if you have the materials to build them and equip them, and the money to maintain them.
That means the industry, or the money (and the providers!) to buy the components.

That adds a real touch of war logistics to the game.

And it's the same for the AI : no spawns from thin air, every ship is built only if the AI has the components to do it.

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Re: [Mayhem 3.21b] Zero Hour 1.8b

Post by sataricon » Wed, 30. Nov 22, 03:13

aurelcourt wrote:
Tue, 29. Nov 22, 19:31
sataricon wrote:
Tue, 29. Nov 22, 17:53
For example in mayhem 2 i had 3 fleets each of them was 3 M2 and 2 M1 who each carried 40 M3 fighters each.
I have the feeling that i can't field such force in mayhem 3 or zero hour.

Then again in mayhem 3 the AI used to just spawn fleets of ships out of thin air.
No issue fielding these fleets, if you have the materials to build them and equip them, and the money to maintain them.
That means the industry, or the money (and the providers!) to buy the components.

That adds a real touch of war logistics to the game.

And it's the same for the AI : no spawns from thin air, every ship is built only if the AI has the components to do it.
Wait so the AI is the same as me?
That means that i can wipe the AI factions?

So how do you make money in Mayhem 3 zero hour?
Is it universal traders?
And from the looks of it with no jump drives it would be very hard.
Can we have the best of both worlds as in enable jump drives and this submod?

I wonder if i can change some of the setting this sub mod provides like maybe lower the up keep for my ships.

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Hector0x
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Re: [Mayhem 3.21b] Zero Hour 1.8b

Post by Hector0x » Wed, 30. Nov 22, 08:25

sataricon wrote:
Wed, 30. Nov 22, 03:13
Wait so the AI is the same as me?
That means that i can wipe the AI factions?

So how do you make money in Mayhem 3 zero hour?
Is it universal traders?
And from the looks of it with no jump drives it would be very hard.
Can we have the best of both worlds as in enable jump drives and this submod?

I wonder if i can change some of the setting this sub mod provides like maybe lower the up keep for my ships.
Not exactly the same but very close. Each AI is basically another player with a headstart.

You can change a lot with 2 config files. One for base Mayhem and one for this mod.
So if you don't like to pay ship upkeep you can just disable this mechanic by reducing the cost multiplier to 0.
But you cannot re-enable jumpdrives. This would require major changes to the code and also not work well within the game. Fleets would just instantly jump on top of each other and then it takes ages to rebuild everything after each battle.

Most sectors would just feel very empty. A lot of the atmosphere comes from all those ships which are travelling to their various destinations.
The player can build his own jump network to connect distant sectors with a teleport route.


Traders usually don't earn that much money. Its best to rely on stations as your main source of income. They produce or generate something and you sell it.

aurelcourt
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Re: [Mayhem 3.21b] Zero Hour 1.8b

Post by aurelcourt » Wed, 30. Nov 22, 13:14

sataricon wrote: I wonder if i can change some of the setting this sub mod provides like maybe lower the up keep for my ships.
I found money is no issue in the mod, especially following the tips from the tutorials :
- looting and selling
- crafting shields/weapons and selling
- station traders
- population taxes

Keeping at least 1 trade partner makes life simple money- wise. However if you go full autonomous and cut all ties with your neighbours, then you'll have to deal with your money income indeed, but nothing unmanageable.

The game is slow, especially the first hours. Expect to use SETA a lot.
Then a lot more starts to happen, which you can automate in some way if needed (kind of like in Distant Worlds games where you choose what to automate), and focus on what you enjoy the most.

If your favorite part is warmonging, then indeed you'll be opening several frontlines with different fleets, manage their supply and reinforcement, find and make use of weak spots in the enemy defenses, claim new territory, loose some of your territory, rebuild....

And all the while you can have most of your industry and money-making fully automated, keeping your shipyards stocked while you are busy elsewhere 😄

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Re: [Mayhem 3.21b] Zero Hour 1.8b

Post by sataricon » Wed, 30. Nov 22, 22:53

Where is the config file that i can use to lower upkeep.
Won't make it 0 but will lower it by 20% just to feel that i have an edge.

BTW in mayhem 2 many products needed to have 2 primary resources but here i find it only need 1 so what is the idea behind this Design decision ?
Is it just to make things simpler for the player?
I don't think that people who play X games play it for the simplicity.

Or is it something related to how the mod itself work and it can't be done without simplifying the who system?

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Re: [Mayhem 3.21b] Zero Hour 1.8b

Post by sataricon » Thu, 1. Dec 22, 05:04

Something strange happened.
I chose Argon as starting race and trader in the startup questions and then went to do a kill some xeno quest i just killed one of them and found the entire argon sector turns red on me.
They don't attack me or anything but they just turned red.

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Hector0x
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Re: [Mayhem 3.21b] Zero Hour 1.8b

Post by Hector0x » Thu, 1. Dec 22, 06:52

sataricon wrote:
Wed, 30. Nov 22, 22:53
Where is the config file that i can use to lower upkeep.
/addon/t/9972-L044

Search for 'maintenance'. Right now i cannot check which line it was exactly. Its a multiplier. Reduce it from 100 to 20
sataricon wrote:
Wed, 30. Nov 22, 22:53
BTW in mayhem 2 many products needed to have 2 primary resources but here i find it only need 1 so what is the idea behind this Design decision ?
Is it just to make things simpler for the player?
Easier for the AI. The resource simplification helps ship production to run smoother. Less refinement steps means less factories, less freighters and less disruption. Factions dynamically go to war. Each time the overall resource flow and trade has change. If this would affect many more different resources Outposts would get less ship parts and in the long run you would see even less battles.

This was the reason for the Mayhem economy

This mod could probably get away with adding more resources because factions generally leave each other's freighters alive now and a lot of intermediate trade is now unaffected by war and flows throgh the neutral trading stations.
But it would be a lot of work to expand the economy for potentially little gain
sataricon wrote:
Thu, 1. Dec 22, 05:04
They don't attack me or anything but they just turned red.
No idea really. Best just switch global settings to friend and send to all property. If it persists i would need a save.

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Re: [Mayhem 3.21b] Zero Hour 1.8b

Post by sataricon » Fri, 2. Dec 22, 06:41

It happened again the entire race turns against me and i have a save for it.
I was again following a pirate ship trying to scan it.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AlRkScKM5wubbJxd7so ... Q?e=UgviuV

This is the save file.

Update:
It now returned to normal after spending some time in Seta.
Only worry is that this may happen when i start to have ships with turrets on them who will see them as an enemy and begin firing.

BTW where can i sell ships that i claim?

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Hector0x
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Re: [Mayhem 3.21b] Zero Hour 1.8b

Post by Hector0x » Fri, 2. Dec 22, 15:52

sataricon wrote:
Fri, 2. Dec 22, 06:41
BTW where can i sell ships that i claim?
you cannot sell ships. Only recycle them in an Outpost to get 50% of the resources back. That's why its often better to keep your rag tag band of random ships and find a good use for each of them. At least before you can mass produce standardized templates with ease.

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Re: [Mayhem 3.21b] Zero Hour 1.9

Post by sataricon » Sat, 3. Dec 22, 06:43

So in order to learn more about this mod do i have to watch the mayhem guide then watch the zero hour guide?

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Hector0x
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Re: [Mayhem 3.21b] Zero Hour 1.9

Post by Hector0x » Sat, 3. Dec 22, 08:58

The Mayhem guide is more like an example playthrough. Its good if you don't have any idea where to even start but it can be difficult to find information about a very specific topic. It's also somewhat outdated at this point.

The 2022 Zero Hour guide series works different and is divided into very specific topics. You should basically just start playing and once you run into a situation you can check if there is a guide about it.

The thumbnail gives you some info about the video:
Blue icon is traditional tutorial stuff that everyone should know, regardless of playstyle.
Green icon is more about overall strategy (mostly personal preferrence)
Yellow $$$ icons teach you different ways to make money.

The video names could be improved though. I'll look into it. EDIT: done

SaulGoodman
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Re: [Mayhem 3.21b] Zero Hour 1.7a

Post by SaulGoodman » Sat, 3. Dec 22, 21:43

Hector0x wrote:
Sun, 30. Oct 22, 08:13
SaulGoodman wrote:
Sun, 30. Oct 22, 04:08
Glad you were able to make compatibility and expand the Terran mod to work with ZH! Small problem though, I sent two messages over the course of the month and didn't receive any replies so I was worried as to the state of the project. Although it could be an issue with my forum mailbox.
last PN i got from you was from 09/04/22 :gruebel:
inbox was only filled 93%. I emptied it completely now, so maybe try again.

Your Terrans mod was a good foundation to start from, but there were still lots of smaller things missing here and there. Police license, company, vocalisation for their outpost, Taxi, etc.

Although I have been extremely busy these few months, I do have a collection of ships from some Russian mod that I ported to an older version of mayhem 3(3.19) many months ago.
The origins of these are mixed, some coming from xtended, others from cadius, and some from unknown Russian mod but it is a collection of around ~30 high quality ships. This could be a good starting point to improving the diversity of ships in Zero Hour but they would need to all be rebalanced for zero hour.
I do not have the time at the moment however. One thing the mod does well is enhance the Yaki's fleet greatly.

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Re: [Mayhem 3.21b] Zero Hour 1.9a

Post by sataricon » Sat, 10. Dec 22, 13:39

Something strange.
I created a galaxy map "using Hairless-Ape galaxy generator" i i picked up large.
Now when i enter any sector the computer says the wrong name for said sector.

Is that a bug on my end?

Also what is this
Abnormal Signal in sectors?
Is this related to the beacon thing?

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Re: [Mayhem 3.21b] Zero Hour 1.9a

Post by sataricon » Sat, 10. Dec 22, 19:12

I wonder ho to automate a trader to buy what the outpost need?
In mayhem 2 the DA used to do that but now there are traders and though i have watched the guide video on it i fail to see the bottom the let me "register" the trade.

Edit :
I figured it out.

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alexalsp
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Re: [Mayhem 3.21b] Zero Hour 1.9a

Post by alexalsp » Sun, 11. Dec 22, 10:03

sataricon wrote:
Sat, 10. Dec 22, 13:39
Something strange.
I created a galaxy map "using Hairless-Ape galaxy generator" i i picked up large.
Now when i enter any sector the computer says the wrong name for said sector.

Is that a bug on my end?

Also what is this
Abnormal Signal in sectors?
Is this related to the beacon thing?
Try this, but you will need to generate a new map.

viewtopic.php?p=5149718#p5149718

Falcrack
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Re: [Mayhem 3.21b] Zero Hour 1.9a

Post by Falcrack » Thu, 15. Dec 22, 00:17

In this mods, do the AI factions have a finite supply of credits, like the player? One issue I have with X4 is that while shipyards need wares to construct ships, the factions unlike the player are given unlimited credits.

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Re: [Mayhem 3.21b] Zero Hour 1.9a

Post by Hector0x » Thu, 15. Dec 22, 10:35

Falcrack wrote:
Thu, 15. Dec 22, 00:17
No. In my opinion there are 2 main reasons why its not possible. X4 still has the exact same limitations here. Egosoft should adress them in their next big release.


1) prices are not calculated based on ingame supply and demand. All that matters is how much % of storage is filled in each station. This is easier to track for the game engine, but its not how a market works.

Lets say the Argon cannot build any more ships due to an engine part shortage. This is a strategic issue and should be considered as extra critical demand by the military. But the price for engine parts has long capped out because there are already no more parts in their shipyard. What should happen now is that the price for engine parts on this shipyard continues to rise indefinitely until someone opens up a new trade route or a new engine part factory because its so profitable. But since the price is already capped out this never actually happens and they rather build some other useless factory or just make do with the few engine parts that do trickle in. Market price signals are very distorted. Thats why everything runs so inefficient in X4 and there is no real war activity.
Mayhem 3 gets around that issue by allowing the AI to beam available ship parts between shipyards and this mod improves the availability of missing parts further so that the AI actually builds more of certain factories if there is a chronic shortage all the time.

2) the AI would need to be super smart to be able to handle a budget. Otherwise the player would quickly own all the money in the galaxy and everyone else could not afford anything.
Right now the high level strategic AI in any Egosoft game is maybe 10% as smart as it would need to be for this.


TLDR: in this mod the AI doesn't use money. But its somewhat replaced by the maximum fleet sizes that they can build. For the player there is no hard limit. Its more of a soft limit due to ship upkeep cost

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Re: [Mayhem 3.21b] Zero Hour 1.9a

Post by Falcrack » Thu, 15. Dec 22, 16:09

I've long thought that the issue of credit supply for the AI factions could be solved by adopting a different economic model.

Each sector the faction owns would contribute a steady stream of credits to the faction (sector taxes on the local population, money from nowhere). Ships and stations in turn would require maintenance costs (money to nowhere). The income from sector ownership would become balanced out by the maintenance costs, and a natural state of equilibrium would develop between sector income and maintenance costs. Disrupt that equilibrium, say by destroying ships and station, and the factions would gain more money in order to finance ship purchases. Or if they overbuild, they would reach a state where they could not afford further ship purchases because the rate of expenses exceeds income.

This economy model would overcome the issue of the player owning all the money, since money would be continuously circulating from sector taxes back into maintenance. If the AI cannot currently afford to buy what it needs for ships, all it has to do is wait until sector taxes provide it with enough new income to be able to afford what it needs, unless it has overbuilt the number of ships and the maintenance costs exceed sector tax income, in which case it shouldn't really be building new ships anyways. Maybe if the AI has persistent issues with having built too many unprofitable ships or station, it could recycle some of them which are not profitable so that it could regain a positive flow of income.

There would not be an issue of the player owning all the money in the universe because there would not be a static amount of money in the universe. Money flowing from the local population, back into ship/station maintenance would prevent the credit supply from being stagnant. If a player just sat in a single sector collecting taxes and paying very little in maintenance because he is using very few ships or stations to defend, then that would not affect the rest of the universe. This economic system would be designed to function even with a mostly brain dead AI. Fleet sizes would no longer need to be dictated artificially by caps, but would rather have a soft cap dictated by the rate of sector income balanced against the rate of maintenance.

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Re: [Mayhem 3.21b] Zero Hour 1.9a

Post by Hector0x » Thu, 15. Dec 22, 18:42

Interesting idea.

But would it really change much for gameplay? Big factions with lots of tax money would still generally have more ships than smaller factions who cannot afford them. Just like with fixed fleet caps based on territory size.
Unless poor factions can somehow plan to not build any ships for some time in order to save up money to finance bigger fleets later.

But do they really survive until then? What stops the powerful rich faction from just annihilating the weak and poor faction that doesn't even build a military?

In the end you would still end up with similar fleet caps. Only that the AI now has to weigh up savings vs security and needs understand these concepts

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Re: [Mayhem 3.21b] Zero Hour 1.9a

Post by Falcrack » Fri, 16. Dec 22, 00:32

Hector0x wrote:
Thu, 15. Dec 22, 18:42
Interesting idea.

But would it really change much for gameplay? Big factions with lots of tax money would still generally have more ships than smaller factions who cannot afford them. Just like with fixed fleet caps based on territory size.
Unless poor factions can somehow plan to not build any ships for some time in order to save up money to finance bigger fleets later.

But do they really survive until then? What stops the powerful rich faction from just annihilating the weak and poor faction that doesn't even build a military?

In the end you would still end up with similar fleet caps. Only that the AI now has to weigh up savings vs security and needs understand these concepts
Smaller faction could have their threat level lowered so that if they are too small, AI factions simply do not attack them or try to take their territory. The larger a faction grows, the greater their threat level and the more other factions try to take their sectors.

It would be a way to limit player growth without implementing hard unit caps.

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