AL Plugin : Escort 1.71 13/10/06

[LV]

AL Plugin :
Name : Escort
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Description : AL Plugin providing simple escort missions
Version : 1.71
Date : 13/10/06
Author : LV


A simple escort plugin that will have routine ships on a flightplan to another sector or station hail you with a request for protection. You will be hailed with an offer to escort the ship to it's destination, on most occasions this will involve nothing more than taking in the scenery and following the ship but the more the value of the ship the more chance it will come to the attention of Pirate and Yaki ships.

If the ship get to it's desination in one piece and has not endured any of your laserfire then you will be paid, Payments are dependant of distance to destination and also your trade and fight ranks.

Eg. Ship wants to fly to 1 sector away at the very begining of the game, you will recieve about 1500 cr, If you were to be a Mogul and Warlord that would offer much, much more.

TS ships will be the ones who usually ask for your services but you should take note of other classes as they may pay more.
To disable the plugin go into your Artificial Life setting and set it from Yes to No.

If you are having trouble getting this script to run Read Here and also the numerous "why won't my script run" questions Here


Install instructions

ZIP download
Zip

exe
exe

Cycrow Installer Pack

Extract to your main X3 directory

eg C:\Program Files\Games\x3
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Problems
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Some posters have been having problems with missions not running anymore after installing a few of my plugins [this should now be fixed 13/10/06]Download This script and run it manually with "r" after reading it, the instructions are in the script. It will switch off the selected mission block.
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Feel free to feedback on payouts, bugs (hopefully i've squashed 99% of em), timing between mission offers and ways to cheat the script.



Enjoy



LV

[nuclear_eclipse]

Looks good. I'll have to give it a try later tonight.

[Elenkis]

This is the kind of thing I was hoping Egosoft would have added to X3, sounds good

Thanks!

[DemaeRamen]

Looking very good so far.

I've tried it 3 times but I get crashed out every time (all my save games are corrupt now) so I've never finished one.

One thing though, I loaded 3 different saves and each one gave me the message. Do you get the jobs at every station or is it just cos each of those 3 was my first dock since install?

It might get a bit annoying if they are PMing you at every station. Just because you will eventually have to go through the messages.

Is there a way to make them appear as BBS missions instead of Message requests? That would pose less of an annoyance but allow you to put them in every station.

[LV]

It might get a bit annoying if they are PMing you at every station. Just because you will eventually have to go through the messages.

Is there a way to make them appear as BBS missions instead of Message requests? That would pose less of an annoyance but allow you to put them in every station.

They are not in any station at all so you will not get annoyed about being PM'ed! Once i get my head around creating BBS entry's you will see some

[Cycrow]

and when u get ur head around it, u can tell me how it works too

[bendyspex]

The script seems to be working great bit I was just wondering. DO you get the payment when the ship enters the sector they are going to, or when they dock at a station?
Thanks

[LV]

all depends on if its going to a sector or station, although under some conditions you may yourself getting paid out early

[bendyspex]

Thanks. I have just done an escort now and noticed that everytime the ship was attacked, even though I destroyed the attackers the ship went and docked at a flower farm. This have nothing to do with it as it was carrying silicon, but this happened twice even though it was next to the gate to the sector it wanted to be in. Is this intended, or is it a bug?
Thanks

[Anti-Hero]

This script adds immensely to the overall experience of X3. I hope Egosoft takes note of how easily a simple script can change the immersion of the game when they release future content patches. Good Job LV.

[Britich]

I have one problem with it, and i believe this could be solved me just using a faster ship, but the Transporters tend to either "spawn" or get "chosen" when they're far too far away and at best been 30km close.
It takes me far too long in a Nova to get to them, would it be possible to get the script to choose/spawn something a little closer? say 10km or 5km max?
As we have to get close to other people to contact them it just seems better that theyre closer.
Plus i wont have to say "sorry no can do im in a bucket"

Plus one of the times when i did catch up with him, he went through a gate and it told me that he wouldnt pay me cos i was too far away :/ could this be a bug or down to my stupid nova

[LV]

You have 2 minutes to accept the offer and get closer to the ship before you are scanned for distance, If you are too far away you will fail the mission.

[Vulture]

I love the script, my only gripe if there is one is that the attacking ships need IMHO to spawn further away to allow time for you to intercept them before they can attack their target.

I say this for two reasons,

1) The TS ships that i have escourted have all had very low shielding, so even a m5 ship can rip through the shields very fast, usually faster than i can catch it.

2) It stops the ship running for cover so often.

[tiamdal]

My game crashes when payment is due. Any advice?

System:
2.5 ghrtz p4
768 Mb ram
xfx gf 6600 128mb

[Sandalpocalypse]

Hello there,
Some criticism.

Pirate Busters generated by the escort program are too powerful and make the missions too hard to complete, especially when the enemies start swarming, which does happen. Just IMO. I think they are generated with 6 PACs, and some of the weaker freighters dissappear in one burst of fire, which is very irritating if there's a lot going on and you cant stop that first burst.

I've been doing Escorts at the combat ranks of Instructor and Specialist, if that's pertinent.

Other than that, enjoying it very much.

[smiley]

I haven't got my copy of X3 yet, and I am already drooling. This is the sort of thing that should be in the game.

Just a note to Sandalpocalypse. Some missions should be a lot more difficult than others. Pirates would send tough ships to take out their target. You shouldn't be able to complete every single mission easily.

Having said that, I haven't even seen it yet, so you could be right.

Smiley

[LV]

Hello there,
Some criticism.

Pirate Busters generated by the escort program are too powerful and make the missions too hard to complete, especially when the enemies start swarming, which does happen. Just IMO. I think they are generated with 6 PACs, and some of the weaker freighters dissappear in one burst of fire, which is very irritating if there's a lot going on and you cant stop that first burst.

I've been doing Escorts at the combat ranks of Instructor and Specialist, if that's pertinent.

Other than that, enjoying it very much.

Is this a general consensus by you guys as I can tone them down some, I don't really want to explain the code but value of cargo does affect the spawned ships, ships should also spawn at different distances between the mark, is this too close?

It's also set up so although they do tag the mark their primary objective is to take away the sector defense ships.

Feeback please

My game crashes when payment is due. Any advice?

System:
2.5 ghrtz p4
768 Mb ram
xfx gf 6600 128mb

Can you give me any more info, as most are playing without issue's it's hard to guess what is causing a crash for you.

[Sandalpocalypse]

Yes, that's kind of what I'm getting it. I split off from the target to blast incoming ships before they enter firing range and then a Buster spawns practically on top of the target and annihilates it in one go. Escort mission failed! Mind you, thats with me in a Buster with 2 Discoverer wingmen. who are both assigned to protect the target.

I think it would work out better if the Pirate Busters were using a mix of PACs and IREs (2 and 4 say), but I have no idea how hard that would be.

I did experience one game crash that might be related to the script. I was escorting a ship to a station in Cloudbase Southeast and when I entered the Cloudbase Southeast jumpgate the game crashed. I couldn't tell you more than that, I am not sure it was related to the escort.

One problem: A freighter I was escorting got dinged up during the mission and decided to dock with some random station for about 5 minutes, but pirate ships were still spawning. Turkey shoot. Heh.

I think too many pirate ships spawn sometimes. That's not really a difficulty issue, because they're spawning in multiple waves, and if you can stop one wave you can generally stop them all. But I think it does lead to a lot of captured pirate ships.

I bet having both random hails and BBS mission escorts could work out well.

[Sandalpocalypse]

Hmm.. Had it again. I was sitting in space watching my escort target fumble around trying to dock to an Argon Shipyard (autopilot sometimes just can't seem to do it, dunno why, this is problematic when your reward is contigent on docking), a Yaki Buster spawns 2 KM from the ship and rips it apart before I can do more than close 500m and start firing. Arrrrrrrr-gh

But why I'm really posting is I think I had another script-related crash. It took an escort to Elena's Fortune for 110,000 cr. I get there, but no payoff quite yet. I continue escorting the ship and.. CTD. (X3 1.2.1)

[LV]

a Yaki Buster spawns 2 KM from the ship and rips it apart before I can .....

are you really sure it spawns?, or are you forgetting who made this plugin