[Bonus Plugin] Fleet Support Ship Software

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moggy2
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[Bonus Plugin] Fleet Support Ship Software

Post by moggy2 » Thu, 30. Nov 06, 12:24

Name: Fleet Support Ship Software (FSUP)
Version: 1.14
Date: 31.10.2006
Scripter: moggy2


Overview:
The Fleet Support Ship Software is a software upgrade that provides 4 commands that allow ships to perform a support role to your fleet of ships, be they fighters, freighters or capital class ships. The software is available, for a reasonable price, from Argon and Boron Equipment Docks.

The commands provided are powerful tools that can be used in a multitude of fashions, yet are simple to use. They are however, designed with particular purposes in mind and as such are limited to the classes of ships they work with. Currently, the Fleet Support Ship Software works with M5, M4 and small freighter class ships.

Some of the commands require the Transporter Device for proper functioning. It is for this reason the software upgrade can also be purchased at the Goner Temple, along with the Transporter Device. The purchase of a Jumpdrive is also recomended. The software will make use of it for longer journeys if it is installed and enough energy is available.

Command: Resupply ship:
This command requires a Transporter Device

This command is for delivering specific quantities of wares and upgrades to a target ship. The ship will look for the best place to buy the wares locally, purchase the correct quantity and deliver it to the target ship. If the quantity is greater than the capacity of its cargobay it will make several journeys to buy the wares and deliver them to the target ship.

Typical uses of this command include resupplying a ship with Energy Cells for their Jumpdrive, delivering a replacement for an upgrade that got destroyed in battle, delivering weapons and shields to a newly bough Carrier or Destroyer.

Note that the Resupply commands can only check the prices for wares if you have property in the same sector as the station selling the wares. If the resupply commands cannot check for the best prices in the surrounding sectors then they will default to the nearest supply.

3 Arguments: ware to fetch; quantity; target ship

Command: Resupply group:
This command requires a Transporter Device

This command is similar to the Resupply ship command but can resupply every ship in the fleet or convoy with the same quantity of the ware.

An important difference to note with this command over the Resupply ship command is that when it resupplies a ship it first checks to see how much the target is carrying and deducts that from the amount to be transfered to that ship. The result being that the quantity specified for this command is the amount the target ships will end up with, even if they were carrying some to begin with. For the Resupply ship command the quantity specified is the actual amount transfered.

This difference is to allow a fleet to be rearmed and resupplied after a battle where the different ships are likely to have used differing amounts of missiles and ammunition. You can of course use this command on a single ship if you wish to make use of this feature when delivering to lone ships.

Note that the Resupply commands can only check the prices for wares if you have property in the same sector as the station selling the wares. If the resupply commands cannot check for the best prices in the surrounding sectors then they will default to the nearest supply.

3 Arguments: ware to fetch; quantity; any ship in the fleet

Command: Drop Freight:
This command has a number of different functions depending on what it is exactly you ask it to drop. For most wares it will simply fly to the position and eject all of that ware from its cargobay. You'll find it floating in a canister near the ship, and can be picked up by any ship using the standard collect ware command.

Dropping Satellites
If you select a Navigation Satellite or Advanced Navigation Satellite to be dropped then this command will go into Satellite Network Mainenance mode. It will fly to the position specified and deply the satellite, then it will randomly pick a neighbouring sector to fly to and, if there isn't already one there, place a satellite in that sector as well. If the ship runs out of satellites then it will attempt to buy more and continue. The satellites are always placed in the same position, the position you specified, in each sector.

The command avoids placing more than one satellite in the same place in each sector. You can, however, place more than one satellite in the same sector as long as they are more than 20km apart. Using 2 ships to drop satellites in different places in sectors can be a good idea in certain parts of the Universe.

The type of satellite bought is dependant on the type selected when starting of the command. If you selected an Advanced Satellite to start the command then all satellites dropped will be Advanced Satellites, and the ship will only attempt to buy advanced satellites.

If you wish to limit the satellite deployment to a specific races sector you can adjust the Friend/Foe settings for the ship. It will only go into sectors that are owned by friendly races. It will not enter or deploy satellites in sectors owned by races marked as enemy. So to prevent satellites being placed in Pirate sectors all you have to do is to set Pirates to enemy in the ship's Friend/Foe settings.

There is one time when you may find your satellite deployment ship in enemy sectors. This is when it's enroute to buy more satellites and the direct route to the station selling them takes the ship through enemy space. This is the same problem that UT's suffer from and is caused by the standard navigation libraries that all ships make use of.

Dropping Squash Mines
If you select a Squash Mine to be dropped, the commands will enter Create Minefield mode. In this mode the ship will place 8 Squash mines within 2km² of the target position. If the ship doesn't have enough Squash Mines it will attempt to purchase them first.

Once the Squash Mines have been placed the ship will contact you and ask you to activate the mine field. At this point you can run the command again until you have mined the desired area, or you can activate the mine field by comm'ing one of the mines and selecting "activate all mines".

Dropping Lasertowers
If you select a Lasertower to be dropped, the ship will deploy the Lasertower at the specified coordinates.

Command: Retrieve Deployed Item:
This command is for collecting items such as Lasertowers, Navigation Relay Satellites, Drones, and Squash mines, which are deployed rather than dropped. Simply select the item you wish to collect and the ship will collect it.

If there are several similar items within 10km of the target item you select, then the ship will attempt to collect all of them. This allows you to quickly and simply collect a group of Fighter Drones, or dismantle a Squash Minefield. Don't forget to deactivate the minefield first!

Tips:
  • A TS with a large cargobay, equiped with FSUP, Jumpdrive, and Transporter Device makes an excellent fuel tanker for refueling your fleet. Using the Manual Trade Command's "Best Buy" command to fill up on Energy Cells beforehand is often a good idea.
  • Discoverer's make excellent Satellite network deploying ships. They are fast and can carry satellites which are M sized.

larrylo
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Post by larrylo » Mon, 25. Dec 06, 06:02

I got this script installed before specifically version X3 2.13 with the SPK.

So do I uninstall the old version first before inserting the new v3.1.05 Bonus Pack?

Or will it be fine installing the new Bonus Pack and then removing the SPK afterwards?

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moggy2
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Post by moggy2 » Mon, 25. Dec 06, 11:01

remove the old version first

RogueTrader
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Post by RogueTrader » Tue, 26. Dec 06, 09:37

This is a great idea, but I'd like to see it do resupply in a different way.

For example, if you're piloting a ship, you select your resupply vessel, and give the order "Resupply me", you then give it what you want to be resupplied (energy, missiles etc) and if it has that on board it will jump to your location and fly to within transporting range and transfer the relevant items.

Also, I have found the following true if I gave a supply ship the resupply ship order to a ship I'm piloting myself...if the resupply ships has a full hold of energy for example, it won't need to fly to an energy fab to stock up before jumping. And, if you request a ship to be resupplied and request an amount greater than the ship can hold, you don't get a warning message.

Ruthberg
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Ok, the fleet support is nice, but...

Post by Ruthberg » Wed, 3. Jan 07, 23:13

Why not a command to unload a TL ship too. I find it quite annoying that I have to micromanage the unloading of Energy cells to factory complexes. It's really quite illogical that the ships are described as they are, when the possibility to load/unload via a small army of onboard ships isn't really there.

And dare I ask why it is impossible to use the transporter for offloading goods to stations? Come on guys, I know you watch Star Trek :)

Weyoun

spoidz
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Post by spoidz » Sun, 7. Jan 07, 19:25

Is there a secret techniques to avoid duplicate SATS in areas you already seeded manually?

Since I had to re-install and reload a save game I already have several sectors placed. Naturally all of them aren't in exactly the same coordinates per sector.

I let my "dropper" run and watched as he duplicated several sectors, that I now have to manually pick up, because they are all now close enough that he will pick them all back up, if I try auto.

I know there is a 20KM range but is there any other tweak to maybe the script that I could turn on "no duplicates" in any sector it visits?

Also I noticed watching his travel that he is apparently able to traverse sectors without gates (Company Pride direct to Thuruks Beard for example), guess it has to work that way when he "chooses" a random sector?

Anyway thanks for another "man I wish...." script.

Cheers

RogueTrader
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Post by RogueTrader » Sat, 13. Jan 07, 02:05

Have the mods gone on holiday? It would be nice to know if these issues can be resolved? Or has our feedback fallen on deaf ears? :)

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moggy2
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Post by moggy2 » Sat, 13. Jan 07, 02:13

not deaf, just wearing earplugs ;)

I replied to the other FSUP thread.

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moggy2
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Post by moggy2 » Sat, 13. Jan 07, 15:59

spoidz wrote:Is there a secret techniques to avoid duplicate SATS in areas you already seeded manually?
...
As you mentioned, the check range is 20km. This allows you to place multiple satellites to make more of the large sectors visible, some players like to do that. Don't forget this is all in 3D, so 2 could appear to be on top of each other, but are in fact 50+km apart ;).

When I tried the retrieve command in a sector where I have 2 sats it correctly collected only one of them. The collection range is only 10km from the target, so as you see it should be impossible to place 2 satellites close enough together with the deploy command, that they could both be collected by the retrieve command.

what type of satellites were they, normal, advanced or a mixture? It shouldn't make a difference but you never know.
RogueTrader wrote:For example, if you're piloting a ship, you select your resupply vessel, and give the order "Resupply me", you then give it what you want to be resupplied (energy, missiles etc) and if it has that on board it will jump to your location and fly to within transporting range and transfer the relevant items.
you cannot select an undefined number of items, that's why you can only supply one type of ware at a time. Other than that, that's just what the supply command does except your sugesting it only supplies the players ship.
RogueTrader wrote:...if I gave a supply ship the resupply ship order to a ship I'm piloting myself...if the resupply ships has a full hold of energy for example, it won't need to fly to an energy fab to stock up before jumping
correct, same goes for any ware, if the ship already has the stock it wont but any first.
RogueTrader wrote:if you request a ship to be resupplied and request an amount greater than the ship can hold, you don't get a warning message.
Check your logbook. It's not an "incomming message" so it doesn't trigger the icon, but there is a message in the logbook.

spoidz
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Post by spoidz » Sat, 13. Jan 07, 17:31

Thanks for the check.

Like I posted in the other thread, it is probably doing exactly what it is supposed to do, just unintended consequences.

Without an additional switch for "no more than one sat in sector" I just won;t be able to use it to 'finish" populating a universe without it adding more sats to the sector. Unless I had started with them all at the same sector location (N or S of plane etc) it will put a new sat at unfilled location as intended.

They were all adv sats. I'm still using the script for the other functions.

Thanks again for all your work

frymaster
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Post by frymaster » Thu, 18. Jan 07, 00:20

I've been trying to get this to work for about 15 minutes now

Sector Patrol, lead ship halted (coz it's too fast for the transport)

Select resupply group, energy, 155, lead ship (or indeed any ship)

One ship in the convoy appeared initially to have lost energy (from around 80 to 0) and the supply ships' energy had jumped to max (despite having to e.g. jump to the convoy). Apart from that one convoy ship, no ship in the convoy has 155 energy and the command has not completed (says "Resupply Ship:Energy Cells")

The lead convoy ship had MORE that 155 energy to start with. In case this was the problem (the readme does not state what behavior to expect in this situation) I ejected all energy from it, and ejected 1000 enerhy from the supply ship.

Every time I run the command the supply ship gains 60 energy. All the convoy ships stay at exactly the same level as they were (0, 0, 100 and 136)
Math problems? Call 0800-[(10x)(13i)^2]-[sin(xy)/2.362x]

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moggy2
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Post by moggy2 » Sat, 20. Jan 07, 05:44

that's strange. Does the supply ship have a homebase set?

frymaster
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Post by frymaster » Sat, 20. Jan 07, 21:28

no
Math problems? Call 0800-[(10x)(13i)^2]-[sin(xy)/2.362x]

ZoT
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Post by ZoT » Mon, 5. Feb 07, 13:41

I have installed the new bonus pack. (is the 1st time i install this script, i dont have an'old version).
at boron and argon equip. dock there is nothing new...
there is a new ware at goner temple named SS_WARE_SW_NEW5.
i installed that "thing" but i dont have new commands....
prr :P

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moggy2
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Post by moggy2 » Mon, 5. Feb 07, 14:17

that's very odd.

Just checking, what game do you have?

ZoT
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Post by ZoT » Mon, 5. Feb 07, 17:01

x3...
is for x3 isn't it?

i have the 2.0 patch too
prr :P

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moggy2
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Post by moggy2 » Mon, 5. Feb 07, 17:09

It doesn't sound like it's installed properly. Have you tried reinstalling the bonus pack?

btw, is your game in english?

ZoT
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Post by ZoT » Wed, 7. Feb 07, 12:45

yes
prr :P

Soul3dge
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Post by Soul3dge » Fri, 9. Feb 07, 22:37

Hmmm i'm having the same problem with the resupply ship command. It seems that if target ship has energy on board it will take this and then add the amount requested into the cargo hold of the ship running resupply until the cargo hold is full.
EG. TS has 2000 ecells, request to resupply Nova (with 15 ecells onboard) with 100 ecells. TS jumps to location and flies up to Nova, takes the 15 ecells from the Nova and then continually adds 100 ecells to the TS hold until full.
This happens regardless if i use resupply ship or resupply group. Occasionally get it to work but more often that not i end up with a cargo hold full of ecells.

I am running DDRS, bountyhunters and advanced tractor beam. Latest versions of X3 and bonus packs.

LintMan
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Post by LintMan » Sat, 10. Feb 07, 05:10

I'd like to enable the drop/retrieve commands for some tougher ships than the standard M5/M4/TS, so I did some digging and found the commands are enabled per ship class in setup.plugin.fsup.

I copied the M4 lines for drop/retrieve, and added them for M3 and M6 as well. I saved the script, and thought I might need to reload the game, so I did. Then I looked at the script, and my changes were gone!

I thought maybe I didn't save it correctly, so I re-edited the script, then I retinitialized the global script cache, and my M3 and M6 now had the commands. Great!

Then, I reloaded the game, and the commands were gone. Not only that, but my changes to the script were gone again! It was back like originally. I checked another script I had edited at the same time, at that script still had its changes, so it seems to just be for the resupply script.

I took a look in the script directory, and found setup.plugin.fsup.xml and setup.plugin.fsup.pck files. The xml file actually contains my edits as I made them, so I'm guessing the .pck is overriding it, and I presume the .pck is from being part of the bonus pack.

So my question: how do I safely get to keep using my modified version of the fleet support script? Can I just remove the .pck file, or might that corrupt something? I don't want to have to remove the whole bonus pack.

Thanks!

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