[Script] Factory Complex Constructor [22.9.2007] [V3.21 FINAL]

spoidz · Post by **spoidz** » Wed, 16. Apr 08, 00:05

Brinnie,

Although you still have to change the keys, you can also run separate key profiles.

Save your current GMS profile under a custom name.

Then just change the keys real quick, just for FCC. Then save that profile under a different name.

Then you can just load the FCC profile for when you need to build, and you can load the GMS profile for (probably) most of your other game time.

Carlo the Curious · Post by **Carlo the Curious** » Wed, 16. Apr 08, 04:54

Of course! *smacks forehead*

Jakesnake5 · Post by **Jakesnake5** » Wed, 16. Apr 08, 05:00

Amazing when it turns out the obvious has been chewing on your leg the whole time.

Brinnie · Post by **Brinnie** » Wed, 16. Apr 08, 10:50

Thank You Spoidz,

spoidz wrote:...Although you still have to change the keys, you can also run separate key profiles.

that is quite brilliant.

-

ps. is FCC OK with XTM.

spoidz · Post by **spoidz** » Wed, 16. Apr 08, 13:15

Brinnie,

Yes, I've never had any issues with any of my XTM starts.

Brinnie · Post by **Brinnie** » Wed, 16. Apr 08, 13:40

spoidz wrote:Brinnie,

Yes, I've never had any issues with any of my XTM starts.

Thanks again.

I'm gonna get started then, I just skimmed through the manual and it looked a bit complicated.

spoidz · Post by **spoidz** » Wed, 16. Apr 08, 14:04

brinnie,

It's really easy if you just take your time. Also there is a fail-safe that when you are moving a factory, it won't allow you to move it on top of another station so you can avoid crashing them together.

A few tips:

Always use F3 to look at the station you are moving and then zoom out to see where it is in relation to the next one.

Whenever you drop a station, after you un-fix it with the FCC, hit Shift-P twice and it will set the station at zero rotation and facing the default way. Move all your stations at default rot/facing and they will be easier to line up.

Once you get close to the other stations set your movement/rotation steps [shift-(-)] (shift-ins) to the smallest amount and then you can fine tune their location to the next station.

When you connect the first two stations, you can place the HUB pretty far from the top of the stations. That way your ships will never need to drive under all the connector tubing. This also allows you to make the stations under that as messy as you want, I don't worry about aligning connection points anymore.

IMPORTANT: After the first two stations are connected. From then on every new station gets connected to the original HUB (complex).

1 - Drop new station, move to location.

2 - Drop new HUB and then select NEW station first.

3 - Select original HUB (complex) second.

I usually place my solar power plants at the top of any complex and then FCC-move all the rest of the stations up close under that. Just spread them out up under the SPP and then connect them without worrying about pretty tubing.

Brinnie · Post by **Brinnie** » Wed, 16. Apr 08, 14:19

What can I say? It is going to sound repetitive but:

Thanks, Again.

The first thing I am going to do is install FCC and try your tips.

I'll need some money though, I spent most of my credits last night on 10 factories which I have already added (the old way) to my complex.

*********************
EDIT
*********************

--- Saving a Reference Point:

I accidentally put 1 down, how do I remove it?

Rhadamant · Post by **Rhadamant** » Thu, 1. May 08, 04:41

Use your unfix hotkey and it will remove.

spoidz · Post by **spoidz** » Thu, 1. May 08, 06:13

EDIT: Maybe you found your answer while I was typing.

The only way I would think would be the Advanced Tractor Beam where you towed it into final exact 0,0,0, but might also cause going crazy trying.

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=149343

The only other chance might be Complex Cleaner (I haven't used) but it has a function to move stations to a new position while keeping the complex functioning. Maybe the "move" portion is that exact.

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... ight=tubes

The only other way I guess would be to try to drop the station exactly in the first place. You can try manually but I realize that it may be hard to lock the cursor to find 0,0,0 as well.

Brinnie · Post by **Brinnie** » Thu, 1. May 08, 12:58

Rhadamant wrote:Use your unfix hotkey and it will remove.

Thanks

The Shadow Wolf · Post by **The Shadow Wolf** » Thu, 31. Jul 08, 09:23

I've had a solid read of this thread but can find no references to anyone repositioning stations in a complex to make the untidy complex become neat and tidy. I'm running a game with a dozen scripts and about twenty or so ships in XSP format.

My problem is that I'm struggling to get one station I've moved to become fixed in space so that I can then move the others into position to make the said Space fuel complex neat. I have set up the same keys as are listed in the manual and have maaged to unlock the station and move ALL stations together but now I want to lock ONE in place. Can someone please help me. I'm struggling here.

spoidz · Post by **spoidz** » Thu, 31. Jul 08, 15:41

have maaged to unlock the station and move ALL stations together but now I want to lock ONE in place.

If all the stations moved together that means you unlocked the whole complex and then moved it. That will happen unless you individually target a station first.

In order to unlock a single station you'll have to target only that station and move it individually. You'll probably have to get real close facing it and then target it with your "T" key. The defixed station of the complex will remain green, FYI.

Then to re-connect the tubes you can attach a new hub to the old one and the tubes will reattach.

NOTE: Once you fix that single station, it is still FIXED to the whole complex, so once you move the rest of the complex, that station is going to move WITH the complex. If you want to separate that one station from the complex, you'll have to delete the hub and start over. You can move that one station to the complex, but you can't move the complex to that one station.

The Shadow Wolf · Post by **The Shadow Wolf** » Thu, 31. Jul 08, 17:13

I'll try that. I thought I had to unlock the entire complex first not just target one station in that complex without unlocking the rest.

spoidz · Post by **spoidz** » Thu, 31. Jul 08, 17:29

Not according to the latest readme. You might want to print it out as there are some other tips and hints in there for you as well.

The Shadow Wolf · Post by **The Shadow Wolf** » Fri, 1. Aug 08, 12:07

Well it worked so .. Thank you.

I've now got a neat and compact complex that was once taking up half a sector. Took a while even though it was a dozen stations.

Thank you again spoidz

spoidz · Post by **spoidz** » Fri, 1. Aug 08, 15:30

Glad it worked out,

and the real thanks to triple81, Lt. Ford, Dusty, that have saved us all countless hours of work with their scripting

Poobah · Post by **Poobah** » Thu, 7. Aug 08, 17:34

This mod sounds really good; is it compatable with Ashley's Fabs? I really wouldn't want to miss out on that, but on the other hand from what I've read this would really make complex construction massively easier.

spoidz · Post by **spoidz** » Thu, 7. Aug 08, 18:29

mufassa,

I haven't had any problems so far, and I've restarted several times importing my Ashley's fabs as well as rearranging them after the import with FCC.

I know that there have been a few posts about them having to get kickstarted after moving or importing but there is also a fix for that on the Ashley thread.

One tip with FCC and Ashley, excessive steering on big ships (tweaked

) may cause them to still hit the hub or tube when departing no matter the spacing.

Masterdon Pivot

Mr Tibbs · Post by **Mr Tibbs** » Thu, 7. Aug 08, 19:49

I'm having some problems trying to use this plugin.
I've got a complex of around 130 stations that I've been putting together in a grid format with each station 2.5 km appart from each other.
A couple of days ago I noticed that if I spent any amount of time in the sector my complex would disolve and in my log I'd find that one of my stations had been destroyed by another. Now I'm trying to fix this with FCC but am finding that once I press the unlock station key, it's taking 20-30 minutes in real time for it to actually unlock. Once unlocked I can move the station around with no problems but it's the initial wait to get it unlocked that's killing me.

Are there any optimizations or settings I could change to speed up the process?

My computer is fairly old but still functional

AMD XP3200+ Barton
Radeon 9600 Pro 256Mbyte AGP 8 GFX card
2 gig PC2600 RAM Dual channel (2 x 1 gig chips of same type)

I have no problems at all with the graphics and can fly through the complex at a fairly good frame rate (ok without the anti aliaising turned on).

I know it's down to CPU as I can play X3 on my latitude laptop which has a dual core processor and here I have the opposite problem.
Takes a couple of seconds for the station unlock to work but gfx are pants. about 1 frame per minute. lol