[AL PLUGIN] The Marauder Shipyard - v0.5 - updated: 23.01.2009

Luckychuck · Post by **Luckychuck** » Wed, 26. Nov 08, 14:36

I hadn't thought about the PHQ, but I do like your idea of having the combat rank for ships and the trade rank for factories. In X3-R I used one of my PHQs for military applications and another for trade applications. Maybe a high trade and combat rank for the PHQ since it is the ultimate installation. Any way, just my thoughts............Keep up the good work.

ChrisCorr · Post by **ChrisCorr** » Fri, 28. Nov 08, 23:18

Pretty neat script you got here.

The first time I ran the script everything was fine. The shipyard spawned and I could buy from it at upgrade my ship. Then I went on with my life and a few (quite a lot actually) game hours later I got a new "MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY" message. I thought that the shipyard must have been destroyed or maybe removed by God, but then I went to take a look in the sector were it supposedly spawned again and it is nowhere to be found.

Should I run the script again? I only used the shipyard once so maybe it did get removed by god, since I guess it had no other customers. ^^

Teladidrone · Post by **Teladidrone** » Fri, 28. Nov 08, 23:49

You'll only get a new Mayday if the script had to respawn the shipyard - for whatever reason, most likely a random Pirate patrol on the loose.
If you are sure it is not there where the message indicated turn off the plugin and turn it on again.
This should always force a respawn with new Mayday message.

Hieronymos · Post by **Hieronymos** » Sat, 29. Nov 08, 05:37

The DDRS mod for X3R has a pirate base providing missions (assassination, escort, etc.), that if successful, unlocks special ships at 6 special SY's (1 for each race + Yaki), that are independant of regular rep (i.e., you can buy ship, but may not get it out of a hostile sector alive).

Voxol's PFSY, allowed you to buy and place the SY, which then would build any ships for which it had blueprints, charging normal game price for said ships..

If the Marauder SY has ship access solely based on any race rep, then it's waaaaay easy. You'll probably need some additional hurdle(s)..like mission completions. Or a 30% surcharge on inventory..

xiriod · Post by **xiriod** » Sat, 29. Nov 08, 15:32

I searched all over for a gate connected to 'Me...' with the Marauder in it, but nothing. I guess I would have to restart the AL plugin? If the Marauder somehow is somewhere else, will restarting the AL just destroy the first one and make it appear somewhere else with no adverse effects?

ChrisCorr · Post by **ChrisCorr** » Sat, 29. Nov 08, 15:41

I got the Mayday message a few more times, apparently the thing was jumping around a lot. After a while I stopped getting messages but the shipyard isn't at it's last supposed location.

How do I restart the plugin?

Teladidrone · Post by **Teladidrone** » Sat, 29. Nov 08, 18:47

xiriod wrote:I searched all over for a gate connected to 'Me...' with the Marauder in it, but nothing. I guess I would have to restart the AL plugin? If the Marauder somehow is somewhere else, will restarting the AL just destroy the first one and make it appear somewhere else with no adverse effects?

The only effect should be that the script nukes the shipyard if it exists somewhere and then respawn it at some different location.
I did that a lot times testing here and it always worked as planned.

Spoiler

Show

Does it say "North Gate"? Then probably Me = Merchant Heaven which means your Marauder should be in sector Maelstrom.

ChrisCorr wrote: How do I restart the plugin?

All plugin settings are under Gameplay-Artificial Life Settings.
Its just a toggle yes/no.
Turn it off for 1 minute and then turn it on again.
After a few seconds you should get the incoming message with the location hints again.

amirite · Post by **amirite** » Sat, 29. Nov 08, 20:08

I always glaze over this thread in S&M but now that I've actually read your post it sounds awesome. I like how you are making these existing ships available in a creative way.

When you impliment the Paranid attacks, will the shipyard stay put as long as it is safe? I like the part about it jumping to random sectors, but it would be even cooler if the player could get some control over that eventually.

Hieronymos · Post by **Hieronymos** » Sat, 29. Nov 08, 21:52

Another way of locating, or at least fine-tuning your search, would be to use Cycrow's cheat script. Save your game, then activate cheatscript, use 'discover entire universe' cheat, then examine each of the pirate/unknown sectors for the M SY. Then reload your your earlier gamesave.

Teladidrone · Post by **Teladidrone** » Sun, 30. Nov 08, 00:17

amirite wrote:I always glaze over this thread in S&M but now that I've actually read your post it sounds awesome. I like how you are making these existing ships available in a creative way.

When you impliment the Paranid attacks, will the shipyard stay put as long as it is safe? I like the part about it jumping to random sectors, but it would be even cooler if the player could get some control over that eventually.

Yeah, something like that is the plan.
The shipyard will stay in place until destroyed.
I also installed low shielding to the shipyard because I actually WANT it to be destroyed from time to time.
As of now, only random attacks may happen; that is very location dependant - some Xenon, Khaak or Pirate patrols may decide that its sitting in their way and try to relocate it.
Depending on location that could happen frequently - or never.
Once the Paranid attacks are in place, they will directly aim at it and try to nuke it... unless something stops them dead in their tracks.

enrico1967 · Post by **enrico1967** » Sun, 30. Nov 08, 21:43

Hi Teladidrone,
how many times can you have your ship overtuned , I was able to get it once ,but not again. I like the way that you have the OT,s for a price .
Do have the cheat menu but dont like the idea of straight OT of 100 straight away .
enrico1967

Teladidrone · Post by **Teladidrone** » Sun, 30. Nov 08, 21:58

To be honest, I do not know if there is an upper limit for tuning in the game engine itself.

There is no limit in my script though - if you want to put in 100x tunings the script shall do it.
Gotta be careful though... sure, having a Titan fly around with 1000km/s sounds good on paper but I am not sure if the game and the autopilot could handle such a big monster at this high speed..

The Mechanic will not instantly work again. Hey, after all you provided him with some "medicine" and he needs to cool down a little after tasting it.

If you come back a little later and bring some more "medicine" he should wake up again...

nightspore333 · Post by **nightspore333** » Mon, 1. Dec 08, 03:57

Hieronymos wrote:Another way of locating, or at least fine-tuning your search, would be to use Cycrow's cheat script. Save your game, then activate cheatscript, use 'discover entire universe' cheat, then examine each of the pirate/unknown sectors for the M SY. Then reload your your earlier gamesave.

Or you could just use Scorp's map which has been converted for TC.

shinpl · Post by **shinpl** » Mon, 1. Dec 08, 21:35

Hi

Great script! I was wondering if it would be possible to add some *ekhm* pirated (normal sized commonwealth) stations that would produce *ekhm* stolem Terran weapons (getting enough PSP for a planned Tokyo and 2-5 Osaka's can be a pain... also getting a regular stock of missiles for Terran ships is a pain (makes the Claymore near usless). Could doing something like this be possible?

Teladidrone · Post by **Teladidrone** » Mon, 1. Dec 08, 21:58

That's not so easy without modding tfactories - I would have to steal some "normal sized" factory designs and reuse them for the other products like I did with the Boarding Pod factory.

Modding tfactories itself is something I really don't want to do because I would prefer to stay compatible with vanilla here.
There could be a few currently unused factories left that I may be able to hijack... no promises but I'll look into that for the next update.

I could add the Terran factories easily though - however all those cannot be connected to complexes and would require a lot micromanagement to keep them going..

shinpl · Post by **shinpl** » Mon, 1. Dec 08, 23:07

And thats exactly why I was asking, spawning those fabs with cycrow cheats is realy no big deal, but there size... -_- and ofcourse to get the products... -_- BIG hell to manage, and since GOD engine (thats what its called right?) seems to happily eliminate terran weapons fabs... -_-.
Well if its something you dont realy want to work with (and I can fully understand and respect that) then im not forcing anyone

Edit: Just thought about something, what if you would mod only 2 fabs, one producing all Terran weapons and producing all Terran missiles that uses commonwealth resources (ofcourse I would vote for 2-3x bigger investment in resources then the price would sugest (those are *stolen*, so not perfected fabs))

xiriod · Post by **xiriod** » Tue, 2. Dec 08, 00:23

Speaking of factories, is it possible to add factories for Plasma Beam Cannon and the other "rare" ones? Or are those too powerful and would ruin the game?

At the bottom of this thread: http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=225633 a guy says this is pretty easy to do but I have no idea

Maybe these weapons are rare or left out for a reason, I do not know.

shinpl · Post by **shinpl** » Tue, 2. Dec 08, 00:29

I think *the experimental beam weapons* just didnt made it into the game in the end

But ive heard you can find 2x Phased Array Laser Cannons in some Kha'ak sector, or something like that, its somewhere on the forum. And as for the weapons... what would you use them for? I dont recal any ships using those (except maybe for PALC mentioned above).

xiriod · Post by **xiriod** » Tue, 2. Dec 08, 00:40

The Carrack can use PBC's at least. I think there are a few others as well. If they are not in the game, or would make it unbalanced then that is another matter

Teladidrone · Post by **Teladidrone** » Tue, 2. Dec 08, 00:41

xiriod wrote:Speaking of factories, is it possible to add factories for Plasma Beam Cannon and the other "rare" ones? Or are those too powerful and would ruin the game?

PBC factory is already done in my current development version and will be in the next release.

If some lasers may be too powerful... I guess only Ego knows that and why they are not available in vanilla and frankly I dont care.
If something exists in the game files and is not broken beyond possible repair I may add it and the player can decide if he wants to use it or not.