Scripting Tutorials

Reven · Post by **Reven** » Sun, 1. Feb 04, 10:53

Most of the material in the below tutorials is now in the MSCI Programmer's Handbook. Tutorial 2 is the only one with any material not in the book. The tutorials may still be useful, however, as they contain more in-depth examples than the book has.

Tutorial 1: New X² Commands - Connect a script to X²'s Menu
How to link a script into the normal Nav, Trade, Combat, etc. menuing system in X².
Example script: "Trade->Maintain product quantities..." command. A command to cause a ship to attempt to maintain a constant quantity of products in stock in its home factory.
Tutorial 2: Adding new command extension wares to X²
How to create new wares, how to distribute them among stations, and how to integrate new commands with new wares.
Example script: Create the ware "Hire Gunnery Crew" which will activate the turret command "Man turrets with gun crews". This ware will be used with a script developed in Tutorial 4.
Tutorial 3: Creationism Revisited: How to change the X Universe
How to create planets, nebulas, gates, asteroids, factories, and ships.
Example script: Create random asteroids coming from the planet Shipfall (the planet that is breaking up in Power Circle) and move them out and through the trading grid area.
Tutorial 4: Flight mechanics and combat: Custom combat scripts and more.
The actual tutorial was never written - instead, get the MSCI Programmer's Handbook from the downloads section.
Example script: Hired Gunnery Crews - an advanced turret AI. This script will change weapons to suit the target and conditions. IE: Use PSGs (if able to) if no friendlies are around, use mass drivers against incoming missiles, won't target incoming missiles if shields are above a certain percent and it's a weak missile, etc.
Note: This evolved into a signed "bonus plugin" script. Download from the X² downloads page.
Tutorial 5: Interrupts & Signals
Superceded by the MSCI Programmer's Handbook
Tutorial 6: Process control, init scripts, and other internal workings of the scripting system.
Superceded by the MSCI Programmer's Handbook
X² Math library - fixed point decimal & trig functions
A scripted X² math library and tutorial on how to use it to duplicate the functionality of floating-point variables. Includes sine and cosine functions.

Reven · Post by **Reven** » Sun, 1. Feb 04, 11:07

Instead of stickying one or more of the tutorials, perhaps this post could be stickied instead. I'll update it as further ones are completed.

Argonaught. · Post by **Argonaught.** » Sun, 1. Feb 04, 11:59

Yea I vote for stickying this one....soon I shall be able to script a thing into X2.....Don't ask me what thing, as it has no name.

ZeligtheLiar · Post by **ZeligtheLiar** » Sun, 1. Feb 04, 17:50

I just started playing the game last week, and was so very happy to find the scripting support here. So much excellent work, I just hope I can make some contribution.

First though, I must learn how. Reven, your first 2 tutorials and the extra stuff you've posted about scripting (the Ore Belt Colossus prod, for instance) have helped me a lot.

I can't wait for the next tutorials!

Zelig

Reven · Post by **Reven** » Sun, 1. Feb 04, 19:00

I maybe shouldn't have asked for a sticky for this - it means I actually have to do the rest now.

@ZeligtheLiar: Thanks. Glad it's helped. The next one is in progress - I'm hoping it will be ready tonight. Depends on how much time the wife leaves me.

OnlineKenji · Post by **OnlineKenji** » Wed, 4. Feb 04, 02:08

I'm getting into writing some trade scripts that use Jump. Yeah I know its been done already, but I want to use my own scripts. It feels less like cheating if I make it myself

.

Thanks for the push in the right direction Rev, that helped me get started. I popped open a few of EGO's .pck's and picked up on the scripting. Your tut, taught me how to make it show up in the game, thanks bud

ZeligtheLiar · Post by **ZeligtheLiar** » Sat, 7. Feb 04, 17:30

Hey Reven. I've been looking through a few of the scripts, hoping to teach myself how to write them by working out how to read them first. I actually have a few little things I'd like to write myself once I get "there". Nothin' grandiose, nothin' amazin'. Jus' a few little things I think would make life easier, and I don't mean massive ships with flaming guns. I'll post on that when I'm done, or before then if anyone wants to know...

Anyway, what I wanted to say was that while looking through some of the scripts I think I may have found two typos in the Tutorial 1 script ship.cmd.maintainprod.xml - One is just a spelling error (I think) but the other looks like it would be a script-crashing bug.

Line 018 - The message 'Not enough room onboard to hold and %s' - Should that "and" be "any"?
Line 051 - Variable "$Freespace" at the start of the line... should that be "$Message"?

Thanks again Reven!

AalaarDB · Post by **AalaarDB** » Tue, 6. Apr 04, 23:29

My Personal Notes on the Script Editor

Manually Editing the Galaxy Map Using a Text Editor

The_Rock · Post by **The_Rock** » Mon, 12. Apr 04, 00:39

Hs anyone seen Raven about? He's still got work to do..

red assassin · Post by **red assassin** » Sat, 17. Apr 04, 18:57

He probably ran away to avoid having to do the rest of the tutorials

.

Argonaught. · Post by **Argonaught.** » Sat, 17. Apr 04, 20:39

red assassin wrote:He probably ran away to avoid having to do the rest of the tutorials .

Yes...I think he did considering Egosoft won't do the tutorials or release them...or give us any info on them....bloody shame that.....I used to think they actually cared what the X Gamer thought.

Post by **CBJ** » Sat, 29. May 04, 12:12

I've unstickied this in favour of this Scripting / Modding Tutorials and Resources list, which includes a link to this thread as well as a number of other useful ones.

Reven · Post by **Reven** » Sat, 18. Sep 04, 07:18

Updated (at last) with Tutorial 3.

Tutorial 4 will be out in a day or two - this is a for sure, as I just bought a Titan and I really want the updated turret script for myself anyways.

After that, I'll reevaluate tutorials 5 and 6 to see if they are still necesary, or if existing documentation covers those topics.

The_Rock · Post by **The_Rock** » Tue, 19. Oct 04, 23:30

Reven · Post by **Reven** » Mon, 13. Dec 04, 05:06

Obviously it was more than a day or two. The X² MSCI Programmer's Handbook combined with the newly signed Gunnery Crews "bonus plugin" finally lay to rest the remainder of my commitment made so long ago in this thread's original post. All the topics covered in the unfinished tutorials are covered in the book. I've edited the original post a little to reflect that.

In the next few days I'll go over the four tutorials and update them a little to make sure they are still accurate.

Carl Sumner · Post by **Carl Sumner** » Mon, 13. Dec 04, 22:02

Reven wrote:Obviously it was more than a day or two. The X² MSCI Programmer's Handbook combined with the newly signed Gunnery Crews "bonus plugin" finally lay to rest the remainder of my commitment made so long ago in this thread's original post. All the topics covered in the unfinished tutorials are covered in the book. I've edited the original post a little to reflect that.

In the next few days I'll go over the four tutorials and update them a little to make sure they are still accurate.

Many thanks,Reven.

Tolan69 · Post by **Tolan69** » Sat, 28. Apr 07, 19:47

Hi all. This is a great little tut set (wish the Gunnery Crews tut was done tho). I've got a smidge of scripting skills for IRC (I know, it's not X) and trying to do an init script.... I can't find the "Player" variable for race... how do you get to it? I go into the 'select race' category but I don't see "Player" anywhere.

Post by **Cycrow** » Sat, 28. Apr 07, 20:42

dont do an init script, do a setup script instead.

also, the player race is actually named the same as the players name.

ie, if u havn't changed the name, it'll be under Julian

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

Scripting Tutorials

Scripting Tutorials