[script] Improved Races (r14 RC2 Available)

[7ate9tin11s]

Improved Races Revision 13

edit LV
If you are using the newer version of IR (14+) you should use this post.



Improved races aims to make the races more of a threat without changing any ship statistics. This is done through the use of items, new artificial intelligence routines, and...sometimes...overwhelming numbers.

Changes and download of r14 RC2 can be found in this post.

Requires:
AP Libraries by 7ate9tin11s of at least r2 for common functions
AP Libraries SPK: http://www.filefront.com/14265253/AP%20 ... s%20r2.spk
AP Libraries ZIP: http://www.filefront.com/14265265/AP%20 ... s%20r2.zip

Download
Revision 13
IR SPK: http://www.filefront.com/14272411/Impro ... %20r13.spk
IR ZIP: http://www.filefront.com/14272415/Impro ... %20r13.zip

The racial improvements, sector takeovers and incursion responses default to off, you will need to enable them in the menu once you set you options up.

r13 Major Changes

New Option
Less Ships
You can now tell IR to make less ships to help with framerates and CPU load. This defaults to No fighters which will prevent non-Kha'ak counterstrikes and invasions from using fighters unless they belong to a carrier. You can also set this option to prevent fighters on carriers or allow fighters everywhere (Prior versions of IR allowed fighters everywhere).

Other Changes
1. Invasions tuned, the Xenon and other races should be a bit better now
2. Major bug fixed (I think) for those that went from r11 to r12
3. Several code optimizations.
4. Text file corrected.
5. There is less chance that a constructor will destroy itself when building a station now. The station itself may still catch on asteroids or rocks and get destroyed though.
6. Captured ships that were to be used in an invasion force should no longer behave badly
7. Several other minor fixes

Optional: Community Configuration Menu by Cycrow to use menus and configure options (The menu may also be accessed through the AL options).
Recomended: MARS Fire Control by Gazz...because I like launching missiles at you
Potential Conflicts: RRF by LV - This script is untested with and has had conflicts in the past with RRF. Some versions work perfectly fine though.
Minor Conflicts: Trancend 2 Mod - Economic boost option does not work properly and it is suggested you set this to off.

Uses text file: 8972
Uses piracy commands: 642, 643

Script Mirroring
Feel free to mirror this anywhere, but try and keep your mirror up to date

Script Usage
Please see the official post about using this script in your script package or mod. If you PM me with a link to your released mod or script package using these scripts I will cross link it here


Please post any bugs, feature requests, or comments.

[7ate9tin11s]

Improved Kha'ak

Posting by Anonymous Argon

"You know, it almost makes you feel sad for them. Between the Terrans, Xenon, and new ships by Otas corporation and others the Kha'ak are just not much of a threat. True, some of their ships can be a bit of a pest, but their sparseness and predictability make them a minor threat at most."

"It makes me wonder though, what will be their response to our rapid technological jumps? Will they be a threat again?"

Victim Quotes

...I was able to watch the Kha'ak overrun Xenon Sector 101. In my universe the Xenon only own one Sector now. (and that 596) Other then that the Kha'ak have taken-over almost half the systems. I have them held for the moment, not sure how long I'll be able to hold on tho. I can't resupply my forces fast enough to launch a full out assault with the constant "raids".

first just let me say, your script delivers , it has made the khaak a threat...a big threat...the kind of threat that u go AHHHHHHHH Holy *&^%

I am shocked no one else has said this, but i don't mind doing it...FEAR THE KH'AAK.

Features

• Swarming Behavior - Kha'ak ships will prefer to target the same things as their neighbors. This leads to massive focus fire like is often used by players to reduce enemy numbers quickly.

• Swarm Communication - As a swarm of Kha'ak grows in a sector they will begin to call in Kha'ak from distant sectors.

• Swarm Targeting - The swarm will intelligently choose targets depending on the makeup of the swarm. If there are no Kha'ak capital ships present the swarm will focus on taking out smaller ships to do the maximum amount of damage possible. If there are Kha'ak capital ships then they will focus on capital ships first. Once all the ships are gone the Kha'ak will move on to the stations in the sector.

• Gateless Jumpdrives - As we all know from the plot, the Kha'ak have gateless jumpdrive technology. Now they will use it to not only jump in and increase the swarm size, but also to jump into range of their target when it is far away. However, their gateless jumpdrive technology is dependent upon the unique crystalline structure of their vessels, just a tiny amount of hull damage has been shown to disable their jumpdrives.

• Optional: Sector Takeover - If the Kha'ak successfully clear a sector of all enemy ships and stations they will begin building their own station in the sector. The Kha'ak will slowly donate their ships to the station construction effort amassing a large amount of Nvidium, Silicon Wafers and Quantum Tubes. Once enough materials are available they will become the station. They will also begin receiving defense forces like normal Kha'ak sectors. If the station is destroyed the sector will revert back to the original owners. While the station is shielded, the new Kha'ak stations take time to reach full shield strength so they are extremely vulnerable after first being built.

• Optional: Revenge - There is a small chance that when a sector is cleared of Kha'ak that an assault force will be sent from a Kha'ak home sector to remedy the situation.

• Optional: Automatic Upgrades - While in combat Kha'ak ships slowly tune themselves to be faster and more maneuverable up to a 50% overtuning on the hardest difficulty. While dangerous for those being attacked, these highly tuned ships are quite an asset to collectors and cappers alike.

• Optional: Missile Resupply - The Kha'ak home sectors will slowly transport missiles directly to swarm participants during battle. This will also increase the probability of Kha'ak using missiles during combat.

• Optional: Suicidal Scouts - The tiny scout ships have refined their capabilities at annoyance and have been seen to seek out and self-destruct against enemies dealing heavy damage to a small area. Furthermore, they have been known to explode into small missiles to clean out heavy concentrations of light units.

• Optional: Point to Point Jumps - The point to point(p2p) jumping of the Kha'ak while in-sector can be adjusted. While the minimum jump range defaults to 10k you can also choose 40k, 80k, or entirely disabled. While it may seem to be a good idea to use a higher jump range, the Kha'ak like to jump and it just means they will find a target further away and jump to it instead of something close.

• Optional: Extra Kha'ak - Depending on difficulty level selected the script will generate ships around the universe randomly.

• Optional: Carrier Production - While the effects of 50 fighters launching from a heavily armed Xenon carrier are huge and debilitating, the Kha'ak carriers is a bit...lacking. With this option enabled carriers will produce ships as the overmind manages the battle. While usually just scouts there are diminishing chances of interceptors and fighters being produced as well. The carrier will no longer be the minor threat to leave for later!

• Optional: OFF Counterstrikes - Operation Final Fury can launch assaults against taken sectors to try and push back the Kha'ak.

• Optional: Racial Counterstrikes - Everyone is tired of the Kha'ak incursions, a race with a shipyard that loses a sector to them will now send assault forces to try and get their sector back. Yes, that includes the Yaki

• Optional: Notifications - Messages can be sent to the player informing them of lost sectors or assault groups forming (As long as they are not enemies of the race forming the assault group ).

Current Difficulty Setting Effects

Code: Select all

                                                Easy    Normal      Hard    Insane
Hull% needed for jtp                         100.00%    98.00%    90.00%    75.00%
J2P minimum charge time                            5         3         1         0
J2P maximum charge time                            9         7         3         0
Max ships gathered from a remote sector            5        10        15        20
Engine/Rudder tuning chance                   16.67%    33.33%    50.00%   100.00%
Engine/Rudder tuning max                     125.00%   133.33%   150.00%   200.00%
Extra missile chance                           5.56%    11.11%    14.29%    20.00%
Max missile fire probability                  45.00%    65.00%    80.00%    95.00%
Suicide divisor # (1 in hull% / #)                 1         2         3         4
Emergency escape shields %                     1.00%    10.00%    15.00%    20.00%
Maximum controllable swarm size                   13        25        50       100
Nvidium needed to make station                    40        33        27        20
2 GJ shields on stations                           2         4         6         8
Starting shield charge on stations             0.00%    12.50%    33.33%    50.00%
Missile Swarm Participation Chance            20.00%    25.00%    33.33%    50.00%

Note: carrier production speed is dependent upon swarm size

[7ate9tin11s]

Improved Xenon

Overheard at Argon Military

Persistent. That is what they are, persistent. Those Xenon just send wave after wave at our forces until they win by attrition. It is terrible, you know. For them it is just the loss of a easily replicated piece of code and some easily strip-mined resources. For us it is a human life that will take years to replace. I've heard rumors that the high command is getting worried, especially with the new Xenon vessels...

It's been a bad time to be a Xenon, between the improved vessels of the core races and the dangerously improved Kha'ak they keep losing battle after battle. Time for an old terraformer program to learn a few new tricks...

Victim Quotes

Well, I have been using both this and Imp.Kha'ak in a no-RRF XTM game, and sofar the Kha'ak have captured about one sector (lost one more to Xenon), but the Xenon have taken over about 10 sectors already...

I liiiiiiike

I love this script. Makes the Xenon THE Force to be rekoned with.

EPIC. Thank you so much for allowing me to die in this fashion. Please don't stop

Features

• Active Invasion - Each Xenon station in the universe will begin acting as an invasion coordinator. They will build waves of increasing numbers of ships and attempt to destroy everything in their target sector. Eventually they will give up and target a different sector though...eventually

• Optional: Sector Takeover - So what do the Xenon do when they have wiped out a sector? They make their own station and begin invading the next sector. With each sector taken over more invasion forces are put into play, keep the Xenon in check or be overwhelmed!

• Optional: Extra Stations - Many existing Xenon sectors do not have stations to produce invasion fleets, this option will place a single station in any existing Xenon sectors without them. Xenon 101 will quickly become a problem as it takes over the easily conquered pirate sectors!

• Optional: Tuned Ships - They are computers, experts at mass production. Each and every Xenon invasion ship will have full rudder and engine tunings straight out of the factory with this option.

• Optional: Extra Missiles - Xenon ships will come pre-equipped with an assortment of missiles when built, they will also use them more often. However, once they run out they are out.

• Optional: Surprises - Recent probes have determined that the Xenon are experimenting with equivalents of Lasertowers, Tracker Mines, and Fighter Drones. Yes, we did say tracker mines and, yes, they will come after you.

• Optional: ATF Counterstrikes - The ATF will launch assaults against Xenon sectors to try and take back lost ground.

• Optional: Racial Counterstrikes - Everyone is tired of the Xenon invasions, a race with a shipyard that loses a sector to them will now send assault forces to try and get their sector back. Yes, that includes the Yaki...but if the Xenon get that far you are in trouble

• Optional: Notifications - Messages can be sent to the player informing them of lost sectors or assault groups forming (As long as they are not enemies of the race forming the assault group ).

Difficulty Setting Effects

Code: Select all

                       Easy     Normal    Hard    Insane
Station build time       25         20      15        10
Token min                25         40      75       200
Token increase rate      25         40      75       200
Token max               100        160     300       400
Build Time Divisor        1          2       3         4 
Small Ship Weighting      4          3       2         1 

Note that Xenon ships with the more missile and the cargo drops options enabled will get more missiles/drops at harder difficulty levels. It is not constant and depends on ship size and other factors so it cannot be easily represented in a chart.

Tokens and Times
When building an invasion force each wave is given a certain number of tokens which increase until the 'Token max' is reached. Once the max is reached the invasion has 'failed' and a sector will be randomly chosen for a new invasion starting at the 'Token min'. Each wave of the invasion has increasingly more tokens available to spend on ships with token costs and build times varying according to the chart here:

Code: Select all

        M1  M2  M3  M4  M5  M6  M7  Unknown
Tokens  60  55   8   4   1  14  35      1-8
Time*   40  40   6   2   1  12  20      1-8

*+1 for each docked ship (randomly chosen), time is also divided by the build time divisor 

What this means is that in normal mode difficulty a unit of Time is 30 seconds and the first invasion wave is 40 tokens. This means the first wave could consist of 40 N's built in 40 minutes, 10 M's built in 20 minutes, 5 L's built in 30 minutes, or some combination of ships that spend the 40 tokens (Usually it is a combination). As you can see at higher difficulty not only are their more ships per invasion wave, they are also built faster. In general each difficulty level attempts to be twice as hard as the previous one.

[7ate9tin11s]

Improved Pirates

Posting by Split Security

"Pirates are just scum, they hate law and order and just want to cause chaos. They take and use technology in offensive ways. They must be dealt with."

Work in Progress
The pirates seem to be the joke enemy of x3tc, weak ships, fast bailing, and sectors full of enemy race military patrols. It is time for them to break out the dirty tricks and chaos inducing terrorism tactics.

While they may be a bit too lazy to try an take over racial sectors they will not hesitate to defend themselves and cause chaos anywhere. Planned ideas include:

1. Causing chaos by dropping swarms of mines, lasertowers, and fighter drones wherever they feel like
2. Marking ships for death when they are caught killing pirates.
3. Setting up ambushes by gates
4. Stealing your capped ships

[7ate9tin11s]

Improved Yaki

Argon Security Classified Documents

"The Yaki are the high-tech criminals of the universe. Disruptor missiles, tracker mines, quick-build defense station, fast ships, and a habit of absolute secrecy define them. While they hold only a tiny bit of the universe, that bit is more heavily defended than Argon Prime."

"Who knows what they are planning in there?"

Incursion Response - The Aoandon
History
In the Edo period, a popular pastime was "a hundred stories". People would gather in a room where a hundred candles were burning inside andon lamps, which had been covered in blue paper to create an eerie atmosphere. Then a hundred frightening supernatural tales would be told, and after each one was finished, a candle would be snuffed out. When the last story was told and the room went dark, the demon called ao-andon was said to appear...

Activation and Removal
Both activation and removal are performed by changing the "Incursion Response" setting in the Yaki menus or the overall Improved Yaki difficulty level. It may take a couple minutes to deactivate after changing the option.

Aoandon
Description
The Aoandon class carrier is a heavily modified and highly equiped Shuri. It has the ability to launch missile volleys like an M7M and supports catapult launching of fighters, drones and mines. Good thing there is only 1 of them, 2 would be unbalanced

Deployment
Each Yaki shipyard will support one Aoandon and one Recon drone. The drone will wander through Yaki space and when it encounters a large enough invasion fleet it will order in an assault.

Special
Besides a unique and rather frustrating AI, the Aoandon has a couple of smaller ships working for it. The first is just an upgraded Baku drone, the Mekurabe. The second is the anti-capital ship assault fighters known as the Hitodama. If you destroy the Aoandon quickly enough you will never have to worry about the assault fighters...but a 2 minute window is all you have...


Hikari LTA
Activation
To activate use the menus and set an Improved Yaki difficulty level. The 'Gate - LT Array' option must also be enabled.

Removal
To remove all HLTA from the universe set either Improved Yaki itself or 'Gate - LT Array' to Off/Disabled. Within a couple minutes all HLTA and their TM deployers should be removed. Any remaining HLTA are in combat and will be removed once they finish...either way

Hikari Lasertower Arrays
Description
The Hikari LTA consists of many lasertowers (amount depending on difficulty level) that are slaved together to act as one giant lasertower. While this would be bad on its own, the Hikari enjoys an improved turning rate over standard lasertowers and employs Baku drones to assist in battle. On insane mode, the Hikari LTA easily destroys destroyers that try to sit still and attack the towers one by one.

Deployment
The HLTA is deployed by Yaki TMs. The TMs will dock at the Yaki shipyard and slowly build their stocks of lasertowers until they have enough. They will then fly to the closest gate which does not have a HLTA and deploy there. Then back to the station, etc. If you happen to have a lasertower factory nearby that they are allowed to dock at they may also buy from you.

Player Deployment
If your larger size ship is equiped with a software signature scrambler device you will have the option to deploy your own Hikari arrays. By selecting the option in the piracy menu you will be shown the requirements and costs.

Special
Besides the use of Baku drones (described below), the HLTA will self repair and reposition when out of combat. We wouldn't want that wonderful star to be out of alignment would we? Over time, when out of battle, the HLTA will also generate more Baku until its very limited cargo bay is full.

Baku Drones
Description
The Baku drone is used to attack incoming missiles and pester weak targets, often to their death. Compared to the normal fighter drone it is a bit faster and a bit more maneuverable. Baku will return and land at their host when they have finished their task.


Work in Progress
The Yaki are pirates, but more focused on high technology and defensive installations. Instead of destroying a sector outright, they will choke it to death by taking the gates, then taking the sector with all of the stations still operational.

Planned evil includes:
1. Marine boarding of vessels
2. Use of a variety of defensive installations to guard gates and eventually force a sector takeover
3. Using their TL ships to make defensive outposts in preperation for taking a sector
4. Use of fighter/recon/camera/cargo drones to automate their economy

[7ate9tin11s]

Improved Vanilla Races

Recon Drones
Incursion responses are now triggered by recon drones which wander around the galaxy. The careful pirate can get in and out before being spotted...the unlucky will have to deal with one of the following...

Fighter Incursion Response
Military bases and Pirate anarchy ports will keep a small fleet of M3 fighters which will jump in and attempt to resolve issues in sectors. Over time they will recover their stocks of fighters.

Capital Ship Incursion Response
Shipyards will keep a small fleet on alert that will jump in and will resolve any issues in a sectors. Depending on the whims of the commander they may have a carrier task force or a destroyer squadron. Over time the fleet will be rebuilt and may change between carrier and destroyer types.

Capital ship fleets consist of a heavy hitting set of response ships which will actively hunt down threats while the blockade forces prevent anyone from leaving. The blockade forces may also launch volleys of missiles to clean up the sector as well.

Hot War
There is peace in the galaxy...until you turn up the heat! With hot war enabled the Boron and Split will not be letting each others military ships through their sectors, and neither will the Argon and Paranid. Pirates will be much more vicious in hot war too. Of course, you will need to be careful of your reputation in a hot war as well...

Racial Sector Takeovers
Now all races will try to take over sectors belonging to their enemies. With Hot war enabled, this can get rather nasty

Invasion Notifications
You can now hear about invasions being launched by the various races and receive swarm warnings about the Kha'ak. You will have to have the proper reputation and a bit of luck to get accurate information though...if you get information at all

Economic Boost
When a race takes a sector they will receive a small economic boost with this option. The sector will get several stations built within it which will try to strengthen the X economy. For example, if there are no racial power stations nearby then it will be a power sector, no food will make food, etc. Oh, and some pirate and yaki 'food' is not so legal in other places...

Future plans include player sector takeovers...

[xiriod]

This sounds great, but please in your first post include what resources and files it uses and edits

[7ate9tin11s]

Done, just uses text file 8972 and a bunch of scripts. No modding of anything, just some custom ai nastiness

Something to point out for those attempting the insane level difficulty for Xenon: The invasions take quite a while to set up due to their size...I do not recommend being in the sector when they start to flood into the sector. Heck, I do not recommend insane mode fo anyone on any race

Oh, and tracker mines are a pain, they like to travel in packs, be careful.

[ThisIsHarsh]

Awesome, downloading now.

So once a sector is lost to Xenon/Khaak/etc, I take it there is no way of reverting it to the ex-owner?

Edit: wow, on normal mode the Khaak are everywhere (an yes, running RRF)! Had to turn down to easy mode... or will their numbers thin out after the initial surge?

[mr.WHO]

Do you plan to make improvements to "good" races to keep the game ballance (I think that even best players won't be able to protect whole galaxy against simultaneous Khaak and Xenon invason) ??

For example:
ATF task forces (as they are dedicated anti-teraformer force) - would be send to Xenon sectors (both their normal, and occupied ones) to takeover them and build defence stations to hold the metal flood.

USC fleets - they would be sent to any sector - close to terran space (let say 5 or 6 jums from Asteroid Belt sector) - that would be overun by Xenon or Khaak, wipe out them and then give the sector back to the previous owner- they would be protecting the Terran species by maintaining the buffer zone to Terran Space.

Both USC and ATF would also react to Khaak invasion inside Terran space

[Troubleshooter11]

Do you plan to make improvements to "good" races to keep the game ballance (I think that even besy players won't be able to protect whole galaxy against simultaneous Khaak and Xenon invason) ??

For example:
ATF task forces (as they are dedicated anti-teraformer force) - would be send to Xenon sectors (both their normal, and occupied ones) to takeover them and build defence stations to hold the metal flood.

USC fleets - they would be sent to any sector - close to terran space (let say 5 or 6 jums from Asteroid Belt sector) - that would be overun by Xenon or Khaak, wipe out them and then give the sector back to the previous owner- they would be protecting the Terran species by maintaining the buffer zone to Terran Space.

Both USC and ATF would also react to Khaak invasion inside Terran space

I agree that a AL plugin that makes the ATF spawn and launch raids into Xenon held sectors would be a very good idea. These guys have made it their mission in life to hunt down and destroy AGI, surely they would respond to Xenon aggression.

[mr.WHO]

Another "Failsafe" AL idea:

"Emergency Commonwealt Crusade":

When both Khaak and Xenon will takeover certain number (lets say 1/3 of Commonwealt sectors) of sectors - multiracial fleets will be spawned and send to take them back at all cost.

This would make a real atmosphere of apocalyptic war to see joint Boron-Split forces trying to liberate a Teladi sectors.


Edit:
It would be nice if the player could get a cash reward when he liberate the overrun sector.

[7ate9tin11s]

Hmmm, some good ideas here. I do like the idea of an ATF launched counterattack to Xenon sector takeovers. As for the Khaak, I think a multiracial response launched from M148 would be appropriate . No jumpdrives though, this will let the player see them travel through space and join in if they want (or destroy them, I guess )

So once a sector is lost to Xenon/Khaak/etc, I take it there is no way of reverting it to the ex-owner?

Just destroy the Khaak/Xenon station in the sector to revert it to the previous owner. I may take up to 30 seconds to do this though.

wow, on normal mode the Khaak are everywhere (an yes, running RRF)! Had to turn down to easy mode... or will their numbers thin out after the initial surge?

I have noticed this as well...I will double-check the limiter on their spawn rate. Please remember that RRF increases their spawn rate itself (or used to in x3r)

Do you plan to make improvements to "good" races to keep the game ballance (I think that even best players won't be able to protect whole galaxy against simultaneous Khaak and Xenon invason) ??

Eventually I may, for now something like RRF may be useful to keep them in check.

It would be nice if the player could get a cash reward when he liberate the overrun sector.

Should be easy enough to do, just a signal killed script on the station to log the kill and then payment when the sector changes ownership correctly. The real question is...how much?

[Wintermist]

Oh this seems VERY interesting and making the two races much mroe alive and unique. And what was said about counter-measures by the other AL races would definately be awesome too. It would really make the universe feel more alive.

[mr.WHO]

Should be easy enough to do, just a signal killed script on the station to log the kill and then payment when the sector changes ownership correctly. The real question is...how much?

I think that the easiest measure would be to count the reward based on the time the sector was occupied.

Longer occupied --> propably more enemies, more invasions spawned from this sector, more deadly sector --> bigger reward.


In awerage "hold positon" mission against Xenons, I have to deal with two M1/M2, few M6 and some number of fighters and have an average reward between 10 and 15 milions.

You just have to test how much resistance such occupied sector gives to the player just after takeover, some time after and when the takeover sector is fully garrisoned and operational.

[mr.WHO]

Another small idea:
When I took an OTAS Corporation mission I noticed that most "protection" missions were placed in Third Redemption, Clarity's End, Nopileos Memorial, and sometimes in sectors between those mentioned sectors (it would be around 12-14 sectors territory).


I think that it's safe to assume that it's an OTAS operational territory.
It would be fun to have a small corporate fleets patrolling around those sectors hunting for pirates and other hostile forces (hovere I think they should have a problems with dealing with Khaak invasions and mabe with stronger Xeonon ones - however, with their close position to Xenon 101, OTAS forces would be a key in slowing down advance from X 101 - however they wouldn't be able to hold their own alone for long time).


I think that even rich corporation wouldn't be able to maintain a large fleet outside their home/core sector, so I think that exept maybe a single Boreas M2, the patrol forces should be based on few M7s and numerous M6 and TM with large number of advance OTAS fighters (I mean that exept Solano M4+, OTAS should use also an Eurus M4, Venti M3, and Notus Hauler M3+ - OSAT fighters that aren't sold in their shipyard in vanilla TC).

[someone else]

OMG WTF Yipppeeee!!!!
these scripts rocks man! Khaaks and Xenons have finally awaken and trying to kill the universe!
(and considering the improvement I did to their ships in my mod...
they royally kick arse even at "easy" setting)
The "plenty of configurable options" is a very good approach too. Any player can personalize its enemies... looks strange but is good...

[7ate9tin11s]

Twas a productive day, and I have finally gotten used to the offline script editor.

Simple OFF and ATF counterstrikes are now working, though they only do a single strike at a time against a random taken or owned sector. They do prioritize taken over owned and have 4 settings:
1. Balanced - They will respond with roughly the same number and types of ships that are in the target sector.
2. Strong - While they will have the same basic number of ships, the ships will be of stronger varieties.
3. Weak - While they will have the same basic number of ships, the ships will be weaker types
4. Disabled - Because you don't need there help, right?

Found and fixed a minor AI bug in the xenon that prevented them from sharing information with each other, they will not flood into a sector with the weakest ships first now

Found and fixed a bug that prevented Kha'ak from actually taking over sectors.

Altered the way Kha'ak spawn in the universe and allowed player control of the spawn levels:
1. Automatic - The default just matches your difficulty level
2. Weak (Easy Difficulty) - Spawns small clusters, single scouts, interceptors, and the occasional medium cluster as your fight rank improves.
3. Normal (Normal Difficulty) - Ships in 2, plus fighters, and larger clusters
4. Tough (Hard Mode) - Ships in 1 and 2, plus corvettes, giant clusters, and a very low chance of destroyers at high fight skill levels
5. Insane (Insane Mode) - Anything and everything, though corvettes are the most popular
6. Disabled - No extra Kha'ak will be spawned, this will really make the ai suffer since very few are spawned by the game compared to the way this script gets them destroyed

The Kha'ak will now prioritize getting a foothold in the universe both to increase their offensive abilities and to give the OFF counterstrikes something to do. Those that played the XTM version where there was a connected Kha'ak sector realize how bad this really is...

Quite a few other small tweaks and fixes. Once this is stable I can move on to the pirates and yaki

Just need to test a clean install and I will have the main post updated for downloads...

[someone else]

Swarm Targeting - ....

now, THIS opens some interesting scenarios!!

I was wondering... can you add a "smart ship usage by AI" feature?
let me explain: AI ships will choose the best enemy to engage and dont attack the first red dot on the Radar regardless of its class (that ends up in a M5 trying to kill a M2 and vice-versa) that often happens in Vanilla.
That would be very useful for any ship.

considering that you did just that with Khaaks... expanding the script to ALL the AI ships when IS shouldn't be hard (at least I hope so )

another thing: creating a "NPC carrier launch really devastating fighter attacks" feature, reusing some of the coordination features you did for Khaaks, creating 2-3 groups that behave like "wings" and are smart like Khaaks.

EDIT: ok, colours work now

[Cronos988]

That script sound very cool, I'am going to give it a try once i'm through with the plots.

The recent scripts have really enhanced the X3 experience concerning a "living universe".

Now since you are already improving the races, I would really like to see a combination of these 3 Scripts:

Your script, improving the enemy behaviour and making them a threat, with coordinated attacks and everything

LV's RRF, that does the same for the main races,

And THIS Script giving all militaries a certain strength and making them beatable.

A combination of these two would lead to a Universe acting realistic, with Invasions and wars all over the Place. Some races might get wiped out after a while. Maybe the player helps defend a race on the brink of extinction, or he is the one that crushes it.

That would take X3 TC from a really great game to an absolutely awesome game