[SCRIPT] Shiploot v1.04 (03. Dec. 2009)

[Mailo]

Download:

Download-Link for v1.04

Mechanics, looting wrecks and ship tunings

This script adds the possibility to look ship wrecks for spare parts. The wrecks are symbolized by nav buoys which are sometimes spawned upon the destruction of a ship. Skilled mechanics can use these loot parts to tune ships beyond their design parameters, refit shiptypes (e.g. refit a vanguard model into a hauler one), build consumables like a shortlived speed boost or even turn a station or M1/TL/TM into a mobile repair base.
Wrecks disappear after a while to keep the universe from being cluttered, but it is fun to enter a vector and see a field of wreckage containing a "Khaak carrier wreckage" at the center.

These mechanics can be hired when docked at any base via a ship command and gain experience when working with loot parts. Note: mechanics with high aptitude are not available at every type of station.

Three new commands are added by the script, a ship trade command, a ship special command and a station command. While the station command is used to give orders to a mechanic assigned to a station, the ship command is both used for mechanics stationed on ships and to manage the hiring, assignment and firing of mechanics. The latter options are only available on the playership. The ship special command will be implemented in a later version.

The menus:

Ship menu: (Trade command, requires Trading System Extension)

Options available on playership
- Try to hire mechanic (only works on stations)
- Sell loot parts at station (only works on stations)
- View hired mechanics
- Fire mechanic
- Assign mechanic to M1/TL/TM
- Assign mechanic to station
- Recall mechanic from ship or station

Options available on M1/TL/TM with assigned mechanic:
- View mechanic assigned to this ship
- Repair docked ship(s)

Station menu: (requires a mechanic to be assigned)

- View mechanic assigned to this station
- View loot parts and consumables stored at the station
- Repair docked ship(s)
- Upgrade ship
- Refit ship
- Produce consumables
- Transfer loot parts between ship and station
- Transfer consumables between ship and station

To assign a mechanic to a station or a ship, a mechanics shop must be installed first. The cost of 500k is taken from the player (in case of a ship mechanic) or the station account (for a station mechanic). Note that the shop is not a ware that can be found anywhere, the player is prompted to install one via menu commands when assigning a mechanic.

The repair works slightly differently on a station and on a ship. A station mechanic only requires money and time to repair ships (20k per repair tick), the repairs on a ship cost resources and time, no money (teladianium, computer components, energy cells and quantum tubes, to be exact).
Repairs do not increase the skill of the mechanic, and require a minimum skill of 50.

Upgrades available are:
- Supertuned engines: Adds engine tunings above maximum, total amount depends on mechanic's skill
- Supertuned thrusters: Adds rudder tunings above maximum, total amount depends on mechanic's skill
- Shield recharge: Recharges shields by a small amount every tick. Recharge amount depends on mechanic's skill
- Weapon energy recharge: as above, recharges weapon energy
- auto hull repair: see above, repairs hull

The script also adds five hotkeys:

- Loot wreckage: Extracts a loot part from a wreckage. Needs to be within 50m of player to work. Extracted loot part is influenced by the shiptype and race as well as random chance
- Check collected loot: Lists pieces of loot collected and in ship storage
- Activate afterburner: Requires consumable onboard, has chance of destroying engine tunings, lasts 30s
- Recharge shield: Requires consumable onboard, has chance to burn out shield generator
- Recharge weapon energy: Requires consumable onboard, has chance to burn out weapon

The final command not mentioned so far is only available after a mechanic with extremely high skill gets a flash of inspiration (not implemented yet).

Still to do:
- Add mission for ultimate mechanic
- Add one or two more upgrade options available with ultimate mechanic

DeadlyDa was nice enough to set up a forum for the script, you'll find it here:

Shiploot beta forum (registration required, as DeadlyDa has had problems with wannabe hackers)

Uninstalling the script:

DO NOT SIMPLY DELETE THE SCRIPT FILES!!!
First switch the AL plugin to OFF in the AL plugin menu, wait a few seconds and save the game. Only then is it safe to delete the script files.

Technical Data:

Language File
7401

Command Slots:
COMMAND_TYPE_TRADE_49 (449)
COMMAND_TYPE_CUSTOM_48 (548)
COMMAND_TYPE_STATION_47 (1147)

Version history:

10. Oct. 2009: v1.0
23. Oct. 2009: v1.01: Only change is German t-file, english users do not need to re-download
18. Nov. 2009: v1.02: removed debug messages, implemented complex support, changed distance requirement for looting, more detailed feedback when looting, changed two command slots
22. Nov. 2009: v1.03: display bug when recalling a mechanic removed, production of consumables now correctly uses loot parts, bug in display of experience fixed
03. Dec. 2009: v1.04: consumables transfer from station to ship was slightly off, upgrading of ship returned wrong ship name in message, show collected loot hotkey now also shows consumables, polish translation

Thanks to:
- Pelador for his patience when explaining the basics of scripting to me and for listening when I bounced around crazy ideas
- LV for his tutorial on how to program an AL plugin and menus
- Deadly for the space on his forum and his great mod
- Idea, Lifeforce and Thrandisher for the betatesting
- Yacek for his polish translation
- All the other scripters and modders around here who bring the X3 universe to life

[Lifeforce87]

Wow that looks pretty nice Oo I will test it now
*Edit* *waiting for confirmation mail*

[Thrandisher]

Sounds interesting. If the script is removed, hotkey's will remove also?


Can a mechanic strip down a ship )destroying the ship) and use those mateirals to repair other ships? There has been MANY times i have caped a ship and wanted to land it and have it taken apart and used those parts on other ships to repair them.

Ill give it a go in a few day's when i have more time, in less pain, and figured out the instability problem im haveing right now.


I do like the fact that the stations and repair ships have differnt REQ to repair.

[Mailo]

Just put up v0.31, hopefully the bad text messages Lifeforce found are gone.

@Thrandisher: The hotkeys should be removed, yes. And no, the mechanic cannot strip down a ship, but that is actually a pretty neat idea, I might try to include something like that in a future version.

The repair requirements is something that needs to be tested for balance first, so far I don't know if keeping the mechanic supplied with parts is too much of a bother or not.

[Gazz]

The wrecks are symbolized by nav buoys which are sometimes spawned upon the destruction of a ship.

If they are spawned by SIGNAL_KILLED that's a pretty neat (and clean) feature.

Overtuning ships is dangerous however, because speed is a multiplier for other abilities - at least when flown by the player.
What if this jury rigged overtune could have... side effects?
Overtunings and/or regular tunings breaking down, a power surge flushing the laser/shield battery. Even the controls could lock up so you could only alter the ship's speed.
Ahh, there are so many ways to vex the player. =)

There is at least one good "electric fizzle" sound that could be played for such occasions.

[Thrandisher]

Sadly i still like the way gazz thinks.

BEEP BEEP BEEP, Malfunction Detected. Jump drive activated, Now entering Xenon Sector 695. Jumpdrive Error.

[Mailo]

@Gazz:

Yes, they are spawned by a secondary signal linked to SIGNAL_KILLED.

For the overtuning, it is similar to Cycrow's Reunion overtuning script, a mechanic with perfect skill will manage to install half again as many tunings as a regular shipyard can. I didn't include possible breakdowns there though, as that would probably vex me more than any other player

The consumables I put in do have a chance for stuff breaking down, but I guess they are still quite unbalanced ... the afterburner consumable propelled my discoverer at 2880 m/s for 30 seconds

I thought that was funnier, imagine the face of a player who wants to use the afterburner to get out of a tight spot, only to see he lost some of this tunings ...

Although ... hmm ... it would be funny to cap laser and shield energy at 50% of the normal amount, maybe until the next hull damage (a little knocking around might reset some connectors). I'll keep it in mind for the next update.

[Mailo]

I've just put up the first release version. Feedback welcome

[vampirecosmonaut]

I know this might be a dumb suggestion, but what if instead of quest for the ultimate mechanic, what if you could become one yourself? Maybe add a ware that represents your training? Just an idea.
My thinking is that it would be a great excuse to be able to do more than regular mechanic because it's your ship and you're more comfortable making serious, or dangerous, changes to it.

EDIT:
Link isn't working for me.

[Mailo]

Strange, the link works for me, and several people have already downloaded the file already. What happens when you click on it?

And to tell you the truth, if I was a mechanic, I'd be more comfortable doing dangerous modifications to other people's ships
Seriously though, I thought about making the upgrade process more involved (e.g. pick loot parts, throw them together and see what happens) which would work better if the player did the work themselves, but the limitations of the X3 engine would make this a half-measure at best.

[Sticks]

Lets see if i understand this ... this script adds actual wrecks to the universe when i kill a ship? Are these wrecks invincible like normal ship debris? May i have a screenshot of a few wrecks? =)

[Mailo]

This script adds the possibility to look ship wrecks for spare parts. The wrecks are symbolized by nav buoys which are sometimes spawned upon the destruction of a ship.

Quoting myself
The "wrecks" are normal nav buoys which are just called "Argon Nova wreckage" for example. You can fly up to them and collect a loot part by pressing the corresponding hotkey, you can shoot them (couple of hits should destroy them), or you just ignore them and they disappear after a few minutes.
While I would have loved to add actual wreck models for each ship in the game, my nonexistant modelling skills kind of killed that idea. That and the fact that I wanted to release it this century. As far as I know, the regular game only contains a small number of wreckage models, the only one that comes to mind is the model of an X2 style Argon M2.

[Mailo]

I just uploaded v1.02. Changes are:

- Feedback when looting now also gives the number of loot parts collected so far
- debug logbook messages removed
- stations which are connected to a complex now do not appear in the list of stations when installing a new mechanic
- distance requirement for looting is now depending on ship type: M1/M2/M7 can loot at greater distances
- Readtext entry in command menu removed
- mechanics now have a higher chance to appear in shipyards and equipment docks

[Requiemfang]

nevermind...

[Lifeforce87]

THX Mailo Testing again

Edit: Works perfectly

[Lifeforce87]

I just found some debris today.. wouldnt it be nice if you use some like this instead of an navbeacon?

[ external image ]

[Requiemfang]

Hmmm... if that was done... wouldn't it take up more FPS? the more complex and larger things there are on screen... the slower your frame rate goes... means if you have huge hulking shipwrecks all over the place your game should basically slow to a crawl with uber lag... I had it happen once when I went into a Xenon sector that got dominated by Terrans... omg... why the hell are Terran structures so freaking large... makes the frame rates per second basically die... SUPER SLOW when you have about 15 to 20 ships fighting each other

[Mailo]

Considering not every ship that is destroyed leaves a wreck, and they despawn after a few minutes, I don't worry about a framerate impact too much.

I'll take a look at the available wreckage models again, the ones I know so far look too much like the original ship to be of use (would look weird to have the wreckage of an X2 titan appear when you destroy a xenon M.
The one in the picture linked my Lifeforce87 might actually work though.

[Mailo]

v1.03 is up.

Changes are:

- When recalling a mechanic from a station, the sector and name of the station are now shown, instead of "null, null"
- Producing consumables use the correct loot parts now, instead of only the first
- The experience of a mechanic was only shown correctly when first entering the station menu. It now updates correctly (was a display bug only, the value was calculated and saved correctly)

I also tried to replace the nav buoys by an Egosoft wreckage model. Unfortunately they all belong to the object category which does not show up in the sector view (like the existing station wrecks). This makes collecting them basically impossible, not to mention that my game crashed during the attempt
For now I've given up on that.

[Mailo]

v1.04 is up.

Changes are:

- After a ship upgrade, the wrong shipname was given in the message if more than one ship was docked. This was a display issue only, the correct ship was upgraded.
- Bug in transfer all consumables to ship command
- "show collected loot" hotkey now also shows consumables onboard
- polish translation included (thanks Yacek!)