[MISSION] Solo Combat Challenge/Duel [Version 1.1]

[Mysterial]

This mod adds a new generic mission that appears from time to time at any non-Terran station. A member of a race with which you have at least reasonable reputation will ask you to complete a solo combat challenge or duel. You go to the indicated sector, make sure all your other combat ships are far away, and then the enemy jumps in. You have to beat it without using your jumpdrive, leaving the sector, or flying more than 15km from the gate.

The enemy ships are balanced around the ship you take as well as difficulty/fight rank, so it should be winnable with any ship if you're good enough. Most of the universe's capturable ships may make an appearance.

Download Link (FileFront)

Installation:
Extract the archive to your base X3:TC directory with folder information enabled. Or copy the files to the matching directories in your X3:TC installation directly.

Resources used:
-Text file 1171
-Text page 7171

Minor secrets:

Spoiler

Show

-It is legal to call in for reinforcements after combat has begun. (Hey, the NPC sometimes says it's a duel and then sends a bunch of ships, so it's only fair) It's supposed to be balanced so a good pilot won't need it, though.
-It's also allowed to "hide" ships by docking them to the ship you take in... although for big ship combat this is of limited utility anyway
-If the local police/military/NPCs/etc kill ships, they still count for you. The mission will only choose border sectors to minimize this possibility.

Update 10/25 (Version 1.1):
-Fixed the mission appearing too frequently when the player stays in the same sector for a long time
-Slightly increased the difficulty at low fight ranks and slightly reduced the difficulty at high fight ranks when the mission is marked Average, Hard, or Very Hard
-Un-hardcoded a couple of text strings

[jlehtone]

Resources used:
-Text file/page 1171

Is that safe? Only Text Pages 7000--9999 are said to be available for scripts.

[Mysterial]

Hmm, I must have missed that - there are plenty in the community library thread using other ranges. Well, that's something easily changed. I'm not particularly attached to any page ID

[Mysterial]

I uploaded a new version with some fixes/improvements.

[Mysterial]

Couple more minor fixes and it seems to be stable at this point so I'm calling it version 1

[Jaga_Telesin]

Just posting some feedback with regards to my personal experience with the script:

Combat difficulty might be a tad easy. In a M6 with a fight rank of 17 or 18, I can destroy the primary mission ship and any escorts in under 20 seconds, no risk to myself. Couple that with high rewards, and it is just too much of a cash cow. I had to disable it temporarily or I'd do nothing but duel missions to make credits.

I would recommend making the fights a bit more difficult, and reducing the reward to 1/3 or 1/4 of what it currently is. Otherwise it works as intended, and is certainly fun.

[Cycrow]

Hmm, I must have missed that - there are plenty in the community library thread using other ranges. Well, that's something easily changed. I'm not particularly attached to any page ID

for the text files, the range isn't all that important.

however, for the page ids, its said to use 7000+ because there are many pages that are used between 1 and 7000

so if u use a page below 7000, then first u need to make sure its not being used in game already.

generally, u usualyl match the file id with the page id your using.

alow of the scritps that use file ids in different ranges, dont actually have thier own page ids, alot being just command and ware text that go in specific page ids

[corhen]

i have this mod, but i knoticed somthing funny...

i find that about 75% of all combat missions are of this type, and since starting, i have only run into a single "defend this station"

is there any reason for this? Defend my station is my favorite mission type, more so, i must say, then this.

any ideas why this is happening?

[Mysterial]

Combat difficulty might be a tad easy. In a M6 with a fight rank of 17 or 18, I can destroy the primary mission ship and any escorts in under 20 seconds, no risk to myself. Couple that with high rewards, and it is just too much of a cash cow. I had to disable it temporarily or I'd do nothing but duel missions to make credits.

I would recommend making the fights a bit more difficult, and reducing the reward to 1/3 or 1/4 of what it currently is. Otherwise it works as intended, and is certainly fun.

Have you tried flying other ships, like an M3? Just wondering whether it feels generally easy or just the M6 case. It seemed reasonably difficult to me, but I primarily like to play the game in an M3 so I probably don't know all the tips and tricks to flying an M6

Also, what fight rank?

i find that about 75% of all combat missions are of this type, and since starting, i have only run into a single "defend this station"

is there any reason for this? Defend my station is my favorite mission type, more so, i must say, then this.

The frequency is a bit high over time in-sector (bit of a math error on my part). I was planning on waiting for the 2.5 patch before updating so I could verify compatibility at the same time, but the patch seems to be taking forever.

FWIW, it shouldn't affect Egosoft mission frequency too significantly unless you stay in a single sector for a long time since the "extra" missions should be getting created after the initial sector-entrance mission burst.

[Jaga_Telesin]

Have you tried flying other ships, like an M3? Just wondering whether it feels generally easy or just the M6 case. It seemed reasonably difficult to me, but I primarily like to play the game in an M3 so I probably don't know all the tips and tricks to flying an M6

Also, what fight rank?

I think I tried some duel missions when I was in an M4, but since that Elite was so maneuverable and well shielded, it was able to demolish a lot of stuff larger than it (even took out a pair of M6's with it once). Now that I'm flying a dragon with 6 front-loaded fast weapons (PACs), all I have to do is get behind the target and lay waste to it while rotating/strafing. Fight rank as noted, was around 17, now it's 19 or so.

As a side note: people with more capital are likely to do station building missions for cash, so the risk/reward ratio that comes with vanilla really changes later on in the game. I have heard you can make hundreds of millions an hour doing those, and in light of that the rewards for duel missions seem small. So... take it all with a grain of salt.

Some people might not be as combat oriented as I am, and because of that the difficulty of the fight may be okay - I was simply offering my feedback based on my experience. It wouldn't hurt if the player actually had to run/retreat through the gate from time to time, as the duelist was just better than they. Only a suggestion.

[Jaga_Telesin]

Quick update:

Reinstalled the script today to check how the difficulty was at my current fight rank of 19. Took a duel with a huge payoff (or what seemed like it at 2.4m). Turns out that it was me in my M6 Dragon, against three M6's and 1 M3. Much more enjoyable, and much more difficult given the combat area we had to stay in. And the payoff for 4v1, while considerable, was what I'd call fair.

Seems like it was the lower fight rank which was making it far too easy before. I'll update again after my rank hits 22-24.

[corhen]

i found it really easy, but then, i installed it at rank 2.

does the script not scale with your rank? would i have to uninstall and reinstall it?

as i dont remember the cat/dat number off it. that might be tough

[Mysterial]

i found it really easy, but then, i installed it at rank 2.

does the script not scale with your rank? would i have to uninstall and reinstall it?

as i dont remember the cat/dat number off it. that might be tough

It scales with your rank, that's why I asked for that info. It's not a cat/dat, it goes in the director folder.

[Mysterial]

Updated

-Fixed the mission appearing too frequently when the player stays in the same sector for a long time
-Slightly increased the difficulty at low fight ranks and slightly reduced the difficulty at high fight ranks when the mission is marked Average, Hard, or Very Hard
-Un-hardcoded a couple of text strings

[Recluso]

Is it possible to reupload a file? even though its an old thread, do you think you could?

[primvirlaux]

link is dead. Can anyone re-up, or let me know where to find the original file?

EDIT: found a DL at gamefront, but it's v1.0, not the current v1.1.

[Uncatchable Joe]

To be short, there ARE 3 links from X-downloads for the topic`s script