[3.2/2.5 MOD] X3TC Naval Shuffle 1.3.3.3/1.1: Now reasonably AP compatable

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Shadow_Wolf33
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Post by Shadow_Wolf33 » Thu, 4. Feb 10, 21:46

Sorenson wrote:The need to give M7s and other reworked-turret vessels actually made me think about something. How do you guys feel about having the subspace compression reduced on TS ships and giving them higher bases to compensate? The problem as I see it's that due to the price curve for doing additional cargo space once you hit a certain point you'd simply be better off buying another ship - filling out the last 1000 units of a regular TS alone is somewhere between five to 10 times the ship price alone, and doing so for a superfreighter makes it almost eight times as expensive. SSC is useful on fighters where you're fighting for ever cubic meter of volume you can get, but on freighters the end simply cannot justify the means. The only reason I don't think to get rid of it entirely on TS' is because so many scripts for ship generation use fractions of max SSC plus X, so outright elimination would have ships running around with wierd numbers of them.
That sounds like an excellent idea, as long as the max cargo space values don't get reduced. Having to spend three times over the cost of the freighter to expand the cargo space is quite an annoyance. Maybe bump up the base cost of the freighter a bit to compensate (a BIT, like 50,000 credits..)
True that, but remember too that even with that many turrets they still don't hold a candle to M1s and 2s due to the limited payloads they can carry - at best they can do concussion impulse generators and ion shard railguns, plus PSGs and flak. And considering that this is the Split we're talking about, having tons of guns tacked on is almost expected..
Yeah the Split ship design philosophy slipped my mind in regards to that, never mind...makes perfect sense from that perspective. Although 8 flak guns means even M3 fighters go *poof* pretty fast, which is awsome anyway. :D
This also alerted me to the fact that apparently I missed a bunch of single-gun turrets, or at least the Argon ones. :headdesk:
Perhaps I should try and expand my applet to include gun emplacements and quantity of gun slots on the emplacement, being able to see all the data at once in an excel spreadsheet might be useful to your tunings.
I prefer big releases on a weekly basis, I can't see the point of releasing something for every little thing especially when I'm getting feedback about mistakes and whatnot.
Just thought I'd ask, so I could make sure my mirror wasn't out of date. :wink:

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Post by lamoyja » Fri, 5. Feb 10, 00:54

Well, I'm going off the assumption that NPC's would use beams the same way my turrets do.

I.e. in pulses and making sure to not aim at enemies.

:D


The Khaak also seem to use theirs in pulses as well. Though they do seem to hit fairly well.

NPC's just don't seem to be as overpowered with beam weapons as a smart player. I'll focus fire a fighter and kill it quickly, while an NPC will take about 5-6 times as long to pulse that same fighter to death.

Sorenson
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Post by Sorenson » Fri, 5. Feb 10, 01:34

They're generally not as powerful with anything as compared to a player, smart or otherwise. They don't seem to use the FS1 aim assist, and the AI's apparently hardcoded to fire in bursts, as you'll notice with any kind of PRG or PBE-equipped vessel. Part of that actually makes me think I should knock down the RPM of some of the high-speed guns so that the AI can better utilize them. About the only thing they're as good as with is missiles, but considering a blind gerbil can use missiles with about the same general efficiency as the player that's not saying much.
X3TC Naval Shuffle: My ships are fast; my shields are strong; and my guns are very, very large.

Sorenson
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Post by Sorenson » Fri, 5. Feb 10, 05:01

Okey-doke, folks, I've got something spinning around my head and I want to unleash it and see what you think.

One of the things that sorta' sucks about trying to do any kind of high-end galaxy conquoring stuff's acquiring the goods that let you start your roaring rampages of revenge; you need PPCs and Ion Cannons and 1/2 gJ shields and all that good stuff, but their relvals are so high that it takes hours and hours and hours and hours to produce even single units, and outfitting single ship, let alone a massive death fleet, means many hours spent leaving X3 on 10X SETA hoping that your self-sustained factories don't suddenly bug out or your sector defense fleet doesn't gets squashed by a single buggery Kha'ak Scout. So I've been thinking of some way to calculate a good effective price for wares, and I think I might have something, for lasers at least:

(((H+S) x F) / 60) x (R+V) * 1.1

where H and S is Hull and Shield damage per shot, F is firing rate, R is maximum range in kilometers and V is bullet velocity in km/s. So we take our friendly-but-oft-ineffective Impulse Ray Emitter and do the math:

21 + 220 = 214 * 400 = 96400 / 60= 1607 (was .6 repeating)
1.394 + 1.162 = 2.556
1607 * 2.556 = 4107.492 * 1.1 = 4518.2412

which is pretty darn close to the standard going price for an IRE (4676)

HEPT:

10976
3.741
45167 v 140236

Naval Shuffle PPC:

27543
7.28
220564 v 934904

But this isn't exactly useful without an idea of how that translates to manufacturing time. We know that RelVal is a direct translation of such - how many seconds it takes to manufacture a good or cycle of goods - but its effects on price can wary, anywhere from 50x to 64x. Assuming that the minimum price on any good is the "break even" point for resources spent (which it probably AIN'T, but will do well enough for some quick shots in the dark) the PPC uses the 50x relval price mod,

First I need to find the break-even point for my new numbers. In the case of the pPC this seems to be average divided by 1.0638294967057725788281881180232 (thank god for Scientific Mode on Calculator) which gives us 207330; divvying this by the 50x priceval modifier for the PPC, we get 4146.6 seconds, or 1:09:06, approxometily; a player-manufactured PPC takes more than four times that, 4:48:00. Dang, that's sure one heck of a speed-up from vanilla values!

Of course, what only makes Vanilla even worse in this regard is that Egosoft decided to essentially gimp the player by making player relvals 20% higher than those used by the NPC factories, costing us both time and resources for little good reason. One more thing to put in the "stuff I've gotta' fix" section.

The one thing that's going to make this a bit problematic is beam weapons: while the beam is technically instantanious, the formula in-game is a multiplier of beam lifespan times velocity, and plugging the numbers in the regular way causes the end result to shoot right over even the heaviest capital guns in terms of cost, when in-game at most they're only two or three percent more costly and in many cases are under or break even. I could try using the result of subtracting Beam Lifetime from 1 second, which would give a result of anywhere from .3 (tri-beam) to .750 (fusion beam), as beam lifetime also determines how fast damage is imparted.

I'm liking where these numbers are heading, since it cuts down on some of the number inflation you see with the high-end stuff (and which some members of the forum seem obsessed on preserving/increasing...) but I'd like opinions and ideas even more.

EDIT: Oh man, I'm messing around with the Terran Missiles to see if that whole 750 m/s idea really would be as bad as that one dude suggested, and 750 m/s poltergeists are awesome. I've got a good mind to set their refire rate to like .1 s so we can have us a good ol' Itano Circus.
X3TC Naval Shuffle: My ships are fast; my shields are strong; and my guns are very, very large.

Aquitaine
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Post by Aquitaine » Fri, 5. Feb 10, 15:16

Just a quick note to say THANK YOU for this and keep up the good work. I spent a few hours with the X3 editor updating the 'Improved Ships' piece of CMOD for 2.5 but this is far and away better, and absolutely necessary in terms of 'fun game' philosophy. The late-game manufacturing morass is also near the top of my list of things that Could Be Better.

Shadow_Wolf33
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Post by Shadow_Wolf33 » Fri, 5. Feb 10, 16:47

The faster build time on weapons is definitely a good thing, as long as it doesn't cripple the profitability of SELLING said weapons when you have a huge stockpile. When I build my weapon plexes for my fleet operations I generally go off multiples of 5 for number of end producers and it gives me rather good results. So I'm all for decreasing build times of guns and such, so long as the price remains consistent in such a way that <teladi>there are still profitsssssss</teladi> to be made by selling the item.

Oh, and if you decrease build times for the love of god make sure you do it for Concussion Impulse Generators and Ion Shard Railguns, building up a decent stock of those to outfit corvette wing patrols can be INFURIATING....I usually set those up VERY early in my weapons plex build so that I have a good stockpile. :evil:

Oh and be careful with beefing up Missile speed TOO much, we still need to have reasonably good missile defense options on our boats. I'm running MARS for turret control, and if they get to the point that uber-MARS can't shoot down Missiles, that's when you know you've gone a step too far. :wink:

Sorenson
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Post by Sorenson » Fri, 5. Feb 10, 18:03

Aquitaine wrote:Just a quick note to say THANK YOU for this and keep up the good work. I spent a few hours with the X3 editor updating the 'Improved Ships' piece of CMOD for 2.5 but this is far and away better, and absolutely necessary in terms of 'fun game' philosophy. The late-game manufacturing morass is also near the top of my list of things that Could Be Better.
Aw, shucks, thank you! I'm just trying to make this game as enjoyable and non-aggrivating as possible, and while I understand some people can't enjoy this mod because of certain issues or prefer more "hardcore" space sim design and whatnot, it's nice to see that the basic tenants I'm basing Naval Shuffle on appear to be agreeable to at least some folks.
Shadow_Wolf33 wrote:The faster build time on weapons is definitely a good thing, as long as it doesn't cripple the profitability of SELLING said weapons when you have a huge stockpile. When I build my weapon plexes for my fleet operations I generally go off multiples of 5 for number of end producers and it gives me rather good results. So I'm all for decreasing build times of guns and such, so long as the price remains consistent in such a way that <teladi>there are still profitsssssss</teladi> to be made by selling the item.
Since I'm pretty certain Relval factors into a station's total capacity for items as well as determining their overall price, there shouldn't be too much of a problem of being able to sell as docks should be able to buy more of the items, hopefully in a proportional-enough level to match the current total values of weapons when doing a zilch-to-full transaction.
Oh and be careful with beefing up Missile speed TOO much, we still need to have reasonably good missile defense options on our boats. I'm running MARS for turret control, and if they get to the point that uber-MARS can't shoot down Missiles, that's when you know you've gone a step too far. :wink:
One idea I'm toying with at the moment is trying to classify missiles into short and long-range based on their performance characteristics and their intended targets. Because a Poltergeist is designed to track multiple targets and to switch targets as they're destroyed, they'd have considerably longer lifetimes and ranges than, say, a Beluga, which is a single-round fighter-to-fighter missile which would have a considerably shorter lifespan, enough for a single max-range strike or two or three dogfighting ones, and the Wraiths, Hammerheads, Phantoms and Shadows would have good long lifetimes since they're designed for attacks against capital ships and stations and benifit from early launches. I'm not quite sure how MARS will react to the increased speeds since I don't use it, but inbetween the lessening of the lifetimes for a good number of missiles and the lessening of damage on fighter-scale missiles (no more insta-gibs if you're fighting someone on equal footing, at least in fighters) it shouldn't be burdened too much.
X3TC Naval Shuffle: My ships are fast; my shields are strong; and my guns are very, very large.

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Serial Kicked
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Post by Serial Kicked » Sat, 6. Feb 10, 01:52

This is a great rebalance mod. Probably the best available so far. Good work! :)

I've a comment, though. Dunno if it's included or not (i've not checked when my game was running) and i've not read the whole topic to check it out. But here's a suggestion that i've "stolen" from either jlehtone or Nanook:

The TM has little interest ingame, and it doesn't really makes sense that TP are able to board ships when TM can't. So what I am basically proposing is to give the "boarding pod" missile ability to most TM, and switch TP/TM max marine count for all races. So, a TM could deploy its 4 M3 with Ion weapons to lower the shields while sending a bunch of marines to take the enemy ship.

I would be glad to give you a script that enable boarding commands on TM
(or whatever command on whatever ship kind, btw).
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Aquitaine
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Post by Aquitaine » Sat, 6. Feb 10, 02:00

This makes sense to me too. The whole TP class is a bit weird; nearly all of them are passenger ships with maybe one or two qualifying as real military transports, whereas the entire TM line are clearly military in nature. Why you'd send your marines in a greyhound and not an APC is beyond me.

Sorenson
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Post by Sorenson » Sat, 6. Feb 10, 02:07

Serial Kicked wrote:The TM has little interest ingame, and it doesn't really makes sense that TP are able to board ships when TM can't. So what I am basically proposing is to give the "boarding pod" missile ability to most TM, and switch TP/TM max marine count for all races. So, a TM could deploy its 4 M3 with Ion weapons to lower the shields while sending a bunch of marines to take the enemy ship.
I've actually changed things up so that ships of the M6/7/1/2 and TL/TP class can use boarding pods - anything that can hold marines, really - and while I've not checked the exact capacity for TMs it'd literily be all of two minutes to enable them to use it if they actually can carry marines. And thank you for the kind words.
X3TC Naval Shuffle: My ships are fast; my shields are strong; and my guns are very, very large.

Shadow_Wolf33
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Post by Shadow_Wolf33 » Sat, 6. Feb 10, 02:54

For a better boarding experience I highly suggest trying out Cycrow's "Improved Boarding" mod. It allows for boarding with any kind of ship that can carry marines through the boarding transporter. I think even if you do add boarding pods to the other ships, I think I would personally stick to only using them on M7Ms, just on principle that it's something that makes the missile boats a bit extra special, rather than JUST being a ship that's good at nuking every ship in a sector at max range. Gives the ship another dimension.

To each their own though, guess that'll be one of my own house rules when playing the mod. :D

Oh and if you're knowledgeable at scripting at all, you can modify Cycrow's Improved Boarding mod to increase the range of the tele-boarding (comes stock as 1km).

Sorenson
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Post by Sorenson » Sat, 6. Feb 10, 03:15

Which is practically shoving your front turrets up the enemy vessel's engine in capital ship terms. I always wonder why he low-balled it so - 2.5 I could understand 'cause that's you lined up next to the other dude exchanging broadsides.

Speaking of which, boarding and ion-stripping ships for capture should be a lot easier once the next Shuffle update hits - I've cut the Ion Cannon and Pulse Generator's hull damages to remain consistant with the Disruptor's 1/315th damage ratio, and it works wonders in preserving that payday-in-ship's-clothing you're beating the snot out of. I just wish the boarding pods wouldn't explode as soon as your turrets fire again, but hey, that's what the Ship Hijacker's for, and no bothersome Marine training to boot.

EDIT: Speaking of boarding, has anybody ever found out where TC keeps the values/scripts it uses for such? One thing I've noticed with the increased shield regen speeds on giggers is that even if the boarding pod has already made contact with the ship's hull the team will still get zapped if you don't keep pegging at the shield. I'd like to set it up so that once the pod attaches to the hull it's able to disrupt it at that very point so the team can burrow in in peace, since getting past the shield in the first place is the biggest hurdle at that stage.

EDIT: Bah. Of all the things they could leave hard-coded, they had to hard-code one of the orniest and difficult of functions. Oh well.
Last edited by Sorenson on Sat, 6. Feb 10, 03:48, edited 1 time in total.
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Serial Kicked
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Post by Serial Kicked » Sat, 6. Feb 10, 03:34

/off-topic=on

Woow someone called "Aquitaine", which is the region i live in, but living in the states agrees with me, that's weird :)

/off-topic=off

You didn't answered my last question :p

Like i said, if you don't know how to do it i can easily add the "Piracy/Board Ship" command to TM so they can capture ship even without boarding pods. Same if you want me to add patrol commands to M3, MK3 commands to TM, and so on. This is basically a one line script per command so it's not really a big deal.

About your post-scriptum question: well, it's more or less hard-coded. You can find various ways around through script, but to do what you want you'll need a whole working "capture script" and not some alterations on a t-files.
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Shadow_Wolf33
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Post by Shadow_Wolf33 » Sat, 6. Feb 10, 05:11

Sorenson wrote: Speaking of which, boarding and ion-stripping ships for capture should be a lot easier once the next Shuffle update hits - I've cut the Ion Cannon and Pulse Generator's hull damages to remain consistant with the Disruptor's 1/315th damage ratio, and it works wonders in preserving that payday-in-ship's-clothing you're beating the snot out of. I just wish the boarding pods wouldn't explode as soon as your turrets fire again, but hey, that's what the Ship Hijacker's for, and no bothersome Marine training to boot.
Sounds like I'm going to have to start carrying Ion Cannons on my main pilfering ship.

I edited Cycrow's tele-boarding script so that it can be done at standard teleporter range (5km) and it makes getting your marines on the enemy ship almost TOO easy.

Generally what I used for keeping the shields down while waiting for the marines to board was either a weapons group with only a single weapon in it, and controlled fire or just swap in a piddly pea shooter that I could essentially just keep held down and it wont do much other than tickle the other ship's hull, but keep the shields down.

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Post by Sorenson » Sat, 6. Feb 10, 07:01

OK, what would you guys prefer for bombers: F117-launched long-range missiles of mass destruction, or Macross Missile Massacre with tons of decently-powerful rounds peppering dudes? Because Gladiator + Tomahawk with .5 s refire rate = ludicrous fun, though horrifically overpowered. I can only imagine how insane it must get on missile frigates with their dozens of missile ports.
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Post by Matterom » Sat, 6. Feb 10, 07:43

Sorenson wrote:OK, what would you guys prefer for bombers: F117-launched long-range missiles of mass destruction, or Macross Missile Massacre with tons of decently-powerful rounds peppering dudes? Because Gladiator + Tomahawk with .5 s refire rate = ludicrous fun, though horrifically overpowered. I can only imagine how insane it must get on missile frigates with their dozens of missile ports.
i once made a missile that destroyed anything in 50^2 kilometers
i called it a Nova Bomb 8) tonns of Fun :twisted:

any way i can make the spawning scripts for your factory's and stock them
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Shadow_Wolf33
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Post by Shadow_Wolf33 » Sat, 6. Feb 10, 08:44

Sorenson wrote:OK, what would you guys prefer for bombers: F117-launched long-range missiles of mass destruction, or Macross Missile Massacre with tons of decently-powerful rounds peppering dudes? Because Gladiator + Tomahawk with .5 s refire rate = ludicrous fun, though horrifically overpowered. I can only imagine how insane it must get on missile frigates with their dozens of missile ports.
Just remember that any changes you make to bombers that increases the strength of them, will be coming up against YOU sooner or later. When I go pillaging in Paranid sectors I routinely run up against patrol groups with 3ish bombers at a fairly mid-range combat ranking and if you're not careful they can really tear you a new one. In my opinion, bombers are something that are designed to work best in a wing configuration (like in CODEA, a bomber wing is 4 bombers that launch simultaneously). Lone wolf missile ops should be left to the missile frigates, with bombers being in more of a support role to a main fleet to add extra punch to the main attack, rather than the BFG that comes in and facerolls their way to victory by mass missile launching.

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Post by Sorenson » Sat, 6. Feb 10, 08:51

Since the production facilities for bomber ordinance and the like simply lack the capacity to support low-damage/high-ROF, that shouldn't be a problem as I don't seem to have much choice on the matter. Then again as noted it's simply a matter of getting a hold of an actual missile frigate for my missile swarm fix.
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Shadow_Wolf33
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Post by Shadow_Wolf33 » Sat, 6. Feb 10, 18:32

Still makes more sense to have the bombers be F117 style, rather than just being a baby missile frigate. Bombers should be strong vs. cap ships but very weak against fighters. I vote for long range high damage like their ordinance currently is, albeit maybe a bit faster to hit the cap ships that can boogie along much faster now.

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Post by Stars_InTheirEyes » Sat, 6. Feb 10, 19:01

i personally think there should be M8- and M8+ bombers

- anti-fighty
+ anti-cap
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