[TC] Maxed Hyperion Vanguard - a simple way to insanity. (spoilers)

[nponoBegHuk]

My toolkit is ready to use. Instructions:

• Backup your X3TC save folder My Documents\Egosoft\X3TC\save (or the whole My Documents\Egosoft folder if you wish to protect your screenshots also!) or at least the X01.sav file which is the only one which will be overwritten by the script
• You will need some space at primary HDD volume (C: ) as this script will not allow you choose different volume to record on (sorry)
• Download here: http://www.gamefront.com/files/20277215/hyperion.rar
• Extract somewhere, install AutoHotkey109702_Install.exe (if you already have AutoHotkey installed, make sure you have the "_L" version) and converter.exe which is a trial version of Image Converter Plus
• Open X3TC launcher and change graphics settings: Make it run in a window at 1024x768 at low graphics detail. The following settings did fine for me:
  [ external image ]
• Load X3TC, you should be docked at the station ready to turn in the quest, open comm window and check the position of Nula Li in the window:
  [ external image ]
• Save the game in the slot number 2 (this one is important ), and make sure there are no empty save slots. If there are just keep saving until all 10 slots are filled.
• Turn in the quest once manually, open the "Landed Ships" window. Your Hyperion must be the first on the list. If it isn't, try renaming the ship you're in so Hyperion appears first. And reload game number 2 (which must be prior to turning in at this point).
• Edit the x3.ahk file, you need to change this bit:

  Code: Select all

  NPC_POSITION=4	;Position of the Nula Li npc in the comm window

  Change 4 to whatever number Nula Li has in your game. If it's beyond 9 then... you'll have to change this bit

  Code: Select all

  Send c%NPC_POSITION%11

  to something like

  Code: Select all

  Send c{Down}{Down}{Down}{Down}{Down}{Down}{Down}{Down}{Down}{Down}11

  or mix in some page downs which is equally ugly. Let's hope he's among the first 9 npcs!
• Save the x3.ahk and run it. Close all the programs that might create pop-up windows (antivirus, mail program, messenger, appear offline on steam, adobe auto updater - hate that one) . If the X3TC loses focus, the script gets interrupted. You need to leave at least one window other than X3TC open (because X3TC won't let you use Alt-tab out of it if everything else is closed). Explorer or notepad are good choices!
• Somehow, the AutoHotkey shortcuts are not working from within X3TC so alt-tab to your other open window and press Ctrl+Alt+S to start the script. You should see the following result:
  -X3TC window activates
  -The quest gets turned in and the properties of hyperion are opened on the screen
  -The properties window gets scrolled down and the screenshot of "Current Speed" is taken
  -The game gets saved into slot 1
  -The game in slot 2 gets loaded
  -Repeat infinitely.
• While the game 2 is reloading, the script creates a folder c:\X3TC output\raw and makes a copy of your last screenshot and X01.sav into 1.sav and 1.bmp, the second time the names of 2.sav and 2.bmp are given and so on
• To stop the script Alt-tab out of the game and press Ctrl+Alt+D (it's best to do it during the "loading..." phase.
• If you see that some of the steps get skipped, you could try increasing delays after taking screenshot, saving game or reloading by editing the x3.ahk file, and if you happen to see it idling for too long after loading you could decrease them accordingly. You have to save, run the file again, then confirm that you wish to replace the script currently running with the new version, and press Ctrl+Alt+S again.
• After you're happy with the delays and the script is running smoothly, let it run for 10-20 reloads and check your c:\X3TC output\raw folder. you should have pairs of BMP and SAV files named 1,2,3 and so on. If they are there, the script is working properly.
• Use the imgconvert310.bat file to create small cropped images which correspond to speed part of your screenshots, they will be placed in the c:\X3TC output\png folder and should look like this:
  [ external image ]
• If instead of seeing hyperion speed and upgradeable to value you see other output on the thumbnails (which might happen if you use different game window resolution or different version), you need to edit the following part of imgconvert310.bat:

  Code: Select all

  method:rect_pwh size: 530 474 80 55

  The first two numbers are horizontal and vertical offset and the last two are width and height of the box, usually you only want to adjust the first two numbers to take the thumbnail of the correct part of the original image (you can open one of your original screenshots in paint and check the coordinate of the upper left corner of the speed number, just bear in mind that depending on the weapon layout there are 2 different positions for the speed, one slightly lower than the other, so make sure to choose coordinates that are valid for both of them. Also, you don't even need to get the whole number inside the thumbnail, as long as you can recognize what's on it (say, you can only see "148." instead of "148.8 m/s" it will be fine).
• Run the hyp sorter.exe, if it won't load you might want to check windows update for missing .net framework service packs or similar.
• Once open click on the "Select Folder" button and open c:\X3TC output\png, it will ask you to recognize the number displayed on the image, like this:
  http://i.imgur.com/darX0.png
  You can be asked several times for each speed, don't be afraid, your choice gets saved in settings.xml file in the same folder as your hyp sorter.exe so the next time you run the program you won't have to answer again for the same images, as long as you don't delete the settings file. Double check the speed you're choosing before clicking OK because if you make mistake you'll have to delete settings.xml and start again.
• When all the images are recognized, you will have a list with the number of images corresponding to each speed. Select a row containing the speed you're interested in and click "Show Filenames". You will have the names of the files displayed below in the listbox.
  [ external image ]
  In this example files 9 and 10 have ships with 209.7 speed which is the best I could get within 12 reloads. If you are happy with this speed all you have to do is go to c:\X3TC output\raw folder, locate 9.sav or 10.sav and copy it into your savegames folder. Delete X01.sav and rename this file into it. Load game 1 in X3TC and you're done
• If you didn't obtain the ship you wanted and want to clear HDD space just delete the c:\X3TC output folder, it will get created again the next time you run the script.

Damn, it took 2 hours to write the script and 4 hours writing instructions.


{Oversize image changed to link - Terre}

[Progress-M]

Bookmarked, I'll have to read through this and join your insanity when I start my own PP game =P

Impressive!

[kurush]

Somebody should tell ES devs not to put randomly generated unique goodies into the new game. Reloads suck.

[Nanook]

Then don't reload. Nothing says you can't simply accept what the game gives you and play on from there, as the devs most likely intended. Of course, there's also the Turbo-Booster which will give you even more speed than a max overtuned Hyperion, if it's speed you're after.

Personally, it doesn't matter that much to me, so I'd likely reload two or three times to see if I could get something a bit better, and accept the best of the lot. Having a superfast Hyperion isn't really that important to me, since it's just one more advantage I'd have over the pathetic AI.

And if you simply must have a maxed out overtuned Hyperion at any cost, there's always the S&M route.

[kurush]

I have to remind you that in this particular case we are talking about one of the very few overturned ships available in vanilla. In absence of other ways to overturn ships this is how you get one of the most powerful ships in the game. If you playing vanilla, some reloads is a must. ES would do us a huge service by making this tuning fixed and not random as it was with Pandora.

[Nanook]

I have to remind you that in this particular case we are talking about one of the very few overturned ships available in vanilla.

Why do you think you need to remind me? You think I don't know that? Did you miss the point of my post? If so, see below.

In absence of other ways to overturn ships this is how you get one of the most powerful ships in the game....

My point exactly. I see no point in spending hours trying to get an overpowered ship just to beat up on the hapless AI. I can do that readily enough with almost any old regular ship.

ES would do us a huge service by making this tuning fixed and not random as it was with Pandora.

In which case, I'd argue against having very many overtunings. The whole point of the randomness is to give those players who are very, very lucky something amazing. It's not so much fun if it's just given to you from the start, IMO.

Oh, and Pandora wasn't really random at all. Everyone was given a fixed number of tunings to find, and they weren't that hard to find, even without the BBS messages, once you knew approximately where to look. I never had a problem finding them all.

[nponoBegHuk]

Personally I didn't feel like I absolutely need an overtuned hyperion to win against the AI, in my previous game I had a standard 169 one and did fine.
Nevertheless, I like collecting rare and hard to find ships, the harder to get - the more I want it. So a max speed hyperion is a must have for me collection-wise. It's like people who buy a Ferrari when they are not allowed to go over 120km/h on the highway anyway.

EDIT: oh, by the way, "Ferrari" seems like a nice name for it! Now I need to finish the hub and paint it red!!

[kurush]

Oh, and Pandora wasn't really random at all. Everyone was given a fixed number of tunings to find, and they weren't that hard to find, even without the BBS messages, once you knew approximately where to look. I never had a problem finding them all.

This is exactly what I was trying to say Imagine pandora tunings being generated with random value. Wouldn't it be bad experience?

[Aelhis]

Can we get a script like this to AP.
O just explain to us mere mortals how to edit the initial part of the file to Open AP?

[Nanook]

You dredged up an old thread to ask a scripting question? Not good form, or forum etiquette. Ask about scripting and modding in the S&M forum, please.