[MOD] Explore and Salvage v1.0 (4.0 Update)

The place to discuss scripting and game modifications for X Rebirth.

Moderators: Moderators for English X Forum, Scripting / Modding Moderators

Post Reply
iforgotmysocks
Posts: 1244
Joined: Fri, 8. Nov 13, 22:35
x4

[MOD] Explore and Salvage v1.0 (4.0 Update)

Post by iforgotmysocks » Wed, 29. Jan 14, 01:51

You need to install SideBarExtender by Philipp Offensand for the menu options to work.

Link Nexus: http://www.nexusmods.com/xrebirth/mods/416/?

(Some pretty stuff to look at)
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/y1i9md23old7abs/8jj3RRY21j

Explore and Salvage


Important! If you want to update a save that runs an older version of EaS you have to perform following steps!
Before removing the old version open the config file (Extensions\ExploreAndSalvage\md\ES_Config.xml)
and set the value "global.$ES_InitUpdate" to exact="true" and save the file before closing.
Load your save now so the old mod content is going to be removed. Save your game!
Now just add the latest version and keep playing. :)


v1.0 is not compatible with 4.1 yet!

New in v1.0:
- Fixed Enemy Capship turrets not firing in some situations
- Fixed Salvagers not working if Exploration was disabled
- Enemies are more aggressive now


This mod brings exploration, hunting down some loot, practicly a reason to leave the spacecities and highways once in
a while, discovering long forgotten shipgraveyards and foremost the
ability for the player to salvage wrecks in the game, may they be
created by the mod of just npc's that have been killed. The player can
acquire two tools to do so, the Salvager who can be equipped like any
weapon and salvage drones.

Salvage Drones can be bought at your friendly neighbourhood Equipment Vendor. They aren't entirely cheap, but they are worth it. :p
I created them as inventory items, so they wouldn't stop the player from taking combat drones.
They work completly on their own, and don't need any playerattention. (Except protection)
The player can activate/deactivate autolaunch and collection of illegal wares under "Crew" in the Main menu.
If the playership finds wrecks in range (default 20km), up to (default 20) drones are launched which start salvaging the wrecks in range.
If the player moves too far away (default >30km), they will take it as a recall and return, unload their cargo and dock.
A drone will also return to the player if its cargo is full (200 items), but will continue salvaging after dropping of the salvageloot.
If a player enters a highway, drones will "jump to the playership and dock automaticly".
Drones can also leave illegal wares behind. (This will prevent being killed by stations while afk salvaging ^^)

The config file can be found here: (Extensions\ExploreAndSalvage\md\ES_Config.xml)


Archived:

- Salvageable NPC Wrecks
- Created Salvage Drones
- Spawning random groups/clusters of debris/wrecks with the chance for
enemies to hide in and loot to find. (currently spawning/despawning by
entering/leaving a zone)
- Creating large remaining fields of spacetrash which might hide enemies
and treasures... or probably just trash. (Just 1 each sector in albion
yet)
- Salvagers which can be bought or found to salvage wrecks.

In work (currently on hold):

- Collecting information about the game performace while running the mod
- Collecting some ideas how to bring more depht in the whole process of exploring
- Creating more remaining trashfields and shipgraveyards
- Creating local events which might leed to more wrecks (some on paper, some for real)
- Writing logbooktexts which tell a fitting story about some larger trashfields or ship graveyards
- Better enemyvariations and control

Planned:

- More variations of debris and stuff like stations etc.
- Creating missions forcing the player to go out there
- Salvage ships and drones which can salvage large amounts and collect goods used in the economy. (This will take time!)
- Dynamical and depletable space trash fields forming where battles take place
- More realistic salvage animation

Known Bugs:
- Sometimes site spawns end up being "ghost sites", the player will pass through spawned content, and can't attack it. Enemies aren't able to harm
anybody either. Drones can salvage wrecks as usual. This only happens rarly and i'm working on it. Simply leave the site aside until it
despawns.

New in v0.09:
- Another issue causing the disappearance of ships spawned by EaS after boarding fixed
- Updated enemy spawn libraries and overhauled enemy spawns
- Improved cleanup on mod-removal, now all EaS wrecks get removed, even
those who's cleanup routines were disrupted (happens rarely)
- Fixed an issue that caused weapon modifications to disappear

New in v0.08:
- Debrisfields no longer despawn while the player is close to them
(happend before if the player was crossing over zone boarders
frequently)
- Adjusted loottables a little more
- Fixed an oversight hiding in the weapon removal script when removing the mod.
(Back then mk2 was topnotch and to avoid problems the mod simply removed
all weapons and added a set of mk2 weapons, now the player gets to keep
his weapons)

New in v0.07:
- Salvagable NPC wrecks!
- Exploration (Spawning of wrecks and enemies) is modular now and can be disabled in the config file
- Drone loot is logged via logbook entries if enabled in the ingame menu
- Fixed loottables (the new items ruined the old loottabels - sorry about that :D)
- All loottables are now configurable in the config file
- Boarded ships won't be removed by cleanup routines anymore
- Improved cleanup
- General code adustments (last version was released over 2 years ago)

New in v0.06:
- Different enemies now, not just your daily xenon ;x
- Slightly improved enemy ai (i didnt have much time, this is just a quick solution until i can focus on that)
- Removed salvage items and created a loottable which contains items that actually make sense.

New in v0.05:
- Added menuoption to en/disable drone autolaunch
- Added menuoption to en/disable drone ware selection (legal/illegal)
- Nerfed collectingspeed of drones
- Fixed the drone animation (they actually only pull out their arms if they are working now)
- Fixed a bug which caused errors in legal ware collections
- Fixed the drone's name
- Requires SideBarExtender now (if you don't want to use the SideBarExtender,
you can also set the drone launch and ware type options in the config file.

New in v0.04:
- Update to the update/deinstallroutine, 0.02 can be updated without issues if done as described
(Sorry if you installed 0.03 already, hopefully you still have a save with 0.02, otherwise your
weaponlayout will be messed up if you had salvagers installed. If you didn't have salvagers, you are fine.)


If you guys like the project, stick around, drop off some ideas and enjoy a much needed game experiance, soon.


Install:
Download the mod, extract the data and copy it into your Extentions Directory.

Update/Uninstall:
Before removing the old version open the config file (Extensions\ExploreAndSalvage\md\ES_Config.xml)
and set the value "global.$ES_InitUpdate" to exact="true" and save the file before closing.
Load your save now so the old mod content is going to be removed. Save your game!
Now just add the latest version and keep playing. :)
Last edited by iforgotmysocks on Sat, 23. Dec 17, 13:39, edited 43 times in total.

ICO_hr
Posts: 415
Joined: Sat, 31. Aug 13, 17:56

Post by ICO_hr » Wed, 29. Jan 14, 02:08

I really like this idea.Everything that can make you leave the beaten path is good in my book.If you can create missions that uses the space outside the vanilla zones wil be frakin epic.Maybe some missions that can use the junk fields like scaning for some specific item(s), salvage missions, why not even fight missions.If is posible you can mix the junk with some big asteroids.To give little more density because all these tiny meshes will kill the frame rate for alot of people.Or if you can scale the junk meshes.One of the trailers have very dense junk with really big asteroids mixed and look frakin epic. :)
Last edited by ICO_hr on Wed, 29. Jan 14, 02:26, edited 2 times in total.

User avatar
YorrickVander
Posts: 2689
Joined: Tue, 29. Oct 13, 21:59
x4

Post by YorrickVander » Wed, 29. Jan 14, 02:13

Nice one Mr Socks, looks great. Will test with great enthusiasm :D
X Rebirth - A Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Product

Split irritate visiting pilot with strange vocal patterns.

Ginger470
Posts: 158
Joined: Sun, 20. Jun 04, 03:24
x2

Post by Ginger470 » Wed, 29. Jan 14, 04:35

Perfect idea :)

You said you wanted some ideas on how to add depth to the exploration side -- I may have something...

I've been working on fleshing out the Skunk ... it's still a work in progress, but it's essentially aiming to put the 'sim' into the ship.

H20, food, 02 scrubbing, co2 buildup, disease, pressure hull integrity, to name a few things, are modeled.

This means, for example, that for long voyages, you have to stock your ship with food, water and medical supplies.

Or if you're caught in the middle of nowhere and you get a breach in your pressure hull, you'll be losing air -- you'd better get back to civilization before you suffocate.

Or if your 02 scrubber gets damaged, your CO2 is going to start building up...

Or maybe that crate you picked up is contaminated ... better get back before it's too late...

Or ... well these are just a few features that are working so far...

I'm posting this here because the second part of this mod was to be a set of missions that sent you off into deep space. There would be little point in setting up all these ship subsystems to just tool around next to a station.

But it looks like that's exactly what you're doing here! I believe our mods would work perfectly together.

It would be great to go hunting one of your artifacts in deep space... spending time scouring the universe before food and water run out... only to find the artifact is contaminated ... do you eject it and come back with more meds or keep it and hope your decontamination unit takes care of it?

Sounds like a perfect match :)

Deleted User

Post by Deleted User » Wed, 29. Jan 14, 07:42

more exploring, yes.

losthart2611
Posts: 22
Joined: Fri, 27. Dec 13, 01:04

Post by losthart2611 » Wed, 29. Jan 14, 08:12

looks great so far

iforgotmysocks
Posts: 1244
Joined: Fri, 8. Nov 13, 22:35
x4

Post by iforgotmysocks » Wed, 29. Jan 14, 08:50

Thanks for all that quick response, guys. :)

ICO_hr wrote:I really like this idea.Everything that can make you leave the beaten path is good in my book.If you can create missions that uses the space outside the vanilla zones wil be frakin epic.Maybe some missions that can use the junk fields like scaning for some specific item(s), salvage missions, why not even fight missions.
A good idea. It was never ment to add real missions like "find object A and bring it to me", but i can see how it opens up some really good aspects for missions.
I'll take it on the list, but it might take a while till i get there.
ICO_hr wrote:If is posible you can mix the junk with some big asteroids.To give little more density because all these tiny meshes will kill the frame rate for alot of people.Or if you can scale the junk meshes.One of the trailers have very dense junk with really big asteroids mixed and look frakin epic. :)
Ya, thats what i'm worried about myself. The player can configure a multiplier for the wrecks himself, but i don't really know how low or mid tier pc's might handle this mod.
Thats one of the reasons why i wanted to release it early even if its not even close to be a tested and well functional version. ^^
Hm, i like the idea with astroids, i'll check it out if it helps.


YorrickVander wrote:Nice one Mr Socks, looks great. Will test with great enthusiasm :D
Thanks! ^^


Ginger470 wrote:Perfect idea :)

You said you wanted some ideas on how to add depth to the exploration side -- I may have something...
I've been working on fleshing out the Skunk ... it's still a work in progress, but it's essentially aiming to put the 'sim' into the ship.
H20, food, 02 scrubbing, co2 buildup, disease, pressure hull integrity, to name a few things, are modeled.
This means, for example, that for long voyages, you have to stock your ship with food, water and medical supplies.
Or if you're caught in the middle of nowhere and you get a breach in your pressure hull, you'll be losing air -- you'd better get back to civilization before you suffocate.
Or if your 02 scrubber gets damaged, your CO2 is going to start building up...
Or maybe that crate you picked up is contaminated ... better get back before it's too late...
Or ... well these are just a few features that are working so far...
I'm posting this here because the second part of this mod was to be a set of missions that sent you off into deep space. There would be little point in setting up all these ship subsystems to just tool around next to a station.
But it looks like that's exactly what you're doing here! I believe our mods would work perfectly together.
It would be great to go hunting one of your artifacts in deep space... spending time scouring the universe before food and water run out... only to find the artifact is contaminated ... do you eject it and come back with more meds or keep it and hope your decontamination unit takes care of it?

Sounds like a perfect match :)
Ya it really sounds nice! But sadly there are no missions yet. ^^
I'll add missions once some of the basic points are done, but they are not a primary goal of this mod. But you are right, our mods would fit in many ways. Since it's never a really good idea to throw everything in one pot, we could make those mods using each other. I already did that with NRU and Improved Missiles and Lost Weapons with this one.

Let me finish the early alpha on this one, then we can take a look how we might be able to stick those mods together. :)


Dark_Ansem wrote:more exploring, yes.
^-^


losthart2611 wrote:looks great so far
Thanks! Hopefully most pc's are able to handle it.
Well.. thats what i'd like to find out with the early alpha. ^^

User avatar
nonnex
Posts: 366
Joined: Wed, 28. Aug 13, 12:42
x4

Post by nonnex » Wed, 29. Jan 14, 10:49

Hehe, reminds me of EvE. Exploring, salvaging,...
next to come... Probing, Wormholes ;)

iforgotmysocks
Posts: 1244
Joined: Fri, 8. Nov 13, 22:35
x4

Post by iforgotmysocks » Wed, 29. Jan 14, 10:57

nonnex wrote:Hehe, reminds me of EvE. Exploring, salvaging,...
next to come... Probing, Wormholes ;)
Just sad that i'm not a graphics guy... first thing i'd implement would be a Vindicator. <3 ^-^

EDIT:
Btw, Wormholes!

I think i know what i'm going to do in a couple months, when this mod reaches some decent version. :>
Last edited by iforgotmysocks on Wed, 29. Jan 14, 12:15, edited 1 time in total.

ICO_hr
Posts: 415
Joined: Sat, 31. Aug 13, 17:56

Post by ICO_hr » Wed, 29. Jan 14, 11:36

iforgotmysocks wrote:Ya, thats what i'm worried about myself. The player can configure a multiplier for the wrecks himself, but i don't really know how low or mid tier pc's might handle this mod.
Thats one of the reasons why i wanted to release it early even if its not even close to be a tested and well functional version. ^^
Hm, i like the idea with astroids, i'll check it out if it helps.
Just place the junk zones far from any stations because these two things combined are fps killer for any machine.If are separate by some distance maybe 10-15km is fine based on my exp because at that distance Station complexes dont drop frame rate at all.If i take into consideration Devries asteroid zone where the Albion gate is you can spawn quite alot stuff.The real problem as far i know is object count, thats why i suggest to mix them with big asteroids if you want to make dense zones or to look dense at least.

EDIT:Btw you can also add fog volumes and color grading(LUT textures) to the junk zones if you want to define some visual difference from the rest of the zones.
Last edited by ICO_hr on Wed, 29. Jan 14, 13:09, edited 1 time in total.

Privata
Posts: 706
Joined: Mon, 19. Dec 11, 22:59
x4

Post by Privata » Wed, 29. Jan 14, 12:35

would it be a good idea if enemies ships have a small chance of spawning , like pirates looking for loot as well , or hostile salvages ?

it would be nice to have a dogfight in a debri filed :)

User avatar
YorrickVander
Posts: 2689
Joined: Tue, 29. Oct 13, 21:59
x4

Post by YorrickVander » Wed, 29. Jan 14, 14:13

An invisible highway travelling straight would emulate an EVE accel gate quite well as it seems many of us are TQ refugees ')
X Rebirth - A Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Product

Split irritate visiting pilot with strange vocal patterns.

Blackb1rd0
Posts: 42
Joined: Tue, 14. Jan 14, 23:04
x4

Post by Blackb1rd0 » Wed, 29. Jan 14, 14:59

Great stuff iforgotmysocks. I'm really looking forward to this. I've got my sectortraders working (16 of them) built a few stations to keep supply going, got my rep with Cantera to 23 and I'm getting bored of killing cartel cap ships. Need something to get my teeth into instead of chasing mining vessels and telling them unload wares and refill via mining over and over again.
Why can't we have a "sectortrader" that manages your sequana's to tell them to fill up with you asked for last time and then sell it in the nearest or best profit sector close by?????

Frustrated but not giving up with this game.

docwho83
Posts: 168
Joined: Mon, 15. Jun 09, 23:10
x4

Post by docwho83 » Wed, 29. Jan 14, 15:42

Sounds great. Will love to play in space with this.

Can not wait to see how this plays out.
My Mods
RepairLasers Player controlled drone Also on steam
[Minefield] fell affliction minefield removed Also on steam
[Buildmodule] add research for buildmodule leak steals

iforgotmysocks
Posts: 1244
Joined: Fri, 8. Nov 13, 22:35
x4

Post by iforgotmysocks » Wed, 29. Jan 14, 22:05

ICO_hr wrote:Just place the junk zones far from any stations because these two things combined are fps killer for any machine.If are separate by some distance maybe 10-15km is fine based on my exp because at that distance Station complexes dont drop frame rate at all.If i take into consideration Devries asteroid zone where the Albion gate is you can spawn quite alot stuff.The real problem as far i know is object count, thats why i suggest to mix them with big asteroids if you want to make dense zones or to look dense at least.

EDIT:Btw you can also add fog volumes and color grading(LUT textures) to the junk zones if you want to define some visual difference from the rest of the zones.
Ya, the influence of stations if pretty clear. But the problem is not being in the trash field, the problem is flying towards it.
Once you made the way in it, you are (pretty much) fine. ^^

I already looked those up a while ago, at least fog, but i didn't have time to try.
Got stuck at a quite annoying problem which could have saved me alot of time ... except it doesn't work. ^^
I don't really know how LUT Textures work, but thanks for the tip, i'll check it out. :)

Thanks for the help!

Privata wrote:would it be a good idea if enemies ships have a small chance of spawning , like pirates looking for loot as well , or hostile salvages ?

it would be nice to have a dogfight in a debri filed :)
Oh, you definitly gonna get dogfights. ;p

YorrickVander wrote:An invisible highway travelling straight would emulate an EVE accel gate quite well as it seems many of us are TQ refugees ')
This probably goes a little bit too far. ^^
And if it would be a highway, the player could get lost whenever he presses a key. I can look it up but i'm not sure they are needed that badly yet.

Blackb1rd0 wrote:Great stuff iforgotmysocks. I'm really looking forward to this. I've got my sectortraders working (16 of them) built a few stations to keep supply going, got my rep with Cantera to 23 and I'm getting bored of killing cartel cap ships. Need something to get my teeth into instead of chasing mining vessels and telling them unload wares and refill via mining over and over again.
Why can't we have a "sectortrader" that manages your sequana's to tell them to fill up with you asked for last time and then sell it in the nearest or best profit sector close by?????

Frustrated but not giving up with this game.
Well, we better give you something new to do soon. ^-^
But i'm the wrong guy to ask about trading stuff.
I didn't invest much time in this area at all yet and i'm most likely holding of a while longer until it runs smoothly.

docwho83 wrote: Can not wait to see how this plays out.
Me neihter. ^^
There is so much more to do...
But this project will be awesome.
And therefor it will take time.

Privata
Posts: 706
Joined: Mon, 19. Dec 11, 22:59
x4

Post by Privata » Wed, 29. Jan 14, 22:07

is there a chance we can get ultra dangerous alpha version that might blow up our pcs?

iforgotmysocks
Posts: 1244
Joined: Fri, 8. Nov 13, 22:35
x4

Post by iforgotmysocks » Thu, 30. Jan 14, 06:50

Privata wrote:is there a chance we can get ultra dangerous alpha version that might blow up our pcs?
What? xD

Worst thing that could ever happen to you is getting very low fps, maybe, if your pc is very old, you might get a ctd.

Good thing is that i used a multiplier which can be set by the user.
This hopefully helps to avoid too slow frame rates.

Privata
Posts: 706
Joined: Mon, 19. Dec 11, 22:59
x4

Post by Privata » Thu, 30. Jan 14, 07:36

iforgotmysocks wrote:
Privata wrote:is there a chance we can get ultra dangerous alpha version that might blow up our pcs?
What? xD

Worst thing that could ever happen to you is getting very low fps, maybe, if your pc is very old, you might get a ctd.

Good thing is that i used a multiplier which can be set by the user.
This hopefully helps to avoid too slow frame rates.
I was just loling about the exploding pc part but what I ment was would you share alpha builds of this ?

I actually have high fps and never suffered from fps issues even on day 1

iforgotmysocks
Posts: 1244
Joined: Fri, 8. Nov 13, 22:35
x4

Post by iforgotmysocks » Thu, 30. Jan 14, 08:46

Privata wrote:
iforgotmysocks wrote:
Privata wrote:is there a chance we can get ultra dangerous alpha version that might blow up our pcs?
What? xD

Worst thing that could ever happen to you is getting very low fps, maybe, if your pc is very old, you might get a ctd.

Good thing is that i used a multiplier which can be set by the user.
This hopefully helps to avoid too slow frame rates.
I was just loling about the exploding pc part but what I ment was would you share alpha builds of this ?

I actually have high fps and never suffered from fps issues even on day 1
Ya, the whole wip thread is just about that.
I'll reach a point soon where i can't go on without feedback. ^^

I just need to finish some things, then you guys can try the alpha.

Privata
Posts: 706
Joined: Mon, 19. Dec 11, 22:59
x4

Post by Privata » Thu, 30. Jan 14, 09:50

right thanks ! have an argnu flavored cookie ?....

Post Reply

Return to “X Rebirth - Scripts and Modding”