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Special Credits to Van-Fim for the "Destroy stations/Zone ownership change" base code
Also thanks to Unitrader, w.evans, Yorrick, MegaJohnny, BlackRain and Euclid by the help and to share their knowledge
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Hi guys, sorry by the long delay since last update again and also by the long post below. This is not only a mod but a game into a game, so you really need to know some infos about it. Take a look on the readme file for the complete change log.
X:R Conquer mod v0.19s comments, tips and hints (be sure to read also the game rules below):
1. This version (v0.19s) is almost a continuation of the main plot scenario. An allegiance between Player&Canteran got into a fight with a PMC&Pirates allegiance (all 3 pirates factions are now allied to PMC). Xenon is the common enemy, will invade all factions. Note also that all others factions relations are untouched; they are almost neutral between each other and to both rival allegiances above (well, not all of them, HOA is very Player&Canteran friend and are being harassed by PMC and SS, try to help them too).
2. The main idea is to preserve the vanilla X:R gameplay, I mean, this is an Empire Build game, so it is slow and detailed - as is this war - it will happen in a slow pace. This is necessary because just to build a single ship or a single station on X:R it may take hours. Thus, if the war happens very quickly, you, the player, will not have enough time to build the necessary ships to fight, much less a working economy. This is the main aspect of the mod that can need balance in the future, although this version has already done a huge effort in this direction.
3. In the mod md folder you will find a config file that has dozens of possible settings for a lot of aspects of the war. The most important one is about how and when invasion forces will be created. There you have settings for chances, interval, ships/fighters amount, xenon amount and the main one: a setting that controls when the invasions will start, which is especially important to give you the time to build at least a modest force first. Anyhow, you don't need to modify anything, you can go directly to the game, the default values are good to go. The default is "4" which means that the invasions will only start after you, the player, have at least an index of 4 ships (a calc between military l and xl ships and trade xl ships), the invasion frequency will then increase as your fleet raises. Below, in the Conquer Mod Game rules you will get more info on this.
4. Added basic pirate stations (and one capship patrolling them) for SS and HV pirate factions because they don’t have any on vanilla. SS are in Epsilon Lowlands, Albion and HV retreat to Sunken Frigate, Maelstrom - these places were chosen because they are empty, so no more changes are necessary and also to give future compatibility with WWX mod.
5. Also added one HOA Construction Vessel (CV) for player faction in Forty-Two, Devries, full of useful wares. You just have to add an architect to it and choose with wisdom which station to build. This is just to speed things up a bit because you’ll really need some military ships soon. Vanilla game has serious issues at NPC shipyards that sometimes wait for some wares forever and then it can be "never" available to build ships for player as you will need it. So, this ship is very handful. But it’s not obligatory to use it anyway. Added also 3 new possible stations to be built from a Canteran's CV. They were chose to allow a more better strategic game play - as per above, raised the cost of Canteran's CV a bit.
6. A good idea could be to trade at Omicron Lyrae because Albion is very dangerous now as PMC is all over the place there. However, It's not impossible to trade at Albion but you need to do it carefully so you won't lose your trade ships frequently.
7. Use Probes to acquire info from distant unknown zones. Probes are a powerful tactical tool.
8. Board and conquer enemy capships is also a good way to acquire a strong fleet and make money in early game. I provided two new menu options for any capship that allows to put all your sqaud in attack or defence stance at once. This, combined with the inside Better Turrets mod and w.evans' Marine Rebalance, will make the boarding process much more challenge and fun.
9. Build new stations and also replace the destroyed ones (even enemy ones) is crucial and an opportunity to maintain the economy and make money. You may do this by buying new CVs from Canteran or others factions and also using the Build Station Mission mod.
10. This mod is intended for new free game starts. You can use the vanilla "Free Play" that start at Albion (go asap to Devries and establish there) or Yorrick's Devries FreeLancer Start mod. It won't fit well for other mods/starts that have different factions’ relations or very different places to start.
11. This mod also has a workaround similar to Automated Emergency Jump mod, but it will work only for trade ships (military ships will always engage) and in certain conditions. It´s possible to enable / disable it, look into the config file.
12. A bit more shield amount was given to capships to make the battles more eye candy and interesting.
13. A new Hyper Jump Drive technology is disposable for the player. It is expensive to use but it is a powerful tactical feature. With this technology you can jump directly over any zone in the known universe with your entire squad (including fighters) to conquer or defend zones. The big advantage is that all your squad ships will jump at same time, holding its orders&hierarchy and will go to formation as soon as the hyperjump finish, being ready to attack. This feature also provide others options like "jump player ship only", "player with all squad", "squad only" or "squad to player position". Just open the holomap, choose a zone to go and choose "Plot Course". A new radial menu will be opened with new options (greyed out if not disposable). Press "Esc" if you want just vanilla directions.
14. The Hyperdrive consume a lot of fuel (2x more), needs the standard jumpdrive working and the rare HyperDrive crystals (that can be bought from equipment traders) . It's advised to check your fleet for enough fuel, HyperDrive crystals and working jump drives before try to hyper jump. If a ship have not any of these it will just not hyper jump. Also you need a minimum of Hyperdrive crystal to just turn on the Hyper Jump Drive. Is also a good idea to prepair your squad formation before hyperjump as suggested: max 2 escorts (l or xl) per each capship attached directly to player. Fighters can also be add as you wish. The ships that are attached directly to play can works better with "hold on" order, but will work with any other order too. The hyper jump will correctly work for 4 layers of escorts (capships or fighters).
15. About other mods: Devries FreeLancer Start, Build Station Mission, Titurel Engine fix, Marine Rebalance, Copilot Convo - were tested and are highly recommended. Player shipyard, Ship&Station Recycle and Automated Emergency jump - although these could be good to improve the overall playability, they are not yet tested - but users feedback said that they are ok too. Also, any mod that changes the factions’ relations too much or has huge changes at military side is not compatible for now. Don't use this mod with WWX. We already have a merged (WWX&CM) version: CWIR.
16. A frequent comment/question: this mod don't build new NPC trade stations when the AI invade and conquer zones. It only will build automated outposts. In truth, new npc trade stations are not necessary for the mod playability and for a good war game side. But it is in the “todo” list for the future, if really necessary and useful.
X:R Conquer mod game rules:
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1. This is a war between Player&canteran x PMC&Pirates. Xenon is a common enemy for all. To "win" the game you must defeat PMC&Pirates and survive from Xenon invasions. To do this you also actively need to protect and support Canteran´s stations and space. Another good idea is to also protect Heart of Albion, your allied on PMC territory.
2. Outpost’s automated builders (OPCV) will be only deployed (and then build an outpost) if a faction is the unique owner of at least one l or xl military ship (including Titurel) in an enemy, own or ownerless zone and also if no other outpost is present. Outposts are small automated stations that provide support, info and defense for a conquered zone. They are surrounded by a minefield so take care when trying to destroy one of them. Xenon will not build outposts; they are really the badass and will try to destroy everything in their way.
3. If a faction have at least one station (an outpost is enough) in a zone and no enemies are present it will gain control (ownership) over that zone (if not already is the ownership).
4. If a station (including outpost) is destroyed, the faction ownership of that station can build a retaliation force to try to counter attack. So, always attack aware that retaliations will be very probably.
5. Factions in fight can invade enemy or ownerless zones after the player have a minimal force (see the config file). These forces are smart enough to look for strategic zones first: zones with gates, jump beacons, superhighways gates and rare resources. The invasion forces can also try zones with none or small forces as well. Its frequency and ship’s amount are linked, to a certain extent, to the faction strength and also with the opponent strength.
6. A working simple voiced Early Warning System will warning about any player capship or station that are in danger and also about enemy's invasion forces that jump at player or allied (canteran) space. Its sensibility and frequency can be adjusted on config file. Any message about OOZ events can open the holomap directly on the event zone (or sector as your choice on config file) by clicking on the flicking PDA.
7. Each ship generated by this mod will consume shipyards wares. This will help the economy to stay alive, because the shipyards are the "end" products main consumer. This feature will move the economy chain as it should be. The amount of wares consumed is adjustable on config file, and is major fo xl capships than l capships as it must be.
8. If a vanilla station is destroyed and that faction reconquer that zone (or don´t lose the zone at all) that station will be rebuilt soon or later (Note: only for npc stations). So to really conquer a zone, all enemy stations must be destroyed first. Thus, if no more enemy in the area and at least one l or xl military ship is in patrol (including Titurel), an outpost will be built and that zone will be then finally conquered.
9. Stations can and will be also destroyed OOZ (out of zone) by the AI.
10. Finally, as said above, if a faction loses all its producing stations (or pirate factions’ basic stations) it will no more generate invasion forces. They will lose the game. So, you must always protect and support Canteran stations to stay alive and could be a good idea to try to defeat Reivers at first. **Note that even if a faction is “not more on the war” the vanilla code will continue to spawn this faction ships here and there (in jobs.xml) but it will be not more a threat. Think about this as if that faction yet had a hidden zone somewhere but without capacity to create big forces anymore. However note that if a "dead" faction reconquer a zone it can return to the game. So it is a good idea to mantain a small force supporting the outpost if a zone is frequently harassed by vanilla small enemy forces.
11. Trade and mine capships (l and xl) will try to avoid to enter in battle by jumping to a distant point from attackers - if right conditions are meet. Military ships will always engage. This is a new feature that can be enable(default)/disable in the config file, and also its sensibility can be adjusted. I don't know how it will behave with Automated Emergency Jump mod; the main difference between them is that the inside solution is more adapted for Conquer mod, and only trade and mine capships will jump and they can do it preventively.
12. Miner ships will now obey the Manager max range to mine (fix for vanilla bug).
13. All Allied (Canteran) forces will deploy Probes ahead of its forces. Probes are advanced automated pods that that can detect and analyse objects far from its home base.
14. Probes also can be deployed by player. Its very useful for tactical decisions: to determinate the best safe trade route, to acquire knowledge of a distant yet unknown zone and obviously to analyse a battle field. To deploy a Probe you need first to buy some from Equipment traders (eventually also second hands ones from Junker traders). See below more info on it.
15. You can also command a probe to self destruction if you want to . Just select the probe from your "Properties", chose "Comm" and a "Destroy Probe" radial menu will appears .
16. Player will not have ownership over any zone neither will build outpost. The Player&Canteran allegiance will always give ownership of conquered zones and build outpost for Canterans. (this is necessary to the game runs correctly and it really runs well this way)
17. Tip: To defeat zones that have more than one enemy station, make it by parts. I mean, defeat the first station and then defeat the probably retaliation force. Now wait until your forces are fully repaired and shielded and start to defeat the second station the same way and so on. After all stations are destroyed and all enemies are defeated than left there at least one military capship (or a small force) in patrol and after some time the outpost will be built (Canteran outpost) and then, after a while, your allegiance will gain control over that zone.
18. A small patrol fleet is present almost the time in any owned zone. Zones with POIS (gates, jump beacons, resources, outposts) have more probability to receive these patrol fleets that will stay there patrolling the POI or the entire zone. No more empty strategic zone. So, take care before invade. Send a Probe first.
19. To start the HyperDrive itself, you need at least : 2 hyperdrive crystals to turn on the HyperDrive for one ship (Skunk or any ship that the player is inside) or 25 hyperdrive crystals to turn on the HyperDrive for multi ships. The real final consume will be only one hyper drive crystal for each capship including player ship, but to start the drive you need these 2/25 minimum. Also, all capships will consume 200 fuel cells for each hyper jump.
20. Now you have more two ways to earn money: by conquering zones and by stations taxes. And one more expense: salaries. For each zone that you conquer (or help to), RoC will pay you 6,000,00Cr (if a player capship stay there alone until the Outpost is built) or 2,000,000Cr (if a player capship is there with ROc capships until the Outpost is built). Stations will pay taxes and crew will need salaries. Each station can generate taxes enough to pay salaries for 1 station plus 5 to 8 capships. So, now, conquer zones and build stations give an extra profit to you. Take this in mind!
21. I added two new menu options to capship traders: "Sell a ship" is now always present (even if the shipyard is busy) and " Cancel my request" if you are building, repairing or upgrading a ship and want to cancel it (for example if the shipyard have not enough resources these process can last forever, now you can cancel them). These two above new options have also new properties: selling a ship will add wares to the shipyard (will recycle the ship components) and you will receive a god money, if you cancel a build, upgrade or repair process, the wares can also be recycled and your money can be refund in a percent.
Installation?
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Just copy the entire "Conquer_Mod" folder to your X:R extensions folder.
Have fun and post feedback!
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Rubini.
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Changelog v0.19s:
- Patrol zones of interest. Any zone owned by any faction will be checked regularly by the presence of this faction small patrols that will stay in zone patrolling gates, jumpgates, outposts and zones with resources. Others zones without POIS will be also patrolled but with less frequency. So, no more empty strategic zones. They will be guarded.
- The invasion algorithm was improved and now works as intend: the zones with high strategic value will be invaded first and the invasions will be more consistent, which means that a faction will try to conquer a strategic zone first sending reinforcements if needed. If a zone have already enough invasion forces in fight, this faction can send also invasion forces to the next strategic value zone and so on. Also others zones with less value can be invaded same time as an strategic option.
- New Hyper jump technology. As we know, in Conquer Mod the factions have acquired a new jump technology that allows military fleets to hyper jump directly over zones to be invaded or defended. This technology is also used on Probes. When you open the holomap and choose plot course (to a zone) it will opens a new radial menu with these options: "Hyper Jump to Zone, Hyper Jump with Squad, Hyper Jump Squad only, Hyper Jump Squad to me, Drop Probe at my zone, Send Probe at chosen zone". This new feature, besides very expensive and in need of some special rare wares, will allow to complex military maneuvers, strategic invasions and support for allies factions. It is a needed feature that was absent until now. This feature use euclid's base code with his permission and works up to 4 layers of escorts on your squad.
Thanks euclid!
- Added support for Capital Ship Bridge: probes can be sent and hyper jumps can be made with or without your entire fleet from inside a capship bridge.
- New radial menu option for capships: Squad Attack stance / Squad Defence stance. This is a handful way to put all capships Defence Officers in your squad in attack or defensive stance at once. In combination with Better Turrets mod (already inside CM) this feature will make the board action really fun and challenge and a valuable option on the battlefield. Open communication with any of your own squad capships, then chose: New Order >> Attack...>>Squad Attack stance / Squad Defence stance. This works up to 3 layers of escorts on your squad at once
- New radial menu option for capship traders. "Sell a ship" will be always disposable now (even if the shipyard is busy) and a new "Cancel my request" that allow you to cancel a build, repair or upgrade request. These two above new options have also new properties: selling a ship will add wares to the shipyard (will recycle the ship components) and you will receive a god money, if you cancel a build, upgrade or repair process, the wares can also be recycle and your money can be refund in a percent.
- Outposts are now really built by factions using a special CV - OPCV. You can now try to board (and sell) or destroy them before an Outpost was built.
- Now you have more two ways to earn money: by conquering zones and by stations taxes. And one more expense: salaries. For each zone that you conquer (or help to), RoC will pay you 6,000,00Cr (if a player capship stay there alone until the Outpost is built) or 2,000,000Cr (if a player capship is there with ROc capships until the Outpost is built). Stations will pay taxes and crew will need salaries. Each station can generate taxes enough to pay salaries for 1 station plus 5 to 8 capships. So, now, conquer zones and build stations give an extra profit to you. Take this in mind!
- Xenons and PMC will be a bit more aggressive. The correct amount of ships to really conquer a zone is more frequent now in invasion fleets. So, the fleets will be, more frequently, major in size (but not always - a limiter and some randomness is always present).
- Fixed and improve some CM features like the trade/miners micro jumps when in danger and OOZ combat.
- A lot of others small fixes here and there that i cant recall now.
- From some changes above is necessary to start a new game, or use this mod over an old save game that yet have not any previous conquer mod version.
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Changelog v0.18s:
- outposts are now really fully automated - no human inside
- outposts have not more missions icons on them (thanks MegaJohnny!)
- outposts are now self repairing as it should be
- SS and HV small pirates stations are also now self repairing as it should be
- a bit more big in size AI invasion forces when a zone to invade is full of enemies
- AI invasions frequency (including Xenon) is now also attached to player strength (among other factors)
- a bit more chance for PMC and Xenon invasions (was nerfed too much)
- probes have a bit more hull HP to avoid quick destruction by fighters
- a recheck (in code) to avoid empty zones
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Changelog v0.17s:
- fixed a localization bug: some crucial cues were using english names in the calc and this was leading errors for non english language users. Thanks to DaveDee and UniTrader for the help and fix.
- fixed a bug where SS and HV pirates factions were not allied to PMC. Now, correctly as the mod intend, the 3 Pirates factions are allied between them and PMC
- improved "Build Stronghold" (outpost) rules: strongholds can be built in zones with stations as before but with more restrict conditions.
(Note: is mandatory to restart a new game if you use another language than english, sorry).
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Info update:
- Even that the war is fought mainly by Canteran&Player x PMC&Pirates x Xenon, all others factions are alive and, althgout they will not invade, they will defend yourself building retaliation forces and strongholds if needed.
- this is particularly important for Heart of Albion that is very Player&Canteran friend and are being harassed by PMC and SS, try to help them too.
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Changelog v0.16s:
- Now you can click at any area on your PDA when an EWS message is displayed (about any OOz event) and the map will be opened directly on the area of the related event. The level of the opened map can be set at Config file (sector or zones).
- added, with cicero111 permission, the 2 files from Better Turrets 2.1 mod into Conquer Mod. BT mod allow you to better control yours capships attacks. See below more info about Better Turrets mod.
- added a routine for fighters and stations (player's or friends) to stop their attacks if the attacked enemy capship is being boarded and hull is below 50% (BT mod only allow it for capships). So, board is really a tactical option now, better if you use w. evans' MarineRebalance mod.
- refined and made the ShipTradeSafeMove routine more smart , now also including mine ships and it will detect potential danger situations as before plus any attack to player's trade or mine ships (l or xl) and will jump them if right conditions were meet.
- fixed a XR vanilla bug where the mine ships don't obey the manager max range space to mine. Now they do it properly. This is a fix eclusive for Conquer mod for now. I also made it smart enough to not send the mine ships to an enemy zone anymore. If you need to harvest an enemy zone you need to command the mine ship personally. An always good idea could be to conquest that zone first.
- added Probes, see below
- fixed the name of the "Outpost" (no more "Warehouse")
- added voiced warning about Canteran invasions and Canteran counter attacks, this can be essential to properly attack some PMC crowded zones.
- added few more voiced warnings, the faction relations will be more clearly declared on warnings now in certain situations
- factions that lose all their producer stations or small stations for pirates (outpost don't count) will also not more generate retaliation forces (before v0.16s they only not generate invasion forces in this situation)
- nerfed a bit more the number of ships on generated forces into the code
- also some new default values on config file to fine tunned a bit more the number of capships in game .
- added few new tweaks for IZ and OOZ combat, the overall fight experience will be much better over vanilla. Succellus and Balor are very useful against stations now. Adjusted a bit Heavy Sul maneuverability, it was too agile for that ship size .
- made escort fighters numbers a bit random. The settings in the config file are now for maximum number only.
- added 3 new possible stations to be built from a Canteran's CV. They were chose to allow a more better strategic game play.
- as per above, raised the cost of Canteran's CV a bit.
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*Probes are a complex addition to X:R&CM. They are buyable from Equipment traders (and eventually second hands ones from Junk dealers too) and will go to your inventory. You can deploy probes to any place on your map. Just chose a normal "Plot Course" in your holomap and if you have probes a new menu choice will appears "Send Probe". If you want to send a Probe click on it, if not, just press "esc" and go to your plotted course normally. If "Send Probe" was chosen a probe will be deployed (from Skunk) and will go to a safe position (in front of Skunk) and then will jump to the designed destination. All this is full of fx effects. When the probe arrived to the destination zone it enters in a scan patrol mode and a flashing message will appears on your PDA. If you click on it the holomap will be opened directly over that zone (or sector, as your choice on Config file). In few seconds (from 10s to 20s) the probe will detect all objects on that zone (well, on its radar range). The probes can be destroyed by enemies if detected. Also you can command a self destruction for any probe if you want to (the probes are small automated ships without pilots and can crowd your ship lists - so you can destroy probes that aren´t more necessary if you want to - from your ship list, select a probe and select the "Comm" menu option, then a new menu you open with a option "Destroy Probe").
Probes are a very powerful tactical tool. You can send probes to better know about enemy forces on a given place or also to acquire trade safe routes and even to discover new places with interesting stations to trade. Also all allied (Canteran) forces send a probe ahead of its forces. Probes are also deployed in any allied zones that are being invaded by enemy forces. Probes are an integral part of Early Warning System.
* Better Turrets mod from cicero111 adds a lot of functionalities for capships Defence Officers. Below some important ones for Conquer mod:
(take a look on BT original thread to more info about it)
1. In defencive instance, DO will try to disable the target to allow it to be boarded (will aim only for weapons, turrets and engines)
2. In offensive instance, DO will try to destroy the target
3. If the player start the board process then capship's DO (player and friend ones) will stop the attack if the target has less than 50% hull, even in offensive instance.
4. The same applies to stations: in defencive instance, DO will try to disable the station; in offensive instance DO will try to destroy the station.
5. BT also uses "line of sight" when possible.
6. NPC capships will be always in offensive instance
7. Conquer mod made 2 small modifications on BT original files, allowing to a more agressive combat over stations and also skipping the crew skill check.
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Changelog v0.15s:
- It is now a war between Player&Canteran x PMC&Pirates. Xenon will invade all.
- deleted that annoying minefield at Fell Afliction
- added a bit more shield for capships
- added a preventive "jump when at danger" for trade capships
- OOZ intervention, now stations can and will be destroyed by AI OOZ (and in zone obviously)
- adjusted pirate stations modules hull value
- added zone, ships and pirate's stations to SS and HV pirate factions.
- new voiced EWS messages
- adjusted and lowered the frequency of EWS messages
- new settings on config file
- fixed a lot of small issues, allowing to a more consistent conquer game
- adjusted a bit more xenon invasion frequency and strength to be less powerfull
- adjusted rules and frequency of outpost builds to be less intrusive
- adjusted delay times to make the war a bit less quick
- added a HOA CV for player at the start of the game in Forty-Two
- dozens of fixes and code improve that i can´t recall
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Link:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/oqses ... v019s1.rar
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When starting the mod you will see this on logbook:
[ external image ]
- Conquer Mod First Run Check "ok": only the very first time that you run any free game or load a previous save game without this mod.
- Conquer Mod Config "ok": all times that you load or start a game with this mod. This means that it reads the config file correctly.
- Conquer Mod Main Code Check "initiating...": all times that you load or start a game with this mod, also on PDA. This means that it starts the main mod itself. (This "Initiating..." is already a variable from config file, so if it is shown, all is ok). EDITED: since version v015s "Initiating..." was replaced by "HAL 9000 v0.16s on line".
![[ external image ]](http://i1301.photobucket.com/albums/ag112/Adriano_Rubini/055d924e-250f-4b77-a357-e14bdc1f7368_zpsxonxavjg.png){kind=link}