Second SCRIPTING ETHICS poll. Modifying behavior of existing ships/objects.

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Do not modify existing ships/objects

Yes, good idea.
5
33%
No, impractical.
10
67%
 
Total votes: 15

acrh2
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Second SCRIPTING ETHICS poll. Modifying behavior of existing ships/objects.

Post by acrh2 » Thu, 22. Dec 05, 10:04

IMO, a community script should not modify the behavior of those ships/object that already exist in the universe. Unless a script is specifically designed to fix those existing ones.
The reasoning behind this is simply due to the fact that no one is guaranteed to write scripts free of bugs, especially those long complex ones.

Such ethics would save players hours of time (reloading after 12 hours of gaming because of a script bug is painful).
Please post your thoughts.

Thanks.
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Post by XxNe0xX » Thu, 22. Dec 05, 10:13

I miss the button for "somewhere in between"

I think might be a good idea but on the otherside i think there would be some things that maybe need to do it so you can't really say don't do it.
Never say never :wink:

I say I will only use it if absolutely necessary.
As for the bugs. Most of there times there are fixes for bugs especially for those long complex ones ^^. I trust those geniuses of scripters out there. If you don't like it that they are influencing existing ships. simply don't do it.

That however does not mean that it's not a good idea to try to avoid it.
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Post by AalaarDB » Thu, 22. Dec 05, 10:14

Burianek wrote:Unsigned scripts and mods are add ons to your game that are completely unsupported by Egosoft. They are generally created by other members of the community and may have varying degrees of effectiveness or even problems. Installing any of these has the potential of breaking your game. In general, the users in this forum will attempt to help you solve any problems created by the installation of scripts and mods, but you cannot expect Egosoft or the official technical support channels to help you with problems created by unofficial add ons
Index of Community Scripts / Mods for X3

Myros
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Post by Myros » Thu, 22. Dec 05, 12:42

Not just imptractical ... impossible ;)

1. Any command key assigned will affect all objects of the class it is assigned to ie 'ships' wether they are bought, created, old or new ... no way to avoid this

2. If a script creates an object it is still a standard object of its class, we cannot add unique object classes without modding the game so any script that can affect a class will also affect the created object

I do agree however that a script shouldnt automaticly affect existing objects (eg a script that when added changes the names of all my ships and adds new tasks and variables to them) UNLESS I know exactly thats what its going to do and accept that. As long as a script maker is clear about what a script does and codes things in a reasonable and safe way I dont see a problem.

But of course all downloaded scripts are 'use at your own risk', hell even the default game scripts havent exactly been bug free sometimes ;)

Myros

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Post by acrh2 » Thu, 22. Dec 05, 15:20

A realization comes to me now that this forum is not to help better the game or add extra features, which is what I thought before. Apparently, it's to beta test ideas for those who enjoy coding. I'm sure that a lot of respectable script makers have a different intent, somewhere along the lines of my idealistic thinking, but the truth remains: since there's no code of ethics recommended, let alone enforced, for creation of scripts, unsigned scripts are all potentially dangerous, and simply not worth my time.

After spending 2 hours of coding and testing a script to repair the damage to my multibillion credit empire (that I worked very hard to develop and grow), I decided that I won't be downloading any more community scripts. If the general concensus is that a community script should be able to do anything it desires, and it's the user's responsibility for consequences, not the coder's, well, that's just great you know, but I won't be a part of it. I simply don't have the time to restart the game from scratch. If my savegames were to be damaged beyond repair, well that would be about it for X3 and me.
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Post by Red Spot » Thu, 22. Dec 05, 16:13

I'd make it ..
'do not modify if your scripts isnt also able to reverse it' .. :roll:

I guess this is something that everyone has to decide for him/her-sef ..
some people like to change everything ..
other dont even want scouts to get 1 extra ET ..

(but any change your script makes should be noted in a ReadMe or such .. and should be reversed if wanted by the player .. imo)


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Post by Burianek » Thu, 22. Dec 05, 22:14

acrh2,
we had something like what you're describing in X2. They were called signed scripts and were endorsed by Egosoft. Meaning they were guaranteed not to mess up your game. Putting a community script through the signing process was a very time intensive rigorous process, and out of hundreds of submissions (very good submissions) we only ended up having time to sing something like 8 scripts.
I'm certain we'll have script signing again in X3, just give it some time for things to settle.
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Post by kab » Fri, 23. Dec 05, 08:53

This has nothing to do with ethics. It's a simple matter of design and any author who writes a script of unnecessary scope, or more importantly undocumented scope, is needlessly introducing possible bugs and unwanted side effects. In a community full of volunteer amateurs it's to be expected and should be considered as part of the package when you use third party scripts. I'm a Software Engineer/Developer/Programmer/System Architect/<whatever they decide to call me this week> by trade and the ineptitude and incompetence of "professionals" getting paid to do this would astound you.

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Post by Red Spot » Fri, 23. Dec 05, 09:43

kab wrote:This has nothing to do with ethics. It's a simple matter of design and any author who writes a script of unnecessary scope, or more importantly undocumented scope, is needlessly introducing possible bugs and unwanted side effects. In a community full of volunteer amateurs it's to be expected and should be considered as part of the package when you use third party scripts. I'm a Software Engineer/Developer/Programmer/System Architect/<whatever they decide to call me this week> by trade and the ineptitude and incompetence of "professionals" getting paid to do this would astound you.
*ahum*
(you should have looked at the 'dumb' bugs in certain scripts pre 1.3 (attack scripts where a good example ) :roll: )


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Post by Cycrow » Fri, 23. Dec 05, 11:10

kab wrote:This has nothing to do with ethics. It's a simple matter of design and any author who writes a script of unnecessary scope, or more importantly undocumented scope, is needlessly introducing possible bugs and unwanted side effects. In a community full of volunteer amateurs it's to be expected and should be considered as part of the package when you use third party scripts. I'm a Software Engineer/Developer/Programmer/System Architect/<whatever they decide to call me this week> by trade and the ineptitude and incompetence of "professionals" getting paid to do this would astound you.
ueah i've seen so many programmers getting paid really good money, but their utterly useless
the guy who was doing this programming job b4 me demanded £500 just to hcange a single line of code which he messed up in the first place coz he doesn't know what hes doing

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Post by kab » Fri, 23. Dec 05, 11:24

Cycrow wrote: ueah i've seen so many programmers getting paid really good money, but their utterly useless
the guy who was doing this programming job b4 me demanded £500 just to hcange a single line of code which he messed up in the first place coz he doesn't know what hes doing
Doesn't surprise me, I've seen $2000/day consultants produce laughable code. I recently tried to help out a student at Cornell only to discover his problem derived from the class his professor gave him to use for convenience. Not only was the code bad, but the methods were ill-named, the documentation poor and incorrect, and the methodology a joke. One line of code read:

String s = "" + myString;

I fell off my seat.

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Red Spot
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Post by Red Spot » Fri, 23. Dec 05, 11:27

kab wrote:
Cycrow wrote: ueah i've seen so many programmers getting paid really good money, but their utterly useless
the guy who was doing this programming job b4 me demanded £500 just to hcange a single line of code which he messed up in the first place coz he doesn't know what hes doing
Doesn't surprise me, I've seen $2000/day consultants produce laughable code. I recently tried to help out a student at Cornell only to discover his problem derived from the class his professor gave him to use for convenience. Not only was the code bad, but the methods were ill-named, the documentation poor and incorrect, and the methodology a joke. One line of code read:

String s = "" + myString;

I fell off my seat.

give the guy a pencil .. and tell him to write his code with that ..;)


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Post by BlackRain » Fri, 23. Dec 05, 15:40

acrh2 I have never had a problem with scripts messing up my game, most people list exactly what the script does, it is really Mods which change game files.

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