[SCRIPT] Sector Takeover v2.4.3 [Updated 20-Apr-2007]

[nirwin]

This is something that RS and I have talked about, I must say I was pretty against the idea, but if popular opinion is with you, I'll do it (I suppose I could have the option to leave it how it is), so what does everybody think?

[Saint-Ashley]

I understand why your against it. A soloution to both problems. Store the original value in an array and the new (Player revised) value.

Then, if the sector is ever taken away from the player, who ever takes it would then be able to have the original name.

[russbo]

Nriwin, I think being able to change the sector name is good, though, not sure how it will work in the maps and other areas of the game. As for this taxation of stations issue, now we'll have to pay taxes for all of our currently owned stations, regardless of where they live?

Starting to get closer to real life here.... lol

[Cycrow]

if you want the player to enter the sector name to what ever they want, then you really need to make use of an external program that can create the text file with the sector names

[DesertEagle]

What about the audio names? These are not going to be read correctly if the player renames a sector... I am against the idea without making a little more work for the player; I would want the player to reach a certain "propaganda level" in a sector before he captures the hearts and minds of the populous enough to be able to rename it.

1) Specifically, I want to put X3's dynamic news stories to work in a "propaganda war" of the player's direction. Propaganda issued by the player would impact race relations with neutral races, potentially giving them a more favorable impression of the player, and making them less likely to side with a hostile race in all out attacks on the player's sectors. Possibly, it could also result in a lessening or waiving of the 'tax' on the player's stations in a particular sector.

Propaganda might work via the player designating (and paying) propagandists to fly to different sectors. The selection of propaganda itself would entail essentially a multiple choice minigame... the result would be highly entertaining bits of semi-random dynamic news sent to tradestations within 2-3 sectors of each propagandist. Enemy races would issue counterpropaganda, and would hire their own propagandists. Part of the strategy of taking over a sector would involve finding and undermining enemy propagandists, and spreading Player-favorable propaganda. Atrocities (killing of neutrals in a sector) would hurt a player's propaganda rating. What do you think?

2) Also:
I think the current sector takeover model is unrealistic in terms of its depictions of the enemy's use of force. I want the enemy races to collect taxes on stations in their sectors. My assumption would be that groups of three to four sectors would be unified (i.e., races would not be entirely monolithic). These sectors would produce their own defense forces, which would mass on the borders of hostile sectors which had a high concentration of hostile ships in them. Defense would work like a more detailed race response script... I'll elaborate more on the algorithms later, just wanted to get this out. Also, it seems to me the enemy would take proactive steps to ensure that future player invasion fleets would be crippled... e.g. cutting supply lines, deploying large numbers of mines and laser towers at 'choke points,' feinting with disposable ships before attacking en masse on high value targets, etc. The advantage of developing a good bottom up approach to attack / defense ai would be that it could then be applied to non-player versus non-player race wars with relatively little penalty.

DesertEagle

[nirwin]

Those are all reasons that I didn't want to implement sector renaming, the idea of the computer not being able to say the sector name makes me quite against it. But regardless I think we can all agree that something as minor as renaming sectors is quite low on the list of priorities, so it can be ignored for a while.

I think it is important that this script does not get out of control, remember that different scripts can be used together and I think this script needs to focus on what needs to be done to be able to take on the universe and claim sectors. Now nice little touches such as BBS news items about sectors changing hands and even the Propaganda stuff is good and appropriate. But some other things like an advanced race response fleet script and station capturing scripts are really a bit outside the domain of sector takeover, wouldn't it be better if such scripts were made seperately and players could just download the scripts they want.
It just seems odd to me for us to remake the Race Response scripts and try to surpass LV, his script is pretty good and took him a fair amount of time, maybe it would be better to ask him to implement a more defensive AI incl getting them to set up LaserTower defenses at gates etc?

Anyway just my thoughts

@russbo, yes your stations will be taxed where ever they are, unless they are in a sector you own, this I think adds a nice new level to the gameplay, not only do you have to consider where is a good place for a station, you also have to do your best to put it in one of your sectors. It also means a factory that is not selling any goods is now a liability.

[DesertEagle]

Hi there,
I agree -- sector takeover should not get out of control. I'll concentrate on bug fixes for now. In future, we can build 'modules' that are compatible.

in terms of race response, no fault to LV -- his script is designed for an X3 universe that may or may not have sector takeover in it. Maybe we can convince him to build something that is ST specific... that would be great.

Cheers,
DE

[nirwin]

[DesertEagle]

I was wondering how we could work that... The files for debugging are here:
http://www.travisgood.com/X3/GlobalQ.zip

The topic discussion is here:
http://forum2.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=144118

It hasn't exactly lit the world on fire
Primarily they are for us. So... if you get a chance, download the file and check out the API (there is a good overview in the topic discussion). Let me know if you like it or not. I'll probably add one more thing to it, which is an array print function for figuring out what is going on with ST's global arrays.
But that won't break compatibility with anything you download now.

I gotta run to work now. Have a good day!

Best,
DesertEagle

[russbo]

[nirwin]

And good thoughts they are russbo.

The beauty of the taxing system though is that if you don't want it, you don't have to have it. To disable it go to the in-game options, choose 'Gameplay' then go down to the bottom where it says 'AL Settings' and in there is something like "Sector Takeover Tax", set that to 'No' hit ENTER and the tax system will not affect your game.

Anyway the GOD engine SHOULD repopulate your sectors with stations (maybe it doesn't but it should, and if GOD won't do it, I will), and hopefully soon you will be able to capture stations, therefore meaning that the tax system could turn out to be quite profitable - if you play the system tactically.

I don't see you putting all your stations in your own sectors as ruining the economy, think of it more like wiping out some competition, then replacing that competition with your stations and reaping all the profits.

On a personal level I agree with you, I don't want my stations taxed, but I do want to tax the AI for my benefit, but thats because I like an easy game, some people don't like an easy game, and in the end I see it as more fair to tax both, so I relented.

Don't worry Russbo, I swear I will be doing something to ensure player owned sectors aren't barren soon. Just the claiming problem to fix first, and the respawning of enemy shipyards in player controlled sectors, and the......

---EDIT---
In fact I've had some thoughts about how I could 'artificially' populate player sectors with factories, shouldn't take too long either.... maybe I'll have a look at that soon.

[russbo]

[nirwin]

Just to keep everyone up to date, DE thinks he has found the cause of the sector claiming problem, so I will be taking a look at it tonight to see what can be done, RL managed to swallow my entire weekend (again) but I will be working on it during the evenings this week.

Though DE and I have not properly talked about this yet, nor have we got permission to use it from the appropriate people, but we are looking into getting player owned shipyards in with this script, because without such a commodity available taking over more space leaves you with very little options for buying ships.

DE is now also looking at the command to toggle raiding parties which has gone missing.

Anyway there should be another update coming soon (ish).

[RustyBayonet]

Does this work on the 'Unknown' Sectors?, there's an Unknown sector South of Mists of Elysium I'd like to populate.

[al_main]

Yeah, presumably unknown sectors should be tax free as no ship protection is offered and there is no race government in charge of the sector?

(also cant really see Xenon and Khaak sending a tax collector round)