[AL PLUGIN]Conflicts Official Release Thread - v0.85 released -> Collaboration works!

[Mavor]

Conflicts AL Plugin (v0.85 beta)


Please turn down your graphics setting to avoid any crashing from conflicts... it sounds like that will help with it.

Additionally, I am not working on this mod anymore. I am sorry to everyone who enjoys this Mod, but after multiple attempts to debug the system crashing, I have been unable to find the solution. I am not interested in spending more time on debugging, and so for now, the project is on an indefinite holding pattern.

However, the entire mod is easily accessible if you have the time to look through the scripts. I feel that someone with better debugging skills might be able to crack the problem and stabilize the mod.

0.85 released... multi-language support!
**Xangar did pretty much 100% of the work for getting the multi-language support into this script pack. Thanks xangar.

**Small random crash when enemies jump into the same system you are in.... I have had reports that dropping down graphics settings helps with this issue... solving this problem is.... stagnant.

Watch this Introduction movie
http://filebeam.com/a7cedd37852f220f7f7b30b041d0b53d

DOWNLOAD CONFLICTS HERE! **Newest version V0.85 Jan 22


Installation guide:

1. Download and install Cycrow's plugin manager located here:
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=218121

2. Open up the .spk file and install. Make sure the default directory that the plugin manager is pointing to is correct.

3. Start up a new game and ensure that under gameplay options, the conflicts AL plugin is enabled (under AL settings).

4. Go to pilot name change and change your pilot name to "Thereshallbewings"


**Tested mars on AI ships and it works fine now

Recommended Scripts:
Combat Mod for Terran Conflict Awesome script for making combat less laggy and more fun.

Incompatible Scripts: I strongly suggest NOT installing these scripts in tandem with conflicts.

Discouraged Scripts: These scripts may cause game slowdown

**Players that ally themselves with a race will be rewarded whenever that race takes over a new sector. The reward amount increases with the value of the sector.

**To take over a sector, just kill the equiptment docks/trading posts/shipyards. You MUST have at least 6+ ships in that sector to flip it. (No solo ship taking over a sector.. sorry its just the way the algorithm works).
**Updated to v0.85

What is Conflicts?
-----------------------
For those that don't care about reading:
This plugin creates dynamic military interaction across the X-universe map.
-Races have goals, they will try to take as much of the map as possible.
-Persistent economy and military power
-Realistic military forces and deployment strategies by the various races of the x-universe
-War and alliances will happen spontaneously.
-Empires are only allowed to attack sectors that are near their, or their allies border. During a war between races, it is advisable to stay AWAY from high value sectors (lots of stations/ships) on the border lines unless you want some serious combat.
-Players can set their own racial wars by using the conflicts menu in the custom commands menu.
-Players can ally themselves to any empire by using the conflicts menu.

-----------------

The X Universe is boring.

You kill a station, it respawns.

You take over a sector, it respawns.

You exterminate an entire race... they ignore you.

You just can't seem to really DO anything in the X universe. Everything feels fake and plastic.

Conflicts fixes this ^^.


http://filebeam.com/5e95a923e6b15dd05751221c6765dbd8 **old version V0.84 Dec 19th

CURRENT: 0.84--> 0.85 Changelog


Multi-language support added and italian translation.



Upcoming Ideas:
-Random pirate/khaak attacks on key sectors
-Random khaak MAJOR invasions (They can take over sectors)... perhaps all races ally against them?
-Deeper diplomacy model.
-Sending email rants to egosoft to fix their buggy game .


Resources used:
Textfile: 8700
Custom command slot: 1315

Old Patch Notes:

0.83b--> 0.83c Changelog

-Got rid of the annoying message spam that players have been reporting.

-*MOST LIKELY* fixed the freeze/crash problem that some people have been experiencing. I changed some of the movement algorithims and played a game with two and a half days of game time without any crashing/lockup so... i *believe* the crash has been fixed.

-Increased Xenon aggression and decreased chance for terran and other races to ally with the Xenon.

0.83 --> 0.83b Changelog

-0.83b fixed a major mistake in the sector targetting algorithm, please
redownload if you caught 0.83

-Pirate sectors will now have the full weight of an empires force brought to bear much more seldomly...

the empires feel they would be better off fighting their real enemies.
-Pirate sectors can change name in ownership, but will continue spawning pirates. These sectors may be claimed by a race, but the race will not expend extra military forces trying to hold these sectors.

-Message spam decreased and forced popups removed.

-Sectors will respawn their military structures under the ownership of the conquering race after some time. (Thanks GOD engine).

-Xenon have been buffed, and will now begin trying to take over the universe. (Hope the races learn howto work together).

-If an empire decides to ally the xenon (it COULD happen... mabye the empire is tired of all other races in the galaxy?) the empire will go red against ALL other factions and open war will be declared.[/url]

[Malakie]

Ok now this is my kind of action!

If everything works well and plays nice with other scripts and mods I use, this should become one of those plugins I cannot play without!

Tonight I start my dominance over the universe.... errr well maybe tomorrow night... have to put my kids to bed now!



Dam.... your ruining the moment! Guess I will have to wait until Sunday to dominate.... *sigh*. Guess I should read the fine print next time...

[ChrisCorr]

Sounds pretty ambitious...

So say that for example the Split assault a Boron sector and obliterate everything. Will they start to build their own stations, and will the destroyed Boron stations in that sector stay destroyed instead of respawning? And if the Argon are allies with the Boron, will they jump into the sector and help defend it?

How about details like the sector ownership. Will it be transfered to the victor of a sector takeover?

[Chroniss]

Can I make some recommendations? I don't know where you stand on this stuff but I'll just outline a few things. First I would say, for core sectors (Or just major home sectors), provide races with emergency military re-supplys if they are losing badly. It should be very hard to take a core sector from a race. Along those lines the attackers should know when to fall back if they are losing instead of suiciding their entire force.

For Xenon sectors, I noticed the Teladi took one in your movie. Their presence in the universe is pretty weak, so they should get calculated respawns to launch invasions to take back their lost sectors periodically. This should not apply to other sectors and they shouldn't use those forces to wreak havoc on the universe, just to re-secure their territory.

A feedback system for the player that tells them about current wars, not just which race is against which, but where the battles are happening, where the front lines are, etc. ThisisHarsh's Invasion warning script is a good example.

Just some suggestions I thought about, I'm sure there will be plenty of larger more imminent issues to deal with on release but in the long run I think you will need many many many balance checks to keep things interesting.

Anyways, I'm glad your doing this, so good luck and I will help test it when you release.

[Mavor]

ChrisCorr:

Yes they start to build their own stations. (right now, they are building limited things until i can hack apart the god engine)

If the argon are allies with the boron they will come assist them if they have any military forces not engaged at the time.

Sector ownership is based on a last man standing principle, where whoever eliminates the sector will have ownership transferred to them.

Chroniss:

Generally forces won't suicide

Additional xenon invasions beyond the god engine ones and the ones from patrol missions will still happen, but their sectors are going to be overrun pretty quickly.

If a xenon sector doesn't have any resources in it, then most of the races leave it alone for awile, but if it has things like asteroids and/or trade convoys going through it all the time, then they will usually overrun the xenon and take the sector.

Which is logical.

If the xenon have a sector with paltry defense sitting beside the core sector of a major race, I would think it reasonable that the race is going to try to take control of that sector as quickly as they can.

There is a feedback system in place that warns the player about sector ownership changes, as well as when larger then normal fleets have been rallied (and their invasion/defense goal).

Race balance is going to be difficult to code I think, since the default game AI doesn't know how to use a LOT of the ships properly, and their weapon loadouts/capabilities suck in some cases.

For instance the boron hydra corvette... the default game AI does NOT no how to fight with this thing >.< ... it's more useful to the AI as a cap ship ram lol.

[ChrisCorr]

Sounds pretty good!

So there is a way to change the behaviour of the engine in the matter of station respawns after all?

[bounty_hunter66]

Question: Why did the argon and boron fight eachother in the movie? Isnt this script based on the original x-universe alliances? Foundation Guild(Argon Boron) and Profit Guild(Paranid Split Teladi). And you should be able to join one of those alliances boron shouldnt attack argon and paranid shouldnt attack split.

Question2: are terran, xenon, pirates, khaak involved?

[Mavor]

xenon/pirates/khaak are not heavily modified. For now, the mod deals with races that currently own sectors.

Oh and the argon did something REALLY nasty to the boron queen. I won't say what it was.

haha

ChrisCorr:

Actually I wasn't able to change the default engine behavior, it was easier just to put in a script that counteracts the god engine respawning things.

It works just as well as if i changed the god engine behavior, but mabye takes an extra few cpu cycles? Doesn't really matter imo

[BlackRain]

Thanks, this is just what I wanted, excellent! Let me ask you, who are allies with each other?

[Orao]

Excuse me but where is the spk file ????

It is in the rar file with the trailer ????

Thank you.

[Mavor]

Release date is the 30th, i'm fixing something

[BlackRain]

Release date for the spk: Sunday, November 30th

[Andy86]

could you please insert a full list of changes to the game? i'm mainoly interested at

- change ownership
- changes on military patrols and how they work/call reinforcements
- the system you use to calculate a race military strenght
(mainly to eliminate double scripts with the same features)

seems a great work, i'm waiting for it

few suggestion: i remember back the days i played starfleet command... now i don't know if those values in that game were somewhat useful, but there where 2 values, military and economic strenght

in TC you could use that economic is the capability of the race to use it's own resources to build a fleet and the logistic system behind it, military strenght could be used as an index to value a race fleet, equipment, and so on (i don't know how to explain it better)
the first may relay on mines and raw materials fabs all around the races sectors, while the second may use the weapon fabs, shipyard, and so on, the military structures and the ships to represent a race strenght

and what about implement some kind of "race" psicology? for example, the split are aggressive and like fish... while the fishes are defensive, they almost never attack and if they do it usually is a reaction to an enemy offensive
argon and paranid are balanced, maybe the paranid may be more "fervent" and sometimes attack the argon (and the goner ), but usually they should hit yaki, the greatest threat near them
the argon may concentrate their efforts on xenon and pirates, and occasionally on splits and paranid
the teladi... well, they fight a war that can bring profitsss, so... maybe this could really relate to the "economic" value of an enemy race
the terran are paranoid, so they would concentrate on the xenon, occasionally on the kha'ak, and even on the other races, argon included

[AsterXiphos]

So can the player own sectors? I can see how that'd be a little difficult without alliances to protect you initially . . .

It'd be nice (can't think of how, though) if the sectors in the universe map would change colors so you could tell at a glance who owns what . . .

[BlackRain]

Andy, I think the whole point of this is to create conflicts. Already in the game egosoft has implemented what you are saying. The races do invasions, etc. but the boron hardly ever invade, split do a lot, etc. etc. I want the races to be very active in attacking and defending!

[Mavor]

I posted up the SPK. Please download it and play around, give me some feedback, and have fun. ^-^

Oh btw, be careful with the size multiplier... it increases the size of military fleets by that mulitiplier so.. if you put in a mulitplier of 4 or more you might crash your game (unless you are running a power rig).

[Chroniss]

OK just some quick stuff here. My main issues so far are

1) Theres too much conflict. I know its called conflicts and thats the point but it gets to a point where its just ridiculous.

2) No reasoning behind the racial wars, I would love to see the original race relations kept in tact at the beginning, that is Argon vs Paranid, Split vs Boron, Teladi helping whoever suits them or stay neutral. As it is its very random and chaotic.

3) Ships appearing and disappearing out of nowhere. Sometimes I'm attacking a ship and it just disappears, or tons of ships pop in randomly. This isn't like jumping in or out, its like ships being plopped in front of me, or instantly gone.

4) Sectors can be taken instantly even if they don't have a ship in the sector. This happens very often with the pirate sectors with no stations, they change hands instantly with nothing happening. Also the message that says From -Race- to -Race- is backwards, should be switched.

I'm just listing these off the top of my head, I'm sure theres many more but thats the ones I remember most, I will take notes next time I run a test.

You mention increasing the military fleets, as it's set at 1 by default. Is there a way to decrease this? I see battles with 5 or more M2's with dozens of fighters and thats just one of multiple fleets, so already the battles are huge.

Also, how does the alliance stuff work with the player, is this implemented yet? A player does not need to own sectors to be rich and powerful, and if they are enemies and helping other races without owning sectors, their enemies should still be able to strike at their empires in other races territory. I notice they only cared once I actually had sector control, but thats not a good determination of my capabilities against them.

I think this should be tied to how many "Conflict" ships you have killed. The more of that races conflict assets destroyed by the player, the greater the threat and response towards that player. Maybe start with small task forces to attack the players ship, and eventually it should reach a point where they will invade whatever race the players factories reside in to get to them.

[BlackRain]

Well, if the alliances are dynamic, I see no problem with that but I suppose it makes no sense for the Boron and Argon to ever fight but I see no reason why the paranid and split might not fight over something.

[Mavor]

Ah, at the start the sectors that have nothing in them will be claimed right away, this is because I have defined holding a sector as having a station/factory/whatever in it.

Racial wars have reasoning, you just don't see it. Just roleplay it, mabye a important diplomat was assasinated or something like that.

The ships will ignore you if you are only one or two ships. They don't care about a force that can't really hurt them (aka you, if you only have a single ship).

They disappear because they are using their jumpdrives. The jump graphic is crashing the game so i had to pull the actual graphic out, but rest assured, they are not disappearing, just moving to a more important sector where stuff is going on.

The instant sector takeover only happens at the very beginning of your map, because again, sectors with no station in it will be taken.


**Edit: I suppose I could add a way to change the alliances to favor different races... Thanks for the feedback

[Chroniss]

Well, if the alliances are dynamic, I see no problem with that but I suppose it makes no sense for the Boron and Argon to ever fight but I see no reason why the paranid and split might not fight over something.

I think the race relations system should be expanded. Attacking should lower your relation with all neutral races. Too many attacks and war is declared. Helping a race would raise relations, possibly donating resources or a sector to set relations to peaceful, things like that. I don't know the specifics on how it works now but I don't think its complex enough. There shouldn't be any hard set alliances or enemies, but I think in the beginning there should be more of a reluctance to go to war instead of massive nonstop galaxy war.

*Edit: I suppose I could add a way to change the alliances to favor different races... Thanks for the feedback

That would be a nice change in the short run , I know I would set most races to stop fighting, and leave paranid vs argon, split vs boron, maybe a little more mix-up. I just don't plan on saving a game the way it is, its just way too random and hectic.

Like I said, don't get the wrong idea about what I'm saying here. I understand that it should be more chaotic, but it gets to a point where its just nonstop attack in random sectors all over the place, I can't possibly keep track of anything.

Edit: Argon attacked hatikvahs or whatever. They came in with 7 M2's + a long list of smaller ships and took the sector. The moment it was taken 4 Paranid M2's appeared in the center with the Military Outpost. I wanted to see if they were fighting so I warped over (Was OOS) ...Game froze at a black screen loading all that

Thats my biggest issue right now, the fleets are just way to large for my computer to handle. That multiplier is still at default. Also, that sector had zero defense so all that military force was a bit unnecessary.