[Plugin]Station Friendly Fire Interface Hotkey 1.1 23/9/09

[LV]

Version 1.1 23/9/09


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RAR Download unpacked

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EXE Installer



Description

I've had this on my system for a long time but was trying to get ships to turn neutral again and have decided to give up the ghost with that now

I've removed most ships code and am left with a very small plugin that handles hostile stations. I've released it as i'm not aware of a stand alone script for FF station issues although some other scripts do also have this option.

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This plugin runs via the AL Plugin menu and is set to on by default.

How To Use AL Plugins

Once installed you will be given a hotkey to hail stations to apologise for friendly fire.

As long as the target station is hostile and within 5k of your ship (and targeted) you can apologise and the station will revert to a neutral status.

Every station allows you 3 indiscretions before a fee is required which increases with each subsequent apology.

In addition if you happen to be in the middle of an invasion mission or sector where there is a Khaak or Xenon Capital class ship the station will assume that the fire was due to you taking on these enemy ships and revert itself to neutral without charging you.

Only stations thats shields are above 70% will allow any apologies.

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It's that simple, Enjoy


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Install/Uninstall

Simply use the exe and install it to your main x3 directory or manually with the rar.

Load and check the plugin is set to on not off

uninstall

turn the plugin off, leave for 5 mins, remove the plugin.


Tech data

t 8857
No other commands/wares used.

[Jaga_Telesin]

Sounds fairly handy, since a stray shot even while defending said station can turn them hostile. I always had a problem getting immersed in that kind of reaction as a player. Will give this a shot in my next game(s) this week.

Couple of suggestions:

• Allow the apology from a bit farther away. Sometimes in a larger ship (Xenon K for example) it is difficult or dangerous to get close to a station. That goes double for Terran stations that occupy large areas.
• Allow apologies when shields are 50% or higher. Sometimes it is possible during an invasion for a smaller station to take a beating, and if you hit it even once while trying to destroy it's attacker, you too are considered hostile. I'm just guessing at this one, since it would take concentrated fire to get a station down under 70%, but only a few hits to turn it red.

Additional suggestion outside the obvious - consider removing the hotkey idea in favor of something more immersive. Example: a station turns red to you during a battle, you comm it and select their relations manager (out of the comm menu list of people), and apologize to them via the comm interface. The reason I suggest this is that there are already far too many scripts/mods with hotkey bindings. It would be nice to see one integrated in an immersive way. This method would also allow you to remove the distance restriction, by changing it to the comm distance by default.

[apricotslice]

I tend to agree with the suggestions.

5km is way too close. Most people who need this will be flying capital ships, and 5km from a station is just way too close. I'd suggest 20km myself, which is where I changed docking distance to, since I fly an M2 all the time now.

While the percentage of shields may seem balanced, I agree that if a KM2 has been beating on the station and your single ppc hit puts it below the percentage for not allowing the apology, thats grossly unfair. Its only fair if the reason why the shields are that low is that that the player did all the hitting.

However, the problem also exists that if your turrents are set to attack enemies, then as soon as the station turns red, it will get pounded on further before you can turn the turrents off, assuming your still in range.

Since this is essentially a game bug (imo), the test should be that your in combat with hostiles to the station, and the station should simply be turned neutral if hit while combat with an enemy is ongoing.

Once the sector is clear of enemy, if the player keeps hitting the station then thats the players lookout.

The whole apology business is a bandaid over the fact that stations turn red when they shouldnt. So I dont see the need for the apology when its quite obvious the player is saving the station.

I'd rather the script recognise that combat with an enemy is in progress and ensure the station never turns red long enough to cause any problem to the player.

Stations after all have huge sheilding, and the occasional freindly fire hits shouldnt even be an issue for them.

[LV]

edit. changed


shield threshold now 50%

if a xenon or khaak capital class ship is found the hotkey will run a monitor script on all stations in the sector that terminates if the playership leaves the sector or the enemy ship is killed.

while it's running the station will auto revert to neutral every 3 seconds

when running the hotkey in what i'll call support mode the audio will start with "registration confirmed" so you know it's running.


updated to 1.1 via first post links

[virgil64]

Hi there,

I was actually trying to find a script to turn Capital Ships neutral, but i'm suspecting that it what you were referring to in your opening statement.

I have had an Argon, (Titan I think), turn hostile randomly and it is creating havoc with any of my ships passing in range. Can I assume from your statement that this cannot be scripted back to neutral.

On a personal note, as someone who has played through the X series, I have used your scripts on and off over the years, so thank you for your efforts

[LV]

FF for ships is hit and miss and i pushed my force powers to the max trying to get them back.

If there's a fix for making all ships neutral it's beyond me

[nman]

I like this script, it works well for not having a station launch fighters.
But why only Xenon/Kha'ak capitals? Capitals aren't so hard to miss, so hitting a station isn't as easy with them. The small, agile ships are where I get all my FF damage from. Pirates are another nuisance who like to fly riiiiiiiight up into a station and start blasting away in their M3/4/5's. Would it be possible to just set it to any enemy ship within, say, 10KM prevents a station from getting pissed at you? Because right now, even if I set a station back to neutral, I still lose massive amounts of race rep.


Actually, I've been taking missions only in relatively empty sectors because one bad shot can undo 4 missions' worth of rep.

[senor135]

I agree with nman, im getting into to trouble with stations if I graze them once or twice with my tiny little pea shooters, while trying to hit the faster fighter class targets.

i havent actually gotten into fights with any enemy capitals around stations yet so i cant comment on that specifically.

i think it would be more useful to have the station automatically forgive the player if there are hostiles within 10km, at least until a certain damage percent caused by the player.

[LV]

i'll take a look, no promises though, if this does not pop back up in a week pester me again

[Aven Valkyr]

has this script been modified yet? I believe the change requests are fairly numerous but should take you just a few minutes to change. The change requests are as follows:

1) Change the distance for apologies to 20km
2) Provide an auto-forgive function for smaller ships who are within 5 - 10K as long as there are enemies within that distance of the station
3) Change the forgivable shield damage amount to 50%

[Delphis]

Download links dead? :/ .. looked pretty helpful that script