[LIBRARY] ECS: Extended Communication System 2.5 [2009-12-10]

[Serial Kicked]

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Important Note: This is a library aimed to be used by other scripters. If you are an user there's no point in downloading this.
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ECS: Extended Communication System

ECS is a library that can be used by any script or plugin. It is intended to be easy to use and implement. It includes several functions to add the following features to your scripts without efforts:

+ An easy to use and configure News System (much like the old X2/X3R BBS, but better)
+ Various commands to display windows looking like standard communication dialogs
+ The ability to link one of your scripts to the ECS keyboard shortcut

ECS source code is heavily commented, so you should give it a look to get yourself familiarized with it. However it's not really necessary, reading the documentation should be enough.A demo script is also included, be sure to give a look at it to see how things should work here.

ECS 2.5 has been used by the Pirate Guild, Yaki Armada, Anarkis Defense System and Military Base Response revamp AL Plugins for X3TC to handle communications between the player and other objects. The previous 1.0 version was used in X3 Reunion by various scripts and plugins. By itself, ECS is perfectly stable when used correctly. It has no known bug or compatibility issues.


- Download ZIP Archive

Also, you can look at the online Online Documentation (also included in the archive)


The News System

Instead of sending popup after popup to the player to inform him about a sector changing hand (sector takeover scripts and plugins) or that a new mission is available somewhere or that a Xenon invasion is going on in a sector. Why not use a news system that the player can see whenever he wants, or whenever you want, according to your needs? This system, even if called "News" system, but it can be used for any kind of logging action.

Here's a screenshot taken from Pirate Guild:



ECS Keyboard Shortcut

As ECS was initially a script used to handle comms (and it still mostly is) an hotkey system was included, so that several scripts can share the same hotkey to handle communication with different factions. But it can be used for other purposes. Basically it allows you to call the script of your choice when the player targets an object that fills the parameters you've used in the registration procedure and press the ECS hotkey.


Custom Communication Dialogs

ECS also allows you to easily display dialogs that looks like the standard X3 communication dialogs. They feature the video usually displayed next to the message and optional sound sample. Here's a sample screenshot of what you will get using these commands:

[Serial Kicked]

Text ID used : 8511.

Languages Available : English, French, German.

[Gazz]

Small suggestion:

Actors reporting from unknown sectors are always annoying.
The NICE script displays something like
Unknown Sector (near Mines of Fortune)

It simply tracks to the nearest known sector so the player has a clue whereabouts the message is from.

Should probably expand this to
Unknown Sector (2 near Mines of Fortune)
to show how many sectors it is from there. TC has some chains of US.

The code isn't that tricky (only 1 loop I think...) and you're welcome to it.

[Robert Foster]

this is cool and all,
I just don't like the part where now "Mob Bosses" are in this universe.
I am not playing a Mob game.
Hence the example in this picture.
http://blackagenda.hostzi.com/screens/pgscreen6.jpg

[joelR]

[Gazz]

This. Is. A. Library.

It's not a script to "play". No mob bosses. No ships. No nothing.

[yospanky]

outstanding

[Robert Foster]

In the picture I provided, it says from "Bright Profit Mob Boss"
http://blackagenda.hostzi.com/screens/pgscreen6.jpg

this is why I mentioned it.
If there is none, then its all cool then.

[Serial Kicked]

@Gazz:

Indeed a good idea. I'm pretty sure i even did this kind of code in PG2 for X3R, but forgot to put it back in the X3TC releases. Thanks, will do.

I won't be able to do anything about the article's "content", this is the scripter's business, not mine. But however, the "From" part (like Pirate Base(Unknown Sector)) could still be parsed by ECS. I'll include this in next release.


@Robert Foster:

The screenshots come from my Pirate Guild plugin, which includes mob bosses and other things. ECS is a library used by PG, and probably all the other plugins i'll write.

Like i said:

[Robert Foster]

Ok, cool my bad then.

[Gofuno]

I can't download this script
Is it only my problem? Will it be fixd soon?

[Serial Kicked]

It works.

Why do you want to download it ? There's no point in downloading this if you're not a scripter yourself.

[utops]

M8,the server is not responding, it's dead.
Can you do something with this?
I need this for Military Base Response revamp.



Thx.

[Catra]

[MegaBurn]

Server might have issues. Downloaded three times, two with Firefox were too small at ~198kb. Third time with wget it ended prematurely at about 198kb but continued fine and tested ok.