[link removed]
I have made a piece of software that allows you to calculate the cost of your fleet in X3:Terran Conflict.
- either because you would want to take part in the X-Verse Fleet Fest and are limited by a cost ceiling for the entire fleet - ships, weapons, missiles and equipment - such as 250,000,000 Credits, or 500 Points.
- or because you want to see how much it has cost you the humongous fleet that you got, with no Player Headquarters to station it to (just kidding)
- or because you want to check on how much will cost you to outfit a single ship
- and for who knows what else.
So - let's have some links for starters, to see where this idea came from.
The original idea of Mutiny for what Fleet Fest should be about is here. A comprehensive reference for names and prices of all X-Universe tech and ware is here.
An Excel calculator can be found here (Excel 2007), and here (97-2003, but it's not guaranteed).
The technicalities of Fleet Fest procedures are here.
Before downloading the Calculator you may want to see its gorgeous interface. Not too much to be worried about, since it's been designed with ease of use in mind - not that simply adding and subtracting prices is something difficult, but anyway.
---- Click here to see it----
---- The actual calculator can be downloaded by clicking here (ZIP archive) ----
The program needs no installation, and when you want to get rid of it you just delete it. When I announce an update, you'll have to delete anything you've extracted from the ZIP archive and place the new version there.
In the ZIP archive there are essential files only:
- xfcalc.exe
- folder: datafiles
which contains the files
- xitems.xml
- xitems_de.xml
- xitems_it.xml
This folder needs to reside in the same folder with the executable (xfcalc.exe), so you can just create a folder for the Fleet Calculator and extract these files from the ZIP archive into it.
- - - - - - - - - -
Since the August 9, 2010 update, these files are not necessary anymore - they are embedded into the executable file, but you can still extract the XML file for your language. Please let me know if you encounter any problems with the program because of this. The old version, with the external XML files, is here (click)
As such, the following information applies to the old version, so ignore it if you use the version without the external XML files.
Subsequent updates since August 9, 2010 are significantly changed from the previous versions, so I strongly advise to use the latest version of the program, without the external XML files.
You can modify the contents of the XML files, NOT their names, as explained below. Be wary though - you must maintain its original structure.
The XML files hold all the info about ships and equipment - name, price, size (S, M, L, XL, ST) and ship class. You can modify them as per following rules.
A ship element of this file looks like this:
<ship id="SS_SH_P_M7_SPECIAL" name="Agamemnon" class="M7" price="38085593" size="XL" weapons="IRE,EBC,MDS,PAC,TBEAM,HEPT,CIG,IBL,FAA,PBE,ISR,FBL,PSG" missiles="mos,was,dra,sil,hor,dis,firef,thu,tem,hur,cyc,tor,typ,ft,aur,rgw,bel,ham,rap,firel,wil,win,ban" race="par" wslots="22" />
Mandatory attributes for each of the SHIP elements are:
id
name
class
price
size
weapons
missiles
race
wslots
The missile names in these attributes are the lowercase (that is, mosquito for Mosquito) first three letters in the name - for example, aur stands for Aurora. Exceptions to this rule are:
bp for Boarding Pod
firef for Firefly
firel for Firelance
flail for Flail Barrage Missile
ft for Firestorm Torpedo
hht for Hammer Heavy Torpedo
rgw for Remote Guided Warhead
tom for Tomahawk Heavy Missile
This ^ is useful to know if you plan to change the missile layout of a ship.
The races' names are the lowercase (that is, argon for Argon) first three letters in the name - for example, par stands for Paranid, gon stands for Goner, ota stands for OTAS and so on, and atf stands for, well, ATF.
A weapon element looks like this:
<weapon id="SS_LASER_PRG" name="PRG" price="149584" size="S" />
Mandatory attributes for each of the non-ship elements are:
id
name
price
size
Note that you can only use numbers for prices, with no commas:
1234567890
not
1,234,567,890
The ship classes that the program knows about are:
M0, M1, M2, M3, M4, M5, M6, M7, M8, TS, TP, TM, TL, ?
so if you write down another class, those ships will not get into the statistics. Unless you call me to hardcode that class into the calculator, of course.
You can always add and delete ships and tech from the lists the calculator operates with. So if you want to fly the Andromeda, or Serenity, or the Space Shuttle, youll just write their specifics down in the XML file, like this: under the <ships> parent element insert this one:
<ship id="id="SS_SH_TERRAN_TP" name="Serenity" class="TP" price="1234567890" size="XL" weapons="CIG,PAC" missiles="mos,aur,firef,firel,ft,typ,hht,flail,was" race="ter" wslots="4" />
What you can modify in the xitems*.xml files
- xitems.xml contains the items' English names
- xitems_de.xml contains the items' Deutsch (German) names
- xitems_it.xml contains the items's Italiano (Italian) names
YOU MAY: Modify the full names of ships, equipment and missiles.
For example, "Barracuda prototype" to "Barracuda Prototipo", "Flak Artillery Array" to "Flakartillerie", and "Thunderbolt" to "Donnerschlag".
However, until a future update, you have to tell me if you have changed the full names of missiles, to implement the changes in the program.
YOU MAY NOT: Modify any abbreviations.
For example, race names (bor, gon, par...), weapons (IRE, PAC, FAA...), missiles (thu, hur, mos...) must remain untouched, otherwise you'll render the program impossible to operate with correctly.
IMPORTANT NOTE
You have the option to revert to the "original" names, prices etc. for ships and equipment. If you have changed the contents of the xitems.xml file, they will not be reflected in the Squadron Builder, but those "original" values will be used instead.
So, if you have build a fleet from customized ships and equipment, it will be erased and you'll have to begin anew.
This functionality has been implemented for all players to work with the same prices, if you know what I mean (and if not, then this is why: I may change/reduce the price for a ship in the xitems.xml file and this would be plain cheating, got it now?
)Of course, when entering a competition, all players are assumed to have been entered it using the default values for anything, not that we can do much about it but anyway.
End of info about the pre-9 August, 2010 update
- - - - - - - - - -
You can switch between the Credits-based system to a Points-based one.
In the Credits-based system, everything (except some inconsequential wares such as Space fuel
) costs Credits.In the Points-based system, only the ships and weapons cost Points.
When you switch to this calculation system, you have the option to equip your ships with "free" weapons, but consider this if you enter a competition: not all contestants may be using this cheat-like approach...
---- OUTFITTING THE FLEET ----
The Squadron Builder helps you in outfitting any squadron you create with different layouts from each group to another if you like.
You can only load onto each ship in a squadron a number of weapons (of all kinds) no greater than the maximum number of weapon slots of that ship in its main battery and weapon turrets.
- You can choose to display only those ships that are in a certain class.
- You can choose to display only those ships that can use a certain weapon.
- You can choose to display only those ships that belong to a certain race or faction.
- You can add to a ship only those weapons and missiles that can be used by that ship, as per info gathered from x3tc.ru.
- You can create more than one squadron consisting of the same number of identical ships (for example, 4 squadrons of 10 Mamba Raiders each) and you can outfit each of this squadrons differently from the others.
- You can save your fleet to a file - both in XML, or TXT format.
- You can save your fleet to an XML file which you can use to embed in an XFF battle scripting session.
- You can load such an XML file into the program, to change it and save it again.
When you see red items in the list of wares - this means that you are not allowed to load onto the ship those items, and that the non-red items can be loaded, but there's no guarantee they will be actually mounted on the ship. Any item that is red means that its size is larger than the cargo size of the currently selected ship/squadron, and as such you cannot add it to the cargobay. For example, a 2 GJ shield will not be loaded onto a Discoverer.
Any equipment (weapons, missiles etc.) that you add to a squadron will be installed on each of the ships in that squadron, and the program tells you that.
To run the program you will need the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0, which you can get by clicking here for the x86 package and here for the x64 one.
If your PC is running any Windows version higher than 98, you can install this package with no problems, and it's very probable that the calculator will run without even having this low version of the .NET Framework installed manually by you (current version is 4.0).
Just try to launch the xfcalc.exe straight on - if it won't run, then you need the .NET 2.0.
About updates: basic functionality is already there, but several things will be added if you suggest them and I am able to fulfil your requests. Update announcements will be posted either in the title of the thread, or in the post immediately below this one.
Feedback on errors, and suggestions are all welcome.
Have fun with it - [link removed]
Last updated on: 2010, September 26
and "conflicted" with the Cerberus)
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