[MOD] Preallocated Resources for Station Building

[copperzinc]

My first mod. Please tell me if there's something wrong with it .

Facing an economy that is out of balance, the Terracorp has released their newest constructor ship design. The new CS-2O has improved over the original, allowing the stations to supply itself with production wares once the basic components are deployed. However, the new deployment kit is much larger and has to be hard-wired into the ship. This makes the ship construction much more expansive than the older generation of construction ships. Followed by the successful recent adoption of the new ship design, both the Heart of Albion faction as well as the TMC were overjoyed to see the return of the traditional station building workflow. Each faction has created their own construction ship varients: CS-2A and CS-2D.

Special Thanks To:
UniTrader: for giving guidance to how to build my mod.

http://www.nexusmods.com/xrebirth/mods/213/?

[Petroph]

What, no shiny pics of these fancy ships?

[copperzinc]

I haven't done any 3D modeling yet. All modifications to the design are internal. By internal I mean somewhere other than the cargo bay.

[Petroph]

I haven't done any 3D modeling yet. All modifications to the design are internal. By internal I mean somewhere other than the cargo bay.

Awwww Was so excited that someone actually put in some new ships already

[copperzinc]

The reason I made these changes is that I'm tired of the out of balance economy in DeVries. It takes ages for me to get sequence 1 of a station (URV Forge) started... Of course, there's savegame editing. But you got to edit it every time you build a station. I also wanted a more balanced way to get the stuff I need quickly, without resorting to "cheats".

[Kirmari]

sweet this is awesome

can you make one that has combat systems as well with price to compensate

[Bobucles]

So, building the forge doesn't require any materials anymore?

The problem with the devries mission is that you should be getting help from HoA, and parts resources from all the dead stations lying about.

[copperzinc]

So, building the forge doesn't require any materials anymore?

The problem with the devries mission is that you should be getting help from HoA, and parts resources from all the dead stations lying about.

Assuming you don't put any weapons on the station, it only needs 90 energy cells to start the first stage. You can find the energy cells at the first station you visit in DeVeries. (With lots of solar panels)

sweet this is awesome Very Happy Thumb up Star Star Star Star Star

Idea can you make one that has combat systems as well with price to compensate Razz

Thanks to the endorcement.

The problem with doing that is all capital ships would have "free weapons", since the control is on part production, not station production. Not sure if this is what you want.

I actually thought about a better way of doing it. I will change it during the thanksgiving day so it will:
1. No longer require E-cells
2. All the resources will be given to you at the time of construction. (Yes, even weapons!)

The code is slightly more complicated but I seem to have found a way to do it. Just didn't have time to update yet.

[Kirmari]

Sounds Cool cant wait this is one of the better ideas even there is a lots of good mods all ready


*The problem with doing that is all capital ships would have "free weapons", since the control is on part production, not station production. Not sure if this is what you want. :Rolling Eyes: *

I see no harm in it as long as prices follows

[copperzinc]

And it's done.

In this version, you will see the resource summary as if the mod wasn't enabled (with full cost listed). However, once you starts to unpack the construction ship, you should receive a ship message saying the resources are allocated to the station. At this time, you can check the construction ship: all required resources will be generated by this new construction kit. (Yes, including weapons)


It no longer requires energy cells to deploy the station.

Enjoy!

When I have time, the next thing I would do is to balance the economy: I will add different types of construction ship. Each construction ship will have different resource cost. Each construction ship can only build a certain types of stations, as per vanilla X3.

[Kirmari]

sweet cant wait to try it

[spartanheyho]

Debug text for your mod when running new free-play:

Code: Select all

[=ERROR=] md\npc_architect.xml(4): Error while parsing expression: Operator expected
* Input: Station Module Deployed
* Pos:           ^^^^^^

[copperzinc]

Thanks for telling me.

I haven't had time to play it yet. I'll have to wait until the next weekend (not this week's weekend) before I have time to upload a correction.

[KRM398]

here's a question...I am using the mod for the free resources and the first stage of the station is up. Now..the mission says to get a manager and drop him there and a specialist, got them but when I get to the station, there's no docking port icons at all, and though I think I found the one dock, clicking it makes no difference. The construction ship now has an icon out for a manager, and I have that so docked there, but it doesn't allow to unload him there, any idea whats going on? Because cant start the next stage until hes on board, but I did tell her to :take care of everything....does she get the manager too?

[copperzinc]

This happened for me in Vanilla as well. UI bug. Dock at a nearby station, undock, and click the dock icon on the platform again.

P.S.: if I remember correctly, the manager is for the station constructed, not for the constructor ship.

[Baconnaise]

here's a question...I am using the mod for the free resources and the first stage of the station is up. Now..the mission says to get a manager and drop him there and a specialist, got them but when I get to the station, there's no docking port icons at all, and though I think I found the one dock, clicking it makes no difference. The construction ship now has an icon out for a manager, and I have that so docked there, but it doesn't allow to unload him there, any idea whats going on? Because cant start the next stage until hes on board, but I did tell her to :take care of everything....does she get the manager too?

This is a problem I've noticed when you first build a station regardless if you're using the mod or not. THe icons for docking won't show up. What you can do is enter and then leave the highway or you can save the game and reload it and the icons should show up. Construction ships with an architect become attached to whatever station you have them build. Architects are another type of manager in the game. The reason Ego has it this way seems to be because you need the architect to upgrade the station/equip drones/ammo to the station. Think of it like a mobile shipyard and like these shipyards you need to add drones and the like to your capitals in much the same way. Once you assign a manager to a station though the construction might be inclined to do something else related to the station. The ships are universal storage meaning they make the best freighter in game so keep that in mind. You can even use construction vessels as freighters instead as long as you forgo putting an architect on there. Once you have the first stage complete the architect is usually found under the station's employee menu just like a manager etc. It's all sort of confusing as things aren't explained well nor is there much feedback from NPC's when something goes wrong or right. It's a a big part of why folks are having issues. There are of course better ways they could have handled it like moving the architect to the station and removing the ship or something else but it is what it is at the moment.

[KRM398]

Got it working, I had a manager on board even before the station was complete...it wouldn't allow that so sold him off got a new one and he went right in. Now thats done got the architect to start the second part...but now I need to gather everything myself. The mod is only good for the first part, I guess since now I'm pirating ships for materials for the wharf..lol

[Cactus_Punch]

I got a slight problem, when building a station using this mod once the initial build is done and I check the construction plan to build the next part it shows almost everything as done, then there is random parts and signs floating in space where I imagen the part that the game thinks are done should be, as I choose to build the 1 or 2 things that say they're not done (usually storage or targon tracers) the rest of the station starts to build, really this wouldnt be a problem as long as it was complete at the end by some stations have everything shown as done but random pieces missing D:

Edit: actually seems to just be a game bug, its happening without the mod

[Dreamwind]

Doesn't add crew correctly to ships, they don't appear in the ships interior, and also can cause the ones 'allocated' to be non removeable or replaceable.

This causes probs using the take me to, as there's no avatar to interact with.

[Baconnaise]

The avatars are a problem. Thankfully you can still use the take me to commands just fine without them.