AL-Plugin (DE+EN): Bounty Hunter

[mq]

I developed this AL Plugin for the german community, but maybe someone is here who like it, too.
Sorry for my englisch, but you may send me corrections for the next release
And here it is:

AL Plugin: Bountyhunters v2


With this plugin every now and then you will come across some bounty hunters from different clients that desire nothing more than to end your life ("There is no escape. Better surrender now!"). These bounty hunters are of different origins, i.e. there are not only Mandalays, Bayamons and Orinocos, but all ships of all races except Xenon and Khaak. Now you can fight against other enemies without losing rank or search for BBS bounty hunter missions.


Features:
- At random intervals your enemies will send bounty hunters.
- If you attack a station, they may pay some bounty hunters to kill you.
- Number and strength of the enemies depends on your strongest ship in the current sector.
- Different Races, not only the four default ones.
- Different messages.


Updates:
- from now on there are versionnumbers
- captured enemies are now really captured
- the intervall has changed again to 1-10 hours
- captured enemies will no more attack you
- The bounty hunters are now flying in formation (or something like that).
- The bounty hunters will appear as a normal race until they are close to you.
- A station will only send bounty hunters 33% of the time.
- The interval of appearing is from 20-120 minutes to 240-480 minutes because:
1. To keep realism and gameplay.
2. Not to compete with other (future) plugins.
- The enemy force for M3s is weaker, for M6 and M2 stronger.
- The risk that the enemies are equipped with Ion Ds and PSGs is noticeable lower.
- If the bounty hunters are sent from a specific race or station, they are all of the same race. If they sent from the pirates, they are mixed races.
- Bounty hunters still attack you if changing your ship.
- In the AL Plugin options there are two options: attacking and defending bounty hunters.
- If you attack a station, they may pay some bounty hunters to kill you.
- Other races will pay bounty hunters, too, if you are their enemy (or they are yours).
- From now on one group of bounty hunters is mixed in its origins.
- Problem fixed. Sometimes Mammoths appeared when an M3 was the strongest ship.
- The name of the plugin is from on "bountyhunters"
- The plugin name is now read from the textfile.
- From now on in English and German
- All lines in code are commented, unfortunately at the moment only in German.
- Protection of beginners, the first enemies will appear no sooner than 3 hours for a new game.
- All loops are now equipped with waits, so the script doesn't claim all cpu time.
- Depending on the strongest ship now the number of enemies varies.
- Some of the enemies are now equipped with IDs and PSGs.
- Spawning mechanism improved.
- No more freighters as enemy.
- An error which wrote some numbers into your logbook is fixed (forgotten some trace )
- Equipment of the enemies is improved.
- Improvement of the attacking loop, they now attack more precisely and follow you in all directions
- The strength of the enemies now depends from your strongest ship in the current sector, no longer from your current ship.
- Layout of the messages improved.


Installation:
Simply copy both the folders "t" and "scripts" into your X2 directory (reload (Save-)game).
When you update the script, overwrite ALL files, reload (Save-)game and maybe you should disable the plugin and enable it again.


Planned:
- Longer and Improvement of messages.
- Better calculation of the enemies (for example depending on number and type of player-owned ships in the current sector, maybe depending on the rank, too).
- Well, no idea, all things that make the script more diversified and realistic.


Files:
t/494958.xml
t/444958.xml
scripts/al.mq.bounty.enemyrace.xml
scripts/al.mq.PirateAttack.main.xml
scripts/al.mq.PirateAttack.timer.xml
scripts/al.mq.protector.main.xml
scripts/al.mq.protector.timer.xml
scripts/al.plugin.mq.PirateAttack.xml
scripts/lib.mq.getBiggestSecShip.xml
scripts/lib.mq.getBigPSecShip.xml
scripts/lib.mq.getRaceRelation.xml
scripts/lib.mq.getRaceShip.xml
scripts/lib.mq.installUpgrades.xml
scripts/lib.mq.returnRaceFromNumber.xml
scripts/lib.mq.turretWeaponPossible.xml
scripts/ship.mq.autoAttackPlayer.xml
scripts/x2script.xsl


Author: mq, www.stoerbild.net
22. August 2004

If you try it, I would be glad if you can check the following things:

• my englisch
• Do the enemies appear too often / too rarely
• Do the enmies always attack
• Are the enemies too strong / too weak
• Do the messages appear correctly

And I don´t object if you send me better and/or longer messages.

Download:
[edited 27. Februar 2007]
http://www.stoerbild.net -> goto downloads

Until the plugin is finished, there will be a dev-extension for the plugin:

Dev-Extension for Bountyhunter

Having this extension installed, traces will be written into the logbook that can be posted in the forum (screenshot), when an error occurs.
And everytime you activate Bountyhunter plugin, it will directly be started.

Installation:
Just copy all files into x2 folder.

How to use:
Just enable Bountyhunter trace in the AL menu.

mq

Download:
[edit vom 27. Februar 2007] -> link deleted

Well, I think that´s it, have fun

greets,
mq

//edit
This project is discontinued and there is no support

[The_Abyss]

Looks fantastic. Will give it a shot soon.

[Brodie]

This is a great idea!!!!
I wont be installing it though unless it gets Signed (yes i know im a big chicken!) Is there any chance that it may get Signed or do only Egosoft created mods/scripts get Signed???

[Brodie]

MQ, submit your script to be signed pleeease!!!!!!!
I would love to have this in my game!!
Brodie

p.s. Your english is great

[mq]

I think for playing with the idead of being signed its much to less tested, but I don´t have anything to say against signing

greets,
mq

[edit]

p.s. Your english is great

you are kidding!

[Brodie]

Submit it, submit it now!!!!!

[mq]

Hm....
Lets see how signing works...
But I really think that first of all its very important that the balance is being tested, the enemies´s strength were only a long guess
And I thought that I should improve one or two things (as you can see under "planned")

greets,
mq

[Andypocalypse]

this looks ace


@ brodie everyone loves magical trevor .....

[argharg]

again, uber... Plz sign this script asap as well as the imperal duel mission...

[frymaster]

I think this could have a very goof chance of being signed, it's a brilliant example of what the AL system was put in for:

-adds colour to the game
-can be deactivated if the player wants to

so I assume it's just a case of us all testing and giving feedback on balance issues and then making mq submit it

[Dastardly]

I truly, truly hope that this script gets signed. In fact, these are exactly the kind of scripts that need signing the most, IMO.

Great work, mq!!

[smiley]

Please can you go through the installation again for me. I have clicked on your download link and this has placed a file called 'PiratAttackv1.rar' in my X2 folder. Do I need to extract the 't' and 'scripts' folders from this 'rar' file? If so, how?

And just out of interest, the ships that attack you in this plugin . . . do they show up as enemies as soon as they get into sensor range, or do they keep this secret until they actually attack you? I would prefer the latter, rather than making them too obvious.

By the way, mq, your english is pretty good. You do make some mistakes, but they can just be written of as typos like the rest of us.

Smiley

[carran]

Please can you go through the installation again for me. I have clicked on your download link and this has placed a file called 'PiratAttackv1.rar' in my X2 folder. Do I need to extract the 't' and 'scripts' folders from this 'rar' file? If so, how?

And just out of interest, the ships that attack you in this plugin . . . do they show up as enemies as soon as they get into sensor range, or do they keep this secret until they actually attack you? I would prefer the latter, rather than making them too obvious.

By the way, mq, your english is pretty good. You do make some mistakes, but they can just be written of as typos like the rest of us.

Smiley

You need WinRAR http://www.rarlab.com/ to extract the files

[Orillion]

This mission/script works for people whit the English version whit out any problem right ?

[marklaverty]

I haven't tried this yet (will do tonight) but it looks great!

Just a couple of thoughts...

Hows about making it so it only 'kicks in' when your rating falls below a certain point with pirates?

Even better hows about setting it up so if you rating falls below a certain point with any race that race will start to send ships after you?????

that would be really cool

[SunFire]

I really like this!

[mq]

Hi you all,
thanks for the great feedback

@smiley: Did you get the installation running? Just download Winrar from the url above and extract all files into the x2 folder.

@Orillion: Yes, they should. I haven´t tested it iwth the english version because I don´t want to install the game twice (yes, I have the englisch one, too ), but it should work without any problem.

I haven't tried this yet (will do tonight) but it looks great!

Just a couple of thoughts...

Hows about making it so it only 'kicks in' when your rating falls below a certain point with pirates?

Even better hows about setting it up so if you rating falls below a certain point with any race that race will start to send ships after you?????

that would be really cool

These are very good ideas, I´ll tink about it in the next version, it shouldn´t be any bigger problem

greets,
mq

[marklaverty]

Cool

EDIT:

I'v though about this some more and this would be great if it could be done...!

Having the races behave aggressively would add LOADS to the game.

For example...imagine building up a fleet and attacking one of the races, then as long as they have a shipyard left, them sending a fleet to stop you!

Just that on its own would be a HUGE improvement.

Please please please include this (<-begging!)

[StevesX2]

This sounds really cool but I have one question.

Can you just copy the files to the correct locations and it works

or do I have to unlock the script editor to use this?


Thanks

[mq]

Unfortunately until it gets signed (if it gets signed) you have to activate the script editor

Greets,
mq