Script Suggestion: Terrorism!

NKVD · Post by **NKVD** » Fri, 4. Nov 05, 13:30

First off, I haven't seen any Player vs. Station action yet, but I suspect that station shields have been boosted rather dramatically, making it impossible to take a station down with just a Nova and a stack of Hornet missiles.

If that is true, then I was thinking of being able to initialise terrorist/sabotage missions. For instance, you could order such missions from your factory (or even from your HQ, to give it some purpose). Such missions would cost considerable amounts of money, but they could be useful in taking out NPC stations without having to attack them yourself. If successful, a sabotage mission would destroy a targeted space station with no standing loss. If failed, the terrorists will still take your money, but there will be a significant chance of you suffering massive standing loss with all races (since not only are you attacking a station, but you are also engaging the services of a terrorist organisation).

I could never code such a script, but I do know that there are scripting geniuses browsing this forum, so perhaps one of them will pick up on my idea and implement something like it.

Post by **Cycrow** » Fri, 4. Nov 05, 13:42

so you pay some terorits to blow up a given stations, which gives u a random chance if it working ?

what about instead of them jsut blowing up the stations, they could send a force of ships to attempt to take down the station so you paying pirates to attempt to destory a station
and then that way you can take out the competition without losing rank points, or you can join in with the attack to make it more sucessful

you could have differnet level of payments, the more money, the more ships they will send in

JonusITA · Post by **JonusITA** » Fri, 4. Nov 05, 13:55

those are like mercenaires, i think that terrorists should be a sort of pirate-like race (similar to the yaki i think), but more aggressive and in war with a specific race

maybe some split separatists wanna strike boron and argon, altrough the offical position of split governement is to be in a "diseased peace" with the argons...

or something similar, i see the terrorist as an indipendent faction, with minimal intercaction with the player

NKVD · Post by **NKVD** » Fri, 4. Nov 05, 13:56

Hmm, something along those lines could work as well - although, to be honest, I am somewhat concerned about the OOC effect. I would hate to spend millions of credits on organising a small pirate fleet that gets ripped to pieces by the NPC patrols.

The idea that you should be able to pay extra money to increase your chance of success is a good one, though.

EDIT: Basically, I just feel that there should be a way of destroying NPC stations without losing your standing with the race. You could get away with blowing half the X-Universe away in X2, because pirates were plentiful and, at any rate, if you were an industrialist, your standing with the faction was not overly important, so long as you could dock with its stations. In X3, however, ranks play a much bigger role.

nuclear_eclipse · Post by **nuclear_eclipse** » Fri, 4. Nov 05, 15:50

I think I just might have a go at this tonight. I believe I will do it as a set of 'Headquarters' scripts I have been thinking over, allowing the player to designate a station as his HQ, which will then allow for extra goodies to happen...

Post by **Cycrow** » Fri, 4. Nov 05, 15:56

well hiring these pirates to attack wont effect you as you just pay a set free what ever wil lbe fair and the pirate attacks and ships are all organised automatically without involvement fro mthe player, so u jsut pay them and hope they can destroy the base

but it gives you the chance to actaully watch the battle unfold if u fly to the sector and watch you but ur in no way linked to there actions

if i find sometime after finishing my script, i might give this a go and c what i can come up with

Red Spot · Post by **Red Spot** » Fri, 4. Nov 05, 16:27

Like the idea .. prob. would do it something like this ..

knowing we now can have a player make a choice in scripts ..

why not ask him(her) what kinda mercs he(she) wants to hire ..

like for instance ..

hire mercs .. select command .. select target ..

now you get some options ..

-hire a merc fighter-wing
-hire a merc fighter-wing with lead M6
-etc etc ..

and give 5 or 6 or so options .. that each have their price ..
but as forces get larger the price goes up .. but with it ofcourse also the chance off succes ..

this way the sector the target is in wright away makes a diff.

(just think about the diff. in taking out a target in Argon prime or any pirate controlled sectors)

now theres still one thing ..
should they start out as enemy to [race] or should they become so by attacking the target ..??

G

NKVD · Post by **NKVD** » Fri, 4. Nov 05, 17:54

I'd say they should start as neutrals and turn enemy as they attack the station. Otherwise, certain sectors would be nigh on invulenrable (e.g., an attack in Argon Prime would be impossible). On the other hand, it is perfectly realistic to imagine a covert strike forcing assembling in a sector, attacking the target and doing their best to get the hell out of there before the defenders have a chance to organise themselves.

For that reason, I'm guessing that mercenaries would satisfy this role better than pirates, since it would make more sense to only have them turn hostile once they attack the station.

Also, with regards to the price of such service, I feel that it should be prohibitive enough so that there's still some use for battleships and cruisers as "station killers."

In fact, here's another idea - a HQ script that lets you fix some of your damaged reputation for a steep fee. This way, major merchant princes will still be able to attack a station in their own battleship, but a generous donation to the Starving Children of Argon Foundation would help fix the resulting notoriety.

nuclear_eclipse · Post by **nuclear_eclipse** » Fri, 4. Nov 05, 18:06

NKVD wrote:In fact, here's another idea - a HQ script that lets you fix some of your damaged reputation for a steep fee. This way, major merchant princes will still be able to attack a station in their own battleship, but a generous donation to the Starving Children of Argon Foundation would help fix the resulting notoriety.

Post this in my HQ thread, I like that idea a lot, and I think I might put it in.

JonusITA · Post by **JonusITA** » Fri, 4. Nov 05, 19:33

i think that terrorists, pirates, etc... sould'nt have bigger fleet because biggest race don't permit this, altrough the more powerful organization can have some m6 in the universe

i hope these pirates won't have m2, m1, etc...

maybe they can "hack" the shield of a ship and make some direct hit to the hull, to increase their chance to not be annhilated by the defending npc fleet, without using too much shipa and too bigger ones

and some pirate could refuse to attack heavly guarded sectors...

Red Spot · Post by **Red Spot** » Fri, 4. Nov 05, 20:22

another side-idea ..

make em so they can take the order collect payment and run .. not doing a thing .. so you'd be left with a choise to get your money back or not ..

might be fun ..

G

Post by **Cycrow** » Fri, 4. Nov 05, 22:12

been working on the mercenary script for abit now and hopefully ill have the first version done by tommorow

heres a few pics so far
http://ircwhore.co.uk/x3/scripts/merc/station1.jpg
http://ircwhore.co.uk/x3/scripts/merc/station2.jpg

And this is what happens when u set them lose in argon prime

http://ircwhore.co.uk/x3/scripts/merc/ship1.jpg
http://ircwhore.co.uk/x3/scripts/merc/ship2.jpg
http://ircwhore.co.uk/x3/scripts/merc/ship3.jpg

Post by **Cycrow** » Sat, 5. Nov 05, 02:27

Ok finished off the first part for anyone who would like to test it

The script will load up automatically when u load a game so just have the script editor enabled and unpack the files to the x3 directory

Rar Archive
http://ircwhore.co.uk/x3/scripts/merc/Merc-X3.rar

Self Extracting Exe
http://ircwhore.co.uk/x3/scripts/merc/Merc-X3.exe

To use it, you just goto one of ur own stations and in the stations commands, select Order Mercenaries, then select the station to attack
You will receive a message quote the price and available options, once you use, the attack will begin
they will spawn 1 sector out and travel to the station

NKVD · Post by **NKVD** » Sat, 5. Nov 05, 11:05

Alright, I'm about to download and test it - will see how it works!

Yes, it works fine - I did not have the funds to actually run the script, but, so far, it activates without any problems and even tells me that I don't have enough money to attack a station.

Post by **Cycrow** » Sat, 5. Nov 05, 12:20

thats good, you just need to get the funds now so u can use it
or script in some money like i did to test it

madcaddie · Post by **madcaddie** » Mon, 7. Nov 05, 04:30

Why not have both pirates and mercs availible for hire? The pirates being cheaper, hostile from the start and with a chance to drop your reputation? The mercs on the other hand very expensive almost gareenteed to succeed and only turning hostile once they are in postion to attack the target or using Jump drives to get in range could see this working well in very heavly defended sectors. The mercs being professionals will never divulge your involment as their employer.

MrDigital · Post by **MrDigital** » Mon, 7. Nov 05, 06:42

The Merc script posted a couple back does work. I didn't have the funds (only 400k) but I went ahead and added some to do the Full Fleet attack and it successfully took out the station I targeted in Home of Light. It also cleaned up the local M5 population

. Quite a sight to behold though, was pretty cool.

Then I loaded without saving my game cause I was just testing.

Post by **Cycrow** » Mon, 7. Nov 05, 14:38

i was testing it in argon prme and usually a huge battle breaks out, a few times i actually lost all the mercenaries, the forces in argon prime can be too strong

The pirate idea is quite good, i think i might add something like that into it

i should have a new version of the script too with a few things improves like not becoming a target until they attack and using differnet ships now
and they will be differnet races too rather than just the goners

sbart_uk · Post by **sbart_uk** » Mon, 7. Nov 05, 14:58

this is a great idea downloading to test this out now

Post by **Cycrow** » Mon, 7. Nov 05, 17:10

ok i've finished the new version and given it, its own thread here
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=99155