[Script] SatelliteDeploy v1.12 (18/01/2006)

[Bhruic]

Even though I think the way it works for the multiple sector patrol is ok. Lets assume the last message is SOMEWHERE in your huge message log and you don't want to search for it. All you have to do in order to find out which sectors are in the list is to stop the patrol ship and start the patrol again. A new log entry will appear with all the given sectors.

Quite easy if you ask me. Also, if you just give the sectors you want, everything else could be left out: Restriction to one race, or excluding of some races, home sector. Imho it would be the clearest and easiest way to do this.

But at least it's your mod and I just give ideas .

I'm willing to be convinced, but I must admit that I don't see why it would be the 'clearest and easiest'. Let's assume that you've got someone starting a relatively new game, and they want to hit up the 'small box' of starting sectors (ie, the immediate Argon and Boron sectors around Argon Prime). That's 22 sectors that they have to make a point of specifically marking. That's a lot of sectors. It's not such a chore for the Patrol script because you generally don't Patrol that big an area. But when deploying Satellites, you may want to cover a large number of sectors.

Doing that my way, you'd have to do 4 things - select a home sector (ie, Argon Prime), set a sector jump limit (6 sectors would work, or you could choose Herron's Nebula or The Hole and only need 5 sectors), and set the races to Argon and Boron. That seems a lot easier than manually selecting sectors 22 times. To me, anyway.

(btw, got the 8-point sat system working, handles both AdvSat and NavSat at the proper range from the 0 point )

Bh

[X-it]

btw, got the 8-point sat system working, handles both AdvSat and NavSat at the proper range from the 0 point

Great! When will you be able to share this with us?

[Bhruic]

Well, I'm redoing all of the script parts, as when I was making them, I was in C++ mode (if you looked at the script, the variable names probably gave that away ), so it wasn't as 'script efficient' as I'd have liked (at this point I've pretty much redone all of the parts). Plus I'm trying to build in the option(s) to limit based on sector/jumps/race/etc. So we'll see.

Right now I'm minorly stuck on the whole 'option' system, as I'm trying to use as few menu slots as possible, but I can't figure out how best to deal with the various 'selection' type things.

Bh

[CO. Dragon Corp]

Even though I think the way it works for the multiple sector patrol is ok. Lets assume the last message is SOMEWHERE in your huge message log and you don't want to search for it. All you have to do in order to find out which sectors are in the list is to stop the patrol ship and start the patrol again. A new log entry will appear with all the given sectors.

Quite easy if you ask me. Also, if you just give the sectors you want, everything else could be left out: Restriction to one race, or excluding of some races, home sector. Imho it would be the clearest and easiest way to do this.

But at least it's your mod and I just give ideas .

I'm willing to be convinced, but I must admit that I don't see why it would be the 'clearest and easiest'. Let's assume that you've got someone starting a relatively new game, and they want to hit up the 'small box' of starting sectors (ie, the immediate Argon and Boron sectors around Argon Prime). That's 22 sectors that they have to make a point of specifically marking. That's a lot of sectors. It's not such a chore for the Patrol script because you generally don't Patrol that big an area. But when deploying Satellites, you may want to cover a large number of sectors.

Doing that my way, you'd have to do 4 things - select a home sector (ie, Argon Prime), set a sector jump limit (6 sectors would work, or you could choose Herron's Nebula or The Hole and only need 5 sectors), and set the races to Argon and Boron. That seems a lot easier than manually selecting sectors 22 times. To me, anyway.

(btw, got the 8-point sat system working, handles both AdvSat and NavSat at the proper range from the 0 point )

Bh

Mhm...ok, thatmakes sense. Didn't think aboutthat some want to cover the universe with one ship, that would be some hell of a work to insert all the sectors to the toc...

"Congratulation, I've officially been pimp...ehrm...CONVINCED"

[Trevelvis]

You have to remember to set Pirates to enemy otherwise it gets blown up all the time going through Pirate sectors. It would be good also if in the orders it would say something apart from None.

Excellent scripts though

[X-it]

You have to remember to set Pirates to enemy otherwise it gets blown up all the time going through Pirate sectors.

Ah, that's why my Discos keep going through pirate sectors. Thanks!

[Bhruic]

Yeah, currently it will only check the sector owner and station owner (when buying satellites) to determine the 'safety' of a sector. A friendly sector full of Khaak, Xenon and Pirates is still considered 'safe'.

Oddly, I didn't lose any ships to Pirates, however, in my test runs, and I had it place sats in all the Pirate sectors. Maybe I hadn't irritated them enough lately...?

Bh

[CO. Dragon Corp]

I agree, pirate sectors should be left out. But potentially friendly sectors with pirates in it should be considered as save.....that's the risk of every businessman .

[Bhruic]

Well, hopefully, if I can get things to that point, you can set it to not place satellites in Pirate space, but still travel through them, if you consider them 'safe' (personally, I do, for a fast M5).

---

Right now I've got all the script elements in place, I just can't figure out how to present the options to the player.

For example: You have to select if you want Navigational Relay Satellites or Advanced Satellites. You have to select if you want a single satellite per sector, or the 8-satellite 'square'. You have to select if you want a 'home' sector (or not). You have to select the number of jumps from the home sector it can travel. And you have to be able to add/remove races from the 'placement' list.

That's a lot of options to try and deal with. Obviously I can't have a menu option for every single choice, so I have to come up with some way for the end user to input that information. Which is where I'm stuck.

Anyone have any great ideas

Bh

[X-it]

Well, hopefully, if I can get things to that point, you can set it to not place satellites in Pirate space, but still travel through them, if you consider them 'safe' (personally, I do, for a fast M5).

The only M5 that can carry satellites is the Discoverer, which is quite fast indeed, but still vulnerable. I've lost two in Mi Ton's Refuge. I've set the pirates as foe for it now though, so hopefully it won't try to enter any pirate sectors. I'll take a trip myself into that sector and get rid of the pirates and place a sat myself when I have time...

Right now I've got all the script elements in place, I just can't figure out how to present the options to the player.

For example: You have to select if you want Navigational Relay Satellites or Advanced Satellites. You have to select if you want a single satellite per sector, or the 8-satellite 'square'. You have to select if you want a 'home' sector (or not). You have to select the number of jumps from the home sector it can travel. And you have to be able to add/remove races from the 'placement' list.

That's a lot of options to try and deal with. Obviously I can't have a menu option for every single choice, so I have to come up with some way for the end user to input that information. Which is where I'm stuck.

Anyone have any great ideas

Bh

Personally I don't think all those options are needed, but how about:

- The 'home' sector is automatically set to the sector it is in when you give it the command. You could fly it there before issuing the command.

- Then select either adv sat or normal sat

- Then select placement type ( 1/8 )

- Then select max jumps (where 0 could mean no home sector specified)

Regarding adding removing races from the placement list, isn't this what the in-game friend/foe setting for the individual ship is for?

[Bhruic]

The only M5 that can carry satellites is the Discoverer, which is quite fast indeed, but still vulnerable. I've lost two in Mi Ton's Refuge. I've set the pirates as foe for it now though, so hopefully it won't try to enter any pirate sectors. I'll take a trip myself into that sector and get rid of the pirates and place a sat myself when I have time...

Ah, I haven't explored there yet in the game I'm testing with, so haven't had any experience with the sector.

- The 'home' sector is automatically set to the sector it is in when you give it the command. You could fly it there before issuing the command.

Well, by default, I don't want it to have a home sector. I know I won't use that option. I've mainly added it because others seemed interested in having the ability to limit the satellite placement to a certain segment of sectors.

But you're right, I could just force a home sector selection, but not use it if jumps is set to 0.

Regarding adding removing races from the placement list, isn't this what the in-game friend/foe setting for the individual ship is for?

The friend/foe setting will not only prevent it from placing satellites in sectors owned by that race, it will prevent it from travelling through them at all. The 'races' list will not prevent travel through a sector owned by the race, it just won't try and place a satellite in their sectors.

Bh

[X-it]

Those 3 pirate sectors between Ceo's Doubt and Cardinal's Domain are heavily infested indeed, and pirates keep respawning all the time. The only safe way to get to the Split sectors south of there is to use the 'supergates'.

The friend/foe setting will not only prevent it from placing satellites in sectors owned by that race, it will prevent it from travelling through them at all. The 'races' list will not prevent travel through a sector owned by the race, it just won't try and place a satellite in their sectors.

Ah I see. Well I'm not sure this is necessary to implement if it means lots of work. Any particular reason it should not drop satellites in any races' sectors?

Anyway thanks again for bringing us this great script! I think my deplyoment craft has placed adv sats in all sectors now, as it just sits idle when I give the command. Eagerly awaiting the 8 sat feature...

[Trevelvis]

The only M5 that can carry satellites is the Discoverer

I am using a Boron Mako for satellite deploy as it quite fast and carrys more , I have only lost one but since I set pirates to enemy havent lost any.

[Bhruic]

Those 3 pirate sectors between Ceo's Doubt and Cardinal's Domain are heavily infested indeed, and pirates keep respawning all the time. The only safe way to get to the Split sectors south of there is to use the 'supergates'.

Well, I'm going to try setting the deployer on 'explore=1', which will basically have it try and place sats in every friendly sector (ie, unexplored sectors as well), and I'll see how long it lives.

Ah I see. Well I'm not sure this is necessary to implement if it means lots of work. Any particular reason it should not drop satellites in any races' sectors?

Anyway thanks again for bringing us this great script! I think my deplyoment craft has placed adv sats in all sectors now, as it just sits idle when I give the command. Eagerly awaiting the 8 sat feature...

It was a requested feature - and I can see the point. Early on, satellites are fairly pricey, so if you just want to set up a system so you can use best buy/sell, you may not want to use the money hitting up every sector. I often restrict myself to the starting 'square' of Argon/Boron, for example.

---

Anyway, I'm almost done (other than the race thing, which isn't really 'hard', just going to take a bit more time). Right now I'm just finalizing the error reporting system. I want to avoid hitting the player up with lots of messages, if I can help it, so I'm not sure exactly what I'll end up with (for example, once it's done deploying, I don't want it sending "I'm bored!" messages to me every 10 minutes while it waits for a sat to get destroyed).

Bh

[X-it]

Thanks for the update, Bh, and I can indeed see the benefits of excluding some races early on in the game.

Cheers.

[Bhruic]

Well, almost done. At this point I'm just looking for bugs. I'm not going to include the 'race limiter' in this version, because I haven't finalized how it will work. But the rest of it is working decently.

Hopefully, barring any major bugs, I can release something in a few hours time.

Bh

[CO. Dragon Corp]

Well, almost done. At this point I'm just looking for bugs. I'm not going to include the 'race limiter' in this version, because I haven't finalized how it will work. But the rest of it is working decently.

Hopefully, barring any major bugs, I can release something in a few hours time.

Bh

Great, I'm looking forward to it...

[Bhruic]

I had to go and mention bugs, didn't I.

Functionally it works right now, but there are a couple bugs to track down. May take a little longer to catch, as the debugging system is somewhat less than robust.

I'm still solid on 'soon' however.

Bh

[EidolonsFury]

I hate all those itchy, crawly bugs. Especially the ones that show up when you think everything is cool, and it's time to relax. I remember this one time, years ago, I'm sitting on the couch, watching some TV. Sitting there, relaxing, drinking a nice glass of tea. Then, out the corner of my eye, I think I see something, so I turn my head, and spend a minute or two to focus my attention. There, a couple feet away from me, on top of the back part of the couch, is this HUGE cockroach.

Nasty lil bugger, surprised me a bit it did. It was so big, I wasn't right sure if I wanted to kill it, or just slap it silly til it went elsewhere. I forget what I decided to grab to smash that sucka with. I just remember I wanted something solid, as those things can be quite fast. It's a horrid feeling to seem to stun the creature, only to have it dart off in a panic and run up your shoulder...then gets onto your neck....eww

Creepy, nasty lil buggers. Hate those unexpected bugs. Bugs in code can be just as annoying too.

[Bhruic]

Yeah, the creepy, crawly kind are annoying as well. I really hate it when I'm going to the bathroom at night, turn on the washroom light, and something starts crawling away. I really don't want to know what it is, but the fact that something is there freaks me out.

On the coding front (;)), I just need to get the darn 'ship.sync' to work properly. Well, it works properly (it's the function that prevents 2 ships from trying to place satellites in the same sector, or go to the same station to get satellites). But for some reason it seems to 'drop' ships under some indetermined circumstance. So basically the ship.sync function doesn't know the ship exists, so ships go back to going to the same spot.

Once I can nail that one down, I should be good.

Bh