Thraxwhirl,
That's a great idea. It had not occurred to me to have all ships in a sector capable of bailing, or I would have tried it. However, I see one major problem, at least for the way I have things set up. I've assigned crew sizes to each ship class, that range from 1, 2, or 3 or so for fighters, depending upon the number of turrets they have, up to 10 for a TP to 250 for a carrier (I'm not a proponent of the robot ship thing ). That leaves a serious amount of bodies floating about after a good battle session. I actually had to adjust a few settings to tone that down a bit, even with only the players victims ejecting. Stations I do not have bail at all. With populations ranging from 300 to 2500, any significant percentage of that would be far too many.
I love the idea, it would add realism, but there would be such a glut of slaves that the market would be instantly saturated, leaving the player stuck with hundreds, even thousands. We would have to make them disappear, thus negating whatever realism gained, or seriously bog down the game engine by assigning motion to them all in an effort to move them towards a friendly, to them, ship or station, or the player would have to spend a lot of time destroying them, which plays hell with ones race relations, for those who care about such things.
[AL-Plugin] Unified Capture by Brand-X
Moderators: Moderators for English X Forum, Scripting / Modding Moderators
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apricotslice
- Posts: 14129
- Joined: Sun, 16. May 04, 13:01
Just found this. Sounds good.
Its just the thing for people playing as either Khaak or Pirate.
In my khaak mod, I added in a khaak headquarters that will buy pretty much everything until it runs out of its much bigger space capasity.
As such, the number of slaves isnt relevant.
In a pirate game, you would do the same thing. Add in a pirate HQ "Blackbeards MegaMart" that you can sell to, which then means anyone freindly with the pirates can buy from, and a glut of slaves will be progressively sold to the pirate bases by npc's from the pirate HQ, as their individual slave price allows. You sell only to the HQ, which wont care how many it gets, as long as it has space left. I set mine to 5 mill, but it really can be anything you want if you think thats not enough.
If your in a game where everyone is enemy (or going to be), then what is dropped and somewhere to sell it are the biggest issues.
This script looks great for increasing the cap rate and the dropped goods rate. If I do a pirate mod along the lines of my khaak mod, this script will be ideal, as capturing capital ships is something a pirate will want to do. Same with caturing eq and trading docks and shipyards. When you add them to the game, they dont work properly, but if you capture them they work partially. If you change their race to a freindly race, they remain fully functional. Once captured by you, you could then change the race to general pirate, and then use them as normal race station.
Its just the thing for people playing as either Khaak or Pirate.
In my khaak mod, I added in a khaak headquarters that will buy pretty much everything until it runs out of its much bigger space capasity.
As such, the number of slaves isnt relevant.
In a pirate game, you would do the same thing. Add in a pirate HQ "Blackbeards MegaMart" that you can sell to, which then means anyone freindly with the pirates can buy from, and a glut of slaves will be progressively sold to the pirate bases by npc's from the pirate HQ, as their individual slave price allows. You sell only to the HQ, which wont care how many it gets, as long as it has space left. I set mine to 5 mill, but it really can be anything you want if you think thats not enough.
If your in a game where everyone is enemy (or going to be), then what is dropped and somewhere to sell it are the biggest issues.
This script looks great for increasing the cap rate and the dropped goods rate. If I do a pirate mod along the lines of my khaak mod, this script will be ideal, as capturing capital ships is something a pirate will want to do. Same with caturing eq and trading docks and shipyards. When you add them to the game, they dont work properly, but if you capture them they work partially. If you change their race to a freindly race, they remain fully functional. Once captured by you, you could then change the race to general pirate, and then use them as normal race station.
I seem to be having similar issues, though mine possibly are different in exact nature.
I installed this plugin, thinking "Thank god, maybe I can finally cap a pirate Nova" (Hey, they have awesome paintjobs). Mind you, I have yet to find a Pirate-flown Nova to go crazy on, but I also run the Mercenary Guild plugin, and love to do the 'defend station' from 'race' missions that get offered.
However, after I'd installed this and ran at least two such missions, every time, the pilots/ships would spawn correctly for the mission once I arrived in the sector and made my way towards the station. And they would even start attacking it properly.
What was strange is when I'd start attacking them, after I managed to drop their shields, 9 times out of 10, they'd stop moving altogether, and do nothing else. I checked the default info window (forgot to set keybindings for your plugin, gotta remember to do that), and it still showed as having a pilot and all. And I'd go off and target another fighter, same thing. So there would be 5-15 enemy ships just sitting around. And when I went back to finish off the job, they would comm back with the usual combat responses. "You have no sssense. You lose profitsss" etc...
It makes me sad, because I would love to be able to cap bigger ships and stations.
I installed this plugin, thinking "Thank god, maybe I can finally cap a pirate Nova" (Hey, they have awesome paintjobs). Mind you, I have yet to find a Pirate-flown Nova to go crazy on, but I also run the Mercenary Guild plugin, and love to do the 'defend station' from 'race' missions that get offered.
However, after I'd installed this and ran at least two such missions, every time, the pilots/ships would spawn correctly for the mission once I arrived in the sector and made my way towards the station. And they would even start attacking it properly.
What was strange is when I'd start attacking them, after I managed to drop their shields, 9 times out of 10, they'd stop moving altogether, and do nothing else. I checked the default info window (forgot to set keybindings for your plugin, gotta remember to do that), and it still showed as having a pilot and all. And I'd go off and target another fighter, same thing. So there would be 5-15 enemy ships just sitting around. And when I went back to finish off the job, they would comm back with the usual combat responses. "You have no sssense. You lose profitsss" etc...
It makes me sad, because I would love to be able to cap bigger ships and stations.
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Thraxwhirl
- Posts: 683
- Joined: Fri, 17. Feb 06, 20:54
Naaaaah, you worry too much, my friend.Brand-X wrote:Thraxwhirl,
That's a great idea. It had not occurred to me to have all ships in a sector capable of bailing, or I would have tried it. However, I see one major problem, at least for the way I have things set up. I've assigned crew sizes to each ship class, that range from 1, 2, or 3 or so for fighters, depending upon the number of turrets they have, up to 10 for a TP to 250 for a carrier (I'm not a proponent of the robot ship thing ). That leaves a serious amount of bodies floating about after a good battle session. I actually had to adjust a few settings to tone that down a bit, even with only the players victims ejecting. Stations I do not have bail at all. With populations ranging from 300 to 2500, any significant percentage of that would be far too many.
I love the idea, it would add realism, but there would be such a glut of slaves that the market would be instantly saturated, leaving the player stuck with hundreds, even thousands. We would have to make them disappear, thus negating whatever realism gained, or seriously bog down the game engine by assigning motion to them all in an effort to move them towards a friendly, to them, ship or station, or the player would have to spend a lot of time destroying them, which plays hell with ones race relations, for those who care about such things.
For starters, you could set a random variable to determine if any astronaught(s) get out alive, or if the ship is simply switched to Neutral and thus cappable. Random chance. 1 to 5. Say, 2 or lower, and no one actually bailed. Why? Crew are all killed. Ship is Neutral. No pilot. No survivors. Crew all dead. Ship can be claimed.
Afterall, it's the ship shutting down that's important, not the space suits. It's nice to be able to collect a slave or two, but cappable ships is what you really hunger for.
I know I do.
But it is nice to have the odd slave to collect. So, on a "dice roll" of 3 and above, SOME crew did get out alive.
But you don't need to have tens, dozens or hundreds for each big ship. Why would you? Who's to say they are all still alive? Perhaps most are already dead. Space combat's lethal - the scarcity of capping(under ES conditions) makes that apparent - so why SHOULD they all get out alive?
Just create a variable ("survivors") with preset parameters for how many bail per ship.
by default:
survivors=1
If ship-> is of class M1
survivors = 5
end
If ship-> is of class M2
survivors = 4
end
For M6s/M7s, it's 3.
M3s, M4s, M5s, TPs, TS etc. just one. Notice I set a default first. This is because you can't get the game to recognise M0 as a class(and some players will have the occasional M0 in their game).
And that's how many Astronaughts are spawned. Let's face it, if the hull is down to below 10 percent, the chances are that almost all the crew are dead anyhow.
Oh, and you can fun here with the race of each astronaught spawned.
By default, the race should be Friendly - still collectable, but because he's not Neutral, he'll still move about. But maybe once in every, say, ten ejections, he's of the same race as the ship from which he bailed?
Why? Well, in such a circumstance, he's been recognised by his enemies, and they'll gun him down in the cold, darkness of space. Heh heh.
Note that if he came from a player-owned ship, this should not apply, and race of spawned astronaught should ALWAYS be friendly. Simply because a) you can't actually do anything useful with player-owned space suits, and b) they'll occupy the higher-up slots in your sector list, thus pushing the stuff you NEED to see further down.
Unless and until someone writes a script for RESCUING, rather than enslaving, pilots, Player-owned suits are of no use.
Oh and another thought: whenever a ship shuts down(Race becoming neutral), regardless of whether or not any crew do actually bail, I'd recommend an incoming msg is sent to you. Not a "Flash up on screen" one, but maybe a "write to logbook"-type.
Something like: $Race+Sship+" has been neutralised in Sector "+$sector+" and is salvageable."
There, just some suggestions for you.
As for how your script currently works:
The good news is that the Salvage claim hotkey works beatifully, and, asuming it works on stations too, then that will work wonders for any that shutdown.
The bad news is that I con confirm that, in XFP, enemy ships are remaining red after pilots bail. Although they do stop dead in space and cease firing, but your ship fails to acknowledge this.
So, in the interests of compatibility, it might be worth considering my suggestion of setting race to Neutral, rather than using Signal_Capture or Signal_Killed.
I might even have a stab at this script myself in the near future. Though it won't be today, as I'm expecting some friends over for a Stag Weekend(Bachelor Party, if you're in the U.S.), but maybe soon.
We'll see.
I already do much of what you suggest. The number of crew that survives or bails is tied to the hull percentage at which an event is triggered, be it destruction, abandon ship, surrender, whatever. The frequency of those events and when they occur depend upon the nature of the ship and who owns it. Military ships of the more warlike races will rarely give it up, and then only after their ship has been shot to rags, about 10% hull integrity remaining or even less.
As to why I have so many crew, aside from my dislike of the robot ship thing, is that version 2 of this script will add the use of Assault troops to beam in and battle the crew for possession of the ship or station. Without a defending crew, my little guys would fight whom? A bunch of seige guns and other automated weaponry? I don't care for that scenario. And, as I want my universe to be consistent, that's why there are so many crew present in the shooter version. V2 adds some troopers and wares to the game, so it is a mod. It includes the shooter version as well as the assault capabilities so that the player has a choice of attack methods. But it is a mod, though a lightweight one, merely adding some wares.
I'm going to look into the signal thing. Those were introduced to solve a couple particular problems and there may be a way to get around using them.
As to why I have so many crew, aside from my dislike of the robot ship thing, is that version 2 of this script will add the use of Assault troops to beam in and battle the crew for possession of the ship or station. Without a defending crew, my little guys would fight whom? A bunch of seige guns and other automated weaponry? I don't care for that scenario. And, as I want my universe to be consistent, that's why there are so many crew present in the shooter version. V2 adds some troopers and wares to the game, so it is a mod. It includes the shooter version as well as the assault capabilities so that the player has a choice of attack methods. But it is a mod, though a lightweight one, merely adding some wares.
I'm going to look into the signal thing. Those were introduced to solve a couple particular problems and there may be a way to get around using them.
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Hieronymos
- Posts: 830
- Joined: Fri, 30. Dec 05, 22:14
Brand-X,
good to see you've got UniCap1 up and running. Sorry about the XFP conflict. Ideally there'll be some workaround that will allow it to be used with all or most mods, conflict-free.
At least we know it works fine with DDRS.
And of the DDRS Betatesters who played around with it, most also simultaneously ran multiple 3rd party scripts, which rules out quite a lot of possible script/plugin conflicts.
It might be a good idea to ask Deadly, Mailo, and the others for a list of the scripts they were running while testing UC1.
Keep it comin' dude!
Cheers,
Hieronymos
P.S. It'll be very interesting to hear further feedback from gamers about capping and shipkill loot amounts.
good to see you've got UniCap1 up and running. Sorry about the XFP conflict. Ideally there'll be some workaround that will allow it to be used with all or most mods, conflict-free.
At least we know it works fine with DDRS.
And of the DDRS Betatesters who played around with it, most also simultaneously ran multiple 3rd party scripts, which rules out quite a lot of possible script/plugin conflicts.
It might be a good idea to ask Deadly, Mailo, and the others for a list of the scripts they were running while testing UC1.
Keep it comin' dude!
Cheers,
Hieronymos
P.S. It'll be very interesting to hear further feedback from gamers about capping and shipkill loot amounts.
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Hieronymos
- Posts: 830
- Joined: Fri, 30. Dec 05, 22:14
russbo,
as Thraxwhirl indicates it's prolly 'cause:
Cheers,
Hieronymos
as Thraxwhirl indicates it's prolly 'cause:
Essentially a scripting conflict.The bad news is that I con confirm that, in XFP, enemy ships are remaining red after pilots bail. Although they do stop dead in space and cease firing, but your ship fails to acknowledge this.
So, in the interests of compatibility, it might be worth considering my suggestion of setting race to Neutral, rather than using Signal_Capture or Signal_Killed.
Cheers,
Hieronymos
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Blinki1984
- Posts: 245
- Joined: Sat, 14. Feb 04, 11:15
It looks like it may not be compatible with XTM .7. I installed it and it seems to not work correctly. The target info command works, but the battle key does not. I never hear any sounds when I activate it. I have also noticed that some times during combat the enemy ship will drop their speed to zero and just stay there and do not attack unless I am very close. They always stay red and this behavior will happen when their shields are still up.
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apricotslice
- Posts: 14129
- Joined: Sun, 16. May 04, 13:01
Xtended has just posted a whole heap of commands used into the sticky thread documentation. Worth checking the post on the last page of the thread to see if there is a conflict or not.
I've been using the script, but I dont know if its actually working or not.
Is it worth adding a audio cue of some kind to the script so that you know its working on the targetted ship ? Also, when you manually try to activate the script for a capital ship or station, it should give an audio message that its running, even if its the standard "autopilot active" one thats often used inaccurately.
Alternately, add a line to the message log each time the script runs on a target and its result. That way we can see if the script influenced the cap or not.
I've been using the script, but I dont know if its actually working or not.
Is it worth adding a audio cue of some kind to the script so that you know its working on the targetted ship ? Also, when you manually try to activate the script for a capital ship or station, it should give an audio message that its running, even if its the standard "autopilot active" one thats often used inaccurately.
Alternately, add a line to the message log each time the script runs on a target and its result. That way we can see if the script influenced the cap or not.
Hey, guys,
Sorry I haven't been posting about this. Job priorities.
I see we're having some major compatability problems here.
@ apricotslice,
You should definately be hearing some sounds when the script locks onto a target, a three-toned beep at lock-on, and a different three-toned beep at the end of an engagement. These are simple 'play sample' sounds and I don't see how they could be incompatable with any other script or mod. And at the start of an engagement, a log entry is made, listing target, etc.
It doesn't sound as if you actually have the thing running. It is a somewhat subtle script, but you should see some changes in gameplay as the bail rate is a bit better thae Ego, as are the number of wares left behind. You should also be seeing ship targets exploding at hull percents other than zero, and as the crews are quite large on some ships, you should be seeing quite a few more bodies bailing. All this is really quite unmistakeable. You should also be able to engage bigships and stations with the possibility of the target surrendering or abandoning ship. Although the larger the ship and the more combative the crew, the less chance of a surrender. What other scripts or mods are you running with this?
@ Chieftonw,
There does seem to be some signal captured/signal killed incompatabilities with other scripts and mods. These signals are used in UniCap because when a script destroys a target, no rank or credit is given to the player since he did not personnally destroy the target. Egos model only has a target signal killed at 0% hull and my script destroys targets at various other hull percents. My script also does not have ship targets automatically become the players property, they become neutral with no pilot and must be claimed by the player using the 'claim' key within 200 yards. They should stop in space and stay there until claimed. On rare occasions a ship will suffer a devatating explosion yet remain in the races control with 0% hull integrity. These generally try to creep off, very slowly, and need to be finished off.
@ Blinki1984,
The claim key will work on any ship target that is of neutral race and has no pilot. And no, I did not set things so that crews of ships attacked by AI ships would bail. That would be putting way too many bodies floating about a sector and be a pretty hard hit on the game engine, especially if those bodies were given maneuver commands. Only crews of ships attacked by the player will bail according to my rules.
We tried to make the readme clear and understandable but if you think you're having trouble with the setup, please PM me and I'll try to get you going.
As for the signal incompatabilities, it is possible that the main UniCap script can be made to work without using any signals but I believe they are needed by Deadly's response scripts.
Sorry I haven't been posting about this. Job priorities.
I see we're having some major compatability problems here.
@ apricotslice,
You should definately be hearing some sounds when the script locks onto a target, a three-toned beep at lock-on, and a different three-toned beep at the end of an engagement. These are simple 'play sample' sounds and I don't see how they could be incompatable with any other script or mod. And at the start of an engagement, a log entry is made, listing target, etc.
It doesn't sound as if you actually have the thing running. It is a somewhat subtle script, but you should see some changes in gameplay as the bail rate is a bit better thae Ego, as are the number of wares left behind. You should also be seeing ship targets exploding at hull percents other than zero, and as the crews are quite large on some ships, you should be seeing quite a few more bodies bailing. All this is really quite unmistakeable. You should also be able to engage bigships and stations with the possibility of the target surrendering or abandoning ship. Although the larger the ship and the more combative the crew, the less chance of a surrender. What other scripts or mods are you running with this?
@ Chieftonw,
There does seem to be some signal captured/signal killed incompatabilities with other scripts and mods. These signals are used in UniCap because when a script destroys a target, no rank or credit is given to the player since he did not personnally destroy the target. Egos model only has a target signal killed at 0% hull and my script destroys targets at various other hull percents. My script also does not have ship targets automatically become the players property, they become neutral with no pilot and must be claimed by the player using the 'claim' key within 200 yards. They should stop in space and stay there until claimed. On rare occasions a ship will suffer a devatating explosion yet remain in the races control with 0% hull integrity. These generally try to creep off, very slowly, and need to be finished off.
@ Blinki1984,
The claim key will work on any ship target that is of neutral race and has no pilot. And no, I did not set things so that crews of ships attacked by AI ships would bail. That would be putting way too many bodies floating about a sector and be a pretty hard hit on the game engine, especially if those bodies were given maneuver commands. Only crews of ships attacked by the player will bail according to my rules.
We tried to make the readme clear and understandable but if you think you're having trouble with the setup, please PM me and I'll try to get you going.
As for the signal incompatabilities, it is possible that the main UniCap script can be made to work without using any signals but I believe they are needed by Deadly's response scripts.
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apricotslice
- Posts: 14129
- Joined: Sun, 16. May 04, 13:01
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Boris_The_Blade
- Posts: 346
- Joined: Tue, 1. May 07, 03:42
Not sure if asked or answered before but i need to know,
is it possible to remove or have the self-destruct option less likely?
Is the self-destruct connected with the hotkey for capture?
It seems like every time i use that to capture they self-destruct.
A code which to be removed/editted/added will be of great help.
(and where to put the code, have no clue about this stuff)
is it possible to remove or have the self-destruct option less likely?
Is the self-destruct connected with the hotkey for capture?
It seems like every time i use that to capture they self-destruct.
A code which to be removed/editted/added will be of great help.
(and where to put the code, have no clue about this stuff)
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Version135b
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Sun, 17. Sep 06, 03:59
[/i]Hey, I'm having the old problem where I claimed a Hercules TL and its still got a ship in the Hangar. I own the Big Ship, But Now I got this lil M5 with pilot and ID and all in my hangar and I cant eject him....
Anyone know what script cmd I use to get that docked ships object pointer so I can change its owner?
I tried get id code inputting the pilot name as string and I tried get pilot name inputting the ID code as string... maybe im doing it backwards or all wrong.. any help? TIA.
Neurosis
Anyone know what script cmd I use to get that docked ships object pointer so I can change its owner?
I tried get id code inputting the pilot name as string and I tried get pilot name inputting the ID code as string... maybe im doing it backwards or all wrong.. any help? TIA.
Neurosis
Sweet.. I figured it out
All I had to do was
$minenow = [Playership] -> get array of ships in a ship/station/dock
Then take that array and I saw the pegasus was the first element so I did
$crap = $minenow[0]
$crap -> set owner race to Player
shabam!! it works. I saw someone else had this problem once also so I thought I'd post it in case it could help someone else as well.
I am now the proud owner of a Hercules TL with all 9 hangar bays ready to hold my caps for jumping
Neurosis
All I had to do was
$minenow = [Playership] -> get array of ships in a ship/station/dock
Then take that array and I saw the pegasus was the first element so I did
$crap = $minenow[0]
$crap -> set owner race to Player
shabam!! it works. I saw someone else had this problem once also so I thought I'd post it in case it could help someone else as well.
I am now the proud owner of a Hercules TL with all 9 hangar bays ready to hold my caps for jumping
Neurosis
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SilverDragonLord
- Posts: 46
- Joined: Tue, 28. Nov 06, 10:40