[SCRIPT] Marine Training Manager *Updated - v3* 12/23/2008

[taukarrie]

just for clarity's sake... by "train multiple skills concurrently does that mean that i can take a single TP full of ten marines and use the bulk trainer to train them all in all 5 skills at the same time? if so does that mean that each skill progression is simultanious or are the individual skills trained one at a time after giving the order?

also, its said the the bulk trainer "assumes" the marines are at level 1. does that mean something will go wrong if i try to bulk train a ship full of marines with different skills at different levels?

and one more.. whats this scabbard bug im hearing about? i did have a problem trying this script with my terran marines that i got fromt he plot mission but i spaced them and got new marines and everything seems fine. after getting past that part is there a chance that this bug will occurlater?

[Strategist]

will this allow, non-marine personal to be trained and turned into Marines?

[TEKing66]

@ Graxster

Just out of curiosity, can this script run on a player owned Military Outpost or base?

[Kadatherion]

@ taukarrie

Yep, you got it right: bulk trainer trains every marine you have on board the target ship, and you can use it to train them all to 5 stars in every skill. Training is simultaneous for each skill.

The bulk trainer hasn't got the scripts to actually GET what level are the marines at the moment (probably because it was a script command added only after some patches), so whatever are the skills of the marines onboard, they will be treated the same as they had no skill at all. Which means it will take the same time (and money) to train to level 5 a marine with 0 stars in each skill and one with 3 in each.
The micromanager instead has those checks, and as such is more suited to be used on already experienced marines to avoid wasting time and money. The bulk trainer is handy when you just want to train a large bunch of inexperienced cannon fodder marines, when even if an handful of them have 1 or 2 stars somewhere it doesn't really make much of a difference.


Don't know about the "scabbard bug". If I were to make a wild guess, I would say it could be related to Terran marines not actually being used in the vanilla game apart from those plot occasion, and that might be the cause. Could be because of Terran race (though from what I remember peeking at this script when I was changing its cost and training time lenght for myself there's nothing checking or interfering with the actual marine race, so I doubt it), or maybe some conflicting vanilla script running on those particular marines because of the plot. In the latter case, you should be fine with Terran marines got from other plugins or exploits (such as spawning a terran ship and then taking control over it to use its terran marines), just avoid using this script on those 20 marines given two times during the terran plot.

But it's just a wild guess for the sake of writing, mind me



@Strategist

Nope. But there are other scripts around that will convert passengers or slaves to marines IIRC. There should be a couple in the scripts index.




P.S. Oh, and BTW, for everyone: this script still works flawlessly with 2.7.1, so at least for now no reason to worry about compatibility

[taukarrie]

@ Kadatherion

thanks for the info. now i dont have to test it for myself by setting a few marines to train and seta for an hour.

you mentioned dabbling with the script to change the cost and train times. is that something that someone completely new to scripting can handle? im fairly savy in general, just never messed with X3 scripts.

[Kadatherion]

Absolutely, as I'm an a$$ myself at scripting

Graxster kept this script clean and in order, so it's pretty easy to spot and edit those values.

The two scripts you need to edit are

plugin.marine.train.manager.bulk (manages the bulk training)
plugin.marine.train.manager.work (for the micromanager)

An example taken from the second script:

Code: Select all

028   if $var == 1
029   |$cycle = 1
030   |$cost = 42000
031   |$learn.time = 1200
032   |gosub traintimer
033   |if $train.to >= 2
034   ||$cycle = 2
035   ||$msg = 'Training ' + $marine + ' to level 2 now.'
036   ||skip if $on.off == 'disabled' OR $var == 1
037   |||send incoming message $msg to player: display it=[FALSE]
038   ||$cost = 64000
039   ||$learn.time = 2700
040   ||gosub traintimer
041   ||if $train.to >= 3
042   |||$msg = 'Training ' + $marine + ' to level 3 now.'
043   |||skip if $on.off == 'disabled'
044   ||||send incoming message $msg to player: display it=[FALSE]
045   |||$cost = 96000
046   |||$learn.time = 7200
047   |||gosub traintimer
048   |||if $train.to >= 4
049   ||||$msg = 'Training ' + $marine + ' to level 4 now.'
050   ||||skip if $on.off == 'disabled'
051   |||||send incoming message $msg to player: display it=[FALSE]
052   ||||$cost = 116000
053   ||||$learn.time = 12600
054   ||||gosub traintimer
055   ||||if $train.to == 5
056   |||||$msg = 'Training ' + $marine + ' to level 5 now.'
057   |||||skip if $on.off == 'disabled'
058   ||||||send incoming message $msg to player: display it=[FALSE]
059   |||||$cost = 144000
060   |||||$learn.time = 21600
061   |||||gosub traintimer
062   ||||end
063   |||end
064   ||end
065   |end
066   end

This chunk of code is the micromanager working on a marine from 0 to 5 stars. There will be further similar codes progressively "shorter" for training from 1, 2, 3 or 4 stars. The two variables that interest you are $cost and $learn.time.
For the bulk trainer script it's pretty much the same, but since that one doesn't take into account the actual marine level there's just one chunk of code (but the variables are the same).

You can edit them from the xml or (even better imo for such small changes) directly from the ingame script editor: just click on the number to change, select <number> as the type of value you want to insert in its place (so the script knows you are giving it an integer number and not, for instance, a text string), and then type the number you want.

So, if let's say you want to further halve the training time while doubling the cost (so, compared to vanilla, training them at 1/4 the time with x4 the money), you would halve the numbers for $learn.time while doubling those for $cost.



That's what I did for myself after being terrorized coming back to X3 after some patches and reading around here how much harder boarding became. Then I got a full squad of 5 star marines, and discovered... there was hardly anything they couldn't cap, most of the time without any losses

As such I wouldn't - from my experience - recommend to edit this script to be much quicker: even if higher costs balance the thing a bit, it becomes a bit fun breaking and overpowering, especially because it lets you train the fighting skill, which would be untrainable in vanilla and is the main factor at deciding if your marine squad takes any losses during boarding.
Unless, of course, you're using MARS for NPC ships, which will slaughter almost each and every boarding pod you are so naive to launch at 'em
Honestly, I believe boarding is too hard only as long as your marines aren't trained to 5 stars. 3/4 star marines are usually pretty much useless against anything, which is definitely wrong, but once they are maxed out at training, they are unstoppable (which is wrong too, for the exact opposite reason).

[taukarrie]

thanks for that info. i might mess around with it just to get some experience with the script editor.

i agree with boarding being too difficult, at least some aspets of it are. space walking in particular. if you spacewalk 5 marines they should know to wait until all 5 are assembled to start boarding instead of breaking in one or two at a time to get slaughtered.

however, my 5 star marines havent been so superior that there are no casualties. if my targets have about an equal number of defending marines of any skill levels or especially if there are internal security lasers present i always lose at least 1 or 2. i always scan my targets before boarding to see what im up against. the only scenario so far that resulted in no casualties was my five 5-star marines vs 3 0-star marines on an M6 with no defensive software.

[Loner87]

Can we move the marines to another ship once we started their training or it would stop the process ?

[yankiller]

how to add a key for marine traning

[Gorgon]

I second that, I am sorry but I have no idea how to run this, a little readme or some clarification for those of us who doesnt have any experience with mods in this game please

[LordDeimosIV]

Adding a hot key is simple. I had no idea how to do it myself (new player) but some here on the forums helped me out. Go into the Menu -> Controls -> Interface and scroll to the bottom. You will see a list of all scripts that support hot keys.

[DragonOmnus]

Question, is this TC/AP compatible? I have several other mods/scripts installed which work just fine, but it says this should create a hotkey but I can't find it in my game/interface menu or the AL settings.

[SBDeadly]

Question, is this TC/AP compatible? I have several other mods/scripts installed which work just fine, but it says this should create a hotkey but I can't find it in my game/interface menu or the AL settings.

I got it to install, the hotkey mapping is under extended commands in the interface menu. Mapped a key, it seems to work, report skill levels correctly and updated Marines as reqeusted, works in AP.

[Firepower01]

Everything but the actual training seems to work. Tried training a 5 man squad of marines to three starts twice, both times I got no increase in stats even though I received messages about it.

Playing Albion Prelude by the way

EDIT: I take that back, all my marine's stats just got boosted up to 3 stars

[hipperion]

Im runing x3AP with XTM mod and i dont see the hotkey in interface/extensions. How about you guys ? Anubody runs this script with XTM ?

[zanrivers]

so this is where my money goes. but I'm okay with the price, as long as I could have trained with five-star marines are able to capture the capital ship

[RustInPieces]

2 questions:
1. Do the weapons I have on the ship (low yield sidearms, disintegrator rifles, EMP rifles) affect training time, in other words, does a disintegrator rifle train faster than a low yield sidearm?

2. Do I need 10 rifles for 10 marines? I tried to train fighting in Bulk with 1 low yield sidearm, and it started training. Will it only train 1 marine at the end of training?

[DrBullwinkle]

It has been a long time since I used this because I found the vanilla system preferable, but I am pretty sure that all you need is one weapon on the training ship:

does a disintegrator rifle train faster than a low yield sidearm?

No.

Do I need 10 rifles for 10 marines?

No.

[Inkkubus]

I realize the last post was a couple of months ago, but I'll try anyway.

Is the performance of this script affected in any way by which game (TC/AP) one is applying it to?

I just don't want to corrupt my game files.

Thanks in advance!

[ciucc3llone]

Il link per scaricare il file funziona male. Manda a una pagina che ti chiede se vuoi installare un'estensione per il browser senza la possibilità di rifiutare.