[X3LU] Mayhem 3.21b

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alexalsp
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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.14d

Post by alexalsp » Mon, 15. Nov 21, 14:28

you need to generate a galaxy through the generator and start the game from it.

If you did so, then the problem lies elsewhere. Try checking the game files.

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Hairless-Ape
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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.14d

Post by Hairless-Ape » Mon, 15. Nov 21, 15:22

Wow, that's like saying "make sure your device is not in the "OFF" position" lol. Well, thanks anyway for trying to help :)
Yes, did all that.
Was hoping there might be some way to tell the game to generate some sort of debug diagnostics. Maybe something there but I'll have to go through 10,000 posts in the modding section of the forums to figure it out :)
Now I'm just reduced to endlessly whining a dull tune everyone has heard before, so I'm done.
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Hector0x
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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.14d

Post by Hector0x » Mon, 15. Nov 21, 18:42

Hairless-Ape wrote:
Mon, 15. Nov 21, 15:22
You probably reinstalled everything multiple times by now. And i know how frustrating this can be. Neither do i know your exact situation nor do i want to lecture you.

But my guess is that you have old scripts from other mods running. I mean why should your system cause a freeze that nobody else seems to have? Then you say things like you're trying outdated versions and want to get a log file, which indicates that you're no stranger to mods and your game folder could be messy from all that modding over the years.

Again, i don't know your methods, but are you 100% sure that the game files that you always start with are actually clean? It wouldn't be the first time that someone claimed that he was using a clean install and later it turned out that he did have other scripts like marine repairs or something and assumed it wouldn't cause any trouble.

Clean reinstall includes:
1) going into your file explorer and manually deleting the entire game folder after deinstalling in Steam. Wipe everything. Don't just assume that Steam finds and deletes every file.
2) use non-Steam exe. There are so many players who don't seem to do this and this only causes issues.
3) always check and disable bonus packs, best before actually redownloading the game

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Hairless-Ape
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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.14d

Post by Hairless-Ape » Mon, 15. Nov 21, 19:05

I never actually completely cleared out the steam version files as you point out, when I copied it to start mayhem 3.
I also haven't checked if the bonus pack is on, as I never turned it on and assumed it would be off by default. Assumptions can be bad.. very bad.
Am using the no-steam 3.3 executable.

Overall, sounds like great advice and I thank you DEARLY for it. :) Will do as you ask and let you know.

Update: Yea, no luck. I'll keep trying some other things. Some other article mentioned how other codec's in the system can affect things so maybe I'll look into that, as I have some custom stuff installed.
Thank you so much for the great advice.
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Hairless-Ape
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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.14d

Post by Hairless-Ape » Mon, 29. Nov 21, 19:45

Problem Solved:

With some debugging strategy advice from X2-Illuminatus and a couple hours debugging on my part, I was finally able to close in on the issue.

Basically, 'near' the beginning of the Mayhem 3 game you are offered a mission to pickup a data scanner.
Unfortunately, the code looking to find a station for the player to dock at to complete this mission was in a never-ending loop that expanded it's range to find a dockable station. (Mayhem.PlotDataScanner.Trigger.xml)
What the code didn't realize, was that I generally give myself an M7 to start the game just to make things move along quicker in the early game.
At that early point in the game, when this mission offer occurs, there are NO dockable stations for an M7 :) BINGO!

So, it was looping there indefinitely with no safety check on the loop count. I can't blame it on the code given I cheated. But then again, it certainly wasn't a problem with my installation either. It's just one of those stupid situations where the author can't account for every silly thing an end-user can do when provided with the ability to cheat. This truly is a magnificent mod and the Author has done great work. I sincerely hope he is planning on an expansion so I can both admire and admonish him some more :)

Cheers.
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Hector0x
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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.14d

Post by Hector0x » Tue, 30. Nov 21, 12:07

Hairless-Ape wrote:
Mon, 29. Nov 21, 19:45
Unfortunately, the code looking to find a station for the player to dock at to complete this mission was in a never-ending loop that expanded it's range to find a dockable station. (Mayhem.PlotDataScanner.Trigger.xml)
Thanks for solving it. Thats also valuable information for me. Because SWM3 has a gamestart which also gives you an M7.

I will have to change it so that a random station can be selected. Or have the Data Scanner mission to be considered as already completed.

But the same thing might happen with the "Learning to Jump" mission. Better stay out of your M7 when placing your first outpost.

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Hairless-Ape
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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.14d

Post by Hairless-Ape » Wed, 1. Dec 21, 15:37

I have a few other 'fixes', or just improvements you may want. At least these are changes I make to mayhem 3. If interested, let me know where to send them (not here).

. Double the tug range. NO practical reason why a tug should be so limited.
. Much improved explorer logic. Sorts sectors by range so it's not wasting time traveling 5 jumps when there's an unexplored sector right next door. Doesn't double up satellites in a sector. Far less limited range.
. Like your mod, I also eliminate maintenance costs on TS and TP, but ALSO on the TL.
. If your capital ship is equipped with a Carrier repair Module (regardless whether it's a carrier or not), this module will slowly repair the ship hull. Could easily modify this to consume a resource from the cargo, or limit
the amount of 'field' repairs done to a certain percentage. Fact is, even real capital ships have some field repair capability. For my own part, I also automatically add this module to all newly built M1,M2,and M7's.
. Added fix to retreat logic, so that if player is in a carrier with fighters, they don't continually try to land when there are still enemies out there. bug.
. Changed fleet attack-all logic to extend it's range. It's severely limited by default, and forces you to reissue the command when you shouldn't have to.
. Reduced People needed for M3's. People needed for a new ship should not be based on the number of turrets that ship has, but rather the relative cost of that ship. M3's in particular demand too many people for it's size and capability.
this could use a more robust algorithm, but I just reduced M3 needs.

BTW, I really love your re-balance mod. While I take out the nerfs to the drydock, for the most part, I love what you've done and especially to the ships. I've always felt shields were way too strong and that a race's weapons should be unique. It's abby-normal to start the game as a paranid and be able to use argon weapons. Anyway, good stuff and well done.
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Hector0x
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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.14d

Post by Hector0x » Wed, 1. Dec 21, 17:12

Hairless-Ape wrote:
Wed, 1. Dec 21, 15:37
Thanks
Wow, you've been busy. Sounds like you should start your own submod thread instead. Especially Explorer fixes could be nice. Although eventually you've mapped most of the gameworld and for the rest, i'd consider most of that optional. For example the carrier repair software. I like that capships have to return back to base to get hull repairs.

Just checked the mission trigger scripts. They should all be working fine. It was really just because you "customized" your gamestart with a capship. When a dockable station for the first Data scanner mission is searched its impossible to have anything too large to dock with it. And this gets skipped when playing with Quickstart.

For the second mission that i thought could be problematic (learning to jump) you could theoretically sit in your free TL when it happens. But Joubarbe really thought about everything. So a temporary Teladi Kestrel gets spawned to serve as the reference to find a dockable station for it. Then it gets secretly destroyed.

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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.14d

Post by sovsefar78 » Wed, 8. Dec 21, 06:03

Dear Hector, you have done a wonderful job with this mod, this is more than just a mod, it's x4 like it should have been. For me both x4 games failed to deliver miserably, one was broken and the other was just a buggy mess and lack depth (last played 23rd september 2021). This conversion mod i think put both of these games to shame.

For me this is more x4 than both games combined, so well done.

I learned of this mod from XenonArchitect7 here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olkP3DP ... Architect7

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Hector0x
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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.14d

Post by Hector0x » Wed, 8. Dec 21, 13:45

sovsefar78 wrote:
Wed, 8. Dec 21, 06:03
Joubarbe is the Mayhem mastermind. He built the entire mod over the last 5 years.

I'm just a big fan

alexuyk
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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.14d

Post by alexuyk » Mon, 20. Dec 21, 21:05

News of Farhram Legend release brought back memories... so now im replaying AP mods. Yet to launch FL...
After blitzkrieging OCV in vanilla LU I decided to try Mayhem 3 again. Had a lot of fun playing Mayhem 2 but Mayhem 3 scared me out back then.

I got around this time and I like it very much so far. I ended up in a perfect galaxy with 20ish clustered unoccupied/xenon sectors in the corner of the map. Have 4 major shipwrights which pump out capitals nonstop.
However when Xenons attacked me with 5 M6s when I rolled a Valhalla out I felt kinda sad...

I chose Medium difficulty from the start and I regret it now. Is there any way to change it mid-playthrough?

Betelgeuse97
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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.14d

Post by Betelgeuse97 » Wed, 22. Dec 21, 05:08

alexuyk wrote:
Mon, 20. Dec 21, 21:05
News of Farhram Legend release brought back memories... so now im replaying AP mods. Yet to launch FL...
After blitzkrieging OCV in vanilla LU I decided to try Mayhem 3 again. Had a lot of fun playing Mayhem 2 but Mayhem 3 scared me out back then.

I got around this time and I like it very much so far. I ended up in a perfect galaxy with 20ish clustered unoccupied/xenon sectors in the corner of the map. Have 4 major shipwrights which pump out capitals nonstop.
However when Xenons attacked me with 5 M6s when I rolled a Valhalla out I felt kinda sad...
In mayhem, M3s are very strong in numbers and are very easy to replace. A fleet of M3s complements your capitals well. That should help respond to Xenon waves faster (and it saves your capitals as it's the M3s that take the beating and not your bigger ships). Capital ships in Mayhem aren't as OP as they are in vanilla X3 -- they're still great for tanking and support, but the most amount of DPS from your fleet no longer comes from the capital ships.

Since you're parked near the Xenon, you may want to kill them ASAP. They spawn 1 wave from a random Xenon sector every hour, and every few hours they send a large wave that consists of at least 1 M2. The more sectors you have, the tougher the Xenon gets. Fortunately, since you have 4 shipyards, you shouldn't have major problems mass producing ships against them.
alexuyk wrote:
Mon, 20. Dec 21, 21:05
I chose Medium difficulty from the start and I regret it now. Is there any way to change it mid-playthrough?
Nope, once you choose the difficulty, you're stuck with it for the rest of the game.

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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.14d

Post by alexuyk » Wed, 22. Dec 21, 18:59

Betelgeuse97 wrote:
Wed, 22. Dec 21, 05:08
Nope, once you choose the difficulty, you're stuck with it for the rest of the game.
Thats sad(.

Also I've encountered a bug (or is it?)
Xenons started to lash out on everyone except me. They began to steamroll southeast corner of the galaxy. I wait nearby with my fleet to liberate into my rule as much as Xenons can capture.

However when Xenons were about to capture yet another Boron sector, Paranids be like "we wanna conquer that sh't". Paranids began to claim the sector, their fleet is like 3 sectors away.
Xenons finished destroying the outpost and sector goes to Paranids. Without a single of their ships even close to it.

Xenons are like "duh it is a protectorate now we better go wreck next sector". Sector becomes fully built meanwhile...

Same stuff then happened again in the other part of the galaxy, with Argons this time.

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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.14d

Post by Betelgeuse97 » Thu, 23. Dec 21, 05:37

alexuyk wrote:
Wed, 22. Dec 21, 18:59
Also I've encountered a bug (or is it?)
Xenons started to lash out on everyone except me. They began to steamroll southeast corner of the galaxy. I wait nearby with my fleet to liberate into my rule as much as Xenons can capture.
When a Xenon wave spawns, they will pick a nearby sector and attack it. Are there any Xenon sectors in the southeast corner of the galaxy?
alexuyk wrote:
Wed, 22. Dec 21, 18:59
Also I've encountered a bug (or is it?)
However when Xenons were about to capture yet another Boron sector, Paranids be like "we wanna conquer that sh't". Paranids began to claim the sector, their fleet is like 3 sectors away.
Xenons finished destroying the outpost and sector goes to Paranids. Without a single of their ships even close to it.

Xenons are like "duh it is a protectorate now we better go wreck next sector". Sector becomes fully built meanwhile...

Same stuff then happened again in the other part of the galaxy, with Argons this time.
The Xenon cannot claim sectors. Because the Paranid claimed that Boron sector, the Paranid became the owner of that sector when that sector lost all its stations. Xenon take control of a sector only when no one is claiming that sector. All an NPC faction has to do to gain control of an occupied sector are claiming it and having the sector's stations destroyed by any means.

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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.14d

Post by alexuyk » Sun, 26. Dec 21, 21:52

I figured out that if you are present in sector and killed Xenon station, other faction's claim on the sector does nothing. It still becomes unoccupied.

I have another question.
Is there any way I can bring back vanilla LU carrier and fighter behavior? I am familiar with modding, a bit with x3 as well, but never gone that deep. Need some directions or a hint.
Or maybe there are some AI mods which work with Mayhem?

Carriers send fighters to die 40 km away from the carrier on an attack command.
No amount of "M3/M4/M5 > return home" will help. While "carrier command - return home" kept fighters perfectly docked.

Fighters on an attack command by themselves instead of swarming go space acrobats and begin to form into an X-shape (attack: flying to position) disregarding whether they are trying to form inside OCV formation or not, and all of that while triggering endless "bounce"s...

I nearly tore some of my hair out just now after losing like 60 fighters before fight with OCV even began, need help...

Also I would kill for a "don't f**ng move" command for capitals...

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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.14d

Post by Betelgeuse97 » Mon, 27. Dec 21, 05:51

alexuyk wrote:
Sun, 26. Dec 21, 21:52
I figured out that if you are present in sector and killed Xenon station, other faction's claim on the sector does nothing. It still becomes unoccupied.

I have another question.
Is there any way I can bring back vanilla LU carrier and fighter behavior? I am familiar with modding, a bit with x3 as well, but never gone that deep. Need some directions or a hint.
Or maybe there are some AI mods which work with Mayhem?

Carriers send fighters to die 40 km away from the carrier on an attack command.
No amount of "M3/M4/M5 > return home" will help. While "carrier command - return home" kept fighters perfectly docked.

Fighters on an attack command by themselves instead of swarming go space acrobats and begin to form into an X-shape (attack: flying to position) disregarding whether they are trying to form inside OCV formation or not, and all of that while triggering endless "bounce"s...

I nearly tore some of my hair out just now after losing like 60 fighters before fight with OCV even began, need help...

Also I would kill for a "don't f**ng move" command for capitals...
All the combat scripts were rewritten; you can't get vanilla behavior back. Supposedly there's a t-file option to disable fighters' fancy maneuvers; however, even when I did that, the fighters still tried to wander off on their own. Still better than nothing at least.

If you're using fleet settings (you should initially), you can configure the followers to engage enemies within a certain range. 10km is good as it's not too far and close enough to the target. I myself don't suggest relying on fleet commands entirely -- use them to organize your fleet, but don't use them to initiate combat as your ships will try to attack one target at a time (e.g. if you have fighters set to attack fighters first, your fighters will try to attack 1 fighter at a time). Once you've disabled that t-file option for the fighters, tell your fighters to "attack all enemies" (via broadcast, not via fleet command) repeatedly every time you see them "fly to position" while attacking until you see your fighters show "killing...[target name]."

Once you've launched the fighters, you don't need the carriers to join. Tell the carriers manually to stop whatever they're doing. When you want to recall your ships, tell your ships to join the fleet (this will recall your fighters to the carriers).

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Hector0x
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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.14d

Post by Hector0x » Mon, 27. Dec 21, 12:35

alexuyk wrote:
Sun, 26. Dec 21, 21:52
Carriers send fighters to die 40 km away from the carrier on an attack command.
No amount of "M3/M4/M5 > return home" will help. While "carrier command - return home" kept fighters perfectly docked.
you should try the 10km fleet scanning range. Its automatic and doesn't need additional orders. But use a non-carrier as fleet commander.
alexuyk wrote:
Sun, 26. Dec 21, 21:52
Fighters on an attack command by themselves instead of swarming go space acrobats and begin to form into an X-shape (attack: flying to position) disregarding whether they are trying to form inside OCV formation or not, and all of that while triggering endless "bounce"s...
Thats the flanking behavior that you can disable in the t-file. When the enemy is at least 10km away they go up and to the sides before attacking. In M3 the minimum distance is quite badly balanced because especially slow fighters want to fly minutes away before actually attacking, even when the enemy is literally already right next to them. And the positions they want to fly to are too extreme and actually often overshoot the enemy too much or even point away from him. So its pretty useless. But Joubarbe is not to blame. He had enough trouble with developing everything from scratch. At the time he couldn't know how most of these things would work out in practice.



Lately i could fix a ton of these problems with fleets and combat in general. But right now its only available in SWM3, especially in the 1.4 patch and it needs some adjustments for M3. Eventually i might release a standalone M3 combat patch, but want to refine SWM3 first.

The fighters are mostly reverted back to their LU behavior and they also fire at opportunity targets under their crosshair and not always focus on the same enemy.

Flanking is toned down a lot and is much less useless. It requires more distance to the enemy and slower fighters take less extreme positions than fast fighters so that everyone arrives at roughly the same time.

Fallback actually keeps fighters alive instead of always being too late which kills them even quicker

Capships use proper ranges, they simply stay and fire (although this is an ongoing process as some SW ships are so big that even very high laser ranges in SWM3 are sometimes not enough to prevent collision avoidance)
In M3 they want to get much too close to each other. Mostly because laser range is so low but also because capships want to get all their turrets in theoretical range, even if its just a crappy rear turret with only a third of the max range than the rest of the guns

The Escort:Attack Same script that all NPC squadrons are also using doesn't send ships across the entire sector one at a time when attacking enemy fleets anymore.

Fighters docked to fleet commander carriers now also respect scanning range

Firing from out of range with bullets despawning but the ship is not wanting to get closer does never happen anymore.

Friendly fire when player enters sector where a station is currently under attack happens about 95% less.

And your fleets don't get distracted by TS or satellites anymore. That is honestly so much better and should be in default M3.

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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.14d

Post by alexuyk » Mon, 27. Dec 21, 17:41

Yes, fleet management was the key for my problem. I tucked all the M1s into "blind" M0-led fleets with 0 engagement distance, and moved light M2s into separate fleets.
M0 fleet leaders were sent to "follow" OCV caps instead of "attack". That way, carriers would unleash only when my M0s got into contact with enemy caps.

Also instead of trying to bunch up all my fleets into a tight formation (which would never work in X3) I spread my M0 fleet leaders out, and used a bunch of fast M7s to reinforce a fleet which is targeted by OCV M7/M6es.
Worked like a charm, only one fleet got lost in space/time cause Tokyo fleet leader encountered some debris in his path and had to make a 300km detour.

Found the "additional maneuvers" option inside t-file, thanks! Still, would like to have "keep fighters docked" option somehow... Though I know that such functionality is a borderline PITA to mod into x3 cause it overlaps with base game code. Some mods even had to make fighters disarm themselves once docked to prevent spontaneous undocking, as I can remember...
Even LU's "carrier command - return home" has its flaws, as fighters won't undock for "carrier command - proctect target" afterwards, only for "attack" commands. Still, once you got used to it, it does the job.


Almost done with my current MH3 playthrough, SW MH is next on my list).

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Edna
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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.14d

Post by Edna » Mon, 27. Dec 21, 19:40

I really like that the Teladi occasionally have Terran capital ships in their fleets. It's a nice detail to the fact that they rather buy than develop technology.
Image

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Re: [X3LU] Mayhem 3.14d

Post by alexuyk » Mon, 27. Dec 21, 21:04

Edna wrote:
Mon, 27. Dec 21, 19:40
I really like that the Teladi occasionally have Terran capital ships in their fleets. It's a nice detail to the fact that they rather buy than develop technology.
Like 2/3rds of Paranid battle groups in my galaxy are made of Terran ships. I guess everyone can get them.

Thinking about it more, they are the biggest faction for me atm because too much battlegroups spawned Terran for them at the same time...

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