[SCRIPT] TerraCorps Combat Pilot Project - 1.43 released 09/01/06

[Myros]

re: go home buttons - Well there are only a very limited anount of command slots available and duplicating a command that can already be given by the standard game commands would just be a waste (fly to station or jump and dock at) and use up a command slot that likely could be used by another script for something far more interesting

re: moving pilots aye forgot to mention that part, if the ship they are moving into doesnt have special I and fight II they will take those with them when they move. In that case TerraCorp HQ sells those so you can do a quick trade with station and install them in the old ship which should let you hire pilots again.

re: gun crew - there is still all the code for gunnery crews in X3, no idea why they didnt include it from X2. Maybe the script writer isnt around anymore to update it to X3 standards. Hopefully they will release it as a part of a signed script package in the future but if not it might be something I look at for this script instead.

Thanks all

Myros

[Mailo]

re: gun crew - there is still all the code for gunnery crews in X3, no idea why they didnt include it from X2. Maybe the script writer isnt around anymore to update it to X3 standards. Hopefully they will release it as a part of a signed script package in the future but if not it might be something I look at for this script instead.

Cycrow mentioned in his future plans a job center on the bbs for hiring crew for capital class vessels, check it out

[NZ-Wanderer]

Well, sad to say I gave up tonight and uninstalled it..

I got sick of having to micromanage it all the time cause my pilots were always dying. (and I talking commanders and leutenants here, not ensigns...) - Having to get new ships and new pilots was becoming a nightmare.

eg, one instance:: I had the max 18 ships flying under an M6, the M6 sent patrols into 3 sectors, in the sector where the M6 and the rest of the ships were, one of its patrols (3 M4's) spotted 2 Pirate M3's, and 2 M4's..
While the main battlegroup (which included the M6 and quite a few M3's) stood by about 30k away (well within scanner range) my poor M4's tried to take on the 2 M3's and 2 M4's...
Needless to say I lost all 3 pilots and the main battlegroup did nothing...

I dunno if this is the way it's meant to be, but to me this is not the way a battle would be fought.

I hope others have a better time at it than I have.

[X-it]

Sorry to hear that, Wanderer.

Sadly I haven't had time to play since last weekend or so, so my testing has been limited.

But I was planning on keeping all pilots in training task forces until they reach commander rank and can be put in M3s. Hopefully this will help against the behaviour you're seeing.

But perhaps Myros could tweak the behaviour of ships based on your feedback here? I think no enemies should be engaged unless the engaging force is at least as powerful as the enemies - preferably twice as powerful.

Well I'll go fire up the game now, finally.


edited: silly amount of typos

[NZ-Wanderer]

Yea, I agree there...

To me, what "should" have maybe happened, was that the 3 M4's of the taskforce been recalled to the taskforce by the M6 and a larger force than the enemy sent out to intercept..
The part that annoyed me the most tho was that the main taskforce just sat by and let its M4's get blown out of the sky without doing a thing..

One other bit of behaviour tonight also was the taskforce was sitting just inside a gate, and a Nova, falcon and an M5 were spotted on radar..
Watching from another sector, I saw 3 of the only 5 M5's I had left at that stage break away from the taskforce and head straight for the pirates...
I'll leave you to guess what happened, but I will say it wasn't pretty...

[Myros]

Thanks for the feedback NZ, sorry this isnt for you.

This script uses the basic standard game commands for attacking, not much I can do about how things attack other than rewrite all the game code.

A fleet takes time to organize even after it got the recon intel, it takes at least 5 minutes for a fleet to get moving ...this is a real time game. If I was being super realistic it would be hours But for the sake of the game dynamics I made the org time 5 minutes (roughly)

M4s and M5s are pretty much worthless in X3, they die in seconds flat. Not much I can do about that ..except maybe remove M4s from patrols and make it M3s the only ship type allowed on patrols. But then that would really limit the amount of exp to be gained by new pilots in training TFs as they would have nothing to do other than the occaisinal recon route. The addon is really for advanced users who are able and willing to train the pilots up till they can all pilot M3 - M6s, then they will hold their own, till then they are blaster fodder no doubt. Dont forget about the game bug that thinks discos are M4s also, the AI will send in all its discos thinking they are M4s. Hopefully that will get fixed in a coming patch. (not that real M4s last much longer anyway)

This script is not for making the game easier though thats for sure, war is hell ... it involves death and ship loss .... lots and lots of it ;p

I made these script for myself mainly, it always seems in X2 and X3 Im left twiddling my thumbs with nothing much to do. So I wanted to create another layer of things to do. I enjoy managing my fleets, but other than sending them replacement ships/pilots they pretty much run themselves IMO.

One thing I plan to do is rewrite the standard games SIGNAL_ATTACKED and SIGNAL_KILLED so that ships within a TF can send attack singals to HQ much quicker. Right now TF HQ runs checks every 2 - 4 minutes doing phases like fleet job checking, sector evaluation, enemy categorization etc which all takes time but if I were to rewrite SIGNAL_KILLED to include a specific interup call to the HQ they would be able to rspond much faster if needed. WIll be doign that this coming week, and also removing the enemy sector restriction from standard combat tours ... doesnt make much sense to keep that in when a TF can be anywhere.

Myros

[X-it]

Thanks for the information Myros.

This script uses the basic standard game commands for attacking, not much I can do about how things attack other than rewrite all the game code.

Does this mean that the TF commander doesn't really have any control of the fighters under his command, and the 3 M5s NZ-Wanderer mentioned in his example went after the pirates on their 'own' initiative? So even if the TF commander wanted to hold back the ships (like he obviously would in real life), he couldn't?

Anyway I notice the 'safety' of having training TFs consisting of 18 M5s and a TF leader in an M3: I observed Kingdom's End from OOS, and noticed a lone pirate Harrier appearing. The TF didn't do anything to take it out, but a few of the local police ships went after it. Only two M5s I think, and still after 5-7 minutes they had only managed to dent the hull a few times. Finally I sent in my Elephant to take it out...

So my strategy will be to keep those training TFs in safe sectors until the pilots reach commander rank, and then put them in M3s to do real work. It'll take a while, but as long as I don't have to micromanage them it's ok.

Have enough money to get my highest ranking captain a TL now, by the way, but I'm getting second thoughts. Think I'll get a few more universe traders and factories instead, and get him a TL when he has some M3s under his command and I send him into more hostile territory.

[ericbab]

ARG, got 3 boron octapusus, outfitted with weapons and pilots, assigned em to do that combat flighting around routine thing, left for a gour or 2 and then get messge back, the things complete 0 kills and all, and then i check ALL my ships with combat polits in em and their all gone, just my name AGAIN, 500000 down the drain, HELp

Update: I have determined it must be in the way they gain experience, i individually made em attack a single target and once it was distroyed my name was reinserted aND my expensive polits were vanished!

[Brooks2001]

hello, this is a script of genious... but, it would be cool if i could command my new squadren to repeat their current tour of duty until i decided 'move them on'. if i set 3 squads of 3 to patrol a sector then i dont really want to have to set them up again in 2 game hours. It just seems like alot of work if i have many squads set up.

Is it possible to get the squads to continue as they are, and/or repeat their current tour of duty until i decide to move them somewhere else?

Also is it possible to change the pilots life length? or even remove it? id like to use this script to run patrols, and dont really want the pilot to die of natural causes

If you can help, thanks!

[Kakurate]

Just wanted to report what seems to be a bug:

I've been constantly spammed with the log msg of:

"No ship YM4CH-65 found in list"

It hogging my log list and I dont know how to stop it. I'm going to save and reinit scrip cache and see if that helps.

**Update**
Nope, reiniting did not clear the message.

[X-it]

Just wanted to report what seems to be a bug:

I've been constantly spammed with the log msg of:

"No ship YM4CH-65 found in list"

It hogging my log list and I dont know how to stop it. I'm going to save and reinit scrip cache and see if that helps.

**Update**
Nope, reiniting did not clear the message.

That bug is not from this script. You are probably using the satellite deployment script, right?

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=118299

This is what's causing this. Hopefully it'll be fixed soon.

[X-it]

ARG, got 3 boron octapusus, outfitted with weapons and pilots, assigned em to do that combat flighting around routine thing, left for a gour or 2 and then get messge back, the things complete 0 kills and all, and then i check ALL my ships with combat polits in em and their all gone, just my name AGAIN, 500000 down the drain, HELp

Update: I have determined it must be in the way they gain experience, i individually made em attack a single target and once it was distroyed my name was reinserted aND my expensive polits were vanished!

Not sure I understand, but you should only do those combat Tours of Duty in safe, protected sectors (lke Argon Prime), and have at least 3 squadrons doing it at all times (3x3 ships).

I recommend using the included 'cheat script' that promotes two pilots of your choice to captains. When they are captains they can be set to command a task force, and then you can put up to 18 additional ships under their command, and even more when they reach a rank higher than captain.

If you only have M5s under their command the task force will not engage any enemies, but will only do continous training excersises. This means the task force commander will train them for you, so that you don't have to babysit them and restart the Tours of Duty every two hours. When enough of the pilots have reached the rank of commander, put them in M3s.

[X-it]

@

Brooks, I'd recommend what I wrote in the last two paragraphs in the above post.

Not sure about the pilots' life spans, but it's probably possible to edit. But even my oldest pilots are still 17 years old, so I don't think it's going to be a problem seeing as they live to be over 500 years.

[Kakurate]

Thanks for that little bit, I've uninstalled the satdep 1.11 untill they fix it, (give me time to stock up sats anyway)

about the taskforce. I've lost about 3 ships so far and NONE of my other ships ever came to help. I thought that was the hole point of the taskforce? Yes they were Disco's, but still... If theres nothing better they should go to the aid of my ships.

[X-it]

There is a bug in X3 (the game engine itself) that mistakes Discoverers for M4s. This means that they'll act as M4s in a task force, and will automatically set up a 3 ship 'attack force' when they see enemies. At least that's how I have understood it from Myros' descriptions earlier.

So M4s (and Discoverers) are pretty useless in the game, and in a task force. I recommend keeping all M5s until several of the pilots reach commander rank, so that you can put at least 3 M3s in a task force, or preferably all (with a few M5s as scouts). With only M5s in the force, they will not attack anyone.

I still haven't lost a ship. I'm running 3 task forces, each lead by a captain in an M3, and each with 18 M5s under their command. The two task forces in Kingdom's End and Home of Light have 18 Split Jaguar Raiders each (mixed in with a few Jaguar Vanguards), and I've recently set up the third TF in Antigone Memorial which has 18 Teladi Harrier Sentinels.

To be honest I also keep a sector defender in Home of Light when I have it available (a Split Elephant), since it's frequented by a bit more pirates than the other sectors.

The Split and Teladi M5s are the only ones that can carry APACSs, which makes a big difference with the way OOS combat is calculated (all numbers).

Finally, I haven't tried this on combat pilots myself yet, but there is a new script just released: The Camouflage Device. It can also be bought in TerraCorp HQ, so it goes hand in hand with this... When installed and activated, no enemy ships will attack it. Could be handy for keeping those trainees safe until they get bigger guns!

[NZ-Wanderer]

Hmmmm you might see me back in a Task Force yet again with that little gem...
I got all the money saved from selling off my old task force, so replacing ships shouldn't be a problem...
Am having a play at the moment trying to create my very first script.. - It going to be along the lines of a Player HQ (dunno if I will have a stationary one, or use one of the pirate stations that move.. - Kinda like the sound of the second one, that way we could rename it to TF Mobile HQ
But I busy looking through all the docs I can find about scripting atm..

Finally, I haven't tried this on combat pilots myself yet, but there is a new script just released: The Camouflage Device. It can also be bought in TerraCorp HQ, so it goes hand in hand with this... When installed and activated, no enemy ships will attack it. Could be handy for keeping those trainees safe until they get bigger guns!

[X-it]

A mobile TF HQ would be great! Good luck on that.

I've put one of those 'Ultimate Shipyards' (also a script) in Home of Light. Of course quite much a cheat if 'misused', but so far I've only used it to get some of the M5s that aren't normally for sale elsewhere, like the Teladi Harrier Sentinels.

But, it also has a 'Mobile Pirate Station' for sale, classified as a TL. I test-bought one, and it was interesting: Max cargo 30,000, max speed 180 m/s, hanger bay of 15, 8x125MJ shields. It couldn't carry any guns, but some missiles. But the biggest downside: It couldn't dock anywhere (it is huge, and is basically a station itself). This could be solved by transferring all necessary equipment to it, though. Besides it only cost about 5 million.

But I went back to a previous save and now I've got an Elephant for my oldest captain instead. Still felt a bit 'cheaty' to get him the mobile base, and I'm not sure yet if the TF commander actually needs guns in his ship. The Elephant is heavily armed, so at least it can fight.

But those mobile bases are ideal for storing ships and equipment etc. that acts as resupply vessels for the task forces. Will probably get a few later. They look cool too...

[NZ-Wanderer]

Well I didn't get beyond 2 lines of code before I hit a snag...
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=1425551
so started my own thread as to not block up any current threads... - But it looks like until I can get some help in figuring things out I gonna be stuck for a while..

A mobile TF HQ would be great! Good luck on that.

[Myros]

hello, this is a script of genious... but, it would be cool if i could command my new squadren to repeat their current tour of duty until i decided 'move them on'. if i set 3 squads of 3 to patrol a sector then i dont really want to have to set them up again in 2 game hours. It just seems like alot of work if i have many squads set up.

Is it possible to get the squads to continue as they are, and/or repeat their current tour of duty until i decide to move them somewhere else?

Also is it possible to change the pilots life length? or even remove it? id like to use this script to run patrols, and dont really want the pilot to die of natural causes

If you can help, thanks!

The pilots lifespan is huge, you wont see any pilots dying unless you play the same game for about a year (real time). It was just a little added flavour so you can keep track of the pilots you have had around the longest. As far as the continous tours prolly not, the exp gain and script functions are all based on a 2 hour clock for combat tours. So would mean a serious gutting of the script to make it constant. The standard patrol routines in X3 are both constant (though you pay constantly while they are active). You can use both regular patrols and my combat tours together, and of course you can use the addon Task Force command and the TF leader will run all the combat tours for you on a constant basis.

Myros

[ericbab]

No seriously my virtually disappear! no combat invoved, ship in perfect condition, bbut when first tour of duty is up or if i manually give them a command and it's accomplished name switches back to mine and i lose my pilot, everytime, attempted 3 times to be sure it wasn't cause i updated the script with that addon package, ASSIT, an someone tell me how to uninstall if worse comes to worse

Then reinstall of course