[AL PLUGIN] Pirate Guild: Intelligent Pirate Behaviours | v0.96 (final update)

[Graxster]

I think alot are "forgetting" to un-cloak, because I keep seeing ships that are not in the vanilla game. For example: "Argon Falcon Vanguard" (that's the full name, no "High-Tech trader" or anything attached), that had full engine and rudder tunings already installed, as well as several other different previously unseen ships. When I scan or try to Comm, they haven't been revealing themselves as pirates. So attacking them gives me an Argon (or whoever) rep hit.

[Serial Kicked]

In fact you see too much "Argon Barracuda Raider" (or whatever) because, atm, the Pirate Bases can't provide enough e.cells to allow them to directly jump to their target. This behaviour has been fixed. Anyway seeing argon / boron whatever pirate ships in disguise is and will be common with this plugin. The bug is, when they are attacking something but are still under cover.

I have also modified cloaked ships behaviours for next release. When a cloaked pirate ship will be attacked it will automatically uncloack so you won't get a reputation hit.


v0.70 should be out in a few days.
In fact it's more or less ready but still need some playtesting.

changelog will be:
- Feature: Basic Guild joining and leaving options
- Feature: Show reputation, status and various info when talking with a PB through ECS
- Feature: ECS Broadcasted mission system (for TS raiding, police hunting, and invasions)
- Feature: Pirate News Network
- Feature: ECS dialogue to prevent pirates from attacking you if your standing is good
- Feature: Setting pirate as friends will set all pirate stations to blue
- Changed: Slowed down pirate activity a little
- Changed: PB will buy less ships at once
- Changed: Invasion duration sightly reduced
- Changed: Attacked covert ships will automatically uncloack
- Fixed: Guild sometimes attacking friendly players
- Fixed: Relation settings not applied to TS ships
- Fixed: TS doing nothing when the player disable the plugin or a PB is destroyed
- Fixed: Bug preventing raiding parties from recovering stolen wares to pirate bases
- Fixed: TS not using cover properly
- Fixed: Not enough energy cells for ships to jump

[Puruco]

Sugestion: Instead of slow down the pirates activities can you put a easy, normal, hard option for that if it can be done.

Also are still working with fleet orders of was drop out?

Thanks...

[Serial Kicked]

Sugestion: Instead of slow down the pirates activities can you put a easy, normal, hard option for that if it can be done.

It's not the difficulty that will change, but at which rate the plugin reach it's maximal difficulty. Things were way too quick in 0.6x.

Also are still working with fleet orders of was drop out?

I've a AFC (anarkis fleet command) script in project. But it won't be out anytime soon. PG and YA have to be finished first.

[narn]

I hate to be the barer of bad news but here it is. When I set the pirate relations to a positive on a new game the pirates are all enemies when I go into a pirate sector. All the pirates controlled by the game see me as an enemy regardless of what I set the relations to be.

I have tested this problem thoroughly and have found that on all versions (updates) of the game with all scripts removed that this still happens. I it took me about 2 days of testing with various mods and game update versions so I hope you acknowledge the effort I took to make sure it was nothing I did. I did not test it with the official cockpit mod removed however the Friendly pirates script has dealt with this issue and I suggest you look over the conversations on the forum and the code in the Friendly pirates script to see how it was done.

I really like this script and i hope you can solve this problem soon because I like the increased pirate activity. I also beg of you not to tone down the pirates because other wise it will be to easy when you are playing against them. Until then I will use the Friendly pirates script so I can continue playing as a pirate.

[Graxster]

I hate to be the barer of bad news but here it is. When I set the pirate relations to a positive on a new game the pirates are all enemies when I go into a pirate sector.

I started a new game and had this same thing happen. Don't know what was going on, but this is what I did:

Turned on the AL plugin and selected Friendly. All pirates still red.
Turned off the AL Plugin and turned it back on, selected Friendly. All pirates still red.
Turned off/on again and selected Neutral. (figuring that this might "reset" the reputation)
Turned off/on again and selected Friendly and all pirates turned blue.

Now, it's possible that this was caused by me, since the first time I turned it off before I gave it a chance to fully activate (it takes about a minute to send you the message saying that it's now active). Other than that, works fine.

Edit: Not sure, but the problems I had with trying to get them to be friendly could possibly have been caused by the fact that I'm playing the "Savage Split" game. Not sure what my starting reputation with the pirates is.

[Litcube]

I've been watching this thread, and I think I'll give this mod a try. I'm looking forward to .70 coming out to squash a few of the mentioned bugs. How's .70 coming along?

[TycHouse]

Unfortunately i havn't had time to try the Pirate Guild yet but congrats on what looks like an excellent script.

Those posters above who have 'red' pirates, can i just check is your 'global' setting set to 'Foe' ?

The reason i ask is because there is a difference between a 'red' ship and an 'enemy' ship. If your global setting for pirates is set to Foe, they will appear red on your display even if they 'see' you as friendly.

Just a thought... shoot me down if that's not the case

[Serial Kicked]

Please wait for 0.7x, shoul be out today, maybe tomorrow. It will correct the few errors & misunderstanding.

I really like this script and i hope you can solve this problem soon because I like the increased pirate activity. I also beg of you not to tone down the pirates because other wise it will be to easy when you are playing against them. Until then I will use the Friendly pirates script so I can continue playing as a pirate.

Yeah i've noticed that recently about some pirates who don't find anything better than attacking you even if they are blue. Corrected.

Tone down the pirates ? If there's ONE thing this plugin don't do, it's to 'tone down' the pirates.

[Serial Kicked]

Here we are

Version 0.70 is out.

The list of changes and fixes is really massive, so i advise you to give a close look at the changelog in the second post of this topic before download or posting any comment. The plugin should be able to auto update itself. But it won't correct some of the minor bugs. So i still advise you (once the plugin is updated) to disable it and enable it back in the AL settings.


Basic guild joining & leaving options have been added. You still can't get rank or beeing kicked out of the guild because of bad behaviours, but you'll be able to see how the system will work in the final release. To join the guild, use ECS on any pirate dock to comm with it.


Once you're a member you'll have access to the following screen:
[ external image ]
More options will be available in future versions when you'll gain rank (ship repairs, overtuning, salvages).


ATM, you can only have access to the pirate news networks:
[ external image ]
The PNN will display important events and actions done by the nearby pirate bases. However, notice that only the important events are displayed here, so during the first few game hours you won't see much on the PNN, as the bases need to grow first.


Moreover, from time to time, pirate bases will broadcast to members (you ) in their sector missions and orders. Killing the target will give you money, reputation and rank. Ignoring them won't cost you anything.

A ton of bugs and weird behaviours have been corrected. An ECS message allow you to cancel attacks from hostile pirates when you're a member. The guild no more attack friendly players. Ships under cover will uncover when attacked. And finally, you'll no more see an increasing amount of red pirate ships over time when you're friendly with them.

Enjoy

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

So are you going to extend this framework to the right side of the law?

Such as the Galactic police forces. Perhaps GP Deputy Division. Or something, which essentially counters the pirate forces in their own manner.

[Serial Kicked]

Guys, look at the previous page for important release notes.
(I hate when an important post is the last one of a page )

@atc:

Basically, yes

PG works like a framework, i can use 90% of the current script to write its 'lawful' counterpart (including the guild system). That said, the GP will use a simplified AI for their bases & hq, as they don't need to raid TS or to pick a race to target, etc.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Well, the way I figure, the job of a GP force is to track and stop criminal activity. I figure, unlike the PG (PG vs GP? Heh...) , the police would post general alerts on pirate activity. After all, their job is public safety, so inform the public. But I believe the police should of course have counter-raids and SWAT team style actions. (Pirate base attacks and the like.)

[Paranoid Marvin]

Serial,

Been using this mod recently and I have noticed a major problem with it, I set all pirate relations to neutral so the pirates go blue.

I have been utterly unable to find a single red pirate anywhere in the known universe and I have advanced sats covering just about everything.

Thats not the major problem though, I want the pirates to be blue after all I'm their main booze manufacturer, the major issue I am having is even when I attack a pirate guild ship it stays blue - turns red for a split second then goes blue - this even happens after I have used ECM to comm the pirate and order it to surrender.

I have tried setting my ships commands to "Pirates = Foe" but this does nothing, I have tried disabling the pluggin and then attacking a ship but got the same problem.

I am also running Jaki Armarda and all the Jaki are blue to me also - which I doubt should be the case since I have been anihilating them for mecenery missons (I am running a number of cycrows scripts too)

Can you help?

[Serial Kicked]

Yeah, it was a temporary "fix" to TycHouse issues, i've discovered the real reason why some pirates turn red when they should be neutral. I'll remove it asap, new version should be out later today.

[Paranoid Marvin]

Wicked!

[Puruco]

Hi Serial: Correct me if I'm wrong but what I understood of the HTML documentation is that we going to have two kind of pirates, the vanilla and the PG pirates. both acting as their own and if I kill of one kind that do not affect the other.

Second: If I'm enemy of the guil can I still selling illegal stuff to them?

[Paranoid Marvin]

Serial, just playing around manualy takeing out all the blue pirates in my Space fuel complexes sector (just so you know, Some groups of blue pirates behave properly when shot out of blue status and some keep changing back blue - cant tell why or how.).

I found another odd behaviour - dont know if its becasue of this script but I suspect so.

Blue transports that are camoflagued pirate smugglers eg the one I am looking at right now "Split Food Transpot Mercury" dont respond to having illegal goods found on board thier ships by a lawfully freight scan - they stay blue and dont turn red and recognition is lost if you manualy nuke them. These seem to be the games normal smugglers that would usually respond to being scanned by going red.

PS:- Will the update allow me to manualy make all pirates ie those displaying in the sector map as "Pirate ..." display as red to me?

[Serial Kicked]

@Puruco:

1/ More or less. Attacking "standard" (not guild affiliated) ships won't hurt your standing toward the guild. Attacking guild members will make your notoriety go down with the 2 factions.

2/ As long as you can dock in a pirate base, you can trade with them. However, if you attack guild ships, their homebase may become red. Check if the ship has an homebase before attacking.

To avoid having all the PB's turning red, the guild ships remove their homebase setting during raids. So except if you attack the guild ships when they are coming back from a raid you shouldn't have PB's turning red.


@Paranoid Marvin:

The odd behaviour isn't caused by my plugin, afaik. Smugglers with "legit" names like 'food transport' (or whatever) aren't handled by my plugin. In fact versions 0.7x (and below) have a small glitch allowing you to easily know if a trader is owned by PG, as they all have names like "Pirate Mercury", "Pirate Demeter" even when "under cover".

PS:- Will the update allow me to manualy make all pirates ie those displaying in the sector map as "Pirate ..." display as red to me?

Err, not sure i understand the question. The update will do the following changes:

- It will correct the issue with PG ships turning blue when attacked.

- It will correct a bug that can turn PG ships red when your reputation is too low (only the non-affiliated ships should turn red).

- When you're neutral to the pirates, nothing will be enforced. PG will let the game engine spawn pirate ships with both red & blue status. However if you've just started a new game, all spawned ships will be blue until you start killing them. And as usual, if you're friendly all ships will be blue, and if you're enemy all ships (apart those from the guild) will be red.


Sorry if i'm not clear, the plugin is quite complicated and still in beta. However the HTML documentation should give you a good explanation when in doubt.

Thanks anyway, the more feedback I have, the better will be the final version

[Paranoid Marvin]

I wondered if it might be becasuse I was scanning them before they left the sector, so ill test that.

As for what I mean by turn them all red, I'd like a way to make all pirate ships go red, the sector authorites know who they are and attack them, they are "pirate nova" etc on the sector map - I'd like a way to see them at a glance rather than having to find them all in the sector map list. Maybe as an optional thing from a race equipment doc? Police scanner "Identifies pirate guild ships" - possibly turns them purple or some other colour in the sector list.

Otherwise yay!