[SCR] MARS Fire Control (v5.25 - 16.02.13)

Gazz · Post by **Gazz** » Sun, 26. Oct 08, 09:54

Oh yes. I'm very proud of the goblin logic.

BTW: M8 are not very frightening any more.

I played with the goblin logic some more and they can help with missile defense now.

I was flying an M8 and fired 40 Tomahawk at a MARS Tiger that was 20km away.
The closest any missile ever got was 9883 m so the turrets never fired a single shot.

I did manage to "shoot" down 1 Goblin, though, when a Tomahawk detonated.
Still not a major victory if you figure in the price of 40 Tomahawks.

Version 3.33 released.

Fixed: "Laser not available"

Goblin Missile Defense.

MaitrePlaton · Post by **MaitrePlaton** » Sun, 26. Oct 08, 10:43

Hi all !

Sorry to ask, but when installing the MARS script, and after the process of update ingame (v. 3.33), do we have to do something ingame to see those modifications ? Do we have to buy the MARS software in a station or anywhere ?

Because I'm not interested in options (missile, sat, etc...), I just want to see my M1, M2, M7, and M6 better killers with their turrets...
And right now, even with the MARS script updated, I can't see the change.

Could you explain me how to use the MARS plz ?

Thanks a lot.

Gazz · Post by **Gazz** » Sun, 26. Oct 08, 11:09

MaitrePlaton wrote:Sorry to ask, but when installing the MARS script, and after the process of update ingame (v. 3.33), do we have to do something ingame to see those modifications ? Do we have to buy the MARS software in a station or anywhere ?

Yes. What you need to buy and where is in the description.

How to buy an item and how to start a turret command is in the X3 manual so no need to retype it all. =)

Gawaine wrote:Balance-wise, it seems like it uses the matter/antimatter launcher too much for the terran ships. It can't hit m4s and m5s but it doesn't switch to the starburst or epc though I have them in my cargo.

The get amunition intruction of TC now returns something instead of nothing like it did in Reuniun.
So MARS throught that all your other lasers were out of ammo...

lv9pv · Post by **lv9pv** » Sun, 26. Oct 08, 15:34

Gazz:

Considering the effectiveness of the goblin system (Now with added missile defense) Would it be natural to boost the cost of fighter drones or perhaps add a cost of usage to it ?

Idea could be that the player buy normal fighter drones at normal market price. But the MARS ship upgrade, have to modify the drones to goblin drones. And this have a credit cost to it. As to represent some way of resources needed for this upgrade.

SIKY · Post by **SIKY** » Sun, 26. Oct 08, 17:11

"Laser not available"

with X3R this "sound" comes when i use MARS in a capital ship with one turret hav'nt no weapon !
i spend some hours before find this

thank's Gazz to adapt this script in TC

sorry for my poor english

Gazz · Post by **Gazz** » Sun, 26. Oct 08, 17:59

lv9pv wrote:Considering the effectiveness of the goblin system (Now with added missile defense) Would it be natural to boost the cost of fighter drones or perhaps add a cost of usage to it ?

Idea could be that the player buy normal fighter drones at normal market price. But the MARS ship upgrade, have to modify the drones to goblin drones. And this have a credit cost to it. As to represent some way of resources needded for this upgrade.

The basic idea is to make the life of a capital ship captain easier.
Anything that requires a constant supply of X resources and therefore more micromanagement is right out.
Missile defense actually means you lose even more Goblins. =)

Also, altering the price of fighter drones or adding a "Goblin" ware would turn this script into a mod which would be incompatible to godknowswhat else.
Right now it works with just about (?) everything else.

If you start using goblins on a bunch of ships you'll end up building a fighter drone factory of your own.
Cost of doing business. =)
In reunion they were dancing circles around ships but now many enemies have fast firing goblin swatters...

SIKY wrote:"Laser not available"
with X3R this "sound" comes when i use MARS in a capital ship with one turret hav'nt no weapon !
i spend some hours before find this :lol:

Are you reporting a bug that only happens with Reunion?

shrikebtr · Post by **shrikebtr** » Sun, 26. Oct 08, 18:10

A question on behavior:

THe most recent update fixed this so I no longer get the "laser not available" message.

So in my first fight with it working, it was my TM with MARS and me in a Nova, vs. an enemy M3, M6, and M8.

I killed the M3 before the TM could engage, same with the M6. However, I wanted to watch the TM shred the M8 for giggles.

So, I set the turrets to MARS Offensive, which stayed for a second then changed automaticall to MARS Standby.

However, when I told the TM to: defend sector, defend station, attack all enemies, etc.... it just orbited slowly about the M8. It fired the occasional missile, but it would not shoot it's turrets at all. No matter what I set the turrets to, MARS would reset back to standby. Of course when I changed it to X "attack all enemies" settings, they started firing wildly, and missing badly.

Is this correct functioning? Perhaps because the M8 is a bigger ship class? Or a new ship class, MARS can't do it's magic and decide whether it can be hit or not?

Gazz · Post by **Gazz** » Sun, 26. Oct 08, 19:25

MARS does neither know nor care about the target's class.
It goes by target actual size, speed, and maneuvering.

Why it doesn't work there, I don't know.

TC might do something different with hostility settings, attack scripts, or whatnot.

Is the M8's race actually set to enemy?
Only "red" ships are considered an enemy. Very simple.

If the ship is neutral race you can not set it to enemy but have to shoot it until it turns hostile.
Then - and if your ship is on show as enemy if enemy to me it's a genuine enemy.

Reunion never had non hostile neutral race ships. Dunno about TC.

lv9pv · Post by **lv9pv** » Sun, 26. Oct 08, 22:07

Ah I see. I did not know that the goblin missile defense worked by having the goblins crash into the missiles and there by getting destroyed in the process. I thought they did their missile defense by shooting down the missiles.

Oh i never would ask for more micromanagement. What i meant was having a credit cost that represent the X amount of resources needed

There are way to much micromanagement with pore tools, in X3 as it is.

Yet from a RP point of view. I'm thinking that to have the goblins work as they do from simple fighter drones. Some kind of upgrade have been done to them. If its purely computer upgrades of the existing computers inside the drones, or upgrades to their navigation engines or weapon systems. I don't know. But this upgrade should have some cost (and pure credit cost is more then enough to represent some resources)

Anyway it was just an idea coming mainly from my misconception that the drones now shot down missiles and did not get destroyed in the process.

Cheers.

SIKY · Post by **SIKY** » Sun, 26. Oct 08, 22:24

SIKY a écrit:
"Laser not available"
with X3R this "sound" comes when i use MARS in a capital ship with one turret hav'nt no weapon !
i spend some hours before find this

Are you reporting a bug that only happens with Reunion?

it's not realy a bug.
ok, i try to explain

i was playing a game X3 reunion + NH mod
in one one my ship, i switch all the turrets to Mars defend
but, i haven't any compatible lasers for 2 turrets.
so, they stayed empty.
in that case Betty told me regulary "no laser avaible", every 30"
if you transfert compatible laser to this ship or switching off the turret command, the problem stop immediately

i hope you have understanding what i try to explain

i think it should can be the same problem to X3TC, bad laser for the turret...

Aramova · Post by **Aramova** » Mon, 27. Oct 08, 02:18

Greetings!

Wonderful script, the turrets have done an amazing job on my Corvette (I fly an Agamendar).

Problem I've run into, is I'm unable to get the Goblins to launch...

I've got 50 fighters (MarkIIs) in my bay, I've attempted to manually launch via the "MARS Attack my target" bind but it just says "No fighter drones available."

Any thoughts?

Lancefighter · Post by **Lancefighter** » Mon, 27. Oct 08, 02:35

MARS was designed back when only regular fighter drones were the only choice; my thought is that it only checks for the regular ones... fighter drones when used with MARS are rather amazing, you dont need mk2's to make them effective. My suggestion; sell mk2's, buy mk1's.

Legionnaire · Post by **Legionnaire** » Mon, 27. Oct 08, 06:15

Gazz i think ive found a 'player caused issue' with this script. just been doing a patrol mission in Home of Light and was collecting the cargo from that, a pirate energy transporter came in system so i attacked that thinking cap, it was blown up by other forces in sector, dropping a load of spacefuel. I had thought i read somewhere that the Goblins wouldnt collect spacefuel, but one of them bee-lined for it, brought it almost all the way back then left it. I decided to destroy it so as not to risk having it brought on board, so shot at it with 2x phased repeater gun. the 'bullets' got there just as another goblin 'collected' the fuel, and my game locked up.

I tabbed out to leave you this post and when i tabbed back in about 5 mins later the game was running again although very sluggishly.

Legionnaire

Gazz · Post by **Gazz** » Mon, 27. Oct 08, 07:31

lv9pv wrote:Ah I see. I did not know that the goblin missile defense worked by having the goblins crash into the missiles and there by getting destroyed in the process. I thought they did their missile defense by shooting down the missiles.

Of course they shoot down the missiles.
It's just a pretty dangerous job, shooting things that can have a 1km detonation radius.

Predator02 · Post by **Predator02** » Mon, 27. Oct 08, 08:56

Anyway to get this in SPK format?

Gazz · Post by **Gazz** » Mon, 27. Oct 08, 12:00

Sure. With the SPK Packager you can create one.

I sometimes use SPK but only for simple scripts where I don't expect to do many updates.

Aramova · Post by **Aramova** » Mon, 27. Oct 08, 14:09

Predator02 wrote:Anyway to get this in SPK format?

I've gone ahead and made one for you, I know it's not fun manually installing scripts, I make one for every script I download and install so I can easily uninstall all the old files

Here it is for version 3.33

http://rapidshare.com/files/158011903/mars.spk.html

Methel · Post by **Methel** » Mon, 27. Oct 08, 14:13

I'm just starting to use the script now on my Dragon, its just one turret with pretty limited weapon choices, but still working wonders. I especially love the goblins!
These little buggers keep the enemy busy for ages!
Now I love drones, not sure why.. but they appeal to me on some level (I loved the game overlord too btw

)

I loaded up my Dragon with 50 drones so I had for a few fights. Then after a few patrol missions and station defenses I check my drone level, expecting to have to replace most if not all of them... I've lost 5. Total.

I do have a few questions though.

Missile defence:
Does the drones launch automatically to defend against missiles?
What if I'm already at the goblin cap?

Drones:
Does it support mark II drones? (where do I get these anyways?)
If it does, or will, perhaps you should make a name change since they are such an improvement. Hobgoblins perhaps?
That would make it easy to differentiate the two.

Lastly I want to suggest a feature, though this might be a bit out of the intended field for M.A.R.S.
Marine transport: Make the goblins (or perhaps only MKII) ferry the marines to the boarding target.
Not sure if this is possible to code, but would be a nice feature if it was possible.

milp · Post by **milp** » Mon, 27. Oct 08, 14:17

Hmm i have 2 problems:

- If i use the MARS turret options, it always messes up the turret configuration.
I have 2 springblossoms with each 12 Experimental EMP cannons and 2 Prototype starburst shockwave cannons on board.

Mars always empties some slots of the turrets even tho weapons are available and doesnt fill them anymore.

- I use the normal fighter drones as goblins, but TBH they are a bit weak, id like to use those terran Keris drones or the MK2 fighter drones, but i cant find them anywhere to buy, any hints?

Aramova · Post by **Aramova** » Mon, 27. Oct 08, 14:59

milp wrote:Hmm i have 2 problems:

- If i use the MARS turret options, it always messes up the turret configuration.
I have 2 springblossoms with each 12 Experimental EMP cannons and 2 Prototype starburst shockwave cannons on board.

Mars always empties some slots of the turrets even tho weapons are available and doesnt fill them anymore.

- I use the normal fighter drones as goblins, but TBH they are a bit weak, id like to use those terran Keris drones or the MK2 fighter drones, but i cant find them anywhere to buy, any hints?

The Keris is at Earth if I remember...

I've noticed that MARS leaves exactly 1 gun on all the turrets when it's idle. When it kicks in, it switches to a full load of whatever gun it feels like using, fires, then switches instantly to the next gun it thinks is best out of your cargo.

If you want to keep a setup on your turrets, don't use it

One thing I've noticed odd, is on my Ray M2, the front turrets do in fact fit an entire rack of guns, but only shoots 1 of them. Odd, bug?

Anyway, just some thoughts..

egosoft.com

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[SCR] MARS Fire Control (v5.25 - 16.02.13)