[script] Improved Races (r14 RC2 Available)

7ate9tin11s · Post by **7ate9tin11s** » Wed, 8. Jul 09, 09:00

ThisIsHarsh wrote:Could you make it so that the Khaak are a bit more focussed? By that I mean it seems every other sector has some Khaak in it, but generally just a small force. I've only just started a game and even on Easy mode the Khaak are destroying my freighters left right and centre. It would be better IMO if the Khaak used all their strength to take a couple of sectors, rather than spreading out over many many sectors.

That is odd, in normal mode you should only have 6 sectors actively spawned by ik at one time. If your seeing them in every other sector then there are more than that (Are you using RRF? It adds alot of Kha'ak). As for focusing, they do focus in a way, it is just not very easy to see overall. Their primary focus in the beginning is to take a sector and build a base, to do this they send scouting forces everywhere to find likely and empty sectors. Once they have a base they then try to keep local defenses pinned down while overpowering a sector here and there.

EDIT: I disabled the Khaak and I keep getting the subtitle "Cleaning Sector M148" reappearing every few seconds, counting down to 1, then going away.

Same error and code as the ATF one. Unfortunatly one of my recent ai upgrades to the invasions and counterstrikes broke them so until I get it ironed out there is not much I can do updatewise. You can do a full module reset by running 'plugin.ir.upgrade' with null for all inputs to get rid of the message, but you need to have turned all improved races off and wait for 2 minutes before doing it.

Wintermist · Post by **Wintermist** » Wed, 8. Jul 09, 09:14

Any chance of a hot-fix for some ammunition?

someone else · Post by **someone else** » Wed, 8. Jul 09, 10:24

to all NPC Ammo-neeeders, go to look for Gazz's AI Ammo cheat
that fixes the problem.

7ate9tin11s · Post by **7ate9tin11s** » Wed, 8. Jul 09, 10:52

someone else wrote:to all NPC Ammo-neeeders, go to look for Gazz's AI Ammo cheat
that fixes the problem.

There would be the reason I never noticed it, I play with that

Well it is fixed in the newest revision, starting up a new test run now to see if invasions and counterstrikes are working again...

7ate9tin11s · Post by **7ate9tin11s** » Wed, 8. Jul 09, 15:16

It is alive!

Just making a couple minor tweaks and we will have a new release that hopefully clears up those pesky bugs. Sorry bout the delay, The flood of bug reports hit me while I had the invasion/counterstrike ai halfway torn apart

.

Long Duration Testing Results (Insane Mode)
Game time passed: 1 day, 3 hours
- 49 sectors taken, including Xenon 546
- 20 sectors taken (stopped after taking whole northeastern side by constant counter-assaults...this has been fixed)
- No takeover enabled for the Yaki, but their Hikari lasertower arrays have destroyed all economic and military strength within 5 sectors of their sectors . So a kind estimate would be 12 sectors...not bad for only a single attack type and only 4 ships deploying.
- Biggest loser, down to 16 sectors remaining...

Revision 5 Changes
1. Statistics module updated - same basic functions but looks prettier

2. Yaki options available - The only options which do anything at this time is the base difficulty and the Lasertower gates, aka Hikari arrays. These are currently unbalanced, but close to where I want them for strength...feedback would be appriciated (give them a while to build them up though, they start from the Yaki shipyard and spread from there). As always, each level of difficulty aims to multiply the nastiness of the lower level by 2...insane, is insane.

3. Notifications are now limited by reputation and knowledge of the sectors involved. For lost sectors you only need to be neutral, counterstrikes require a bit of rep.

4. Invasion/Counterstrike AI reworked with better targeting, please let me know if the CPU load is too high and I will revert it.

5. Counterstrikes are now limited. A shipyard takes an hour to rebuild and reoutfit a new counterstrike after launching one. This limitation does not apply to the ATF or OFF as they are always ready and building forces.

6. Kha'ak sector takeover time increased by 1/3rd accross the board to try and make it more equivilent to the Xenon. Their spawning rate has also been tweaked down by 75/66/50/0% depending on your difficulty. Let me know if they are too easy now.

7. Many bugs fixed. Hopefuly those pesky nulls will go away now.

8. Ships produced by the Xenon and for all counterstrikes will only be ships that currently exist in the universe. So if you are playing a mod that has no Xenon M in the universe, there will be none generated by IX. This cannot be done for the Kha'ak for technical reasons.

9. Infinite ammo for all! If an ir ship is running low on ammo the peons inside the ship will produce more.

Up and loaded, enjoy!

Beta Comments Wanted

I could really use some of you to test out the new lasertower arrays and let me know what you think. You will need to be an enemy of the Yaki to suffer their wrath, otherwise just enjoy the light show

inferno1983 · Post by **inferno1983** » Wed, 8. Jul 09, 18:05

great!

This script is absolutly awesome!!!

Gripen · Post by **Gripen** » Wed, 8. Jul 09, 18:32

If i was to install only 1 script on my game it would be this, sweet!

Gonna go piss off the yaki now ^^

SpenzOT · Post by **SpenzOT** » Wed, 8. Jul 09, 21:47

someone else wrote:to all NPC Ammo-neeeders, go to look for Gazz's AI Ammo cheat
that fixes the problem.

I don't use that script because it appears to overwrite .pck files from other scripts that I use. I don't want to risk ruining another mod for the AI ammo script.

I am glad the issue was addressed though, so that people like me don't have to worry about the AI ammo situation.

someone else · Post by **someone else** » Wed, 8. Jul 09, 21:56

actually overwrites some Egosoft scripts to fix some bugs with them
to let the AI cheat script work

SpenzOT · Post by **SpenzOT** » Thu, 9. Jul 09, 06:21

someone else wrote:actually overwrites some Egosoft scripts to fix some bugs with them
to let the AI cheat script work

Hmmm I didn't know that. Thx

7ate9tin11s wrote:4. Invasion/Counterstrike AI reworked with better targeting, please let me know if the CPU load is too high and I will revert it.

Yeah this tipped the scale for me. Now I am getting the good old endless sound loop crash that indicates that the game is stressing my CPU too much. Looks like I have to disable RRF.

7ate9tin11s · Post by **7ate9tin11s** » Thu, 9. Jul 09, 06:34

Yeah this tipped the scale for me. Now I am getting the good old endless sound loop crash that indicates that the game is stressing my CPU too much. Looks like I have to disable RRF.

Please do not use the old low cpu patch...

I think I can actually put an option in for the lower cpu usage for r6...though I wonder if the checks for the option cause more usage than the savings...

SpenzOT · Post by **SpenzOT** » Thu, 9. Jul 09, 09:44

Thank you. I will try it out. You make me feel special by doing that hehe.

Concerning RRF, I originally used it to get some action (sector invasion), but your script definitely fixed that for me, so now I use them for sector defense and reinforcements when a sector is in trouble. With your upcoming improvements, maybe I won't need RRF anymore. Either way your script is permanent in my games from now on, so revise away.

I am impressed though with how efficient your script is. I mean I expected my system to bog down more than a truck stuck in a swamp, but it performs admirably. Keep up the fantastic work!

Scoob · Post by **Scoob** » Thu, 9. Jul 09, 22:49

Hi,

Just wanted to say that r5 is working great for me, no more problems with nulls, just excessive levels of carnage!

Looking forward to the Yaki extras, they're friends on mine. Indeed my 'HQ' sector is Weaver's Tempest so the Yaki being tougher can only make me more secure.

Question: as I'm GOOD friends with the Yaki they will continue to be nice to me right, even with your script? They're not going to go all agressive on me, their good buddy are they?

Cheers,

Scoob.

ThisIsHarsh · Post by **ThisIsHarsh** » Thu, 9. Jul 09, 23:25

I don't know if you use Serial Kicked's Pirate Guild, but the comm system in that is fantastic. I.e. you can comm pirates to help them out if they're being attacked, ask for news on latest raids (and get extra reward if you help out)... and it all uses proper audio dialogue, looks very professional, almost like it was a built-in feature.

If you could integrate your invasions/counterattacks with a comm system like that it would be awesome. E.g. giving information on current invasions/counterstrikes, offering rewards for being the one to destroy the Xenon station, or rewards for getting x amount of kills defending a sector against invasion, etc, etc. I think Serial Kicked marks his scripts as open source, but best to check. Would be great to have a common interface for comms with Pirate Guild and this plugin.

Scoob · Post by **Scoob** » Fri, 10. Jul 09, 00:00

Hi again,

Quick question...do the A.T.F. hate the Paranid or something?

Reason I ask is because I followed an assault fleet all the way to Xenon 598 & jumped in my own fleet to help - fantastic battle

I also use RRF (Argon/Terran set to friendly, no invasions or any of the extras).

While mid battle I saw a jump-flash and a Paranid fleet jumped in consisting of an M7 Agamemnon, a Zeus (with fighters - LOTS of fighters) and a couple of Nemesis. Well, the Xenon forces had already lost their M1 and M2 and this combined 3 race (including me) fleet made short work of the remaining 3 Q's and fighters. Nice.

Anyway I was just collecting the spoils of war (just missiles unfortunately) when I noticed the battle was still going on - but this time the A.T.F. and Paranid going for it. Unexpected but pretty cool.

I did see this a couple of times with any A.T.F. fleet attacking the first Argon they encounter - until I applied the RRF option to set Terran/Argon to friends.

Is there something that naturally makes the Terrans hate the Paranid or do you think it's simply a case of one stray shot too many escallating into war...either way, quite fun to watch.

ThisIsHarsh: Great idea, I had Pirate Guild downloaded and ready to install before I saw this script. Assumed the two wouldn't work together but if they could be integrated that'd be pretty damn good.

Cheers,

Scoob.

SpenzOT · Post by **SpenzOT** » Fri, 10. Jul 09, 00:28

I'm sure pirate guild will work with this script, but the Pirate Guild script is so CPU intensive that I could see it causing a few problems if your computer cannot handle the extra strain without crashing. Even if it can handle the strain, I would imagine that there will be many frozen NPC's in the larger battles.

Troubleshooter11 · Post by **Troubleshooter11** » Fri, 10. Jul 09, 01:10

Scoob wrote: Anyway I was just collecting the spoils of war (just missiles unfortunately) when I noticed the battle was still going on - but this time the A.T.F. and Paranid going for it. Unexpected but pretty cool.

I did see this a couple of times with any A.T.F. fleet attacking the first Argon they encounter - until I applied the RRF option to set Terran/Argon to friends.

Is there something that naturally makes the Terrans hate the Paranid or do you think it's simply a case of one stray shot too many escallating into war...either way, quite fun to watch.

Could have been a few stray shots from one race hitting the other, resulting in retaliation and a big furball.

shilhi · Post by **shilhi** » Fri, 10. Jul 09, 04:48

This sounds sexy.

I'm going to give it a go, and if I run into any problems I'll be sure to notify you on here.

7ate9tin11s · Post by **7ate9tin11s** » Fri, 10. Jul 09, 08:01

Scoob wrote:Quick question...do the A.T.F. hate the Paranid or something?

By their default reputation they dislike them slightly (-10) but that would not cause an attack in my script (which needs them to be an enemy). I think you just got a fun race war with RRF

I'm sure pirate guild will work with this script, but the Pirate Guild script is so CPU intensive ...

Yeah, there is not alot of cpu space to use scripts in for x3tc. Good news is that I found some ways to greatly reduce the cpu load on Xenon invasions, the various counterstrikes, and the Hikari arrays. Plus I will be putting in a low cpu usage option that will use pre r5 targeting (and other tweaks as I find them) to reduce cpu load...at the cost of enemy intelligence though.

I have finished implementing and testing the updated lower cpu load ai, but still need to get the optional old targeting set up. I also found a bug that made the Kha'ak fail to be a problem in a new game...this has been fixed...with the equivilent of a hammer heavy torpedo

...be careful

So r6 should be up later, just more minor fixes again and hopefully not a bringer of new errors

aka1nas · Post by **aka1nas** » Fri, 10. Jul 09, 08:11

Does your script suppress Shipyards in conquered sectors respawning for their original race? I've been playing around with Lazcorp's Claim Sector script recently and noticed that changing the owner of, say, Xenon 472 will not prevent the Xenon shipyard from respawning every so often.

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[script] Improved Races (r14 RC2 Available)