Overtuning ships, repair laser and 2nd HQ in TC vanilla. Exploit howto with pictures)

[Rhox]

EDIT: how silly of me, you don't need the Xenon Hub. Player EQd should be fine.

Sadly, player EQ and HUB seem to lack this particular feature. The quantity is getting reset properly. Otherwise, you would already have the above mentioned thread about repair laser posted by me

It's possible to work around the fix. I've been able to take over all wares from shipyards in both my Xenon Hub and player Equipment Docks, generate some factories using the original exploit, and transfer them into TLs and build from there. I haven't got it so reliable that it works for every ware every time. But I've generated many factories and even ships including Qs, Js and Ks. Obviously, you can take over all wares from Xenon Shipyards too. The only Kha'ark stations I currently have access to this game are just that, Kha'ark stations. Just what the hell you do with ships inside a Xenon Hub, EQd or Mammoth well I'm not up to that part just yet. So far it's worked using the HOME and END keys but not arrows. I think it's worth examining closely which pairs of wares it works with, and if the pattern can be worked out, then it should be possible to generate any and all factories and perhaps other wares, by a system of adding all wares from station and then selective deletion. If that's what it takes to get a vanilla repair laser then hey why not. Something else I haven't explored is whether using the dockware manager to add a ware or some other method, may dictate which wares can be generated. In my curent start I've got a mixture. When you try this, start with a bunch of crystals in your TL, and use their quantity to generate some Argon Crystal M / Crystal L factories. I used the wares list from Argon Prime Shipyard. This seemed to work every time in my game. Your current notoriety with the owner of the factory type does not limit your ability to generate their factories/ships nor use their shipyard wares list.

There are limits to how many factories you can store in a player EQd at one time, but somewhat relaxed for the Xenon Hub The PHQ is more relaxed again. In any case you just xfer to another Mammoth and generate another batch. I haven't yet tried player TPs or the PHQ.

Could you please describe detailledly how you copy stations and ships? I get your general idea, but wouldn't be able to replicate it by now...

best regards,
Rhox

[kurush]

It's possible to work around the fix.

Would you be able to post a step by step guide for what you found? I was able to get repair laser to the list of wares but replication didn't work for some reason. Also, I didn't think ware manager can add factories to the dock although I never tried... Are you on vanilla?
If it indeed works on Vanilla, it would be sad Kha'ak stations don't have Kha'ak destroyers for sale:)
EDIT: Yes, it is possible. Transfer all wares works, they forgot to exclude the shipyard from it I still can't replicate anything on my HUB though. Crystals and Crystal fabs didn't work for me. I was delivering 1 MJ shields to my mammoth docked on the HUB.

[glenmcd]

At the moment I'm highly modified. About the only things that could have an impact IMO are:

1. Hub storage capacity is 4x default
2. My Mammoth cargobay is 500,000,000 units

But the player EQd is standard size and I can generate factories and ships okay in it. Again, I don't know how to get the ships out of either the EQd or a Mammoth. Below is a pic of my waypoint list for the hub. Mammoth is doing the trading and has the CLS2. MSF10 is simply temporary storage of a single 1GJ Shield which is the toggling ware. Chosen because it's top of the list which itself is because it's alphabetically first.

[ external image ]

I haven't been able to clone "normal" wares on these yet either. I need to try the factory and ship generations in vanilla, also to try with the PHQ. As I haven't got the PHQ just yet (marines in training) and vanilla takes me longer to get a mature game going so it may take a while. Meanwhile check out the waypoint list above maybe there's something in there. I tried doing a fraps video but it ended up being over 2GB in size which is probably too big for most to download. That was compressed too.

Kurush, please share how you get the repair laser into the wares list for EQd / hub. It isn't so obvious to me. Make sure you use the Home / End keys and not arrows. Use max quantity of wares on line under/above the ware you want to generate.

[glenmcd]

Are you on vanilla?
If it indeed works on Vanilla, it would be sad Kha'ak stations don't have Kha'ak destroyers for sale:)

Below are a couple of vanilla saves with factory generation done / good to go, so you can play around with them and find out what your setup is lacking. For now I'll stick with something that seems to work every single time. You've got 100 units of Mosquito Missiles in the TL. You can generate any factory or ship either below or above the mozzies. When you've done so, you need to transfer them into a TL (buy more if you have to) so that you can remove that particular ware (factory) from the player EQd menu, or generate another batch if you want. As you remove factories either side of the mozzies line, some other ware will move down/up to replace it. Decide whether you want to generate some of those, and either do so, or remove that ware also. This list is alphabetical so it's pretty easy to do a bunch of deletes if you want something(s) specific. All factories and ships seem to work like this. But no other wares (so far). By adding every factory and ship in the game and then selective generation + deletion, you can generate any and all factories / ships. At stated above only factories are immediately usable so far.

X09.sav already has some factories and ships generated:
http://www.glenmcd.com/tc/X09.sav

X10.sav has not generated any yet, but is ready to do so with CLS2 already functioning:
http://www.glenmcd.com/tc/X10.sav

Because you can add any factory to a player EQd/Xenon Hub and probably PHQ, that gives you a means of transferring factories or CCKs between TLs, by using the EQd/hub/PHQ as an intermediatory.

If you look at the info on your EQd, it shows in some areas the same as it does for a shipyard. A slider showing how many of each ship type are in stock. You'd think that there would be some way of purchasing these ships from your EQd. I just haven't figured that part out yet, if indeed it is possible at all. What you might be able to do though, is to set prices for ships at slightly less than average, and then maybe NPCs will buy ships from you. A way out thought but hey you never know unless you try?

It's interesting that Mosquito missiles and crystals seem to work as a source just fine, but many other things don't. These two wares are not the same cargo class (S and M size), nor same ware volume (1 and 4). But both had somewhat largish quantities in my game so maybe there's something in that.

NPC HQs are another station type that should work.

[kurush]

Kurush, please share how you get the repair laser into the wares list for EQd / hub. It isn't so obvious to me.

That was a bit tricky. You need to dock on the HUB in your space suit and then use the dockware manager to add it. It will show up on the list but only if you are docked in a spacesuit
You are on 3.1.1, aren't you? I can't try your saves then which is unfortunate.
EDIT: it finally happened on my save The perpetually running CLS 2 setup seems to be essential because it happens may be each 30th time. got two HEPT forges out of hornet missiles. Also, got two Titans Wares stubbornly refuse to clone though, which is a pity.

[glenmcd]

Kurush, please share how you get the repair laser into the wares list for EQd / hub. It isn't so obvious to me.

That was a bit tricky. You need to dock on the HUB in your space suit and then use the dockware manager to add it. It will show up on the list but only if you are docked in a spacesuit
You are 3.1.1, aren't you? I can't try your saves then which is unfortunate.

Sheesh how could I miss that

In the vanilla save below X05.sav, there's a few thousand repair lasers in the EQd, about 50 in the HV, with a 1% hull Nova ready to repair in front of the HV. Weapon group #4 has the repair laser. Use #2 to damage it some more. Because you're in a ship with SETA, you can hold down left control and J together, to repair at 10x speed vanilla. This comes about through bug exploits, not hacks to memory or files. You can do it from either save above or the one below, without changing the waypoints.

http://www.glenmcd.com/tc/X05.sav

Kurush:
Yes sorry I'm running 3.1.1 Steam.

[kurush]

So, you actually cloned the damned thing? Congrats Was it in EQ? Because I didn't have any luck in the HUB.

[glenmcd]

So, you actually cloned the damned thing? Congrats Was it in EQ? Because I didn't have any luck in the HUB.

It was in the EQ, but I'm confident that it will work in the others also. Going back to modded game now and I've got the hub there so will know for certain soon.

[kurush]

Ok, we got our repair lasers thanks to glenmcd. Now the question of the day: what would be the best ship to use as a repair drone? I think it should be something agile and capable of equipping repair lasers everywhere...

[VincentTH]

Ego should ask glencd and the OP to be their beta testers for X:R

(But no, I am not interested in these exploits).

[Aro]

Can the PHQ reverse a ship that's been transferred to stock or does the ship need to be docked naturally?

[Rhox]

Ok, we got our repair lasers thanks to glenmcd. Now the question of the day: what would be the best ship to use as a repair drone? I think it should be something agile and capable of equipping repair lasers everywhere...

I don't think that lasers everywhere make sense as the ship would only fire them at enemy ships. And that's the last thing you want to do
I'd suggest the Vidar. It can mount up to 10 RL's in the front, which should be the most of all ships if I'm not mistaken. Furthermore it has quite a good laser reactor as a M6 so continuous fire should be more than possible...

best regards,
Rhox

[glenmcd]

As per Nanook's request instructions for generating vanilla repair lasers moved here:
----------------------------------------------------------

This is a bug exploit. Unless you've played Terran Conflict for at least 200 hours, you really would be better off not reading further. For now at least.

Spoiler

Show

This exploit uses Kurush's menu-jumping exploit (OP in this thread):
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=303682
I'll assume from here that you've read the above thread enough to know how to use it. With this exploit, you can generate wares that did not previously exist, and do so in a player equipment dock or Xenon Hub. The list of wares includes "normal" wares such as weapons. food, bio, tech etc, plus factories and repair lasers.

To generate repair lasers usable on ships:
Dock at your player EQd in your spacesuit. Use dockware manager to add repair laser. Then remove any ware that is past repair laser, when viewing the list from the trade menu. In other words, wares/factories/ships/others that start with S-Z should be removed. If you've got stock of those in the hub you'll need to remove the stock first. Activate Kurush's menu jumping exploit (I won't explain here as Kurush has done this very well above). Use the trade menu from any ship, place the cursor on the top item in the price-setting region. This is the second section of the trade menu for player stations. Press the "Home" key. Wait until the menu jumps down a line, and then press enter. Whatever ware/factory/ship/other the cursor lands on, will suddenly have maximum quantity in your EQd. For repair lasers, you'll have 10,000 of them. So the critical thing is to have the item you want generated last alphabetically. Transfer the wares elsewhere, and then either generate more or delete that ware from your EQd list and generate the ware that replaces it in the list.

Repair lasers use only one cargobay unit, all prices (min/av/max) are 64 credits. You can have thousands of them in a ship if you want, and xfer to other ships as desired. Because you're using from a ship, you're free to use SETA during all repairs, and of course you don't have to eject before repairing. To do SETA repair, hold down left control and J keys together.

To generate factories, transfer the wares list (all) from any factory of your choosing, including enemies such as Xenon. Although it appears you can generate ships, I haven't taken this all the way through to actually flying one of them. But it works well for generating factories that you don't have the rep (or credits) to buy yet.

[glenmcd]

Here's another CLS exploit that doesn't involve menu jumping. You have two of your ships docked at one of your factories. Ship #1 has a cargobay full of some ware that your factory has as a resource (product probably works too). Ship #2 is running a CLS2 waypoint list that loads all of the ware from ship #1, wastes time by unloading one unit of the ware into factory and back a few times, and finally unloads all units of ware back into ship #1. Meanwile, player is using trade menu to the factory, and moving wares back and forth in the normal manner while at same time, the wares are not always in the ship. There's windows of time in which the wares get cloned. I haven't narrowed the timing of that window too much, but the fact that I started with 7,000 ECs between both ships and factory, and ended up with 17,000 (factory had 10,000 unit resource storage capacity) confirms that this exploit does work. If the exact sequence of required events can be worked out, then the exploit may also be usable at NPC factories. While this may not be particularly attractive in play in comparison to other more lucrative exploits, it's still one that should be of interest to anyone working on closing exploits. Although it may seem that the responsibility must surely lie with CLS software to close these exploits, it may in fact come down to something in the X3TC engine itself or perhaps some vanilla script. At a basic level we've got an engine that is designed for synchronous operation, but has had asynchronous operation forced on it via CLS2 and perhaps others. Even Trade Command Mk I may present opportunities for exploitation. For example you command ship #2 to buy some ware, meanwhile you're in ship #1 and you manually trade with same station, but pausing between specifying quantity and pressing enter, to allow ship #1 to do its thing. If this works as an exploit, I'd say that it's confirmation that ES needs to look at its own code, rather than put pressure on the author of CLS. In another thread I mentioned that the Mission director taking wares from a ships cargobay on conclusion of a "Wares required" generic mission also presents an opportunity for ware cloning. It's not the trading scripts. It's something at a lower level. One thing that would close most of these would be to block any moving of wares of credits at a station, while another trading operation is happening. In other words, disallow asynchronous operation (per station) at the lowest level possible.

[kurush]

Although it may seem that the responsibility must surely lie with CLS software to close these exploits, it may in fact come down to something in the X3TC engine itself or perhaps some vanilla script.

I have to disagree here on CLS as it in fact has nothing to do with the bug. I am 90% sure you can get the same results with "supply ships" command from vanilla. It also happens for deliver ware missions.

I'd say that it's confirmation that ES needs to look at its own code, rather than put pressure on the author of CLS.

Yep. Luckily, it is not going to happen until TNBT comes out with its own fancy bugs And those bugs are usually are useful. We now can address several major deficiencies in vanilla game: lack of PALC, absence of repair laser, absence of a method to overtune ships, and finally disappearance of EEMPC

[glenmcd]

I have to disagree here on CLS as it in fact has nothing to do with the bug. I am 90% sure you can get the same results with "supply ships" command from vanilla. It also happens for deliver ware missions.

I said it wrong; we're actually in agreement.

Luckily, it is not going to happen until TNBT comes out with its own fancy bugs

If X:Rebirth does support multi-core and is a total rewrite, it implies that much of the code is inheritly parallel (very many threads offering parallel execution). This places much more pressure on ensuring that data in flux is not accessible to other threads/processes ("Semaphores" etc). If this hasn't already been effectively addressed in the design/writing of Rebirth, then threads such as this one if nothing else demonstrates the issue's capacity for game spoiling as well as their resistance to quick/cheap workarounds. As most people believe that exploits in this thread are nothing but bugs in the bonus pack CLS software, this demonstrates that thinking needs to come around to the real issue, and the necessity of addressing it in Rebirth if not in TC. Even if there's a V3.2 release of TC, I'm not expecting to see any changes in CLS. I'd be surprised if CLS could even offer a workaround, let alone a fix.

[Aro]

The first appearance of this bug was way back in X2, or at least that's my recollection of it occurring. There have been a few similar bugs as well but this one takes the cake.


Been trying to create repair lasers. Used the hub and an equipment dock with no luck. glenmcd, could you make a save game with it set up and workable?
Will try that other save to see if it will still work.

[glenmcd]

Been trying to create repair lasers. Used the hub and an equipment dock with no luck. glenmcd, could you make a save game with it set up and workable?
Will try that other save to see if it will still work.

Will do. But you need to understand that getting repair laser into your EQd wares list is quite different to actually generating some of them. With adding the repair laser as a ware, I got that from Kurush above. Just dock at your EQd in space suit, use dockware manager, add ware, lasers / repair laser. If you're not docked in your space suit then this option won't show.

[Aro]

Already done that silly
Having problems on the creation of the ware part. The menu always resets the value to zero.
Tried the 05 save and having the same problem.

I now know why repair lasers are not available:
On that hype, stick a full complement of repair lasers and a pbe to weapon group 1.
Group two will be one repair laser and a pbe.
Go attack a ship using weapon group two.
When the hull gets low swap to group 1.
Repeat until it bails.

Could prob use two pbe's but one worked quite well. So yeah, why would you use repair lasers in a turret? For the insanity! Cap ships, board ships, etc! No wonder they are not available.
*glares at the BoP mission*

[kurush]

Having problems on the creation of the ware part. The menu always resets the value to zero.

The RL must be the last item on the list. Also, I used the CLS setup from glenmcd that was slightly modified. Basically, it unloads a 25mj shield to my TL, moves a single EC back and forth 3 times, loads the shield back, moves EC again. It didn't work from the first try but eventually I got them. You need to try multiple times as the selection line jumps up and down It is not as reliable as overtunning on an NPC EQ.

I now know why repair lasers are not available:
On that hype, stick a full complement of repair lasers and a pbe to weapon group 1.
Group two will be one repair laser and a pbe.
Go attack a ship using weapon group two.
When the hull gets low swap to group 1.
Repeat until it bails.

This is exactly my plan It happens to be the only way you get an adequate chance to complete those return stolen ship missions.

So yeah, why would you use repair lasers in a turret

May be you are role-playing a goner? Spreading the love of GOD?