[script/mod] ImprovedRaces R15.31 (24.04.2012)

[Dank7430]

HAy first off great job loving the changes,

small problem though. I'm sure I installed everything right but whenever I load my game it says new mission recieved and loads a screen filled with read txt numbers etc if someone could help me find where I have went wrong id be realy gratefull also the screen when closed just reapears instantly.

[ussdefiant]

i'm using SRM Jobs 3.6e, config sez 522 total ships, with apparently 126 IR ships sitting in their sectors. Also, it's set to have a max of 1300 Xenon ships, so i doubt that's an issue.

In other news, there's a Kha'ak fleet blowing up stations in Scale Plate Green with the Teladi in PTNI apparently not willing to do anything about it, although they have a singular response Cormorant in Two Grand (Against WHAT, i don't know).

Edit: Now Xenon IR ships are down to 95 for some reason, with total of 536. Also, cheat destroying the ships in Two Grand apparently got the Teladi to respond in SPG, perhaps there's an issue with capship responses being cleared? I'm using that Ship Response thing from More Options, along with both the Fighter and Capship racial response options.

[Scoob]

Hi,

There are circa 1,300 Xenon ships in my game...all bar a handful in owned sectors. I might try bumping up the Xenon numbers as high as they can go and see if that makes them start invading...maybe they are keeping too many in reserve for some reason...

Like ussdefiant, I too sometimes see Race fleets (often rather substantial ones) remaining idle while a neibouring sector gets a severe beating.

Edit: By the way re: sector takeover, I notice that it's still expecting 10,000,000cr plus a dock to be present - did you intend this to be just 1,000,000 as per your prior post? I did check the script directly outside of the game to check it wasn't just my game being screwed up.

Cheers,

Scoob.

[djrygar]

"Ship Response" is renamed to 'ship defence', as it is misleading. Its the ability to drop drones and lasetowers etc

[djrygar]

x3.rygar.net/R15.30f.7z

for those who downloaded 15.30e, it had one bug, overwrite with this one

[Falcrack]

I have a few questions regarding the improved races script. I am trying my hand at taking over some sectors from the Split (Contorted Dominon, Thyn’s Excavation, and Patriarchs Conclusion), and finding that both taking over sectors and holding them can prove troublesome. My grand fleet of a fully loaded colossus carrier and 10 destroyers is proving barely adequate. So far I have taken over Contorted Dominion (easy at the start since the Boron had already destroyed all Split stations there), and Thyn’s Excavation (difficult to take and hold).

1) When I destroy enemy ships in my corner of the universe, does it decrease the number of ships that race has to deal with threats in another corner of the universe? In other words, will my efforts destroying Split ships in the Southeast corner of the map help the Boron better deal with the Split in the Northeast corner?

2) Is the ability of a race to regenerate ships limited in any way by tax revenue, or the amount of territory they control? I want to know if I am weakening their ability to wage war by taking over their sectors.

3) If I have taken over a sector completely (have my own station and paid the 35 Million credit sector takeover fee), will enemy ships still be able to spawn in my taken over sector, or will they have to get there using the “slow boat to China” method by traveling through jump gates? So If I take over all Split territory on the Southeast side of the map, would their only alternative to taking them back be a long trip through many different sectors? Or will they still jump there using jump drives?

4) Do the AI controlled fighters, bombers, and M7Ms for the IR script have different combat logic than my fighters, bombers, and M7Ms? When enemy M8s and M7Ms spawn, they start unloading missiles at a frightening rate, and keep doing so, while my M8s and M7Ms, even when missile fire probability is set at 100%, fire missiles at a much less rapid rate. Also, enemy fighters, when swarming capital ships, will often seem to slow down and hover while firing at capital ships, while mine tend to do strafing runs, which result in much lower damage output.

[djrygar]

taking over sector weakens enemy in range of 6 sectors. Simply put, shipyards no longer provide response ships, thus nearby sectors are easier to takeover.

enemy counterstrike has to travel trough gates, no jumping

enemy ships may spawn, it depends of jobs file you are using. Its mostly traders, sometimes military (may be the case for thyn excavation, as there is corporate HQ that has own military, this military fleet (thuruk inc) will probably respawn

you may use 'jobs filter' in option menu to get rid of those

enemy strength is not yet limited by amount of territory they control (I doubt it will ever be, ith impossible to balance with all those mods flying around)

IR:CE is being made with such paradigm, as it will use a MOD as a base, so it will be possible to balance somehow. In my opinion its not worth effort, simply fleets and universe is too small. Any fluctuation of spawn rates would automatically make this race loosing one. At some level, its pure statistics. It could be interesting to make ,and I always wanted it, yet... XRebirth is getting close, I doubt in one year from now anyone will remember what IR stands for

all IR ships are controlled by custom scripts, basically they use something similar to ADS or CODEA under the hood
thats the whole point of doing it. I like to see battles between fleets that use different logic, instead of standard 'kill enemies in range, land' that controls alll vanilla military, police, khaak, xenon and player ships.

yeah,its not easy to takeover sector, and we (all authors) have put a lot of work to make it this way Easy = boring

If you managed to take sector from split, that's achievement worth more than all steam achievements combined ;>

[Falcrack]

taking over sector weakens enemy in range of 6 sectors. Simply put, shipyards no longer provide response ships, thus nearby sectors are easier to takeover.

So if I take over Contorted Dominion (which has no shipyard), The shipyard in Patriarchs Conclusion will produce fewer response ships as a result?

enemy ships may spawn, it depends of jobs file you are using. Its mostly traders, sometimes military (may be the case for thyn excavation, as there is corporate HQ that has own military, this military fleet (thuruk inc) will probably respawn

I have this "no jpbs ships spawn" option enabled, and have taken over Contorted Dominion, but still see Split Tigers popping up in the middle of that sector as if they were spawned there. But am I just not noticing that they are really actually coming only through the gate? Because it seems like they are suddenly popping up right in the middle of the sector.

enemy strength is not yet limited by amount of territory they control (I doubt it will ever be, ith impossible to balance with all those mods flying around)

So does this mean that If I were to theoretically conquer all but 1 Split sector, that sector would produce as many ships as all the Split sectors before they were taken over? Or would they only produce as many ships as that 1 sector normally produces?

If I were to eliminate the Split, would there be no more Split ships spawned anywhere?

all IR ships are controlled by custom scripts, basically they use something similar to ADS or CODEA under the hood
thats the whole point of doing it. I like to see battles between fleets that use different logic, instead of standard 'kill enemies in range, land' that controls alll vanilla military, police, khaak, xenon and player ships.

I have no other mods installed besides IR, and I was planning on adding more as time goes on. Are ADS and CODEA mutally exclusive? If I were to install CODEA or ADS, would I be able to get that sort of level of control over my own ships also? If they are mutally exclusive, which would you recommend?

Finally, I am getting crashes on a semi-frequent basis using IR (no crashes whatsoever with vanilla). Could it be that crashes are occuring because IR alone is installed, and not any of the other mods that are recommended to go along with it? Or is it just the nature of this mod to crash every hour or so? I'm using 15_29.

Just want to say I really enjoy the challenge this mod gives. It's kinda scary to see how good missile ships can be in this game, having relied mostly on non-missile combat for the majority of my experience.

[Wintersdark]

enemy strength is not yet limited by amount of territory they control (I doubt it will ever be, ith impossible to balance with all those mods flying around)

This is good. Otherwise, how would a race recover after loosing a couple sectors? Each sector they lost would weaken them and strengthen their opponent. Losing a couple sectors early would doom a race.

I have this "no jpbs ships spawn" option enabled, and have taken over Contorted Dominion, but still see Split Tigers popping up in the middle of that sector as if they were spawned there. But am I just not noticing that they are really actually coming only through the gate? Because it seems like they are suddenly popping up right in the middle of the sector.

So does this mean that If I were to theoretically conquer all but 1 Split sector, that sector would produce as many ships as all the Split sectors before they were taken over? Or would they only produce as many ships as that 1 sector normally produces?

If I were to eliminate the Split, would there be no more Split ships spawned anywhere?

No. There are two ways ships spawn: IR spawns ships, and the game engine spawns ships(through jobs). Sector changeovers and such will affect IR spawning, as djrygar has noted, but this will NOT affect vanilla ship spawns. So, you'll still find Split ships in the universe after completely eliminating them (is that even possible? Not sure!), just not IR Split ships.

You can tell them apart by their names: IR ships generally have their roles in their names - guardian, response, etc.

Finally, I am getting crashes on a semi-frequent basis using IR (no crashes whatsoever with vanilla). Could it be that crashes are occuring because IR alone is installed, and not any of the other mods that are recommended to go along with it? Or is it just the nature of this mod to crash every hour or so? I'm using 15_29.

Actually, I've been getting semi-regular crashes with IR as well, generally once an hour or so too. Disabling IR stops it.

Running XRM, IR 15.29, MARS, NPC Bailing, Salvage Commands, and Lucike's scripts.

[djrygar]

yeah, it crashes

I have been experiencing it myself lately. Problem is, I have no idea how to find the bug.

I actually stopped further development until I find this bug. It started to manifest itself lately very often, yet it was there since R13, as I remember it happening then as well. One of late changes probably caused it to pop up more often. I already excluded Khaak and Xenon as possible causes (happen with those disabled), so its either response or invasion part (or eco builder). Still, very tough to find. Because it crashes game, usual logging techniques fail, and there is nothing else I could use for debug.

people that DON'T have any crashes, could write here what parts of plugin are disabled in their games. If I know where problem starts, this would speed up thing like 10000x.

[Scoob]

Hi,

One thing I have noticed...

If I'm running IR and I have the Upload Stats option enabled in the AL menu that the Plugin Manager adds, my game WILL crash every time the file is updated. If I turn this option off crashes still occur, but less frequently.

I've had situations where my game will consistantly crash at a cert point, i.e. load save, wait 30 seconds, crash. I've tried to see if some particular event happens to trigger the crash but not noticed anything specific.

What I do notice is if I just start an uninstall of IR, even if just seconds before the crash, it WILL fix it. Almost like one of the first things IR tidies up on an uninstall is killing whatever event causes the problem.

Cheers,

Scoob.

[djrygar]

in this case, upload stats crash is separate issue

well, I guess I will take eco booster and response under magnifying glass...

[Falcrack]

I have Kha'ak and Xenon disabled, and it still crashes. However, the nature of the crash is slightly different. When I had Khaak and Xenon invasions on, the crash would always be preceeded by the game hanging up for a long time with a sound loop, then a crash. With the Kha'ak and Xenon invasions off (also ATF and OFF counterstrikes turned off), it still crashes, though it seems to me a bit less frequently, and the crash is sudden, with no particular computer hangup, just a quick CTD.

[djrygar]

quick CTD is probably fault of mod. Scritpt cant do that.

Sound loop, yes, that is IR fault for sure.

strange, as both Khaak and xenon have different scripts that control them, I dont believe everything broke all of sudden. But, it gives me some pointers, where to look.

[garrry34]

I've found a problem, races are invading sector they have already conquered, has anyone else had this problem?

[Falcrack]

quick CTD is probably fault of mod. Scritpt cant do that.

Sound loop, yes, that is IR fault for sure.

strange, as both Khaak and xenon have different scripts that control them, I dont believe everything broke all of sudden. But, it gives me some pointers, where to look.

Only non-vanilla thing installed is IR, no other mods or scripts. The quick crash I am describing often took place during heavy combat, where the screen went black and I got a message asking if I wanted to report the problem to Microsoft. I click no, and I am brought back at the desktop.

To be fair, I didn't to narrow the problem down to Xenon or Kha'ak. I just turned both off at the same time, since I had read some folks saying they needed to be turned off if I was experiencing crashes.

[djrygar]

well, CTD is then memory leak, it's not like X3 is bugfree game itself
if you read whole thread youll see how bizzare bugs we found in engine itself
again, bugs in scripts dont crash game like this. Usually after such crash you've crashdump text file in X3 directory, you may know what happened.

In my case, sometimes shooting missile crashes game. It is known that, for example, it crashes often with Xonar audio cards. But that is not script fault (but heavy load from scripts can lead to such situation - MARS also adds lots of overhead, that is painful during battles)

I am interested in 'lockup' bug, one that freezes game, game starts to eat memory like crazy until crash. That is IR's bug.

[Wolfie276]

I disabled everything in the "More Options" menu, as somehow one or more of those options crash the game more frequent, but I have no idea which of them, as it crashes the game.

[Osiris454]

I've found a problem, races are invading sector they have already conquered, has anyone else had this problem?

There are a lot of old bugs that seem to be coming back. This is one of them. I've had this problem too.

There is still a problem with the sector takeover logic. Twice now, in 2 games I've had the Paranid take over Cloud Base South West. The Argon launch attacks to take back the sector, but just when all the ships and stations are clear, the assault forces just jump out and leave. The sector remains in control of the Paranid, and the Argon do not attempt to take over the sector again.

EDIT: From a few pages back I wrote:

The default timeout for when a sector goes back to it's original owner when all the conquering race's stations are destroyed is too short. With the Eco Booster off, when races conquer a sector they only put 1 station. When that station is destroyed it defaults to the original owner. They (Argon) then have to re-conquer the sector (Split Fire) again for them to build a new station. Their TL arrives but cannot build the station fast enough the sector reverts to the original owner, again. This is also why some races don't realize that they just regained a lost sector (Cloud Base South West) when all the Paranid stations are destroyed for some reason or another. They (Argon) didn't actually do anything, believing that the sector still belongs to the Paranid but not launching any attacks to the sector because it has changed back without their (Argon) knowledge and shows as being owned by them again. The also introduces a stalemate, because while the Paranid have it recorded that they took over the sector, the Argon show up as the actual owners of the sector, so neither races try to do anything because in their minds the mission was complete.

I've seen both instances of this happening. Either the sector assault looks like a success and they just leave, or all the conquering race's stations are destroyed and it goes back to it's original owner and they don't realize it.

[Wintersdark]

yeah, it crashes

I have been experiencing it myself lately. Problem is, I have no idea how to find the bug.

I actually stopped further development until I find this bug. It started to manifest itself lately very often, yet it was there since R13, as I remember it happening then as well. One of late changes probably caused it to pop up more often. I already excluded Khaak and Xenon as possible causes (happen with those disabled), so its either response or invasion part (or eco builder). Still, very tough to find. Because it crashes game, usual logging techniques fail, and there is nothing else I could use for debug.

people that DON'T have any crashes, could write here what parts of plugin are disabled in their games. If I know where problem starts, this would speed up thing like 10000x.

While as I said I *am* having crashes, I play with the eco booster turned off - that's recommended with XRM. Actually, while trying to find the crash issue, I've kept Hot War, True Relations, Imp Yaki all off. In fact, all I'm doing is turning IR on, then setting Xenon and Khaak to Hard Mode, turning the eco booster off and reinstalling. The rest is all defaults.