[SCRIPT][WIP] Marine Corp. (2012.02.16)

[A.Persyn]

Greetings,

This is a collection of Marine related scripts. This is a work-in-progress so anything not finished is also not guaranteed to ever be finished.

A.Persyn's Marine Corp. Core Files (2012.02.16) SPK - ZIP - INFO
These core files are required to be installed for all add-on components.

Marine Pilots (included)
Marines can be added to ships as Trader Pilots or Combat Pilots. Marine Traders are based on MK3 Traders. Many Marines, but not all, already have some trading experience and when started as an MK3 Trader, the Marine may have enough pre-existing experience to start off as a Local Trader rather than starting as a lowly Sector Trader.

Marine Combat Pilots don't do anything extra yet but they do level-up at a rate of one point every eight hours until they reach the limit for their current ship class.

Astronaut Teleporter Hotkey (included)
Collect astronauts using the transporter device. Requires six energy cells per astronaut. Works on astronauts, marines and plot characters.


Off-Duty Marines (2012.02.16) SPK - ZIP
Store Marines as passengers and reactivate them when needed. Any ship that can carry marines can hold 50 or more Off-Duty Marines. ODMs can be added to Task Forces (groups) and then reactivated all at once. (Sort of like a speed loader.)

KNOWN ISSUES: None so far.


Terran & ATF Marines 2.0 (2012.02.16) SPK - ZIP - INFO
This is an entirely new version of the script. The original script produced marines at too slow of a rate. This version uses missions and wares to influence the number of marines produced at a station. The original script used four stations but this one is reduced to three and only two that produce marines.

Mission: Transport Marine Recruits to Military Base in Oort Cloud delta (US 4)
Offered at: Orbital Defence Station in Neptune
Terran Marine production requirements: 80 Terran MREs, 1 EMP Rifles, 4 Marine Recruits
Cycle time: 30 minutes after all requirements are available
Number per cycle: 2

Mission: Transport Terran Marines to Orbital Defence Station in Oort Cloud beta (US 2)
Offered at: Military Base in Oort Cloud delta
ATF Marine production requirements: 2 Terran Marines
Cycle time: 30 minutes after Marines have been delivered.
Number per cycle: 1

Overall production process: 4 Recruits = 2 Terran Marines = 1 ATF Marine


Marine Market List (2012.02.16) SPK - ZIP
This is a service offered by Marine Corp. that provides one hour of access to a database of all Marines available for hire. The list can be sorted and filtered in multiple ways to aid in the search for quality marines. The fee for access is one million credits per hour.

KNOWN ISSUES: None so far.


Marine Repair Crews (2012.02.16) SPK - ZIP - Setup Guide
Marines can be deployed in their space suits to fly to a damaged ship and repair it using their suit's repair laser. Marine Repair Crews can also repair docked ships and damaged stations. Marine skills increase with each repair job. Wares, such as hull plating, can be supplied to significantly speed up the normally slow repair rate but wares are not mandatory.

Read the Setup Guide for more details.

Drone Jockeys (in-progress)
Marines can be used to remotely pilot fighter drones to carry out attacks. Drones can be divided into wings and the marines can perform strategic attacks against targets.

Marine Recon (in-progress)
Use Marines to explore, scan and map sectors. Marine Recon can also be used to covertly scan ships during missions like: Scan for Illegal Wares/Scan for Valuable Cargo as well as other uses. Requires marines and Recon Drones but not a police license.

False Flag Operations (in-progress)
Marines can hack the Friend/Foe Recognition device on player owned ships and carry out attacks for the player while disguised as another race (no reputation loss). FFO Marines can also trade with hostile stations by disguising themselves as friendlies.

Marine Fight Club
Marines engage in organized brawls to increase Marine Fighting Skill. MFC includes a new type of mission called: Last One Standing, where the player enters a marine in a cage-match fight trying to defeat the other marines.

Marine Corp. Flotilla
The mobile HQ for the rogue corporation, Marine Corp., that offers standard and custom missions.

The Marine Corp. Menu can be accessed by assigning it a hotkey, through the game's control panel, or through the Special menu of the ship's Command Console.

Please post any possible bugs or read text errors.

EDIT: Change Log

2012.02.16
Everything updated and several bugs fixed
Added Marine Repair Crews


Have a nice day!

A.Persyn

[garrry34]

definitely going to give this a whirl...

[Sorkvild]

Looks promising. Have you included a price factor for marine contracts? I like when script goes realistic, marines are not slaves. I'd be very pissed if someone had told me to fix me his space ship for free

[joelR]

Finally a way to repair that uses wares. Other than CODEA there are no scripts that consume wares to repair. It feels too cheaty to me otherwise.

Im looking forward to see this come together.

[garrry34]

found an issue, as soon as i install any of the new marines on my ship it starts drain the weapon energy right down to 0...

[Terre]

found an issue, as soon as i install any of the new marines on my ship it starts drain the weapon energy right down to 0...

Maybe one of them is Troy Polamalu and he keeps using the hair dryer.

[garrry34]

that must be some hairdryer as I'm on an m2 lol

did a bit of experimenting it seems to be related to the MD files...

[A.Persyn]

found an issue, as soon as i install any of the new marines on my ship it starts drain the weapon energy right down to 0...

Yikes! That definitely shouldn't happen. I'll have a look at it.

EDIT: I wasn't able to recreate the energy drain. Can you provide more details on what happened? How many marines? Were they active-duty, off-duty or pilots?

I did update the MD files to remove the actors from cue tracking, which might be the problem.

Thanks,

A.Persyn

[A.Persyn]

Have you included a price factor for marine contracts?

There is a salary feature that is partially implemented that is based on the value of the marine. The value/salary of a marine increases as the marine's skills increase.

A.Persyn

[Treelor]

This looks pretty neat. I hope you finish the marine repair feature soon, it'd be nice to have a team of marines jump out and repair laser things rather than doing it myself.

[A.Persyn]

it'd be nice to have a team of marines jump out and repair laser things rather than doing it myself.

That's my feeling too. I have 20 marines with repair lasers and I'm the one doing the repair? I don't think so!

Due to its complexity and issues, I decided to hold off on Marine Repair Crews (and the others) after EGOSOFT announced X3:AP. I have no idea how similar/different it will be from X3:TC. What works now may not work at all in X3:AP. (EX: ATF Marines at the Earth Torus. Kaboom!)

MRC was especially challenging due to the peculiar collision detection with some ships. Since X3:AP is introducing new ships, all of those have to be checked.

Once I know what X3:AP actually involves, I'll adjust accordingly and be able to finish them.

A.Persyn

[A.Persyn]

Update released

Changed location for ATF marines to the Orbital Defense Station in the second Unknown Sector, when used with X3AP.

A.Persyn

[garrry34]

installed the new update, the second load of ATF appear ok but the ones on the taurus are not converting the are just staying as commonwealth groundpounders...

[A.Persyn]

installed the new update, the second load of ATF appear ok but the ones on the taurus are not converting the are just staying as commonwealth groundpounders...

Just to be clear, X3AP version is working but the X3TC version isn't updating properly, correct?

If you're copying the new files over the previous install then MD isn't updating for the new version.

I'll have a look.

Thanks

A.Persyn

[garrry34]

yeah I'm still X3TC, its a clean install no corruption from previous files...

[A.Persyn]

yeah I'm still X3TC, its a clean install no corruption from previous files...

Oh my mistake, that means both stations are being setup. ATF marines are only supposed to be available at one place: the Earth Torus in X3TC or the ODS in the Unknown Sector for X3AP. If marines are showing up in both places then both are being setup but only one will be updated, the other would be ignored. I'll have a look at it.

EDIT: Updated the MD file to fix improper negation on base selection.

Thanks for your help!

A.Persyn

[Seraph Kaoru]

Wow. From the listed and planned features, this sounds like exactly the sort of script-set I've been looking for (most of the other mods I've picked up have been more 'so innovative I didn't even know I wanted it until I saw it!') - but I've got a question.

I've been holding off on downloading and installing it because I don't know what the update procedure is gonna be after it's already installed. Presumably I'll have to uninstall and delete the old one and then reinstall the new one, wiping out any experience gained for Marine Pilots and Traders, so until the "big features" I'm hoping to see put in (Marine EVA Repair, and Scan For Illegal Cargo-assists) are finished, I've been keeping it at arm's length.

So - what do you envision updates being like? Uninstall/reinstall, update using the Plugin Manager, eventually have to completely start a new game? I'm finding more and more that I'd really like to be able to use things like Off-Duty Marines (and Marine Task Forces) - although unless you're involving something like Cryosleep, I suspect that 100 might be a little high for some ships (and a little low for others.) That's an issue for another time, though - any help you can give would be appreciated, and happy holidays!
~K

[A.Persyn]

Greetings,

Thanks for your comments!

All of the scripts are designed to be copied over the previous version but that does not effect any of the pilot experience/data, that data is safe. The current scripts are somewhat foundational and the later scripts will be added onto them or installed along side them but won't replace them or break them.

Unless a bug pops up that needs fixing, the scripts that are available are done and won't be changing, but will get additional features added on (EX: leveling up for Combat Pilots).

While it is all still a work in progress, what is currently available appears to be safe to install. I haven't had a bug report in a while which is either because there are no bugs or no users to find bugs.

I'll probably create a Plugin Manager version once all the scripts are done but that won't be anytime soon.

Marine Repair Crews will be getting added to the collection in the next few days (provided it survives testing with X3AP).

Scripts don't have any lasting effect until you save the game. As long as you don't save the game, you can install them for testing/trying (if you're curious) and then uninstall them with no harm to any current game saves. However, backups are always advised (just in case).

Whenever the whole collection gets finished, properly packaged, documented and released, it certainly wouldn't hurt to start over with a new game, but I don't foresee any actual need to do so.

Have a nice day!

A.Persyn

[garrry34]

I've found in AP it stopped working, the marines are not terran and there only ever is one to buy...

[Legionos]

Sorry to be a pain, could you point out which script adds the marines to stations and sets their race as terran and uses terran names?

Something i want to do myself but dont know how to.

Thank you