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

Orion1632 · Post by **Orion1632** » Tue, 14. Jan 14, 00:47

So I get me an Argon Skiron last night, put lots of guns in for MARS to play with, a whole lot of fighter drones, and went off to do kill Xenon missions.

MARS worked GREAT!

all the turrets were working hard, drones were doing great, guns switching, target prioritising, it was a joy to watch.

Thanks for the great mod.

And... since I had IRE, EBC, phase repeater, and PAC in the mix, 3 xenon ships actually bailed in the fight, giving me the L that I needed for the plot.

Turns out Phase Repeater guns are good for capturing ships.

Great!

Orion1632 · Post by **Orion1632** » Tue, 14. Jan 14, 23:59

Okay did something silly here and can't work out how to undo it.

I had a jonferco defence station targeted and I was messing around with MARS config page.

like.. OOOO I can press this to target the station, and if I press it again it'll target the shields.

however.. now the station is red to me and I can't un-red him.

Hmmmm.

what do you reckon?

Bandus · Post by **Bandus** » Fri, 24. Jan 14, 00:30

So, I am fairly confident I followed the installation instructions properly. MARS units appear in stations as they are supposed to, the configuration hotkey functions properly and I can configure it, etc.

However, it seems like MARS works regardless of if the ship actually has a MARS unit installed on it. I am able to "enable" MARS on the turrets in the configuration window and then the ships command console even shows the turrets order as MARS.STANDBY or MARS.DEFENSE or what not.

One other thing I notice once I turn MARS on for ships with no MARS component installed, it does not remove lasers from bays. So perhaps it isn't actually working after all?

I am just a bit confused and want to confirm I am using the mod properly. Thanks for any insight anyone can provide!

Orion1632 · Post by **Orion1632** » Fri, 24. Jan 14, 03:51

in MARS configuration there is an option to use MARS in AI ships, so maybe you have ticked that box?

otherwise the use MARS in the turret should be greyed out unless you buy and put MARS on the ship.

I am trying to understand what your issue is.

Bandus · Post by **Bandus** » Fri, 24. Jan 14, 16:39

I double checked and the configuration for MARS use in AI ships is turned off. My issue is that the turret is not greyed out even though MARS is NOT installed on the ship. It still lets me enable MARS on the turret as if MARS was installed even though I haven't installed the component on the ship.

Ferenczy66 · Post by **Ferenczy66** » Sun, 2. Feb 14, 20:46

Does anyone know how to stop goblins from collecting energy cells?

I tried various things:

Adjusting in ship console to limit the amount I auto-buy and such...

...they just happily collect any and everything available.

I would think at least one of the settings for mars on 'military ships" would work.

suggestions?

NVM...realized I was burning thru e-cells using turbo boost.

builder680 · Post by **builder680** » Mon, 3. Feb 14, 21:04

Hello,

Been using goblins purely automatically for a day or two now... Today I set them up to launch via hotkey so I could have a bit more control. I get the message from Betty "Fighter Drone not available," though I have 17 of them in my cargo bay. They aren't mark 2, or Keris, but just plain old Fighter Drones.

I'd appreciate any help if anyone has the time to do so. I'm using XRM 1.3 (and using the XRM data file provided) and playing Albion Prelude.

EDIT: Ok apparently there is a target range for the launch hotkey. I must have read the OP and the manual 20 times and never saw that. Still not sure but it appears to be appx 10 km. Nevermind!

Orion1632 · Post by **Orion1632** » Mon, 3. Feb 14, 23:44

10k does not seem right. What were you trying to do?

builder680 · Post by **builder680** » Tue, 4. Feb 14, 07:31

I was trying to launch a goblin from my Vidar at a Xenon I (M2 or M0ish ship from XRM) from about 40 km. I wanted to watch it get blown up with the camera for fun. I had no other goblins or drones active at the time. There were 17 Fighter Drones in my freight bay. I had just finished a battle earlier where they deployed automatically and wanted to see if I could launch them manually as well.

"Fighter Drone not available."

Messing around later in a smallish battle, I managed to launch a goblin manually via hotkey. I was about 10km away from the enemy at the time. I suppose it could be longer range. That's just the distance I happened to be at.

EDIT: I'm an idiot. I was hitting my "Fighter Drones: shutdown" hotkey. I hadn't even bound "launch Goblin at target."

The time that it seemed to work (from appx 10km) was probably just a random automatic launch that synced up with my button press. Sorry for the confusion.

Orion1632 · Post by **Orion1632** » Sun, 9. Feb 14, 00:03

okay, seems like MARS conflicts with the Split Pteranodon.

I installed the normal version not the plugin manaer version.

How do I fix this?

Do I uninstall MARS and then install the plugin Manager version?

it was the mars repair drones that conflicted.

DrBullwinkle · Post by **DrBullwinkle** » Sun, 9. Feb 14, 00:09

Orion1632 wrote:MARS conflicts with the Split Pteranodon.

More importantly, the 5.25 version linked on the first page will conflict with the Acinonyx, which is a more important ship.

To fix this, you have two choices:

1) Simply remove the MARS .cat/.dat. It contains only TShips, and Gazz says that Repair Goblins will still work even without the .cat/.dat. I have not tried this option, but it might be the simplest solution.

2) Replace the .cat/.dat that you have now with the .cat/.dat from MARS Repacked for Plugin Manager. One way to do that is to uninstall then reinstall as you suggest. Or simply exchange the .cat/.dat files.

Orion1632 · Post by **Orion1632** » Sun, 9. Feb 14, 09:42

I uninstalled and reinstalled, thanks.

builder680 · Post by **builder680** » Tue, 18. Feb 14, 09:42

Wintersdark wrote:
CasualT wrote:I've been harassing the poor Paranid lately in a destroyer I captured (a Brigantine) and it's lead me to notice more the oddities of MARS.

1) MARS is so vicious that its enemies deserve some compassion. When I'm swarmed by 10 or so fighters it meticulously blasts each one down to about 10% hull and then chooses another target, leaving my crippled enemy stunned that he's still alive. This can easily lead to 4-5 crippled ships floating around me at once. Each still capable of blasting me with its rear FBL turret (and FBLs hurt on any size ship). I've also seen the same behavior on cap ships. I had 3 M1-M2 coming at me and the closest one was down to about 33% hull and then all my guns switched to another ship which was much farther away! Thank goodness for strafing or I woulda been toast
This behavior is deliberate, and IIRC can be prevented: It allows ships that are bailing to bail, and thus provide you with lovely derelicts. MARS only holds fire for 1-2 seconds before hammering away at them again

Hello, I found these posts on page 155 of this thread, because I've noticed the same thing. MARS leaves lots of fighters near death and moves on to new targets. I personally do not care that much about bailing, and would simply prefer enemy targets to explode as rapidly as possible!

I am wondering how/if it's possible to to prevent this 'deliberate' behavior, as I've gone over the manual intensively, and looked at MARS settings in game to find out how to stop it. Is it possible to get MARS to quit switching to other targets when a fighter/other ship is low and still in range and just finish it off? Setting a priority target does not alter behavior, MARS still leaves in-range targets alive, and switches when just one-two more shots would finish the job. In my experience it waits far longer than 1-2 seconds, it's closer to 5-10 seconds.

Even with this behavior, MARS is pretty incredible. Thanks for making it.

DrBullwinkle · Post by **DrBullwinkle** » Tue, 18. Feb 14, 10:18

builder680 wrote:MARS leaves lots of fighters near death and moves on to new targets.

MARS - Destroy rather than capture

builder680 · Post by **builder680** » Tue, 18. Feb 14, 10:46

DrBullwinkle wrote:
builder680 wrote:MARS leaves lots of fighters near death and moves on to new targets.
MARS - Destroy rather than capture

Thanks Bullwinkle. Helpful as usual.

Post by **Sparky Sparkycorp** » Tue, 18. Feb 14, 10:52

Ooh, that's good to know - thanks! I shall be increasing the efficiency of my MARS murderizers

builder680 · Post by **builder680** » Wed, 19. Feb 14, 12:18

DrBullwinkle wrote:
builder680 wrote:MARS leaves lots of fighters near death and moves on to new targets.
MARS - Destroy rather than capture

I... don't know that I see any difference in MARS's behavior after performing these adjustments. It still switches targets right before a killshot, then goes back several seconds later to finish the job. Idk, I guess I'll have to deal with it. Thanks for pointing it out though.

DrBullwinkle · Post by **DrBullwinkle** » Wed, 19. Feb 14, 12:59

There are several text files; you must change the one that relates to your game. The linked post discusses the XRM version of the text file. If you are not using XRM then your text file will be different.

See the list at the bottom of the first post in this thread for a list of the text files.

builder680 · Post by **builder680** » Wed, 19. Feb 14, 13:29

Aye, I'm editing the 7054-L044.xml provided for XRM on the XRM main page. It's in my addon\t folder. MARS in game configuration verifies that it using this file (paulwheeler's XRM).

I'm just not noticing a difference after making the edits. I even restarted MARS scripts to see if that would do it. It's not a huge deal though.

egosoft.com

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

MARS works without MARS