[MOD] Miscellaneous IZ Combat Tweaks

[UniTrader]

i test in the past Ships with production for small ships, it was a PITA
because you need always a Manager and the alle Managerscripts use this.station, what not really will work on this.ship
and if you have that ship created, the whole Galaxy is hunting your ship to have a good trade - not that sort of "secret!!!!" superweapon the idea was in the beginning

and to add a Dock to any ship this is not a big problem, for this i created that invisible M&S-Dock in the more carrier addon

Hey Marvin,

heh. Would have to change every single instance of this.station to this.ship. Would be tempting to use a replace all in that case, but could be dangerous without making sure that some commands assume this.station rather than this.ship.

Could have it run a custom manager script that doesn't allow trades, and only supply the ship via wysiwyg's CLS. No idea how to do that, though.

even better: use this.container - basically a combination of this.ship and this.station

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

Is there only 1 download covering both MICT and MOCT, no more need to DL them separately?

XenonS

If you would like everything, w.evans has conveniently placed the totality of both mods and their 7 supplements into a single mod in the Steam Workshop called Miscellaneous Combat Tweaks. In terms of updating, it can lag behind the Nexus by a few days since it is more complex to update the Steam package. On the other hand, it seems to running smoothly and the Steam Workshop is simple for the player so it's up to you

[w.evans]

Is there only 1 download covering both MICT and MOCT, no more need to DL them separately?

XenonS

If you would like everything, w.evans has conveniently placed the totality of both mods and their 7 supplements into a single mod in the Steam Workshop called Miscellaneous Combat Tweaks. In terms of updating, it can lag behind the Nexus by a few days since it is more complex to update the Steam package. On the other hand, it seems to running smoothly and the Steam Workshop is simple for the player so it's up to you

Yup, go with the steam upload if you don't want to bother keeping up with update notes every time my computer twitches. Go with the Nexus upload if you want to choose which part(s) of the two mods you want.

It's actually easier to update to steam, but I tend to be more cautious with the steam distro because updates are automatic and not optional. With the Nexus upload, you could decide if you want particular supplements, or even updates of supplements since ALL of the old versions of every single part of the two mods are up there as well.

[XenonSurf]

Thanks Sparky, yes indeed the single Steam pack is convenient for me as I plan to use both MICT and MOCT.

[Edit]
Thanks w.evans, I just have missed your reply. Good idea the one-pack!

Cheers,
XenonS

[Marvin Martian]

even better: use this.container - basically a combination of this.ship and this.station

the big question is: why Egosoft ever start to split this this. into ship&station and why they don't use this this.container not always in there code?

[w.evans]

even better: use this.container - basically a combination of this.ship and this.station

the big question is: why Egosoft ever start to split this this. into ship&station and why they don't use this this.container not always in there code?

Could be handy if you wanted a single script to deal with both, but act differently depending on whether or not this is a ship or a station. Then again, we'd probably write a check for that in such a case.

Wouldn't want to accidentally make stations fly like ships, now, would we?

[Marvin Martian]

why it should be better to crash a skript for the case of "unexpected use" - sounds stupid to me

[w.evans]

could use this.defensible too, but the difference between this.container and this.defensible would be contextual, I think, whereas using something like this.ship or this.station is more class-specific. I have to admit that I usually default to using the class-specific notation, rather than the more general contextual notation, only using the contextual notation if I explicitly mean that object in that context; but that could be just habit. Illusion that it's more deliberate that way.

why it should be better to crash a skript for the case of "unexpected use" - sounds stupid to me

There's human error. And I find that there are situations where it would be preferable to print an error than to run something where it wasn't intended. And for more general situations where it doesn't matter, there are the more general solutions.

Kind of like it that way. Lots of flexibility built into the system. Possibilities rather than correct solutions.

Could be me being idealistic, though. Could be confusing digging through the code, especially starting out, because things aren't always consistent; and the fine differences between different ways of doing things are sometimes too fine for them to be apparent.

[w.evans]

Hey everyone,

I've read a couple of posts expressing dissatisfaction with the in-zone combat movement reports (aka the battle display). I'd like more information on this, however. Please keep in mind, that I've had my own version of these displays for a long time now, and turn them on or off, and control what I monitor, depending on need/want; so changing your experience won't change mine, and I can't know how you experience it.

1) Is there too much information per report? I could trim it down, but I need input on what information is useful.

2) Do the reports come in too many steps? Right now, they report whenever they boost and jump. Boost and jump nodes are further subdivided into retreat, attack (get away), attack (approach), and station keeping; and reports can be limited to boost and jump when doing one or more of those actions.

3) Do the reports come simply too often to be useful? It would be possible to set a timer so that each captain will only send you reports once every, say, minute, and will report whatever they happen to be doing at the particular moment when the minute is up to just give you a snapshot of what they're doing, what they think that they're doing, or what they're trying to do.

4) Are the reports completely useless? Can do away with them completely as well.

[StumblingDrunk]

First of all thanks for the mod my ships are actually doing things which are useful! Im playing this with the Conquest mod and I am having great fun atm

In regard to the reports I do like that you are getting confirmation that ships are doing things as I feel with vanilla you get next to none of this and end up checking if they need babysitting all the time. I do think perhaps the messages are a little frequent though as it means you lose the target screen for most fights when you have 5+ ships all reporting. Maybe do your option 3? or allow some user customisation? (or if we can already do this have a short guide as to how we can alter it ourselves?)

Anyway thanks again to modders like yourself, you are making this game really fun to play, so much so its the only game I am playing atm.

[w.evans]

Thanks, StumblingDrunk. 1 vote for timer.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

1) I am not sure if there are more than one style of Battle Report (depending on circumstances) but when I Order an attack on a Xenon K by my Balor and Taranis, there are 5 lines of info:

Balor 3 jumping to Attack Target.
Moving to attack Xen K.
Min distance to Target: 12000
Max distance to Target: 24000
Distance to Target: 32208

Perhaps that could be consolidated to something like:

Balor 3 jumping to Attack Target (Xen K).
Distance to Target: 32208
Preferred engagement: 12000 - 24000

(maybe without the word "Target" if getting a bit long)
(maybe even incorporating the Unibar bar idea to represent the various ranges)

Knowing it is jumping, we are informed that it is not in preferred engagement range in the heat of the battle, the Min-Max values are perhaps less critical info so placed at end in case cannot read all. Not sure how the displays looks for boosting or regular speed attacks, or when engines/JD are damaged so I can't make a universal suggestion at this point.


2) Not sure. I don't think I have a critical mass of IZ ships to assess this. Perhaps, if ultimately moving away from the Detail Monitor was desired, some aspect of the ROV's bootup menu (appearing in the top left) could be hijack for some similar style or desplay, or maybe even a persistent ticker-tape style.


3) Not sure for similar reason to the above. I suppose, outside of learning and testing, the critical messages are the initial attack (e.g. the Balor example above) and any subsequent retreat. And/or with some colour coding such as red for doing a Brave Sir Robin.


4) No, they are delicious

[w.evans]

17.Aug.2015 - Miscellaneous IZ Combat Tweaks updated to v0.28

Having discovered rogue elements operating according to MICT Doctrine, The MICT Council has decided that Defence Officers working in MICT Ships will be trained to face this new threat. Since MICT operates on the prime principle of mobility, MICT Defence Officers are trained to immobilize their opponents' ships, blind them, deny them the crutches that they lean upon, remove their ability to fight, destroy the shields that they cower behind, and ultimately, defeat all comers.

Shortly after this decision was reached, a lone Xenon N was belatedly spotted fleeing after having stolen the plans for the new training.

MICT Defence Officers based on capital ships will now designate jump drives, engines, radar, drone launch bays, turrets, missile launchers, and shield generators for targeting. Turrets will now fire upon any of these surface elements that are within range and line of fire. If no surface elements of high priority are found, turrets will fire directly upon the hull of hostile capital ships.

MICT Defence Officers will use their drones more efficiently:
- Since capital ships cannot field the drone numbers that stations can, they will use drones to surgically strike important modules in multiple small groups rather than sending them in large swarms.
-- Primary targets are the jump drive, engines, and drone launch bays. Drones will be launched against these targets even if they are not within line of sight.
-- Shield generators are secondary targets. Drones will be launched against these only if they are within line of sight.
--- After they destroy their designated target, drones will search within a 500 meter radius of their initial target to seek and destroy other priority targets. If none are found, they will try to dock with their parent ship.

-- These targets, in addition to radar, turrets, and missile launchers, are also designated as priority targets for turret fire.

Will not conflict with cicero111's Better Turrets, nor with the adaptation of Better Turrets implemented in Rubini's Conquer Mod and in CWIR. However, MICT Ships will no longer use Better Turrets nor Rubini's adaptation.

.......
@Sparky, thanks for the feedback. Will look into it in the morning. Was distracted by playing with targeting and drones.

[BlackRain]

Then I assume this should work well alongside Rubini's BT code?

[w.evans]

Hey BlackRain,

Yup, runs on a custom file that's called from fight.defend.capital if conditions are met. So, in CWIR and the Conquer Mod:

if MICT conditions are met, the MICT DO script is run;
if not, then Rubini's BT implementation is run.

[BlackRain]

Hey BlackRain,

Yup, runs on a custom file that's called from fight.defend.capital if conditions are met. So, in CWIR and the Conquer Mod:

if MICT conditions are met, the MICT DO script is run;
if not, then Rubini's BT implementation is run.

Excellent, sounds good!!!

[xrook]

on the OP majority of what i read only involves the DO and Captain, what about the pilot who leads other pilots?

do they get more out of this mod?

[w.evans]

on the OP majority of what i read only involves the DO and Captain, what about the pilot who leads other pilots?

do they get more out of this mod?

The supp2 stuff. I just never got around to updating the description properly.

[xrook]

i dont know what to actually say about this...

https://youtu.be/5RgJ4BE9oNw

my ship "the skunk's nest" is my first captured tituriel and has a 5 star all crew
they are set to attack a xenon ship but they barely do anything at all.
the escortee is just escorting doing nothing as well,
i didnt tell them to attack that ship specifically, its all MICT who told them to do so

majority of the damage done is by me only, that argon ship just joined

how about make their AI like this?

-if i start attacking or they are under attack - their AI is automatically set to command 'attack enemies all enemies within the zone' (since its a vanilla feature anyway but you have to do it manually though... and i hate that)

-if no enemies found - revert back to original commands

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

I can't check the clip at the moment, but some people will use the Titruel as a trader and would prefer them to run away even if they are currently in the Skunk Squad for some reason. Probably best to not have auto-attack for the Titurel.