[MOD] [TC/AP] X3 Rebalance Mod (XRM) - Total conversion - v1.30d (02.12.13)

[Slashman]

Important

The cause of my crashes may have been the fact that I was using IR, not IR 2.0. I updated and no crashes so far.[/b]

Glad you got your issue sorted out. I'll see what happens as I expand in my game.

Finally got my Eclipse. Feels a lot safer than the Nova.

[swatti]

SUGGESTION DoT-effect to beams. MK2!

I was kinda haunted by Paul saying beams with dot produce lag.
My initial test of huge amount of fighters duking it out with dot-effects in their weapons did not produce noticable lag.
It may indeed be as you said, they fixed it in AP.

I re-did my test with capital ships on busy sector. I cloned my own beam-loaded Cyclops and Megaloldon both ten-fold and gave them to pirates in the middle of Argon/Terran fleet-battle. Saved the game and tested various Dot-effects: NO LAG WAS VISIBLE as long as the effect had somewhat "sane" properties.

The battle itself went somewhat better for the AI when they had the DoT-effect in their weapons.
Without it they simply "swiped" the enemies with their beams doing next to no dmg
WITH the DoT effect they cut down shields much faster and were able to do some decent dmg.

Weapons modded were ION-C, Plasma Beam Cannon and Fusion Beam Cannon.
My "final" setup was about 10-20% less shield dmg and that same amount as a dot. Effect lenght was 1-2s less then the re-fire rate of the weapon.

In my opinion other beams dont need the dot-effect so much as they fire much faster. Only exeption may be the IBL... Cause you know, fire, burns stuff for some time etc... Not tested tho.

So please, if you have time, do some testing. This could have some impressive results for AI beam-usage.

[greypanther]

I have played both TC and AP vannila and never had a crash.
Since using XRM I have had some issues, however feel the benefits from this great mod outweigh the pains; at least for now!

In TC XRM was rock solid for me until the bloody annoying M3 bombers turned up in a sector! Paul offered a fix, ( which is on page 1 and is just one file to replace, ) which partially fixed the problem, but not totaly. I still get crashes, but fewer than before. Paul thinks it is because of the missile boat script.

In AP ( with XRM ) it maybe seems a little smoother, but there is without a doubt an issue with the sounds. I have had one complete lock up on the sound of an explosion, noticed many times that the game hangs for less than a second when its playing certain sounds. I havn't pinned down which sounds and am looking to use a different sound device to see if its that. The main culprit seems to be the cap ship explosion sound.

Last night I also saw the problem others have had in Omicron Lyrae and Circle of Labour. ( XRM + AP ) I had a major slow down in Circle of Labour, whilst the two opposing fleets slugged it out. This even though I have seen much larger battles elsewhere, running smooth as you like. Whats wrong with this sector? The problem in OL was even worse and was an unplayable slide show, even though a battle smaller than the one in CoL! I never had any problems with vannila AP in these sectors!

Thing is I can cope with the TC + XRM problem by quickly cheating out the stupid M3 bombers as I see them. The same may not be the case with AP, the problem may be more wide spread.

This is a shame because the problems seem small, ( though I bet very hard to fix. ) This mod is just amazing in so many ways. When you consider the amount of time Paull and the rest of his team, ( ) have put in on it, it seems ungrateful to critisize it. However I think I may well stop playing AP + XRM and go back to TC + XRM. It runs smoother and doesn't have the annoying war going on!

I am afraid for me AP has been a bit of a disapointment. XRM + TC is better and Egosoft would have been better off getting behind this mod, than producing the flawed war!

[paulwheeler]

The M3 bomber issue that afflicts TC does not cause any issues in AP.

AP uses a completely different set of scripts for missile boats. Personally, I've not had any stability problems with AP.

As for sounds, the capital ship explosion is quite a bit longer than vanilla, and only about a second longer than the CMod3 explosion sound. However, its the not changed since the initial release of XRM - in fact the only sounds that have changed since the initial release are the sounds for the M/AML and IPG. While the explosion sound is longer, its much shorter than several vanilla sounds and really shouldn't be the cause of any problems.

That said - have a look through the tech support board. X3 has always been plagued with sound issues affecting performance and stability. I've not experienced it myself, but then I'm using a very expensive professional studio sound card (M-Audio Delta 1010). Its certainly worth reading through the issues others have had - usually related to driver or codec problems.

The job scripts that the XRM war ships are running are very simple modifications to the default patrol scripts. They are not at all taxing to the system, so I don't think the actual war is a problem - its more likely the sheer number of ships with the associated bullets, missiles and trails. There were never battles this big in TC. I really don't want to start reducing numbers as its unfair on those who don't have performance issues.

Omycron Lyrae may be a problem due to the fog in that sector (which has always caused issues with performance, even in vanilla). You could try the No Fog mod and see if it helps. Also in XRM you have the huge shipyard model in Omycron Lyrae which is more resource hungry than the standard shipyard model.

You have to remember that you may not have noticed performance issues in vanilla simply because there were far, far less ships on the screen at once and less going on in the universe, which would mean less for your rig to do and thus mask any underlying problems.

One thing I am going to do which may or may not help is convert all remaining jpg textures to dds (its mostly textures that have been inherited from X2). I've no idea if it will make much difference to those with issues, but its worth a try. I'll have the trail textures converted for 1.20, but it may take a few versions to complete as there are a lot of textures to convert.

If you do go back to TC, can you try running without MDMk2 for a while and see if its this that is conflicting with the missile boat script and report back?

[Mizuchi]

That said - have a look through the tech support board. X3 has always been plagued with sound issues affecting performance and stability.

If you're using the K-Lite Codec Pack, it also hates ffdshow. You need to blacklist the X3TC.exe in ffdshow's setting.

[greypanther]

Well, thanks for the reply guys!

In fact I removed the offending codecs about two weeks after first visiting these boards!

I will indeed try a different sound card, may even invest in a super duper one!

You missed my point Paul, I already stated that I had seen MUCH larger battles, in part created by me, in other sectors without any problems. At all.
The issue seems to me the way that the different factors work together. Maybe the war + XRM = problems? Could there be an issue between XRM and the way AP deals witht the war? Grasping at straws there I know!

You made me think of something there though that I had forgotten. When I upgraded to 3.2 TC, I had issues in several sectors, where there were battles involving beam weapons; namely the Khaak. This was only in the foggy sectors, and was in fact made worse by the no fog mod. I rolled back to 3.1 and end of the problems. I recal 3.2 altered the way draw distances are dealt with? AP is based around 3.2 isn't it?
Therefore I am left wondering if something Egosoft between 3.1 and 3.2 is the problem, is it causing clashes with some mods?

I will try later with removing the no fog mod from AP and as you suggest the the MMD mk2. I will report back soonest.

Whatever you do, do not make too many changes to XRM, it is so near to perfect and you could spoil it if you go too far.
In fact you can create really big battles with the chaet scripts in TC and using Xenon sectors; extremely big in fact! No problems there, but I will check again. There again I am using 3.1 TC, which again makes me feel the fault is within the change from 3.1 to 3.2. Did Egosoft fix something that wasn't broken for modded users?

[Ragemaster9999]

Cursed Fog and horrible station models!! Oh how I LOATH you.

The simple solution is to just avoid Omicron LYrae and Circle of Labor like the plague, especially if theres a fleet battle going down. I have kicked other hornets nest elsewhere and have had 0 problems with big battles, but your right those systems do naturally suck for performance.

At the end of the day, you have to realize, that the underlying engine technology is old and in some ways, feels cobbled together from whatever spare parts Egosoft may or may not have had access to during development. While I love X3 to death and there is many things it does right... Being optimized is not one of those merits. Hopefully something Rebirth will address.

In the meantime, we have to make do with what we got.

[nap_rz]

what is that "modified" word/pic below paul's username?

[Ragemaster9999]

SUGGESTION DoT-effect to beams. MK2!

I was kinda haunted by Paul saying beams with dot produce lag.
My initial test of huge amount of fighters duking it out with dot-effects in their weapons did not produce noticable lag.
It may indeed be as you said, they fixed it in AP.

I re-did my test with capital ships on busy sector. I cloned my own beam-loaded Cyclops and Megaloldon both ten-fold and gave them to pirates in the middle of Argon/Terran fleet-battle. Saved the game and tested various Dot-effects: NO LAG WAS VISIBLE as long as the effect had somewhat "sane" properties.

The battle itself went somewhat better for the AI when they had the DoT-effect in their weapons.
Without it they simply "swiped" the enemies with their beams doing next to no dmg
WITH the DoT effect they cut down shields much faster and were able to do some decent dmg.

Weapons modded were ION-C, Plasma Beam Cannon and Fusion Beam Cannon.
My "final" setup was about 10-20% less shield dmg and that same amount as a dot. Effect lenght was 1-2s less then the re-fire rate of the weapon.

In my opinion other beams dont need the dot-effect so much as they fire much faster. Only exeption may be the IBL... Cause you know, fire, burns stuff for some time etc... Not tested tho.

So please, if you have time, do some testing. This could have some impressive results for AI beam-usage.

Maybe there is a discrepancy between various beams? For example, the split anti fighter beam weapon, Phased Array Laser Cannon, seems to be very potent for the AI, and does a good job of eliminating my horde of CODEA fighters. Solid Weapon. The green one, that goes on argon ships, whose name I do not know, doesn't seem to be as good. As it usually hits the target then flies off in a random direction, usually off the target.

Is it optimal? No, but what I do not want is a return of the oldschool XRM beams weapons, like the stupid boron ones, where you encounter a destroyer or frigate filled with nothing but blue lasers emitters that drain ALL your energy in one volly, damage you, and make you slow. This was the most overpowered weapon system ever. I havnt run into it in the latest XRM, then again im not currently exterminating boron systems, so it may still be in, but I hope not.

Then there's one more beam weapon worth mentioning, that is extremely potent, and that is the laser tower beam cannon. This thing, is AWESOME if it belongs to you... SUCKS if your fighting it. I can attest that 5 spread out laser towers in a 4km radius can easily take down a m1 or m2 ship. Oh, and did I mention, they can kill fighters too? In-fact I had a khaak carrier spawn in my home sector... so what did i do? lure them to my cluster of laser towers. No more khaak carrier! Fighters also got vaporized.

Yesterday i was on the recieving end of this, when I decided to try and assault a pirate guild base in Credits Recieved. For anyone who doesnt know, pirate guild puts about 4-5 lasers towers around the pirate base, along with its own defense wing. I took my Cerberus, my Elephant, and my nexus plus Centaur Sentinal with a combined fighter wing of 18 nova raiders with codea, and tried to assault the base. Granted, I lost half of my fighter wing to the defending fighters/corvettes, but even with all the enemy fighters dead trying to assault 5 laser towers with 1 frig and a TL and about 8 fighters was impossible. No matter how many times i reloaded, I could not figure out a way to down the laser towers. They have only 1GJ of shield, but their SMALL, hard to hit, and have a long range fast firing weapon that is both anti capital, and anti fighter at the same time.

Long of the short of it? Dont fight laser towers. You WILL lose.

[paulwheeler]

Therefore I am left wondering if something Egosoft between 3.1 and 3.2 is the problem, is it causing clashes with some mods?

The added a draw distance setting which is, by default set to maximum I think. Try reducing it to high or medium. Its in the graphics settings at the initial AP splash screen.

[Slashman]

Someone mentioned blacklisting the X3 exe from the ffdshow codecs. I recall that I had to do something similar for Fallout 3. I never thought of that in relation to X3 because it was never a problem for me in TC.

The other thing I notice is that Paul is running very high end hardware. Most people no longer use discrete sound cards and I wouldn't have thought that he was using one unless he said it.

So the fact that he's getting no problems may be a direct result of his more-than-decent specs.

[paulwheeler]

Up until about a month ago, except for the sound card and graphics card, my rig was far from high-end:

Core 2 Duo 2.4Ghz
4 GB Ram
32bit Vista

I didn't have problems then either.

Most of my dev work is done on a laptop:

Sony Vaio
Core 2 Duo 2.1GHz
4 GB Ram
Nvidia GeForce 8400M GT with 256MB

Although I have to run at minimum settings on the laptop, its certainly playable (except for Terran sectors where the huge station models are just too much), and not noticeably different to vanilla (TC that is as I've never played vanilla AP).



One thing I will consider to help in Terran sectors is to swap the Shipyard and Orbital Defence models for Cadius' replacements which are much smaller and less resource heavy than the vanilla models. Would people mind losing the massive vanilla Terran docks?

[morikaane]

Interesting observations...

Every few game hours the Argon keep getting annihilated in the Belt of Aguilar by the Xenon, much in a similar fashion as the Split in Zyarth's Dominion.

Last I checked up on them there were two Ks, one J, one I, three Gs, three Qs, two Cs, about a dozen M6s (Ps and PXs) and a considerable number of fighters. There were no RRF ships responding to the invasion (even after observing for over a full hour) and the Jonferco forces kept getting walked over everytime they respawned.

Is anyone else getting this sort of thing happening... or are the Argon just that unlucky?

Also... interesting OOS combat observations...

Been watching the battles between the Teladi and Xenon in Grand Exchange OOS. The Xenon-I appears to take zero shield damage (even when fighting against TWO phoenix destroyers and a Pteranodon). It pretty much just flies through Grand Exchange and ends up joining its buddies in the Belt of Aguilar.

(anyone reckon that the Xenon-I might be outrunning them?)

Cheers,
M.

[BlackRain]

Paulwheeler, any help on my issues with the m7m's>> It has nothing to do with me not having fight command software MK2, of course I have that software. I even cheated in a ship with all software installed. I can't get the M7M's to fire on stations.

How exactly is it done> There is no attack target command for the turrets. There is an attack target command under combat but not under turrets.

[morikaane]

Paulwheeler, any help on my issues with the m7m's>> It has nothing to do with me not having fight command software MK2, of course I have that software. I even cheated in a ship with all software installed. I can't get the M7M's to fire on stations.

How exactly is it done> There is no attack target command for the turrets. There is an attack target command under combat but not under turrets.

Target the station, open up your sector map. open up the orders menu on the M7M and select Launch Missile Barrage... I think that should work...

M.

[BlackRain]

There is no missile barrage, Paul took it out of XRM.

[morikaane]

There is no missile barrage, Paul took it out of XRM.

I suggest you try targeting a hostile and then going the ORDER menu (via the in sector map) for the M7M ship and proceed to open up the order submenu (I'm not talking about the command console) and you'll see a launch missile barrage option --- that one is hardcoded. But you must be IN SECTOR (and have the missiles) for it to appear.

M.

[paulwheeler]

This is a problem with the vanilla AP missile boat scripts. It seems they didn't consider that one might want to fire on a station.

The only way you can do it is by ordering your main ship command to attack the station and then set the turrets to attack target (I think). The ship will end up doing an attack run on the station but I think they will eventually fire.

Its not an ideal solution though - anything else would require a rewrite to the vanilla scripts, or adding the barrage command back in - which is incredibly unbalanced and gives the player a massive advantage.

[paulwheeler]

Interesting observations...

Every few game hours the Argon keep getting annihilated in the Belt of Aguilar by the Xenon, much in a similar fashion as the Split in Zyarth's Dominion.

Last I checked up on them there were two Ks, one J, one I, three Gs, three Qs, two Cs, about a dozen M6s (Ps and PXs) and a considerable number of fighters. There were no RRF ships responding to the invasion (even after observing for over a full hour) and the Jonferco forces kept getting walked over everytime they respawned.

Is anyone else getting this sort of thing happening... or are the Argon just that unlucky?

Also... interesting OOS combat observations...

Been watching the battles between the Teladi and Xenon in Grand Exchange OOS. The Xenon-I appears to take zero shield damage (even when fighting against TWO phoenix destroyers and a Pteranodon). It pretty much just flies through Grand Exchange and ends up joining its buddies in the Belt of Aguilar.

(anyone reckon that the Xenon-I might be outrunning them?)

Cheers,
M.

Check Omycron Lyrae and see if your Argon RRF ships have got stuck. If they are all there stationary, with the shipyard as a destination, use the cheat scripts to destroy them. They will respawn and then come back to life.

I'm discussing this bug with LV at the moment to see if I can work out what is causing it and a solution.

Don't forget the Argon RRF may be busy with the Terran fleet.

I have found with all of these "hot-spots" the RRF will get around to clearing them eventually.

[morikaane]

Check Omycron Lyrae and see if your Argon RRF ships have got stuck. If they are all there stationary, with the shipyard as a destination, use the cheat scripts to destroy them. They will respawn and then come back to life.

I'll give that a shot and keep you posted.

M.