[SCR] [X3:TC/AP] [v1.9.8.12] [03/23/14] Galaxy Explorer

gargamel69 · Post by **gargamel69** » Sat, 18. Feb 12, 08:52

gnasirator wrote:@ "Its possible that works with spanish?"

Hmm, I guess it should "work" in spanish but you should get readText errors everywhere.

The only two languages I have implemented are german and english.

http://www.yourfilelink.com/get.php?fid=763637

try this one. It should work with language id 43 but still uses english texts.

and for AP, make sure to unpack the files to the addon folder!

Thx, i will try next monday, but there is not 43... is 34 xd but i think that if i change the archive name to 34 and into xml language id to 34 it must be work.

gnasirator · Post by **gnasirator** » Sat, 18. Feb 12, 10:04

oh my mistake

jeah just change file name and <language id> inside of the file.

Rakeris · Post by **Rakeris** » Sat, 3. Mar 12, 00:04

Download link isn't working for me, anyone have other mirrors?

gnasirator · Post by **gnasirator** » Sat, 3. Mar 12, 08:36

Rakeris wrote:Download link isn't working for me, anyone have other mirrors?

try mirror 2

Rakeris · Post by **Rakeris** » Sun, 4. Mar 12, 21:01

gnasirator wrote:
Rakeris wrote:Download link isn't working for me, anyone have other mirrors?
try mirror 2 ;)

Thanks!

TestingTesting · Post by **TestingTesting** » Tue, 6. Mar 12, 09:28

from a bug - feature comparison, how does this one fair against the "Automate Satellite Network 2.00".

only reason i ask is no one has explained in detail what this one does, there is only the summary on the first post, but no details.

i looked on the German thread, same thing, apart from the bullet points, there is no breakdown so to speak of the feature set.

gnasirator · Post by **gnasirator** » Tue, 6. Mar 12, 12:46

I don't know that script but I can tell you what mine does.

Explorers CAN:
1. find unexplored sectors and discover them
2. scan sectors for stations in a certain radius
3. scan sectors for asteroids
4. build and maintain a sat network

all chooseable from config menu. should be VERY self-explanatory.

I suggest: try it.
1. get an m5 with explorer software and just start the 'Explore Galaxy' command.
2. Then watch what the ship does.
3. Love the script

As far as I know, there are no bugs reported. If there were, I would have fixed them already ...

TestingTesting · Post by **TestingTesting** » Tue, 6. Mar 12, 13:03

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=265029

like I said, your one doesn't have much..... presentation is the word I'm looking for.

it maybe the most powerful explorer software script outthere, but it just doesn't come across that way mainly impart to the first post being so vague.

"alex2069" breaks his features into sub paragraphs, and elaborates on each one, definitely has impact.

gnasirator · Post by **gnasirator** » Tue, 6. Mar 12, 13:26

well that is too overloaded for my personal taste.
thing is, I want to keep the main post short and simple. else the relevant information becomes hard to filter out.

Furthermore I can't really break down EVERY single step the explorers do because they only combine the standard explore scripts into a useful automated script.

But what I could do is create a program flow description which shows the basic work style.

if - then
do this
do that

TestingTesting · Post by **TestingTesting** » Wed, 7. Mar 12, 11:14

some ideas - observations.

** Jump area range (they seem to go where they want, some players may actualy like to put a limit on how far they should go and explore)

--this can have many advantages, of course there would need to be a Homebase set

** the buying Sats system is a bit vague and quite simple too

--for over 6 hours game time my two m4's did not buy a SAT, i had the money, not sure what was going on there, also the option "0-1-2-3-4-5-Spawn" could be named better (i assume that's the range that the ship will look out too attempting to look for Sats to buy)

---if a homebase was set, then also check there first just in case player has setup a system that finds Sats for good prices and brings them back, this would only a work if ship can use Jump drive of course (this would not work in XRM because fighters can't have jump drives installed, this would definitely would need disabling)

----credit limit, no mention of this at all, how does the Sat determine what price to buy, or does it not and just pays anything that the Sat is being asked for?

**have a enemy threat option that can be configured

--the beginning of the game is when this script is most valuable (and later stage if Sat system is being maintained), however ships are also expensive for player, even the cheap ones being lost can be big set back in the beginning.
maybe have an option where the player can set how the ship behaves when it detects a POSSIBLE enemy in range, this way even if a pirate is detected....RUN
this would need to be an option as many may like the current system, "Flee when Attacked", my suggestion would be a extra option "Flee when spot enemy", could be useful for sometime until the player can afford to loose M4 ships from time to time

**save data, load data (Sats always load with Spawn set)

--

not sure how your going to swallow these, have a few more ideas, but i'll wait...... for now.

gnasirator · Post by **gnasirator** » Wed, 7. Mar 12, 15:17

interesting ideas!

I'll see what I can do

gnasirator · Post by **gnasirator** » Wed, 7. Mar 12, 19:38

TestingTesting wrote:some ideas - observations.

** Jump area range (they seem to go where they want, some players may actualy like to put a limit on how far they should go and explore)

--this can have many advantages, of course there would need to be a Homebase set

-> Done!

TestingTesting wrote: ** the buying Sats system is a bit vague and quite simple too

--for over 6 hours game time my two m4's did not buy a SAT, i had the money, not sure what was going on there, also the option "0-1-2-3-4-5-Spawn" could be named better (i assume that's the range that the ship will look out too attempting to look for Sats to buy)

---if a homebase was set, then also check there first just in case player has setup a system that finds Sats for good prices and brings them back, this would only a work if ship can use Jump drive of course (this would not work in XRM because fighters can't have jump drives installed, this would definitely would need disabling)

----credit limit, no mention of this at all, how does the Sat determine what price to buy, or does it not and just pays anything that the Sat is being asked for?

You are right, that is the buyrange setting. The explorers just check every time if they can find any usable satellites inside of that range and then buy them.
Or if set to spawn, they will spawn sats but charge extra for that.
I don't like the idea to implement jump drive usage, especially as this is designed for M5s which don't have enough cargo bay anyway.

Credit limit is not checked - simply because satellites are rare and the explorers can be happy to find any at all.

TestingTesting wrote: **have a enemy threat option that can be configured

--the beginning of the game is when this script is most valuable (and later stage if Sat system is being maintained), however ships are also expensive for player, even the cheap ones being lost can be big set back in the beginning.
maybe have an option where the player can set how the ship behaves when it detects a POSSIBLE enemy in range, this way even if a pirate is detected....RUN
this would need to be an option as many may like the current system, "Flee when Attacked", my suggestion would be a extra option "Flee when spot enemy", could be useful for sometime until the player can afford to loose M4 ships from time to time

This is another interesting idea which I haven't implemented yet. But right now I don't have the time to put that one in, too.
Actually explorers already are using a quite similar system. The do escape before they are attacked. They always scan their surroundings for enemies and if one of them plans to attack the explorers, the escape to the gate furthest away.
The downside is that hostiles only switch into attack mode very late but with a fast ship there is usually enough time to flee.

TestingTesting wrote: **save data, load data (Sats always load with Spawn set)

-> fixed

TestingTesting · Post by **TestingTesting** » Wed, 7. Mar 12, 20:14

oh my, that was quick i have to say...... WOW!

although your explorer script has far fewer files than the other script i mention ASN 2.00, i'm sure that helps.

thanks for the jump range, it was so annoying that they just went everywhere,

as for SAT buying, something is still not right, i have witnessed my M4 ship ignoring a station only 2 jumps away that had 41 ADVSats on board...... my relations were good, i had the money, seemed to me that my M4 was more fixed on exploring and doing sector scans, and giving very low priority to Sat laying...... i assume there is a simple process of task priority and what todo next when a job is finished......sector scanning seems to be really good, when finished it then checks asteroids, but at this point...... onto the next sector and back to sector scan and asteroid...

i did a test, i started the ship in an area with a station selling ADVSats, the M4 did a full sector scan, then scanned 4 asteroids in the area..... and as i expected went straight out of the system north into the next..... didn't pick up any Sats that was in a station in the very system the ship was in. (i have range set to 5, i refuse to use the spawn setting because..... well its completely implausible that a ship can just suddenly spawn an "Advance Sat" right?

thanks for the new jump range, going to try that out now.

gnasirator · Post by **gnasirator** » Wed, 7. Mar 12, 21:54

Well .... right now explorers check for available satellites within range once per sector which should be enough.

But if you say that they ignore some buying possibilities I have to improve that routine. I'll see what I can find

TestingTesting · Post by **TestingTesting** » Wed, 7. Mar 12, 22:00

i'll do some more test aswell, do some dummy runs so to speak, i'll get back to you on that, although i am using XRM 1.18, but i would not of thought that should have any effect.

gnasirator · Post by **gnasirator** » Wed, 7. Mar 12, 23:32

ah btw about your problem with explorers not buying sats:

They ONLY buy sats they are configured to drop. So if you told them to drop adv. sats, they will ignore factories producing standard navsats.

TestingTesting · Post by **TestingTesting** » Fri, 9. Mar 12, 14:04

i reloaded a new game, the explorer is working fine now, SAT buying is good, must be problem with OLD save games.

few things though,

** Sat buying

--noticed problem where the Explorer will goto OTAS HQ to try and buy some SATS, but come away empty, either because of poor relations or low money or maybe something else, is there no way for the explorer to know that before hand, and stop wasting it's time trying todo something that it knew before hand it can't do (skip SAT buying step "if A+B=2 else do" sort of thing)

** Inefficient exploring

--i know you mentioned that you like the explorers keeping busy, but the truth is space is dangerous (piracy) and having explorers mapping sectors they have already done is very inefficient and most likely will lead to a lot of expenses for the player, it's also just very inefficient to see a explorer mapping a sector for the 20th time...... give it up already LOL.

**Sat laying

--it does a OK job, but only a OK job, a lot of the area is not covered by the sats, the other script that i gave a link to had a pretty good system that you may be able to emulate (nothing wrong in using a already established system that is effective), that is a 4x4 grid (if gates not in the radius of this grid then also drop a SAT by them too), it was a unfinished system however, because it would try todo a 4x4 grid in a sector that was too small..... needless to say it was a mess....... this small flaw only effectd a few sectors obviously, but it was still a flaw none the less, however saying that it was overall far better than any other method at the time, and still holds a solid method even my today's example (if only it didn't do a 4x4 grid in a sector that can't fir a 4x4 grid in it)

---the other script also named the SATS in a certain manner, which really helped with SAT maintenance, A1, A2, A4 B1 B2 B3 B4 (A3 is missing, so replace)

NOTE, i know you want to take your script it's own path, but i just wanted to note that http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... 7038e48e3b has some pretty decent innovative ideas, completely revolutionary at the time, and even by today, only problem with that script, in fairness it has a few outstanding flaws with it, there was a bug fix..... but i have done some tests..... sometimes the system gets stuck for no apparent reason (usually in parts of the universe that has a pretty weird way of getting too, also the script is quite heavy in design..... a lot of scripts needed to make it work), perhaps you could if you wanted of course put your own spin on it (and with excellent efficiency which your scripts do seem to have)

i went on a bit, although your script is really good, and very efficient so it would seem, you seem to achieve so much with very few scripts aswell, where as ASN 2.00 needed so much code to do it's thing, in truth that script would benefit a lot from a full rewrite...... but that will never be unfortunately.

gnasirator · Post by **gnasirator** » Sat, 10. Mar 12, 10:30

@ it's also just very inefficient to see a explorer mapping a sector for the 20th time

That they shouldn't do?! They know which sectors they have mapped already and skip them. They also skip sectors, other explorers are busy in at the moment. So I don't understand how you could observe this?

@sat buying: I'll see if I can improve that part! Until now I had to get the MK3 traders running smoothly - which I hope they do now.

@sat covering: I don't really want to cover EVERY smallest bit of the sector because that is simply too much work for this tiny bit of extra knowledge I get there.
But I might have an Idea how I can achieve that with very little extra coding ... but no promises made here!
And sat maintenance is done automatically by the explorers. They can find out if a sat is missing and will replace that one. They only have to stumble into the affected sector.

I know this isn't perfect from a human point of view. The explorers rely very much on chance and work after the pareto principle (20% work, 80% success). But if I wanted to make them really intelligent, that they know which sats are missing and actively scan for them and come to replace them I'd have to completely rebuild this.

To sum it up: I want to keep this simple and easy to maintain.

BUT: If you want, feel free to abuse my code and build your own script

TestingTesting · Post by **TestingTesting** » Sat, 10. Mar 12, 12:04

fair enough, i thought you would say that anyway, mainly because ASN started of small and grew very large, because in part i suppose of that intelligence.

gnasirator · Post by **gnasirator** » Sat, 10. Mar 12, 13:08

good news, I think I could make you happy.

But I can't release the new version yet. Have no time for testing right now ...

edit: ok try it, it's hardly tested as I don't have enough time right now. I'm looking forward to bug reports!
Guess I'll make full sector coverage dependand on the drop sats at gates switch and rename that one to 'Cover full sector with sats'...

next update: tomorrow. now: party at hamburg