Modding & Scripting Requests!, This Includes Requests For Mods If They Have No Forum

[Lord Dakier]

Just google Argonopedia and you will find. You could always use Nav sats to locate the nebula's then use Advance Sats as your locater for other things.

[Adlantis]

Concerning the Nebula-Idea: Maybe you could make this manually: The player sets up several Satellites close to a Hull-Eating Nebula > he renames the Satellites to, for Example: Hull-Eating Warning Sat > a Script searches for Satellites with this name and forces your ships to keep a Safety-Distance to those Sats... It would take some time to set the Sats up but your Ships wouldn't just fly into those Nebulas...

I'm no Scripter so I don't really know if it could work like this though...

[Lord Dakier]

Or, you set them down manually and use the coordinates making a script which reveals the Nebula's by advanced sats or Nav beacons... if they belong to another race you would not see it in the property owned or map either

[Adlantis]

Or, you set them down manually and use the coordinates making a script which reveals the Nebula's by advanced sats or Nav beacons... if they belong to another race you would not see it in the property owned or map either

But I'm not really sure if it's possible to determine the location of such a Nebula with a Script...

[Shadow dream]

right: you can't find nebulas UNLESS your script places them. So the script can save the position and place something else there too. but the nebulas placed by map or by the vanila script can't be found like that...

Shadow

[Chris Gi]

Well, what about a simple "get rid of the nebulae thread" solution? One could change the TNebulae file and remove the "hull eating" or "shield zapper" flag....

[Lord Dakier]

Good idea. Would that have to be a modification though?

[Shadow dream]

changing a T-File is always a mod. scripts can't do that..

Shadow

[Lord Dakier]

Thought so.

I see two ways. Remove them via Tfile or a script which places Nav Beacons for a different race so you can avoid those Nebula's.

[Jonson27]

What does everyone think about jumpdrives? I don't really like them because they seem to break the balance between player and environment. For example, there're sectors on the edge of the empire that wouldn't really be on hte "edge" if the ships used jumpdrives. When I go through bbs articles and read sector descriptions, I don't get the impression that everyone uses jumpdrives - rather I get the impression that distance is still a formidable challenge. I've never seen any ship outside of a khaak ship use the jump drive. I guess what I'm saying is is that if more ships used jumpdrives I could more easily accept them, but since I've only ever seen the khaak use them, it doesn't feel right.

The world of x2 seems oblivious to jumpdrives. If jumpdrives were so good, merchant ships wouldn't need to travel and get blown up by khaak invasion forces. Stations have enough credits to continually buy new m3, m4, m5 and TS, in addition to affording product losses, but they can't afford 100,000 credit jumpdrives to keep their merchants effective and alive?? Why do merchants plunge straight through hostile zones and then get blown up when they could alternatively use jump drives???? Why does hte sector description for a sector say that noeone comes to it because of a minefield sector that seperates it from the others, yet if they used jumpdrives then the minefield wouldn't be a threat?????? Jumpdrives would make that sector description kind of misplaced - if anyone wants to get to that sector they have to go through a dozen other sectors and risk getting blown up. Using a jumpdrive, it's a snap and no sweat. No danger at all. And why do the sector patrols not use jump drives? If there was a threat in the next sector, they could be informed of it and use their jump drives to get there. Instead, they're crawling from one sector to the next, complaining about not having good defensive coverage for distant sectors (apparently some of them are far away even though they're only 1 or 2 sectors away), when there's a cheap 100,000 credit jumpdrive available.

I was thinking about changing it so that the jumpdrive is more expensive and will only operate on m2 or m1 because it needs lots of baseload energy. Even this wouldn't make any sense because I've never seen any m1 or m2 use a jumpdrive... like i say, I've only ever seeen khaak clusters use the jumpdrive. The x2-universe doesn't seem to even know that they exist aside from a few spare references in the bbs.

Were jumpdrives thrown in at the last minute because they were worried that players didn't want to worry about spatial problems, like hostile sectors or ships, time, mines, etc. Also I've noticed that I make less credits than I would if I was using the jumpdrive... makes me wonder whether x2 is balanced for those who use jumpdrives as opposed to those who don't.

Is there a mod that resolves this somewhat? The way I imagine it's this way....
1) give some of the non-player m2 and m1 jumping ability...
2) increase the jumpdrive price....

This way you wouldn't have to add a bunch of script support for normal ships, which would save development time and keep x2 running speedily and not bogged down by more script instructions. You wouldn't have to rewrite some of the sector descriptions and bbs articles to help accomodate the reality of jumpdrive technology, either. It would explain why the jumpdrive isn't used by everyone and why distance still apparently matters even though there's an instant travel device.

[Lord Dakier]

Increase the price 10 fold.

[Adlantis]

What does everyone think about jumpdrives? I don't really like them because they seem to break the balance between player and environment. For example, there're sectors on the edge of the empire that wouldn't really be on hte "edge" if the ships used jumpdrives. When I go through bbs articles and read sector descriptions, I don't get the impression that everyone uses jumpdrives - rather I get the impression that distance is still a formidable challenge. I've never seen any ship outside of a khaak ship use the jump drive. I guess what I'm saying is is that if more ships used jumpdrives I could more easily accept them, but since I've only ever seen the khaak use them, it doesn't feel right.

The world of x2 seems oblivious to jumpdrives. If jumpdrives were so good, merchant ships wouldn't need to travel and get blown up by khaak invasion forces. Stations have enough credits to continually buy new m3, m2 and TS, in addition to affording product losses, but they can't afford 100,000 credit jumpdrives to keep their merchants effective and alive?? Why do merchants plunge straight through hostile zones and then get blown up when they could alternatively use jump drives???? Why does hte sector description for a sector say that noeone comes to it because of a minefield sector that seperates it from the others, yet if they used jumpdrives then the minefield wouldn't be a threat?????? Jumpdrives would make that sector description kind of misplaced - if anyone wants to get to that sector they have to go through a dozen other sectors and risk getting blown up. Using a jumpdrive, it's a snap and no sweat. No danger at all. And why do the sector patrols not use jump drives? If there was a threat in the next sector, they could be informed of it and use their jump drives to get there. Instead, they're crawling from one sector to the next, complaining about not having good defensive coverage for distant sectors (apparently some of them are far away even though they're only 1 or 2 sectors away), when there's a cheap 100,000 credit jumpdrive available.

I was thinking about changing it so that the jumpdrive is more expensive and will only operate on m2 or m1 because it needs lots of baseload energy. Even this wouldn't make any sense because I've never seen any m1 or m2 use a jumpdrive... like i say, I've only ever seeen khaak clusters use the jumpdrive. The x2-universe doesn't seem to even know that they exist aside from a few spare references in the bbs.

Were jumpdrives thrown in at the last minute because they were worried that players didn't want to worry about spatial problems, like hostile sectors or ships, time, mines, etc. Also I've noticed that I make less credits than I would if I was using the jumpdrive... makes me wonder whether x2 is balanced for those who use jumpdrives as opposed to those who don't.

Is there a mod that resolves this somewhat? The way I imagine it's this way....
1) give some of the non-player m2 and m1 jumping ability...
2) increase the jumpdrive price....

This way you wouldn't have to add a bunch of script support for normal ships, which would save development time and keep x2 running speedily and not bogged down by more script instructions. You wouldn't have to rewrite some of the sector descriptions and bbs articles to help accomodate the reality of jumpdrive technology, either. It would explain why the jumpdrive isn't used by everyone and why distance still apparently matters even though there's an instant travel device.

Well, currently the Pandora Team plans on restricting the Jumpdrive to bigger Ships, increasing the Price and we plan on making it really, really rare... That would explain why there is this lack of Jumpdrive Usage in the X-Universe

[Chris Gi]

Well, X2 ships DO actually jump. I once hired a TL and bought a factory. I ordered the TL to a specific sector some jumps away, and ordered my ship to follow the TL (I did this to do some scripting while playing). The TL gets on its way, and after reaching the next sector (by means of "conventional" drive, the TL jumped away.

During the Xenon Invasion missions that sometimes are offered on BBS, both the Xenon big ships and the supporting ships from other races jump into the sector. Ok, I don't consider this "normal" play - they seem to be forced to jump by the underlying KC scripts.

I've never seen any M1 or M2 jumping - but I've also never seen any M1 or M2 leaving the sector they're originally in.

Basically your observations are correct - jumpdrives are hardly ever used by AI ships. While they could do so, there's just no opportunity to do so.

I don't like the jump drive either for the reason that it's not (or rather hardly) used by AI ships, only playerships. The Universe Trader usage of jump drive is even worse, because it's a gateless drive.
And there is another reason: distance doesn't matter anymore. I still remember the days of X-BTF: the jumpdrive was a mere prerequisite to use gates. Though the universe was much smaller (it only consisted of 8x8 sectors, if I remember right), it felt much bigger than X2 universe....

[Lord Dakier]

I use it to get to destinations faster and thats all really... but thats all you can really use it for

If I'm travelling in something fancy without shields and do have a jumpdrive and was going through a pirate sector. I suppose I would look at how much action is going on in the sector before jumping.

Basically I use it if I wanna get somewhere in a hurry or if I'm being overwhelmingly attacked.

However I dont really use it if I am playing on the 360 at the same time

[Jonson27]

Well, X2 ships DO actually jump. I once hired a TL and bought a factory. I ordered the TL to a specific sector some jumps away, and ordered my ship to follow the TL (I did this to do some scripting while playing). The TL gets on its way, and after reaching the next sector (by means of "conventional" drive, the TL jumped away.

During the Xenon Invasion missions that sometimes are offered on BBS, both the Xenon big ships and the supporting ships from other races jump into the sector. Ok, I don't consider this "normal" play - they seem to be forced to jump by the underlying KC scripts.

I've never seen any M1 or M2 jumping - but I've also never seen any M1 or M2 leaving the sector they're originally in.

Basically your observations are correct - jumpdrives are hardly ever used by AI ships. While they could do so, there's just no opportunity to do so.

I don't like the jump drive either for the reason that it's not (or rather hardly) used by AI ships, only playerships. The Universe Trader usage of jump drive is even worse, because it's a gateless drive.
And there is another reason: distance doesn't matter anymore. I still remember the days of X-BTF: the jumpdrive was a mere prerequisite to use gates. Though the universe was much smaller (it only consisted of 8x8 sectors, if I remember right), it felt much bigger than X2 universe....

I did some major exploring the other day. I couldn't believe how big the x2-universe is. Combined with scouting the asteroids, it was a lot of time. I discovered some xenon sectors (the xenon ships have a nice turning rate, but what's hte purpose of destroying their sectors), some nice sector music, some asteroids I'd like to check out, and an unknown gate I'd like to someday enter. I want to build my next loop in a non-argon sector.. and I'm thinking about doing it in one of those outpost sectors nearer to the xenon.

I've built 43 stations and haven't seen a TL jump yet. In fact, this is one of the reasons I'd like to buy a TL because it would be almost twice as fast as the non-players and could double as a patrol ship. I do understand your points and I feel similarly. It feels like jumpdrives were added at the last moment during development, and they forgot to implement it in-game on non-player ships.... it doesn't make any sense because it only costs 100,000 credits and I see too many ships destroyed and replaced to buy the argument that 100,000 credits is too expensive for non-players.

As for the gateless drive for UTs, that's lame. You mean to say that it can gate all over the universe as long as it has a jumpdrive? I thought it needed energy cells to operate? 100,000 credits, and no restrictions on its use? I don't know, but for me, a game ain't fun unless I'm making choices and compromises in my game - that feels natural. Being able to jump anywhere with no considerations for the circumstances defeats the meaning of patrols and hostile sectors and minefields and lasertowers. I've travelled to distant sectors in my m5... and they really do feel distant! That's one of the reasons I'd like for m1 and m2 to have jumpdrives... although I can live with having to do it without jumpdrive, but I think making credits is too slow when you forego using them. However, one of the reason I make credits slow is because I don't leave x2 in accelerated time for more than 30 minutes.... with just one factory loop (like a complex) I could make 7.5 million in 8 hours (one night of sleep). I have 5 factory loops, so that would mean 37.5 million in one night of unattended play - which is possible with my the scripts I have, but I may need to code a reserve ship script in those special cases where a ship blows itself up while docking (this does happen very rarely... it's a bug i can't fix because it's not my scripts causing it).

One concern is, if m6, m2 and m1 patrol ships were to use jumpdrive, how would they gain access to energy cells??? They can't dock at solar power plants.

[Jonson27]

Are there any mods for ramping up xenon or khaak activity? At times I don't know which I enjoy more, coding scripts or playing x2, but I can't code everything. I can't be everywhere at once in the x2-universe and the enemy activity I do see is sometimes not enough to get my interest. It would help if it was a bit more dynamic or reactive, and maybe threw in a few jokers sometimes - like an m2 or a duo or trio of khaak clusters. And I only ever remember being attack by the pirates once even though I have a loop in a sector with a pirate base. And the only other time I've witnessed battles are the khaak invasions - and this get old because they're always the same. I've never seen xenon battles, not yet.

This is supposed to be a war right? I've never seen a station destroyed by the khaak. This is famously seen in the x2 intro movie... or is that the benchmark movie. Anyway, give me some advice. I've never done a khaak bbs mission, either.

Is it possible to scale the enemy threat according to the amount of player assets???? Is that even needed? This way the player wouldn't be overwhelmed early on, and wouldn't grow bored as they get too powerfull. This may only be a concern when the player has over 100 stations or has a fleet of m2's.... not sure. Part of it's that the khaak don't present a threat to my factories anymore... they haven't responded to the scripts I've made. My scripts have made it so that my ships will dock automatically and avoid any chance battles. This has had the subsequent effect that I grow bored and unchallenged. It was the challenge that made me play and make hte scripts... if only the khaak had changed their methods it could have inspired me to evolve my scripts further. For example, they've never threatened my stations. I had one station to 40%, but that's exceedingly rare. Since adding my scripts, there's never been a threat to either my ships or my stations. And this is what I'm getting at.... I have somehow surpassed a benchmark wherein the threat is no longer challenging. If the threat scaled itself somehow to my growth in assets and my improvement in scripting know-how, then this empty feeling wouldn't be here.

I guess I'm saying... I want competition that wants to kill ME. ME. Hehe.

And this kind of makes sense. In 8 hours of earth-time, at 6x acceleration, I can make over 35 million credits. This amounts to an in-game, x2 wealth indicator, of somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,292,800,000 credits in a full jazura. I make about 12,500 credits per mizura (i'm assuming that 1:00 (like for a wheat farm) in x2 is a mizura). This means I'm a future billionaire. I SHOULD be a target atleast by someone. Someone wants me dead.

[Lord Dakier]

Pirate guild is quite good for what your asking for.

You may want to look at the Khaak second invasion script. I've never really checked it out but from the name it has what your looking for.

[Jonson27]

Pirate guild is quite good for what your asking for.

You may want to look at the Khaak second invasion script. I've never really checked it out but from the name it has what your looking for.

Ya I'd think the pirates would be interested in cashing in on my wealth somehow. Someone out there should be interested. And my enemies won't be happy knowing that all my stations are in argon territory... all 43 of them. That's how many non-player stations you'll find in about 4 sectors. And I could easily make that 5. The player is one of the most powerful forces in x2.

[Jonson27]

I was thinking earlier about atmosphere and such. I was wondering... how difficult do you think it would be to make a setup script that renamed every ship and station in the x2-universe?? The concept would be to.... give the stations names like "Stop N' Go I" or "Power Up III" or "Energy for Life IV" or "Suder Manufacturing II" or "Musx Builders I" or "Big Constructions II". Each of these names might be unique to that sector or transitional or global. Stations (companies?) would be owned by several dozen enterprises spread throughout the galaxy. The name might be appended to the actual station name. For example, one enterprise might be Zipco. It would be seen as "SolarX II [Zipco]". Another name might be Ascenture Universa, or AU. It would be seen as "Traders Haven I [AU]". These enterprises could be stored in an array, and their assets could be estimated based on all of the stations they own. Every ship that the stations own could have the owning enterprise and/or station acronym attached. For example, a trader for "SolarX II [Zipco]" might be named "Split Caimen [Traders Haven I]" or "Split Caimen [AU]" or "Split Caimen [T. Haven] [AU], if both the station and company name have acronyms available.

I'm not exactly sure. What I see are several dozen enterprises... they're like the players competition. The player would also have to name their enterprise and submit it to some kind of authority so it can be included in the lists or compared to the non-player enterprises. Something like that. Anyway, it might eliminate the generic feeling in x2 where everything has the same name and it doesn't feel like things are unique and alive. Additionally, it might increase the spirit of competition. I don't know if I'm doing good in x2 because I have nothing to compare myself to. I don't know what the stations around me are doing... since they're supposed to be owned by the entire race... it really is odd! And I hate selecting ships to see what their homebase is... it would be nice if it was appended to the ship name. It would be like if every person had the same name.

Thoughts?

[Chris Gi]

how difficult do you think it would be to make a setup script that renamed every ship and station in the x2-universe??

Renaming stations is easy. But ships can be a problem. The initial renaming is almost as easy as renaming stations. But if a ship gets destroyed it will respawn and get the name it has on the original map. Let's say it's a Argon Mercury. Your script renames it to "Argon Mercury [Traders Haven I]". Then it gets destroyed, and after some time respawns with the name "Argon Mercury", and you would need to replace the name again...

What you say about the universe as a whole is true. It doesn't matter what I do - the AI will go it's way without interfering or generally reacting to my actions. There's no competition at all - including no competition among the races. Ok, there are alliances, diplomatic stuff or good/bad performances of companies mentioned in the BBS system, but this all remains virtual except a few fights among ships of potential enemy races like Boron vs. Split etc. But even those fights don't have any effect. And with the exception of the trade ships there's no travel between sectors.

I sorely miss a real "Artificial life" in X2. And the strange thing is: it's very easy to get a more real universe. For example: ticaki's pirate plugin creates more traveling of the pirates (between pirate stations) as well as some pirate M6 assasination ships and a TL carrying new ships to pirate stations. The pirates immediately feel more real. Or the Bounty hunter script: someone orders some bounty hunter to hunt you down. Or: Pandora uses a very simple AL plugin for "Civilian ships" that creates ships of classes M5-M3, TP and TS. They travel from station to station without trading, being busy with errands. The traveling between sectors is greatly increased and the universe seems to be more busy and realistic.

I've been thinking about the same issues Jonson27 raises for some time now. While the available scripts can greatly improve realism, they lack a certain aspect imho. This is due to the focus most scripts have: the player. To get more realism, I think the scripts need to focus on two things at the same time. The first one: the player doesn't matter. The inhabitants follow their own traits, they have their own problems, no matter what the player actually does. The second focus should be on the effects the player actions have: for example. if the player builds a factory, the access to products change in the sector he builds the factory. And if he successfully runs a factory, he is a competitor to other "companies" that will have less profit.

That's why I don't think renaming stations and ships will "eliminate the generic feeling". The other "people" in X2 universe should react to my actions and ignore me - like the people in real life do.