Is there a mod that makes your ships smarter?

7ate9tin11s · Post by **7ate9tin11s** » Wed, 9. Sep 09, 14:19

apricotslice wrote:And we also need new ship commands, such as stand off at maximum missile distance and spam, and Fly around target (clock or anticlockwise) just inside max range of specific turrent or specific gun. For example, I always put ppc's in the left turrents of the M1, M2's I fly, so if I'm not flying them, I'd want them to circle the target keeping the left turrent aligned on the target.

One of my IR ships does something like both of those combined and I have seen it take out a fleet of m2 by running outside their frontal firing range and peppering them with missiles and a strong rear turret (and sometimes fighters since it is a Yaki Shuri carrier!). It makes speed and backside firepower the most important thing for cap ships and would actually make strong ships like the Osaka obsolete. Feel free to look at the code for it in Improved Races, the scripts all contain the word 'overkill' (it is several parallel scripts that work together to get the proper effect).

someone else · Post by **someone else** » Wed, 9. Sep 09, 15:38

Gazz wrote:I wonder what would happen if you added 1 (or 2 to keep the "middle" centered) paths to a ship's scene.
If the ship "gets bigger" by including these non-existant (= non-collidable) objects then all it's followers would automatically use a wider formation because that's a size that might also fool the hardcoded routines.

Can you please explain better what you think to add? what kind of "non-existent" objects should be added? a cube of docking ports around the ship? a cube of cameradummies?

p.s. yeah, if a talented scripter can "reverse engineer" the Improved Races scripts to have a attack script that makes the M2 behave like a Capital would be very very cool.

Alkeena · Post by **Alkeena** » Wed, 9. Sep 09, 17:40

Success!

10 Rapiers with full engine/rudder in formation (stopped to make setting up the picture easier since I don't have my joystick plugged in and I'm worthless with the mouse--they were flying full speed with it though).

http://imgur.com/8pJ28.jpg
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Video of 5 Rapiers following me at 90% (~390 m/s) speed through a 90 degree turn.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gF8NFFWCr98

I'll see if I can't prototype this into an alpha mod by this evening.

Gazz · Post by **Gazz** » Wed, 9. Sep 09, 17:54

I have no idea if that'll work but maybe adding a path to the object's scene (or rather 1 front, 1 behind) will make a ship think it's longer than it is even though there isn't anything.

Post by **Cycrow** » Wed, 9. Sep 09, 18:05

Gazz wrote:I think I saw a new 2.5 script command "Set desired speed" but I don't know what it affects or how.
As usual, it's not documented in any way. =)

desired speed is for the player ship.

when u change the speed of your ship, what u do is you change the desired speed, and then the engine will speed up or slow down the ship based on the acceleration to the desired speed.

the original set speed commands would just set the ships speed to that, whereas set desired speed will take acceleration into account

Gazz · Post by **Gazz** » Wed, 9. Sep 09, 18:10

Thanks. I was hoping it was something more widely usable.

I'm currently using one of 2 workarounds (depending on the script setting) to make a ship fly from A to B at a predetermined speed - which is lower than it's top speed.
It works fine but I'd happily replace it with something more CPU friendly. =)

someone else · Post by **someone else** » Wed, 9. Sep 09, 18:16

Alkeena wrote:Success!
10 Rapiers with full engine/rudder in formation (stopped to make setting up the picture easier since I don't have my joystick plugged in and I'm worthless with the mouse--they were flying full speed with it though).

I'll see if I can't prototype this into an alpha mod by this evening.

I can smell that it will bring a lot of glory for you if you manage to distribute a mod like that. I and most of other Carrier users will bow at you.

btw, what did you do to the scenes?

mpcribeiro · Post by **mpcribeiro** » Wed, 9. Sep 09, 18:38

what get my nerves is for example a carrier or any other capital ship jumping out-in and get other ship in the other side of the gate.

Not only that but again a carrier/capita following its trajectory and other ship in same path coming in colision course.

The both speed combined and distance to aknowledge the colision is not far enough for a small ship run away and quite often go "bang" - like both were waiting till last few meters to evade colision.

This happens if player is in command or even in auto.

I reckon if colision detection could somehow be increased/speeds reduced in case of frontal colision between ships on same path then majority of issues moving capitals would be avoided. Cheers

StarbuckAK · Post by **StarbuckAK** » Wed, 9. Sep 09, 19:16

oh dear. i hope such great things come to fruition here. love me some carrier battles if they could operate correctly.

imperium3 · Post by **imperium3** » Wed, 9. Sep 09, 19:42

Alkeena wrote:Success!

10 Rapiers with full engine/rudder in formation (stopped to make setting up the picture easier since I don't have my joystick plugged in and I'm worthless with the mouse--they were flying full speed with it though).

[ external image ][ external image ][ external image ][ external image ][ external image ]
Alkeena, if you can get this to work on a large scale, I shall apply to have you officially declared a god. And if you can persuade the attack AI to work as well, I'll have your babies as well.

Alkeena · Post by **Alkeena** » Wed, 9. Sep 09, 20:17

I'm working my way through it as we speak. So far everythings going as planned ^_^

Expect an Alpha tonight.

Alkeena · Post by **Alkeena** » Wed, 9. Sep 09, 20:26

Here's a video of a Centaur on patrol with a wing of 5 fully tuned disco raiders set to attack target of.... tailing along

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Xi7xY9PTCk

Alkeena · Post by **Alkeena** » Thu, 10. Sep 09, 00:59

And posted: http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... 22#3031022

apricotslice · Post by **apricotslice** » Thu, 10. Sep 09, 01:45

mpcribeiro wrote: like both were waiting till last few meters to evade colision.

Thats exactly how it works. Instead of figuring out potential collisions and planning to avoid them early, the pathfinder waits until the last second to avoid, and then avoids in 90 degree turns. Where in fact, a 5 degree turn a lot earlier would miss by a lot more.

Half the problem is that combat moving and travel moving are handled by the same scripts, when they should be different scripts with different rules of movement.

zoliss · Post by **zoliss** » Thu, 10. Sep 09, 03:20

They should hire the programmer of Homeworld

. I have never saw a ship crashing in that game, in fact they fly in a very nice formation.

StarbuckAK · Post by **StarbuckAK** » Thu, 10. Sep 09, 04:21

zoliss wrote:They should hire the programmer of Homeworld . I have never saw a ship crashing in that game, in fact they fly in a very nice formation.

right on, thats exactly what i have been thinking this whole time. i feel like X3 has so much potential and it's all entirely possible to have smart AI and even user interfacing/fleet management could be much better with a cleaner menu system. but the thinktank for problem solving just gave up in order to just put a product out.

Gazz · Post by **Gazz** » Thu, 10. Sep 09, 07:31

someone else wrote:btw, what did you do to the scenes?

Add more paths to the scenes. Heh. That it should be that easy...

I only wonder if we'll see more instances of lasers aiming past a ship because these new "objects" present targets on the ship.

someone else · Post by **someone else** » Thu, 10. Sep 09, 12:00

zoliss wrote:They should hire the programmer of Homeworld . I have never saw a ship crashing in that game, in fact they fly in a very nice formation.

Enemy capitals crashed quite often my frigates (killing them)... but I believe it was "ramming", they wanted to ram my frigates. My ships simply bumped each other if collided, but rarely a real collision occurred.

Add more paths to the scenes. Heh. That it should be that easy...

a scene path leads somewhere... I asked what file should be added to the scene. Looking at the files I can see that he added a bunch of cameradummies.

Gazz · Post by **Gazz** » Thu, 10. Sep 09, 12:14

someone else wrote:a scene path leads somewhere... I asked what file should be added to the scene. Looking at the files I can see that he added a bunch of cameradummies.

Well, it can't be an "object" because that would collide, too. Cam dummies are the most convenient bits of nothing. =)
An empty file might have worked, too.

Lightning Jack · Post by **Lightning Jack** » Thu, 10. Sep 09, 16:51

I don't know much about scripting but as an observer...

I've never really noticed enemy ships crashing into each other, even with 20+ ship fleets. I'm not saying they don't, just that I haven't noticed it happening. Perhaps the AI scripts are better written than the player scripts? It might be worth looking into.