[Script][TC/AP] Carrier Power Link System (CPLS) [V0.12 - Release]

[EmperorJon]

Thought so.

[Gemini24]

Definitely a script i want to use

Ive been using CODEA for awhile now, especially on my Terran Conqueror save, and my carriers always seem to get raped unless i hold them at the rear(usually within escape distance of a gate).

With this, those recon/patrol/salvage ships that sit there docked until the majority of the enemy is gone will have a use!

[Playbahnosh]

I have an idea for the Emergency Power Boost. It could be optionally linked to the carrier's jumpdrive, so when the shield drops to a given percentage, it kicks in the EPB and initiates the jump to a safe sector, and while jumpdrive is charging it protects the ship, of course at the usual expense of frying some shields and equipment on the donor fighters. This way you never have to lose another carrier again. Of course it's not god mode, the carrier could still be destroyed with excessive force, the EPB will do it's best to boost the shields until the drive is charged but it can still fail.

Just an idea.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Ok, I have managed to link 3 start scripts to commands, the commands to wares, and add the wares as equipment to the docks (with the 2M, 10M, 50M pricing)... BUT....

I currently have 3 Issues:-

• Issue 1 : Absence of commands from ship with one of the wares installed
  • After buying one of the wares the 3 new commands do not appear in the ship's additional commands area (like I was expecting them to)
  Issue 2 : Mapping of text to Commands/Wares
  • Currently at best I get ReadTextError<n>-<m>
  Issue 3 : Externalising of Mod wares/strings
  • I have been trying to make the mod so it does not rely on changing the existing files that other mods might want to affect (e.g. TWareT).

Any tips from the more experienced modders? I found very little in the FAQs to help on this...

[AgamemnonArgon]

Really good idea.
Prices are too low.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Really good idea.
Prices are too low.

Ok... I think so too... that makes 3 of us... what do you think the price should be?

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Ok, I have managed to link 3 start scripts to commands, the commands to wares, and add the wares as equipment to the docks (with the 2M, 10M, 50M pricing)... BUT....

I currently have 3 Issues:-

• Issue 1 : Absence of commands from ship with one of the wares installed
  • After buying one of the wares the 3 new commands do not appear in the ship's additional commands area (like I was expecting them to)
  Issue 2 : Mapping of text to Commands/Wares
  • Currently at best I get ReadTextError<n>-<m>
  Issue 3 : Externalising of Mod wares/strings
  • I have been trying to make the mod so it does not rely on changing the existing files that other mods might want to affect (e.g. TWareT).

Any tips from the more experienced modders? I found very little in the FAQs to help on this...

Ok... resolved 1 & 2 (I suggest looking at setup.plugin.autotrade for how to resolve 1 - if you have the same problem with your scripts )... resolved 2 by extracting 0001-L044.pck and modifying that copy (not nice but it works for now)...

Still need to sort the issue 3 out in the long term but for an alpha/beta release it will have to do.

Now I have another problem... getting the in-game script editor to write my new setup script to disk!!!

[AgamemnonArgon]

Charge for the item by - Class of Vessel - :
therefore - :
M1 Class - 40 Million
M7 Class - 35 Million
M6 Class - 30 Million (Hyperion is it ?) Carries two ships.
TM Class - 20 Million
It's a clever concept, but the people that can afford to pay for it, can afford premium pricessss.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Charge for the item by - Class of Vessel - :
therefore - :
M1 Class - 40 Million
M7 Class - 35 Million
M6 Class - 30 Million (Hyperion is it ?) Carries two ships.
TM Class - 20 Million
It's a clever concept, but the people that can afford to pay for it, can afford premium pricessss.

I am NOT doing class specific wares... reason 1 is the number of wares is limited and finding 3 unused wares is bad enough (and people that use this mod/script may want to use it with other mods/scripts... got some temporary install issues at the moment)... reason 2 is without class specific wares there is nothing stopping a player from transfering the ware from a lesser class without a fair amount of fiddling, in addition implementing class specific prices for a single ware is impossible with out using NPC conversations (AFAIK - and I am not prepared to go to all that effort for very little gain... I would sooner take my original stance of 100M or go take a walk).

See a couple of posts back for details, but in brief

• Mk. I = 2 million at the moment... but has 1% chance of CPLS shutdown everytime a docked ship takes damage to it's shields (so with 4 fighters that is probably 4% chance of failure everytime the carrier sustains damage to it's shields)
  Mk. II = 10 million at the moment... but has 1% chance of CPLS shutdown everytime a docked ship disengages to recharge it's shields in modes 0 and 1 (Carrier Power preference modes)
  Mk. III = 50 million at the moment and has no power matrix flaws

If you think the Mk. I variant is too cheap then that is one thing... we could up them all to my original (Mk1, Mk2, and Mk3) prices of 10M, 20M, and 100M.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

The first Alpha release of the complete script including wares is now available to download (see my original post for link to page with download and install instructions).

• Known Issues
  • 1. Potential inter-mod/script compatability issues due to inclusion of modified TWareT file.
  Change Request Guidlines
  (Now Irrelevant due to redesign)
  
  Have Fun!

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Progress Update
I am now working on SPK packaging for the mod to work this issue. Once this is done I will be moving into the Beta phase.

Currently both SPK and ZIP alpha versions are available for download.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Progress Update
The mod is now at Beta1 and is ready in SPK form.

There is also a TWareT patch file that is provided in order to fix the pricing of the wares (without it all 3 versions cost ~2K credits).

The intended pricing strategy I have settled on for the first Beta is as follows:-

• Mk I - 12.5M credits
  Mk II - 25M credits
  Mk III - 50M credits

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Major Design Impact
During further testing I have found that without increasing the number of commands used by a factor of 3 we can not have 3 wares offering the same functionailty.

Resolution
As of 0.0 Beta2 there will be one primary ware with 2 supplementary wares:-

• Carrier Power Link System - This is the primary system that makes everything work but has 2 system vulnerabilities
  CPLS Surge Protector - This supplementary ware for the CPLS eliminates the 1% risk of system failure when carrier shield damage is passed on to a connected ship
  CPLS Link Guard - This supplementary ware for the CPLS eliminates the 1% risk of system failure when a connected ship disengages the link for the dedicated recharge it's shields

At this time I am proposing the folllowing pricing strategy:-

• Carrier Power Link System - 12.5M
  CPLS Surge Protector - 50M
  CPLS Link Guard - 25M

The pricing of the supplementary wares is based on the decrease in levels of risk of system failure. For instance, a Carrier with 50 fighters is likely to have a 50% chance of CPLS system failure when the carrier's shields take damage in contrast a TM with 4 Fighters would only likely have a 4% chance of CPLS system failure.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Change Request Guidlines
(Now Irrelevant due to redesign)

Now that there are 3 components to the system there are possibilities for making some of the components unnecessary on certain ship classes.

The available combinations of components are:-

• 1. CPLS
  2. CPLS + Surge Protector
  3. CPLS + Link Guard
  4. CPLS + Surge Protector + Link Guard

This effectivly means that we can alter functionality based on ship class to a certain extent. If enough people are in support of refining the pricing strategy even further we could perhaps come up with an additional supplementary ware (e.g. CPLS Power Regulator) and another system flaw (e.g. 1% chance of system failure when a ship is connected to the CPLS) for when it is missing from certain classes of ship.

The additional supplementary ware would give us another 4 combinations for a grand total of 8 combinations.

We will have to come up with some good rational why the various classes of ship require or don't require one supplementary upgrade or another.

Currently we have the following potential carriers:

• M1
  M7 - Perhaps could be combined with the M1 class and have the number of docking points as the descriminator (say 20 or 25 as the tipping point)
  M6 - Only the Hyperion Vanguard in Vanilla so perhaps this class could be considered the same as a TM or an M7 for purposes of this mod (I am leaning towards the TM option)
  TM
  TL

If we can get a concensus on a 4 ship class grouping along with a pricing strategy then I can implement it with the existing 3 upgrades... otherwise I will need to review adding the fourth upgrade (possible in theory - but taking another upgrade from the reuse pool could be considered being greedy ).

What do you guys think?

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Status Update
Formal Public Beta release!

Please see my blog for the latest information on the functional behaviour.

I look forward to any feedback.

[Playbahnosh]

just some small comments:

If you really want to class the Hyperion you should put it in the M7 group, not the TM, since it was originally an M7 ship and only got downgraded in TC.

Another thing. As it is now, I think the three separate wares are now obsolete, since there is no class distinction. A better option would be, instead of using separate wares, you could make a menu system, and issue extensions from there, this uses only one ware. In the menu of the CPLS, there could be options to install the Surge Protector, Link Guard, whatever, for a fee, and you don't need separate wares. This should raise the compatibility, liberating two ware slots for other scripts to use. Just an idea.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

just some small comments:

If you really want to class the Hyperion you should put it in the M7 group, not the TM, since it was originally an M7 ship and only got downgraded in TC.

In X3R it also had 3GJ (3x1GJ) of shields where as now it has a more sensible 1GJ (5x200MJ) and the weapons are M6 class too. So it is hardly worth an M7 rating.

Another thing. As it is now, I think the three separate wares are now obsolete, since there is no class distinction. A better option would be, instead of using separate wares, you could make a menu system, and issue extensions from there, this uses only one ware. In the menu of the CPLS, there could be options to install the Surge Protector, Link Guard, whatever, for a fee, and you don't need separate wares. This should raise the compatibility, liberating two ware slots for other scripts to use. Just an idea.

Not sure that would work in the long term in terms of compatability the mod is capable of down scaling it's use of wares to 1 if necessary, but I am hoping to get custom wares from the plug-in manager working. I will look into the practicality of what you are suggesting.

I have a version which has reduced the command usage to one and adding of hotkeys just finalising testing of it now.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

V0.2 of the Mod available:-

• 0 Wares - Virtualised via scripting (until Cycrow gets his custom wares working I will likely leave it like this)
  1 Command - For the CPLS command console (tied to Carrier Command Software currently - not sure if there are any conflicts yet - had it as a universal command initially)
  2 Hot Keys - 1 for Command Console, and one for Emergency Shield Boost

Download links fixed

• SPK download link now following forum rule for download button
  ZIP download added

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Status Update
Formal V0.3 release!

Please see my blog for the latest information.

Main changes being the adoption of a more CPU friendly event driven approach to the retailer implementation (using Mission Director) and the addition of a second outlet.

I look forward to any feedback.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Status Update
Formal v0.4 release! (NOTE: v0.3 was broken)

Please see my blog for the latest information.

Main changes being a fix for the retailer and implementation of benefits for installing optional equipment.

I look forward to any feedback.