[TC][AP][Script][AL] LI Freight Distribution Network (FDN) – v8.04

[apricotslice]

I dont see any point to a cap on the virtual storage of anything on an active distribution center. Its sole purpose is to hold all the goodies and send them where they are wanted.

If you isolate the DC, no NPC's, no selling, then there is no complications needed for it.

To sell an item, you connect a station that can stock it, to the DC, and then that station will stock only what it can physically stock and get topped up by the DC.

If you want to store items, you just make sure they are not added to any station linked to the DC. So if you are hoarding something, you never actually link anywhere that sells them.

If you want to hoard something but only up to a limit, then it could be done by having a station set up to receive only from the DC, with virtual storage turned on, and at the point where you have stored what you want, you turn off the links to the DC, thus isolating the station.

@LA Totally out of left feild thought : Could this be used at shipyards to dock ships ? So in effect, all ship docking without a current job, is virtually docked, thus allowing unlimited "internal" docking for all types of ships ? If so, could this then be implemented on any ship with docking slots ? Getting a ship undocked would be the same sort of thing as returning a marine to a ship. This would eliminate all long-term docking and free up the docking ports for traders.

One thing that always bugged me about the PHQ, is I salvage 200 ships, but the PHQ cant dock 200 ships, especially 50+ freighters. So virtual docking would allow them all to dock at once, and then make scrapping them a much quicker task. (In theory - not sure if the PHQ will be able to "see" the virtual queue, but it should be possible to move ships from the virtual queue to internal storage the same way Beamdock does (just never tried that on a station before).

Food for thought. (Virtual breakfast) lol.

[wwdragon]

I've come up with a way to quickly calculate times based on price. It'll work even with modded ships, assuming you can read the in-game price.

My idea is this... grab all but the hundreds digits and use them as seconds, divide by 60 as needed to get whatever time level (minute, hour) and round to the nearest whole number. This gives the base build time on a ship.
I think that the RE time should be times three this value to provide that realism of learning new tech.

Examples:
Nova Vanguard price lists at 2,008,704 credits. Take the 2,008 as the base seconds to build it; It rounds to 33 minutes.
Mercury price lists at 199,439. This one works out to about 3 1/2 minutes.
Titan lists at 69,283,911. This works out to about 19 hours 24 minutes.
This works for wares pretty well too, even allowing support for custom wares, if you want to include that.

This gives a somewhat fast time compared to another mod I've seen... but hey, PM's are factories using nano de/construction and should be extremely efficient.

Ya, hindsight is 20/20!

The cap:
My original reason for the cap is so that I can see smaller, at a glance comparisons of stock levels. As long as it obeys the Keep Local stock levels set in the new PM, this is just cosmetic.... easier to read a list of shorter numbers at a glance.

Something I just considered tonight is weather X3 will handle the single storage number limit or if, when the number is huge, it will cause the game to crash....

If it just runs as a custom command of the station/factory and the control is the FDN building, it should eliminate most conflicts. That'd be great!



It would be nice if we could choose weather FDN did the minimal resource level or tried to keep factories completely stocked each time it is called. I think the current FDN often leaves vanilla factories sitting for up to several minutes game time, instead of running continuously. PM doesn't have this problem.


Virtual Parking:
That's a good idea.
If it's FDN, then why limit it to the shipyard? Any dock would work to store and you could recall them to any dock setup to do that.
If it's controlled dockside, the ships should be limited to dock/undock from that one station.

Perhaps this should probably be a completely separate mod.

On the downside... if networked via FDn, this could allow you to do an almost instant swarm anywhere by dropping an inexpensive station in a sector to deploy parked ships upon enemy invasion.
SSDN actually does something similar with drones already.

Can scripts store and then restore a created ship settings, such as mars in all turret slots, weapon loadouts, tunings and equipment? Zero hastle would make it very nice, while having to reconfig every ship on a carrier.... would be a huge pain in the ass.

This could get to be a rather large amount of memory used when storing carriers full of fightercraft.

[apricotslice]

19 hours 34 minutes is 19 hours too long for me. I build at 1/10th the normal build time.

Can scripts store and then restore a created ship settings, such as mars in all turret slots, weapon loadouts, tunings and equipment? Zero hastle would make it very nice, while having to reconfig every ship on a carrier.... would be a huge pain in the ass.

This could get to be a rather large amount of memory used when storing carriers full of fightercraft.

I doubt you could script it but you dont really have to for stations. They have unlimited fighter docks, so as long as your adding a ship into that environment, the nature of the ship remains intact.

The code is like this : Define ship to variable, add variable to environment of station. Select ship from virtual environment, add into sector environment or local station environment. All you need an array for is to see all the individual ships if you want to choose which one from a station other than where it was added to. Might even be simpler than that, given the way objects are added to arrays in the game.

[Logain Abler]

Virtual storage for ships, sounds complicated unless it’s purely basic ships but I suppose all the installed shields, weapons, upgrade, equipment and wares could be captured and held.

LA

[apricotslice]

Virtual storage for ships, sounds complicated unless it’s purely basic ships but I suppose all the installed shields, weapons, upgrade, equipment and wares could be captured and held.

I would say anything not actually installed. So guns and sheilds actually mounted should always be ignored. But any others could be transfered.

Although there are issues of making sure enough ecells are on hand etc.

Would be useful to cbeam containers in a war zone and have them immediately transferred to the DC for use in factories or sent on to sales points, or just sold. Like all guns and stuff like that could be immediately sold on to Terracorp if you added Terracorp HQ to the DC. Solve a lot of problems selling the hard to sell things, if the DC or a trade station did it automatically. if you wanted to keep some things, you set up several stations, so only those you want to sell get sent to a station that links to Terracorp.

[wwdragon]

19 hours 34 minutes is 19 hours too long for me. I build at 1/10th the normal build time.

That ship is the size of a large city and even nanotech won't be able to assemble that much in around two hours.

[Logain Abler]

Hi All,

I should be in a position to release a test version this week.
I’m looking or people who’ll be willing to put FDN through some stress testing with as many factories and docks they can deploy or cheat in.
The only real requirement I have if that any older version of FDN is removed before using the new version, a new game would be preferable but not essential.

If anyone is interested let me know.

LA

[wwdragon]

Sure I'll give it a shot. Last night all my savegames went inexplicably corrupt, right after starting the Terran plot... so it'll even be a new game!

[Logain Abler]

Sure I'll give it a shot. Last night all my savegames went inexplicably corrupt, right after starting the Terran plot... so it'll even be a new game!

Cool

LA

[Logain Abler]

Test build is ready, post or PM me if you would like to test.

LA

[Logain Abler]

Logain Industries Freight Distribution Network (FDN) v8 Test Build 30/05/2012

Test Build uploaded.


LA

[Logain Abler]

First bug - Menu show/hide selection bust - fixed
Minor cosmetic issue

As this is not a feature breaking issue I will wait for other reports before uploading the fix.

LA

Edit: As only two downloads I've uploaded the corrected file.

[Logain Abler]

Bug - Dock list not updating ware details showing null after first Dock
Status - Fixed
Uploaded -Yes - Click to download single file
Impact - None - Cosmetic only

Workaround - Selecting the Dock details will show the correct ware details
Issue - Incorrectly called Global array holding the updated ware summary. This shows as null.


LA

[Logain Abler]

SPK File
If anyone has issues with FDN after loading from the .spk file please copy the script file from the download.

I update the .spk file but it looks like the updated script files were not added, I will have to rebuild the .spk file from scratch rather than update.

All the script files are contained the download and can be added manually.


LA

[apricotslice]

Last time I tried to make an spk or update one, the whole thing did strange things, so I've gone back to zips.

[Logain Abler]

Last time I tried to make an spk or update one, the whole thing did strange things, so I've gone back to zips.

Yes, I think I had the update .spk issue before but forgot about it

LA

[Logain Abler]

Hi All,

Just a quick outline of how I’ll handle bug reports and fixes whilst under testing.
All bugs that come in will be posted by me in the following format:
Bug description – What the bug is or how it manifest itself
Status – Open or fixed
Upload link – For single filer updates I’ll use Dropbox
Impact – Outline if this is a cosmetic or script/feature breaking issue

I’ll also try and provide workarounds and an outline of the issue/cause
I will also post fixes under the test change log which is the second post


LA

[feygan]

Just wondering apart from the virtual storage method how this will differ fron FDN v7? I already use v7 and like the real physical storage side of things as a virtual one would be too easy. Will there be any other major changes or improvements?

[wwdragon]

@feygan If you read the first few posts, it gives you that information.

@Logain Abler I have the mod and update script; everything is turned on. However I do not see the dock building available in shipyards, nor in the cheat packages list of any wares.
Do I need LIMod to have the station model or should it be there already?

[apricotslice]

however I do not see the dock building available in shipyards.
Do I need LIMod to have the station model or should it be there already?

Your missing the point of v8, which is to do away with the need for the mod completely.

So no, you dont need the mod, and there are no specific stations to use it on.

Its designed to use any dock.