[Jobs] SRM[8/6] and Xtra[20/4]

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

...

I don't think thats the case. The vanilla police-liveried Teladi fighters do not have TShips entries. They are skinned somehow (I don't believe its hue edits either).

It must be a setting somewhere in jobs.

I have inspected the Jobs editor in XEditor 2 and it makes no mention of reskinning ships and I have had a look at a Vanilla Police Buzzard (and a non-police Buzzard) and from what I can see, I recon it is a Hue/Saturation change (which is in the Jobs editor parameters). Also, from my experience with the MD and MCSI, I have seen no way of reskinning ships via the relevant create ship commands.

[TrixX]

The Pirate skin is skin 1 for ships in the TShips file. You can set Skin to a number higher than one and call a different ship (say Police Buster...) that way they can have their own skins.

Can't do it through jobs AFAIK.

[Mizuchi]

I recon it is a Hue/Saturation change (which is in the Jobs editor parameters).

vkerinav already looked into that for me before I went ahead and created the new Pirate Titan & Friends textures.

The most notable instance of the hue and saturation changes that I came across were upon the Yaki's Advanced Chokaro, which has this nice golden-brown hue which then doesn't show up on any other Yaki ship.

But if you open the Advanced Chokaro up in X3 Editor 2 or the 3D Viewer, it just shows as silver.

The Titan that's parked outside of the Marine Training Barracks is another example.

From what I recall (and Vee will correct me if I'm wrong), changing the hue and satuaration values in the Jobs entries didn't have the same kind of effect that we see on the Advanced Chokaro.

It's a mystery!

Edit:

The Pirate skin is skin 1 for ships in the TShips file. You can set Skin to a number higher than one and call a different ship (say Police Buster...) that way they can have their own skins.

Oho. Is that what's going on with the Advanced Chokaro, I wonder?

[builder680]

Is the Aldrin system in particular something that can be handled by messing around with the Jobs file? It has gotten cluttered with up to several dozen ships that do nothing but fly in circles together around a common point.

I assume you're talking about Aldrin ships, not ATF or Terran?

Currently in my game, there are about 3 dozen ATF fighters like Fenrirs (plus a few Aldrin Springblossoms and Spitfyres) flying in circles around the jump beacon.

In my last game, there was some uncountable number of Aldrin ships (Springblossoms,Spitfyres, etc... maybe some ATF too) circling one of the stations (I can't remember which one).

[paulwheeler]

Its not really a problem adding new TShips entries for new police textures. If I set them to race "0" they won't be spawned by anything other than jobs.

From my experience playing with the paint shop in the HQ (which I assume does the same as the hue settings in jobs), it only affects a small number of textures. There must be a flag in the main bod file that switches hue modification off and on for each material. It may be a case of altering this for each model so we can get the right "police" look for each ship.

I will have a look at a few models and see if I can work it out. Of course it could be hard coded to the textures themselves rather than the models.

[builder680]

Wowza, I just ran into a whole barrel of fun. Is this normal? If so... NICE job. I'm not sure I'd go anywhere near that bunch without at least 3-4 cap ships. Intimidating.

Holy Pirate M6's with M6 Escorts Batman.

There were actually more than that, I could see with my VE Goggles. I did fly a little closer after taking this pic and found an additional 5-6 M4/M5 'escorts' as well.

But I wasn't interested in counting them all... As you can see I was busy with the Goner plot.

[Locksley]

Respawn times;

60 = 1 Min
3600 = 1 Hour

Don't know enough about jobs to say anything about it. Besides, how does it compare to what we are using now?

Jobs scripts are fun. I keep all the ships I can, civilians etc.
For example, the job.spacefly script. I was wondering if there was any idea following these fellows around if one wanted to catch spaceflies.
1. They fly around looking for sectors with asteroids.
2. They hover around them looking for some action.
3. Random chance that there is spawned space flies.
4. It attacks.
5. Collects.
6. It checks for station to camp in.
7. If it does not have any spaceflies in cargo it self destructs.
8. If it have some flies. It checks where it can sell them and off it goes!

I mean, that is allot of action going on here, suporting the split economy and all

Sure, no wonder removing civilans and other fluff will help with FPS, but you will loose some life.

I saw your earlier post about altering job scripts and hope you can find some talented scripter that knows how to do efficient scripts. Cause' that's whats needed when they are going to be called allot of times, right?

And there could be more job scripts, more specialists like the spacefly one.

I always wanted giving ships more mission stuff. Am thinking about altering some standard missions (well, rather Litcubes fixed and adjusted ones). But having new job.scripts in conjunction with this would probably bring a whole new level of immersion.

---> Also I want to mention that in my game the escorts do revert to their carrier when there are no enemies (those that can dock that is).
So I haven't got that many escorts flying around really. I was checking those sectors with Satilites in them and none where chocked with ships.
I am using Full job.txt and Improved Races on the lowest level. Also using some other plug-ins that add ships.

Cheers!

EDIT:Spelling. Improved Races NOT Improbed Races LOL
END EDIT

[builder680]

Sure, no wonder removing civilans and other fluff will help with FPS, but you will loose some life.

For sure. It sucks to lose it, but if for example I used civilians, the game would become nearly unplayable. It's too bad really, I like all those little extra things. WTB better CPU for less than $10.

[vkerinav]

Its not really a problem adding new TShips entries for new police textures. If I set them to race "0" they won't be spawned by anything other than jobs.

I will have a look at a few models and see if I can work it out. Of course it could be hard coded to the textures themselves rather than the models.

I'm not sure its necessary. The police jobs all have their hue set at around 230. From what I saw in the X3 editor, I believe that's the source of their color variations.

[vkerinav]

Respawn times;

60 = 1 Min
3600 = 1 Hour

Don't know enough about jobs to say anything about it. Besides, how does it compare to what we are using now?

Yes, perspective; I believe the current longest spawn time is 4200 for heavy M2s. Times descend from there in five minute intervals, down to M5s at 300.

[vkerinav]

Currently in my game, there are about 3 dozen ATF fighters like Fenrirs (plus a few Aldrin Springblossoms and Spitfyres) flying in circles around the jump beacon.

In my last game, there was some uncountable number of Aldrin ships (Springblossoms,Spitfyres, etc... maybe some ATF too) circling one of the stations (I can't remember which one).

Sounds like those are MD ships.

[builder680]

Currently in my game, there are about 3 dozen ATF fighters like Fenrirs (plus a few Aldrin Springblossoms and Spitfyres) flying in circles around the jump beacon.

In my last game, there was some uncountable number of Aldrin ships (Springblossoms,Spitfyres, etc... maybe some ATF too) circling one of the stations (I can't remember which one).

Sounds like those are MD ships.

MD? Sorry, I don't know all the abbreviations and such yet. What's MD, and is there anything I can do about them?

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Currently in my game, there are about 3 dozen ATF fighters like Fenrirs (plus a few Aldrin Springblossoms and Spitfyres) flying in circles around the jump beacon.

In my last game, there was some uncountable number of Aldrin ships (Springblossoms,Spitfyres, etc... maybe some ATF too) circling one of the stations (I can't remember which one).

Sounds like those are MD ships.

MD? Sorry, I don't know all the abbreviations and such yet. What's MD, and is there anything I can do about them?

MD = Mission Director

[builder680]

Currently in my game, there are about 3 dozen ATF fighters like Fenrirs (plus a few Aldrin Springblossoms and Spitfyres) flying in circles around the jump beacon.

In my last game, there was some uncountable number of Aldrin ships (Springblossoms,Spitfyres, etc... maybe some ATF too) circling one of the stations (I can't remember which one).

Sounds like those are MD ships.

MD? Sorry, I don't know all the abbreviations and such yet. What's MD, and is there anything I can do about them?

MD = Mission Director

Ok, not sure what Mission Director is but... from my quote in this post

"In my last game, there was some uncountable number of Aldrin ships (Springblossoms,Spitfyres, etc... maybe some ATF too) circling one of the stations (I can't remember which one)."

By uncountable I really mean uncountable. It was a ridiculous number of ships, so many that the HUD didn't even get close to putting target boxes around them all.

That was after all plots had been completed, except about 40,000 microchips to go for the HUD. If MD has to do with plots, and you're implying they were only there for a plot... then that simply isn't the case. There were no plots left that involved Aldrin in that game. It was also not this job file, it was regular Unleashed (No Civilians). I just happened to notice similar behavior in the same system with this job file, which is why I bring it up. That game was also before I got CMOD, SRM, and IR (I started a new game on a fresh install with deleted directories when I got those mods).

If you happen to have a save game with all plots completed (I deleted mine), go and check out Aldrin with a pair of VE Goggles. I would bet you would find at least one "bait ball" of space-ships that I am talking about.

If they ARE related to a plot, then whatever plot they're related to doesn't get rid of them when it's over. And more than likely keeps spawning them. I don't know of any plot at all that uses hundreds (several dozens) of ships. The ships I have in this game are so far only a couple of dozen, not nearly as many that I saw in my last game. But very similar in behavior.

If I'm misunderstanding what MD means, then please disregard.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

...

Ok, not sure what Mission Director is but... from my quote in this post

"In my last game, there was some uncountable number of Aldrin ships (Springblossoms,Spitfyres, etc... maybe some ATF too) circling one of the stations (I can't remember which one)."

By uncountable I really mean uncountable. It was a ridiculous number of ships, so many that the HUD didn't even get close to putting target boxes around them all.

That was after all plots had been completed, except about 40,000 microchips to go for the HUD. If MD has to do with plots, and you're implying they were only there for a plot... then that simply isn't the case. There were no plots left that involved Aldrin in that game. It was also not this job file, it was regular Unleashed (No Civilians). I just happened to notice similar behavior in the same system with this job file, which is why I bring it up.

If you happen to have a save game with all plots completed (I deleted mine), go and check out Aldrin with a pair of VE Goggles. I would bet you would find at least one "bait ball" of space-ships that I am talking about.

If they ARE related to a plot, then whatever plot they're related to doesn't get rid of them when it's over.

If I'm misunderstanding what MD means, then please disregard.

I think you have got the general ghist, if they are plot related ships then it really is currently outside the scope of this jobs mod and more in the realms of requiring plot patch(es).

[builder680]

Ah, right on. I understand. Well, thanks for clearing it up! Time to use Destroy Ship hotkey I guess!

[paulwheeler]

Ah, right on. I understand. Well, thanks for clearing it up! Time to use Destroy Ship hotkey I guess!

I think with all these things don't shy away from using Cycrow's cheats to clean things up.

I frequently use the destroy sector menu command with IR and MBRR when sectors get out of hand (especially Kha'ak and Xenon sectors). Every now and again I do a sweep of these sectors and if its getting silly, they all get destroyed. Its amazing the difference this makes to overall performance of the game. Plus you then get Xenon migrations which makes things more interesting!

[Litcube]

Roger, there's an integer limit issue on the shield calc of my original code. I checked to see if you're still using it, and you are, so here's the problem and the fix:

If a ship has a total shield potential of over 2 billion MJ, the integer wraps, and it will always install a 1 MJ shield, on account of the fact that code correctly assumes that 1MJ shield provides enough shielding to be higher than the negative number calculated.

Original code in Lib.Gen.EquipShip:

Code: Select all

$ShieldStrengths = array alloc: size=0
append 2000000 to array $ShieldStrengths
append 1000000 to array $ShieldStrengths
append 200000 to array $ShieldStrengths
append 25000 to array $ShieldStrengths
append 5000 to array $ShieldStrengths
append 1000 to array $ShieldStrengths

Fixed code:

Code: Select all

$ShieldStrengths = array alloc: size=0
append 200000 to array $ShieldStrengths
append 100000 to array $ShieldStrengths
append 20000 to array $ShieldStrengths
append 2500 to array $ShieldStrengths
append 500 to array $ShieldStrengths
append 100 to array $ShieldStrengths

That's all you have to do.

[builder680]

Just as a hypothetical, if I replaced SRM Unleashed jobs with regular Unleashed jobs... would the excess military ships eventually be removed by the game? Or do they have to be destroyed? Because that will NEVER happen to the Terran/ATF fleet... and they're my biggest 'bloated' navy at the moment... by leaps and bounds.

I know I'd lose the spawning of all the extra ships from SRM... which would suck.

Also, would that affect EES in any way?

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Roger, there's an integer limit issue on the shield calc of my original code. I checked to see if you're still using it, and you are, so here's the problem and the fix:

If a ship has a total shield potential of over 2 billion MJ, the integer wraps, and it will always install a 1 MJ shield, on account of the fact that code correctly assumes that 1MJ shield provides enough shielding to be higher than the negative number calculated.

Thanks for the heads up and the fix, but a shield potential of 2 billion would be ALOT of shields (more than the game can handle if I am not mistaken - maximum of 20 shields per vessel IIRC - which would be a maximum of 40 million kJ (well below 2 billion) besides which there would probably be other issues in the game since the shield units seem to be managed in kJ.

EDIT #2: The potential problem is caused by an internal maths overflow in the 22+GJ case (i.e. 11 or more 2GJ shields) that occured in the line highlighted below.

EDIT: Found an alternate 1 line fix... Replace

Code: Select all

Potential = (MaxPotentional * Rank)/100

with

Code: Select all

Potential = (MaxPotentional / 100) * Rank

or

Code: Select all

Potential = ((MaxPotentional / 10) * Rank ) / 10