[AL PLUGIN] Pirate Guild 3: Dynamic AI and Guild System - v1.59 - [2010-07-22]

[Jakeybum]

paulwheeler, old saves doesn't works too with and without PG and ADS.

[Predator02]

HELP ME!!!
I've got a big problem new version with. My HQ battery is jumping between -õõõõõõ and +õõõõõõ, but usually it is equal 0. I cannot produce any ships in my HQ now. And additionally I've already erased old Pirate Guild version. What should I do?

F*ck!
Pirate Guild has been deactivated and deleted. But nothing changes. Battery amount is jumping still.

I don't think the pirate guild script touches the HQ. Sounds like something else is messed up and you're barking up the wrong tree. Maybe you should be complaining in the PHQ&HUB-improved mod thread since you said you had that one.

[Serial Kicked]

Ahem.

@Jakeybum:

Installing "game changing" scripts on your usual savegame is always a big "no no". I'll never stress this part enough apparently. Can't say much more than the other posters. PG doesn't do anything to the player HQ. It only affect pirate bases. So the issue is caused either by another script, or a combination of PG and another script.

I know that prospector, MARS and complex cleaner works fine with PG. ring of fire probably does too as it's written by Gazz. RRF can lead to some game hangings (with or without PG).

-Combat Mods and addons without Friendly Pirates.
Are you sure that the package comes without Friendly Pirates at all? 'cause if not it's a certified game crash sooner or later. Btw, I wouldn't even recommend FP in a game without PG. But still, nothing related to the player HQ, so move on.

- Marauder Shipyard
May cause minor issues, but not related to the player HQ, though.

Dunno about the other ones. So the last one is the PHQ thingy. I don't know why it would conflict in any way with PG. I'll give it a look this weekend, but it most likely doesn't.


@Varsde:

It's mostly explained in the documentation (read it ). To communicate with pirate assets you'll have to set a keyboard hotkey [control / interface / scroll down and locate "ECS: Extended Comm. System"] This done, you can use it to speak with Pirate Bases, pleasure domes, and ships.

[djrygar]

regarding to MBR kicking PG too hard:

I definitely recommend Improved Races R13 as another addon to those two beauties.
I play with this setting:

PG (diff: one above medium)
MBR (Default) (xenon bases disabled - IR will take care of that)
IR:
- Khaak:
strenght: weak,
boosted spawning DISABLED,
p2p jumping DISABLED
- Xenon:
strenght: normal ,
tuned ships: disabled (mostly because of ridiculous K's agility)
- Yaki:
strenght: hard ,
hikari LT: disabled, (too powerful and buggy)
- General options:
fighter and capship response : disabled ,
counterstrike: strong ,

Basically, with IR enabled, MBR has to deal with Xenon and Khaak, not only pirates, so PG is doing fine (not sure yet if not too-fine )
Normally PG has 5 races to fight against, so its not surprise that it's being kicked. I found the setting above to be quite balanced and not too CPU heavy. People complain about IR mostly because of khaak swarming, but I found that 'boosted spawning' and p2p jump options are the cause - one scales up spawn rate with players fight rank, and this rank rises pretty fast, second one fools NPC ships, bacause khaaks are jumping around sector and AI cant cope with this - AI ships are chasing swarms and are unable to kill them

I must say - I am amazed by those 3 scripts working together, and what they bring to X. Thank you very much for your work!

And... I patiently wait for FactionsAI, I hope that one day you will be able to completly switch off vanilla jobs/race logic and X3 will turn in some ways into strategy/roleplay game ;D (when mixed with some MD missions/plots). Imagine a plotline, that requires you to take over whole paranid/split or argon empire:D

Speaking od MD, I currently started writing some simple MD missions, that will be addition to PG and iR. I just passionately hate generic missions that spawn enemies around you or at nearest gate. I want game-state based missions so badly, that I decided to write them myself
Hope to share it with you soon ;p

[Serial Kicked]

Thanks for the report, as I'm really interested in how my plugin is doing against other "AI/race/police" scripts, and i will definitively improves it according to the results.

Btw, here's a few indications. Notice that by choice, PG is ignoring Khaak and Xenon enemies. So if IR (or whatever) decides to use them against PG, well PG won't be able to fight back. You will probably have to remove IR on the Yaki faction once YA will be released as YA will handle the whole Yaki faction and won't tolerate any other script dealing with it. Also notice that PG will always be utterly destroyed during the first 24h of your game no matter what script you are using or not (except in "insane" settings), mainly because that the initial placement of pirate bases is a fail.

What is really interesting to see is if the plugin is doing well after 72 ingame hours or more. As usual, enabling debug mode will help a lot to figure it out.

Faction:AI

Talking about my own plugin (if not please post link)? It's a long term project (well it wasn't before my HDD crash, but anyway), it will allow a race/faction to develop from a base sector into an empire by building stations and invading foreign sectors. And so far, it works pretty well. However station building has been simplified a lot (basically a faction can build stations to mine, produce ecells, ships, or weaponry), so the AI by itself won't build complexes or factories, however GOD will still spawn them. Anyway, yeah you'd better be patient, first alpha won't be released 'till some time. At least until YA is stable or final. And it will probably be released as a mod.

Speaking od MD, I currently started writing some simple MD missions, that will be addition to PG and iR. I just passionately hate generic missions that spawn enemies around you or at nearest gate. I want game-state based missions so badly, that I decided to write them myself
Hope to share it with you soon ;p

I'm interested in MD missions related to PG. Especially dynamic ones. As you, i don't like "click'n'spawn" missions So if you release anything related to PG or need any help figuring out PG settings, keep me posted. I will be glad to help and/or include the mission in an official release.

[djrygar]

Btw, here's a few indications. Notice that by choice, PG is ignoring Khaak and Xenon enemies.

Yep, I noticed that. IR Khaaks love to attack Elysium of Light (Goner sector). Also PG decided to setup a base there. 2 purple destroyers appeared there and started their dirty work, strangely ignoring PG base. I lured them into base LT's range, and they did not attacked each other. So I hid behind base, so their kyon emmiters passed trough it, but no reaction. I tought that maybe reason was that I was marked as as target, not the base.

So if IR (or whatever) decides to use them against PG, well PG won't be able to fight back.

yep, but actually that should be sorted out somehow. I understand that PG should not make revenge-raids into khaak/xenon territory, that's government business:), but they should be at least aware of attack. This probably is a problem, as it would require some special code to cover it. But khaak and xenons are part of universe, and they can attack even without any race script. Maybe something simple like "if xenon/khaak in range of base, mark these ships as enemyand launch defence", I guess that does not neeed to touch any race relations and further logic. They are always enemies, and there is no point in maintaining relations with those nasties.

You will probably have to remove IR on the Yaki faction once YA will be released

I know that's fine, I enabled it only to give them a chance in case of khaak invasion. With settings I mentioned, they just sit quietly in their sectors. Some occasional fight with Paranids.

Also notice that PG will always be utterly destroyed during the first 24h of your game no matter what script you are using or not (except in "insane" settings),

Yep, but first hours of game also mean that most of sectors is uncovered, so one can hardly see it happening. Actually I just started a new game, and observed this base in New Income. First there was a wing from Ianamus Zura, M7 + 2xM8 and some fighters. PG dispatched them guite easily. Even PG's M7 appeared after a while and finished work. But it was mostly PG's heavy fighters wing work, and beatiful fight. I'm using CMOD, and it was clear that weapon variety that this wing was using helped them a lot. After some time there was smaller attack, M6 plus wing, and this time defence was weaker (and I joined fight this time;)). What I was wondering about, is why actually this fight happened at all, as I selected "at peace with Teladis" option, so they should not attack each other.. right?

What is really interesting to see is if the plugin is doing well after 72 ingame hours or more. As usual, enabling debug mode will help a lot to figure it out.

certainly will do if something wrong will happen, but as for now, it works beatifully, so no point in logging

Talking about my own plugin (if not please post link)? It's a long term project (well it wasn't before my HDD crash, but anyway), it will allow a race/faction to develop from a base sector into an empire by building stations and invading foreign sectors. And so far, it works pretty well.

Of course I mean yours script And basically what you speak of is race logic. Thats huge step into BIG GOAL - the dynamic and interactive universe Actually what you do is the most important part, as getting primary resources and defending resource sectors and shipyards is cruicial. Setting futher infrastructure might be left to other scripts (i'm not sure, but STO script might be doing it already, also IR has 'economy boost' option - never enabled it but it's there)

Anyway, yeah you'd better be patient, first alpha won't be released 'till some time.

Hard to be patient when you're saying such things
<forum troll mode=on> I WANT IT NOW, I WANT, I PERSONALLY DEMAND IT NOW<troll mode off>

I'm interested in MD missions related to PG. Especially dynamic ones. As you, i don't like "click'n'spawn" missions

being graphic designer myself, I'm struggling a bit and there's shortage of tutorials (so my code will be probably horrible), so I'll stick with simplest tasks for now like defend factory and IR assault forces protection. With PG, i'm thinking about assasination mission that takes your bounty into account as first one. I dont know yet how to feed data from scripts into MD yet, but haven't look into it much. Too much at once for me

anyway thanks for great script. (I was shocked when looked into PG scripts folder, so many of them, epic work )

[Hieronymos]

You're welcome to clone MD mission code used in DDTC Mod. "Defend Object", "Hostile Taxi", "Deliver Object(s)", "Assassinate Target", "Destroy Convoy" and more. All created with tweaks to boilerplate MD code.

Use the mission text file, too. You'll of course need to tweak it to suit your needs, including different Actors, etc.

No need to completely reinvent the wheel. Especially as a mission pack can take a shitload of time to create and test!

Just make appropriate acknowledgements to Deadly Da & DDTC team.

Anything to make PG (and YA) better!

[djrygar]

so DDTC missions are dynamic (gamestate-based)????

and you havent mentioned it in the bigest-possible letters?? that would be THE feature, not additional ships

anyway, thanks for allowing that.

[Serial Kicked]

@djrygar:

ref: PG vs Xenon/Khaak

Well yeah, the point was not to waste ships killing military (read all) khaak/xenon ships as such ships should already be handled by whatever police script the player is using.

Enabling attacks/defense/mission against Xenon/Khaak on PG is a piece of cake but, apart from the fact that PG is not supposed to help legit factions against aliens, in the long run it would means less money to the guild, so the plugin will become less efficient against the real military/police. Defending against Xenons and Khaaks wastes resources, so i favor relocating pirate bases to less hostile territories. The future "relocate pirate base" feature in 1.6x release will probably sort this out elegantly.

Btw, with ADS enabled, even if i've to admit that it has not been tested, PG "should" send defense ships against incoming enemies no matter the race (however if the "incoming" ship targets you and not the base, well you're screwed).


ref: 24hour thingy + Teladi peace

Yes, i'm pretty happy with my "give'em weapons" library. I've not tried it with CMOD, but it works wonder with most mods Anyway, the issue with the "peace with teladis" option is that it will prevent the guild from attacking Teladi ships but it won't prevent Teladis from attacking pirates (for script-compatibility purpose). And in X3TC, Teladi traders, yeah, are neutral to pirates, but Teladi military ships are hostiles and will attack any PB in Teladi owned sectors. However after the initial "24h push", things usually calms down (in a vanilla + pg game), and seeing PG Strongholds and Fortresses in Teladi sectors is more likely than if this setting is set to "off".

but as for now, it works beatifully, so no point in logging

I can understand that, and it spoils some of the fun The advantage of logging is that you'll know exactly what's the guild is doing in realtime. But i'll probably add a simplified version as an optional high rank reward for guild members.


ref: Faction:AI

Well, from the nothingness of the vanilla game it's a big step. But when sticking to a "simple" model (which is similar to the AI of whatever RTS game you can name), it's pretty easy to implement:

1. Setup resources : weapons, minerals, fuel. One station for each.
2. Give fixed prices in weaponry & mineral for each class of ship
3. Write a script that can basically spot a nearby sector with needed resources and send available military ships to invade said sector.
4. Write another script that can build stations and manage ships in owned sectors.
5. ??? 6. Profit! (old one i know)

If i can manage to run multiple opposing factions in the same game I will already be happy Don't expect the thing to be very wise at first. Here's the only thing i saved from the hdd crash, the readme file. It will give you a pretty good idea about this plugin. I do realize it won't help you being patient But let's stop F:AI discussions here (aimed at everyone, not you especially). I'll make a topic when the project will be back on tracks.

ref: MD missions

Can't help with the MD at all, never bothered looking into it tbh. All i can say about it is that i heavily dislike the syntax. That was short i know.


@Hieronymos:

Thanks for the proposal But like i said somewhere lost in my previous posts, i'm only interested in dynamic missions. Meaning: based on game state + no ship spawned out of nowhere + more or less important impact on the game. I've yet to give a look at DDTC's MD scripts but I'd be surprised to find something that directly fits these requirements (as it would be the first MD script 'ever' to do this).

[djrygar]

I've yet to give a look at DDTC's MD scripts but I'd be surprised to find something that directly fits these requirements (as it would be the first MD script 'ever' to do this).

not true!

theres "Real defence mission" created by Mysterial, and it is game-state based. That what's got me hooked. It does't work to well, but it written in quite simple way (more like tutorial) and nicely commented, so it took my interest. Originally it scans universe only once, marks Xenon sectors, and then randomly looks for wandering xenons in neighbourhood of those sectors, then creates a mission. It works, but not really well (it detects incursions in Getsu fune and Scale Plate Green and nowhere else). Strangely never detected anything in Grand Exchange and Zyarth dominion, despite frequent xenon raids. Maybe its timing issue. I added some code to rescan 'verse, and also created copy of it and tweaked it to detect Khaak. I'm too early in game to see how it works after tweaks. If good, it will be trivial to change it to detect Pirate bases etc. I will test it a while, then tweak it a bit more, and if Mysterial agrees, it may go public (I think he will, as judging from comments in file, he clearly did it to help others to get a grasp in MD-ing). Nice thing is, with such released conditions to launch a mission, they cover wide range of cases. I.e. if station attacked (and for example no military in sector), count enemies and offer a mission to kill them. So PG ships may be target, xenon invading sector, argon attacking paranid when race wars enabled by any race script etc). Maybe some constraints to prevent taking missions from 10 stations at once when invasion takes place but you get the point. Next step would be automatic acceptance if player has police licence of given race. And punishment if he doent't help ah.. endless possibilities

[EmperorJon]

Serial Kicked, I was just wondering about how Bounty Hunters actually work, I mean, I just got attacked by a Boron Bounty Hunter, well, one of my LTs did and I jumped it out, but the Boron are perfectly friendly with me. This lead to the dumoing of drones, 12 of them, which set Boron to enemy abd now means that they do hate me.

My question is, effectively, if the Boron like me and the Guild like me, who's hired these bounty hunters?

[Serial Kicked]

@djrygar : Well i stand corrected. Looks impressive, I will give it a look.


@EmperorJoe: I know. There's actually a small bug in the bounty hunter friend/foe recognition system.

[Apollo303]

Im a bit confused over who actually owns the Pirate Guild..... as it`s a Pirate Guild i would assume it`s the Pirates. So if i want to kill Pirates then why is it when i kill Pirate Guild ships, the race sector im in or those said Guild ships are in, it upsets them....

Example - There`s a Pirate Guild base in Atreus` Clouds, this was a standard Pirate Base, so i decide to go all police-like and chose to destroy the ships labelled `Pirate Guild` as i do so cos it`s Boron i get all Boron ships turn red and start attacking me......

Why does this happen as i was lead to believe they are`PIRATE` ?!?

[HalcyonSpirit]

Im a bit confused over who actually owns the Pirate Guild..... as it`s a Pirate Guild i would assume it`s the Pirates. So if i want to kill Pirates then why is it when i kill Pirate Guild ships, the race sector im in or those said Guild ships are in, it upsets them....

Example - There`s a Pirate Guild base in Atreus` Clouds, this was a standard Pirate Base, so i decide to go all police-like and chose to destroy the ships labelled `Pirate Guild` as i do so cos it`s Boron i get all Boron ships turn red and start attacking me......

Why does this happen as i was lead to believe they are`PIRATE` ?!?

This is something I've been wondering myself. In my game there's almost always Pirate Guild ships hanging around the Argon Prime shipyard unmolested by the military or police. I haven't checked most of the other race's sectors yet, but it's at least true in Argon space. Why?

[EmperorJon]

Found another problem.

The Guild HQ ship is red to me. For some reason it has the relations of the normal pirates (Currently -5000 and a bit) rather than +53,000 of the Guild. Why is the HQ a normal Pirate? One of my LTs was also killed by a Guild Skate, and now I'm guessing it belonged to the HQ or something...

[Serial Kicked]

About the bounty-hunters. I've probably identified the relationship bug, I will post a fix and an option to toggle on/off BH ships in next release, that should be out before Xmas, at least i hope so. While i'm here, I've also found a minor bug in the comm system with PG ships : if you piss off a base and then pay the fine to a ship owned by this base, the base will turn back blue but the fine won't go away (so basically until the 1.55 release, pay your fine at the hostile PB directly). I know this is a trivial bug

This said,

Everyone,

PG ships are pirate owned. All of them, pure breed, no exception. They are using the exact same race slot as any other pirate. The only difference between a standard pirate and a PG one is that a PG ship will ignore your notoriety toward the pirate faction and uses its own separate notoriety system (the one you can see when 'talking' to a PB). In other words, PG ships are a sub-faction of the pirates. This is very similar to how other factions are supposed to work (like Terracorp, NMNC, ...) in the vanilla game.

Im a bit confused over who actually owns the Pirate Guild..... as it`s a Pirate Guild i would assume it`s the Pirates. So if i want to kill Pirates then why is it when i kill Pirate Guild ships, the race sector im in or those said Guild ships are in, it upsets them....

I can't reproduce your issue, all i get when killing PG ships in boron (or other legit race) space is rewards and reputation bonus. The only way for me to turn the boron ships hostile when dealing with PG ships is to scan them without a police license (that's illegal even on pirates). Are you using a police script, "improved races" or something like that?

This is something I've been wondering myself. In my game there's almost always Pirate Guild ships hanging around the Argon Prime shipyard unmolested by the military or police. I haven't checked most of the other race's sectors yet, but it's at least true in Argon space. Why?

Err.. Pirate Guild handle pirate ships only and doesn't use any kind of magic "don't attack my pg ships" command, it would break the whole purpose of my plugin anyway. So basically, if for a reason or another (and there's plenty available), police or military ships don't attack my ships it's not the fault of my plugin. Consider using a police script to balance the game.

The Guild HQ ship is red to me. For some reason it has the relations of the normal pirates (Currently -5000 and a bit) rather than +53,000 of the Guild. Why is the HQ a normal Pirate?

Like i said in the beginning of this post, it's not. But thanks for report, probably the same cause as for the bounty hunter "relationship" issue, i will check. Notice, by the way that you can't see your notoriety toward PG ships using game menus as they will *always* display the relation you have toward the standard pirates (look for PB or other PG ships, you'll always get your -5000).

One of my LTs was also killed by a Guild Skate, and now I'm guessing it belonged to the HQ or something...

Or from a base you've pissed because you accidentally collided one of its ship entering a sector. Or, more probably, because you've one or two of your patrol ship or LT with bad friend/foe settings.

According to your post you're basically neutral to pirates, so you get some hostile pirates. Those pirates may attack your ships. And here's the issue: If your (let's say) M6 patrol gets attacked, its friend/foe setting toward pirates will automatically switch the pirates to enemy. Your M6 won the battle, come across a PG ship and, so, attacks it. The PB (or HQ) owning the ship gets pissed and start attacking your LT, UT, whatever.

This is a game-related issue so i can't do much about it. PG on its side has a cooldown system when your ranking is high enough (red bases turning back blue). On the player side, it's safer to avoid patrols in pirate territory and to often re-apply correct Friend/Foe settings to all your assets.

[EmperorJon]

Ah, but the problem is I have no patrolling military craft at the moment, and whenever I accidentally anger the guild I pay my fine.

Not only that, but it was a good 6 or so jumps from the nearest PB, so I guessing they were ordered to raid a sector, and my LT got in the way...

EDIT: Just lost another to Argon Bounty Hunter... I've got one down from the highest rank, what's going on? Is it the Pirates that I need to get rep with now?

[Serial Kicked]

In that case yeah it's probably a remnant of the HQ fleet, or a survivor from a PB destroyed by another race.I can't really be sure

EDIT: Just lost another to Argon Bounty Hunter... I've got one down from the highest rank, what's going on? Is it the Pirates that I need to get rep with now?

Will fix the BH as soon as possible. Under some situations the BH can spawn/turn red when they are not supposed to do so.

[EmperorJon]

You better, I hardly ever reload my games... if I lose a ship I buy a new one, and currently I'm also running a DiD, so I can't reload. On my normal game I suddenly lost half of my LTs to a single Centaur, and reloaded

If that happens on my DiD I'll fire a Firestorm Torpedo at ya'!

Anyway, nice to know that you care so much, and that you'll be adding more features in the future.

Just a few more questions:

1. What is the current Guild relation to the Yaki? 'Cos a base in Ocracoke's Storm seems to have Yaki ships defending it now, they kill all the traders but don't attack the base, so is it:

Yaki->Pirate=Foe
Yaki->Guild=Neutral

?

2. How come Pirate Bases cost so much to buy and place? It seems a bit OTT, why can't there be an option to say 'I think you should relocate here'

3. Why do Pirate Shipyards sell MOs, and what do they do? Are they just a dock, or do the Guild take them like the bases, and use them.

Thanks! PG rules, can't wait for any later editions/Yaki Armarda!

[EmperorJon]

Oh, and something else, I understand what people mean when they say a ship next to the shipyard which doesn't get attacked.

It's in my game as well, I can only guess it's some sort of error with the PG buying ships. The ship is listed as Pirate Guild, but it is actually a race ship, when you click for example, it will say Boron Skate, but it is listed as Pirate Guild Skate. Yet it's ID tag says B, so it is Boron. Must be an error, some sit their for days before an invasion of some sort takes them down...