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

[EmperorJon]

OMG I love you!

Joking...

This is going to be amazing! Not only will my booze-plexes be defended by the pirates, they'll get lots more visitors!

Oh, and does this mean that weapons forges (eg. PAC) will get loads more traffic, with guild TSs?

( ) Added "Notoriety Hack" special offer

So like a station hack but for notoriety? I like!

( ) Pirate smugglers with specific ECS interactions

So, what? Comm: I know you're a smuggler! Buy my spacefuel!

[Nho]

Hi Serial Kicked

You were asking what could be improved in your Reunion's Yaki armada. I am sure I never seen any bugs related to Yaki Armada or Pirate Guild.

But then, there is something I like a lot and that could be improved/deepened in my point of view: the ECS options. I would like to have more "quests" possibilities, maybe depending on the relation you have with them. I also like a lot just the possibility to talk with npc, and for something else than just asking where is the nearest shipyard. This adds a lot to the game. So maybe improving the dialog lines. How? I don't know. But if this becomes one of your next improvement, I'll gladly dig for ideas.

[djrygar]

( ) Ability for PB to retrieve wares from factory/transport raids

maybe, when they decide to raid player's factory, there should be ultimatum (sometimes - not always)
two options:

1 - give us money or we destroy your fab! (30 seconds to answer so player will not have enough time to call his destroyers )

2 - let us grab 2000 crystals/PPC/whatever_valuable from your fab or we will blow it! (after some TS docked, appearently it wasn't Argon Hight Tech tTrasporter but undercover PG ship filled with squash mines :> )

of course there should be regular raids, take on the fab by surprise, like it is now



And one thing I'd like to ask, could you place PG bases further from the centre of sector?
You asked previously to report how PG runs with other scipts/mods. So I have seen this - I took some patrol, it spawned enemies, and Improved Races sent response forces as usual. Yet PG decided to place their top-secret-illegal base few km behind the gate. 6 response destroyers jumped in almost on top of PG base (with predictable result).
And I already started to write MD missions for PG. Simple one. Find and destroy base (or only destroy, if you have it already on your map). Ideally, it should be placed above or below ecliptic, far away from sector centre (200 -300% of sector radius to make it compatible with bigger sectors/sector mods- but of course there must be a check to not spawn it inside planet/atmosphere).

[Requiemfang]

of course... if your a member of the pirate guild you wouldn't be able to be raided because in a sense you are one of the members. BUT you could have an option to "Help" supply the pirate guild and their operations by having some trade ships drop of wares to the base or sector they control. In a way it could be a way of payment for pirate guild patrols or pirate guild defense fleets to protect your complexes and factories

[paulwheeler]

It'd be good if there was more interaction if you are playing against the guild.

I'd like to see the PG setup a protection racket. So if you have a station in a border/pirate/unknown sector, the PG will offer to "protect" your station for a fee. If you refuse to pay they attack the station. If you have a big enough fleet you can fight them off. If not you have to pay. I want a reason to have ships defending my stations.

I'd also like to see the PG go after the players trading ships every now and again, with the PG demanding money/wares to let the ship go. Especially if they wonder into border/pirate sectors.

Basically it'd be great to see the pirates act like pirates - i.e. motivated by money.

I agree that it would be good if the bases were more remote and hard to find - especially if they are in a main race's sector. I guess they should be more obvious in a pirate sector. This would also make the MBR script spot them less often so a PG base has a chance of surviving in the main race sectors.

[Serial Kicked]

@Nho:

It's true there's not enough ECS options/quests. For the very good reason that i don't really like to code such quests. Behaviors / AI have a bigger weight on my todo list

About the dialogs, i had an idea of a "Chat" option when ecs-comm with a pirate ship. The result will be a line of dialog and a possible good/bad/neutral result.

Possible bonus like : "hey i found a missile container there, but i've no use for them, take them if you want". "i like your kind" (reputation bonus), and so on. Possible malus like : "omg i want you dead", "i want your money", reputation hit, etc..

About the textfiles, yes, the current dialog lines could already be improved, and you (and anyone with better English skills than me) are free to proceed


@djrygar:

Good idea for the factory raid ultimatum and easy to implement could be extended to some of the other raid types.

And one thing I'd like to ask, could you place PG bases further from the centre of sector? [...] Yet PG decided to place their top-secret-illegal base few km behind the gate. 6 response destroyers jumped in almost on top of PG base (with predictable result).

Sadly, I'm not responsible for the location of the PB, they are randomly spawned by the game engine (20 pirate bases on the vanilla map). And the game engine does a very poor job. That's why i usually say about the the AI, it will be bashed by military scripts and even the vanilla one at first, until the PB respawn, well, in better locations. However, I have plans for the AI to "relocate" Pirate Bases using pirate TL.

And I already started to write MD missions for PG. Simple one. Find and destroy base (or only destroy, if you have it already on your map). Ideally, it should be placed above or below ecliptic, far away from sector centre (200 -300% of sector radius to make it compatible with bigger sectors/sector mods- but of course there must be a check to not spawn it inside planet/atmosphere).

There's pro and cons about very far away PB. Yes this is more logical for a PB to be in a remote location, they are easier to protect as soon has a jump beacon has been spawned. But they don't change anything against RRF (depending on settings), MB revamp and the vanilla military defense. You usually see a "stream" of ships going to/from the "hidden" PB that will "bait" the military ships to the base. It needs a "fast jump to object" mechanism and script for the player. Raids from those PB also tend to be less effective (guild ships may not jump for short range raids and have to travel a lot, probably missing the target in the process).


@Requiemfang and paulwheeler

About sector protection (or racket), while i think of it, this is a feature that will be included for the Yakis, as a matter of fact it will be the main source of income for the yaki armada. Depending on how it will work ingame I may add a pirate variant.

I'd also like to see the PG go after the players trading ships every now and again, with the PG demanding money/wares to let the ship go. Especially if they wonder into border/pirate sectors.

Well they already attack your trading ships (and should go for the juicy ones) but yeah you're right there's no interactions. This is prefectly doable but there's an annoying side effect: You're bound to be more or less spammed by "pay money/res or die" popups. I could display a subtitle instead "press Y to pay x credits to save %ship in %sector" and add a hokey to do so. But you'll miss one when 2 such events occur at the same time.

Basically it'd be great to see the pirates act like pirates - i.e. motivated by money

It is true that the guild AI has more military commands (attack sector, destroy factory/outpost, kill police/military...) than pirate ones (raid TS, attack TL, build leisure domes...). This is for a part a necessity, Pirates ingame have a hard time staying alive, preemptive fight is usually necessary against enemy forces. So using ships to do nice looking sector occupations, smuggling operations have a high tendency to get more pg bases/ships killed in the long run. I hope adding the "trading" part discussed earlier will help fixing this. Else i could also "hijack" the default pirate AI (non guild ships) to something a big more effective giving harder time to military so the Guild can do some money "in peace".

[djrygar]

Sadly, I'm not responsible for the location of the PB, they are randomly spawned by the game engine (20 pirate bases on the vanilla map). And the game engine does a very poor job.

you may see Improved Races R14 - 7ate encountered same problem and solved it. In R14 Khaak are building their stations far from the centre (and it works well, they are much harder to find)
I guess this is done in plugin.ir.k.takeover.make.station.xml file

yes, I know that ships returning to base may lure attackers to it anyway, but it definitely helps (I obseved that further placed PG bases survive much longer than those places in plain sight)

[paulwheeler]

Well they already attack your trading ships (and should go for the juicy ones) but yeah you're right there's no interactions. This is prefectly doable but there's an annoying side effect: You're bound to be more or less spammed by "pay money/res or die" popups. I could display a subtitle instead "press Y to pay x credits to save %ship in %sector" and add a hokey to do so. But you'll miss one when 2 such events occur at the same time.

How about if there was a message for only a small percentage of the attacks? Each time the PG attack one of the player traders there is a, say 20% chance of a message being sent first to give the player the option to pay to avoid the attack.

Is there a reason why the PG won't raid player owned sectors? Most of my factories and traders are in sectors that I have taken ownership of and I have had no raids by the PG at all in these sectors. The Improved Races Xenon and Khaak haven't entered any of my sectors either. There has been no enemy activity in my sectors at all in several game days... Its all far too safe for me at the moment. There seems to be plenty going on around the rest of the X Universe. I have had attacks on my sector traders but thats about it.

[djrygar]

IR Xenons attack sectors nearby their sectors (they systematically conquer sector one by another, like all decent robots should do ). Khaak prefer Unknown sectors as first step. If you claimed sector, its no longer seen as 'unknown' by them - ie is occoupied. They need free sector to establish some force first. After that they jump somewhere.

If you have response forces enabled, they probably clear everything, so khaak dont have many chances to make too much mess.

I had PG attack on my complex in the sector I own.

as for lack of interactivity when playing against PG - that should be done via Mission Director missions, not by PG scripts. PG provides some action to the universe, thats MD scripters work to do something about it

[Serial Kicked]

you may see Improved Races R14 - 7ate encountered same problem and solved it. In R14 Khaak are building their stations far from the centre (and it works well, they are much harder to find)
I guess this is done in plugin.ir.k.takeover.make.station.xml file

You don't get it GOD places the pirate bases and i can't cancel this as this is hardcoded. All i can do is to move existing bases around. Improved Races doesn't have this issue as it spawn new stations instead of using existing ones.

Is there a reason why the PG won't raid player owned sectors

I'm pretty sure this has been corrected. PG should be able to attack your own sectors and factories if they are in the attack range of a hostile pirate base (5 jumps).

as for lack of interactivity when playing against PG - that should be done via Mission Director missions, not by PG scripts. PG provides some action to the universe, thats MD scripters work to do something about it

That is very true

[EmperorJon]

About the textfiles, yes, the current dialog lines could already be improved, and you (and anyone with better English skills than me) are free to proceed

I'd do anything to have my name somewhere in Pirate Guild!

Just give me a list of the T files and I'll get them into fluent English. No, seriously, I'm not only English, I'm a correct grammar/spelling freak. So I'll probably do a better job than french person.

EDIT: Spelt 'spelling' as 'speeling' and had to change it. See what I mean!?

[cheetah222222]

Love your script. It adds a lot for a player with friends as only pirates and Yaki.

You mentioned in your readme that it is possible for the guild to use modded ships. I have imported a few XTM ships into TC and I wanted to get them to be used in the galaxy to add "life" to them. I was wondering how I can get your pirate guild script to:

1. sell them at pirate shipyards
2. Use them in its shipping/military activities

I am not a scripter, but have tweaked a couple of scripts and can play with types files.


Best wishes

[Serial Kicked]

@EmperorJon:

Well, you can proceed by opening the t\8513-L044.xml file with notepad or such.
Pirate BBS news are at ID 321-368.
Most ECS dialog lines are at ID 400 and later.


@cheetah222222:

1. The pirate SY does no autodetect and will always contain the same setup. You can alter this setup in the anarkis.pirate.build.shipyard script. Copy&Paste a line like :

Code: Select all

041   append Pirate Harrier Vanguard to array $ship.list

And change "Pirate Harrier Vanguard" by whatever new ship included in your game you want to add.

2. For M3 and M4, ships you don't need to do anything. As long as you have imported such ships, and that they are affiliated to a valid race (argon, boron, teladi, split, paranid or pirate) in your Tship, PG is able to detect and build them. I realize now that's not the same for M6, i'll correct that. But until then, you'll have to edit the anarkis.pirate.rnd.corvetteclass script. I've to admit i could also extend the principle to M2 and M7 (but limit the race to pirate) but it's not ranked very high on my todo list.

[cheetah222222]

Thank you very much for your help.

I will have a go later today and let you know how I get on.

Best wishes

[djrygar]

Just give me a list of the T files and I'll get them into fluent English. No, seriously, I'm not only English, I'm a correct grammar/spelling freak. So I'll probably do a better job than french person.

Haha, I just imagine this shakespearean language in the mouth of pirate

"Pardon my french (pun intended ), for calling you 'bastu', my dear fellow pirate"

BTW all this 'bastu' and satinized, 12-year-old-targeted language always irritated me. Pirates at least should swear like hell

[Toryn2]

Anyone know if this counts as a 'mod' or if I can can combine it with CMOD3 and some other AL plugins like IR R13 and Military base revamp?

[paulwheeler]

Toryn2 - I'm running all those scripts and mods. PG is 100% compatible.

[EmperorJon]

I'll take a look at the text later today, then send you a copy if you want.

[Serial Kicked]

@EmperorJon: Of course i'm interested If it's better than mine (not very hard) i'll update the textfiles in next release. Btw, I tend to agree with djrygar, avoid the usual "bastu-talk". Dunno about swearing, some is okay as long as it's not becoming too stereotypical.


Toryn2: I confirm what paulwheeler said. By the way, if PG counted as a "mod" it would be labeled as such, and MB Revamp is in my recommended script list in the first post (hint).

Pardon my french (pun intended )

Sometimes i wonder why i've put "france" in the location field
oh yeah, to prove that (some) french people can speak english (and script too)!

[crap-shot667]

Hi there never added any scripts before havent played the game in over a year and feel like getting back into it I attempted to install this mod and the others that were reccomended to work with well with this mod but it all went tits up and nothing worked could some one plz tell me step by step how to install these mods i current have xtc 2.5 installed and nothing else and my game is saved in the usual programme files/egosoft/xtc layout