Attempting to make the AI Galaxy Trade

SilverXarrow · Post by **SilverXarrow** » Tue, 3. Jun 14, 21:29

Most Certainly!

YorrickVander · Post by **YorrickVander** » Tue, 3. Jun 14, 22:42

Currently testing change to jobs.xml (with vanilla trade.ship.xml). There are 2 entries with 'trade.ship.ranged' defining the 2 xl galaxy traders that seem to start work when the player begins station building.

for each entry :

Code: Select all

<job id="led_special_construction_trader" name="{20204,3901}" startactive="false">

remove 'startactive="false"'

and changing :

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    <task task="trade.ship.ranged">
      <param name="minbuy" int="0"/>
      <param name="maxbuy" int="0"/>
      <param name="minsell" int="1"/>
      <param name="maxsell" int="1"/>
    </task>
    <quota cluster="1" sector="1" zone="1"/>

to

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    <task task="trade.ship.ranged">
      <param name="minbuy" int="0"/>
      <param name="maxbuy" int="3"/>
      <param name="minsell" int="0"/>
      <param name="maxsell" int="3"/>
    </task>
    <quota cluster="8" sector="2" zone="1"/>

again for both entries.

So far no debug spew thrown and have seen max of 2 at a time in same zone while docked on one of the LI scaldis' observing it's travels. If anyone would care to make these changes and see if they galaxy trade properly I'd appreciate it as the scaldis is a slow boat and I don't have lots of time to commit to the test atm

If all is well there should be 16 xl galaxy traders working at all times if I understand the job quota change correctly.

EDIT : Also spotted JSS scaldis in Ascendancy

SilverXarrow · Post by **SilverXarrow** » Tue, 3. Jun 14, 22:51

Will test in a few and give back results. Eve Kronos has my attention atm lol.

Assailer · Post by **Assailer** » Wed, 4. Jun 14, 10:56

how do i sign up for testing? is there any git repo?

YorrickVander · Post by **YorrickVander** » Wed, 4. Jun 14, 17:45

You don't sign up mate :

In Steam XR > Properties > Set Launch Options...
and add -prefersinglefiles

in your XR install directory make a 'libraries' dir and copy jobs.xml from your unpacked .dat files (see X Rebirth Tools from Steam for the official extraction tool) to the new directory.

Edit jobs.xml as above and run

Assailer · Post by **Assailer** » Wed, 4. Jun 14, 18:31

I see, thanks

SilverXarrow · Post by **SilverXarrow** » Wed, 4. Jun 14, 20:34

I will upload the modified trade.ship.xml to my Github for people to test.

I plan on officially releasing this if I can sort out the gate queue or find a work around as I know some people dont want to go through the trouble of modifying the files.

Standby, I should have an upload ready tonight for the basic trading across galaxies.

Upon release all credits will be given to the proper people for testing and the never ending help received here on the forums.

Thanks guys!

Assailer · Post by **Assailer** » Thu, 5. Jun 14, 05:55

Thanks YorrickVander, i have extracted and modified the jobs file, added -prefersinglefiles as suggested to steam launcher.

How do i verify that it works as it should?

YorrickVander · Post by **YorrickVander** » Thu, 5. Jun 14, 08:13

You will be looking out for npc owned scaldis in the zone ship lists, owned by JSS and LI. Starting a fresh game to observe they initially tend to cluster near the shipyards and drone factories. I tried a custon job entry for lyranea weapon traders last night which was in the end hampered by the silly stuck on edge of zone ai bug while I rode with it. As the games economy ticks on hopefully more ships will be seen trading inter cluster.

The scaldis ships have very obvious names so easy to spot in the lists.

EDIT : Do be aware that this is very much a test case and shouldn't be used with any save game you wish to continue. I haven't tested it at all with existing games yet due to free time restrictions. I simply wasn't happy with the crazy behaviour of the ships on the jump gates with the trade.ship.xml changes mentioned before due to in zone problems and observing many crashes with the change in trade.ship.xml active. If if appears to work ok I'll make a mod version for 6-8 of each type of L size freighter (weapon tech, hull tech, energy etc) that trade across clusters and see how it affects the trader game style and the inevitable economy crashes we see in long term play. I'm also more comfortable with a mod that adds new jobs rather than patching vanilla code as it's a far more robust method concerning future releases from ES.

Miniding · Post by **Miniding** » Thu, 5. Jun 14, 10:14

I hope the best for this mod to come... my old games were stuck due to the cluster trade restriction... Having to be the trader all the time isn't very funny...

nice work though

YorrickVander · Post by **YorrickVander** » Thu, 5. Jun 14, 18:14

Mini - while off topic I definitely recommend you try either euclid's or johnluke's auto trader mods (they might even work together ok but I haven't tested) to liven up old saves with stalled economies a small fleet of scaldis' or rahanas' picking up the slack might get something working again.

YorrickVander · Post by **YorrickVander** » Thu, 5. Jun 14, 23:23

Small update on the jobs.xml version - the custom L freighter job seems to be working fine, the test ship I'm flying with is happily taking itself off to RoC Shipyard from its home cluster of OL to sell v launchers. Mod version 'soon(tm)' for easier testing.

Talca · Post by **Talca** » Fri, 6. Jun 14, 14:44

Totally a long shot here, but if ships move through the gate without a problem while a player is out of zone (collision is turned off) could a bubble of no collision space created around the gates solve the pile ups? Maybe a 3/4k bubble of space where all ships inside or touching that space do not have collision properties?

Edit: I think bubble may have been the wrong word but I do believe it gives the right idea. You would have to map an area around each gate probably in a square that has the property of removing collision in the game. I'm sure ppl will be unhappy about the look but it would make galaxy trading mods function in the short term even while players are in the gate sector.

The only problem is that it would make capturing ships impossible while traveling through the gate. I think. Which in my opinion isn't a bad thing.

YorrickVander · Post by **YorrickVander** » Fri, 6. Jun 14, 17:34

It's actually more than just that issue : I posted some screenies of the pile ups on page 1 or 2, but more concerning was the regular crashes I experienced with that mod active (64 bit beta client) which immediately stopped again when I removed it. It may be connected to the crazy rush and sheer number of ships jumping both through the gate and on to next sectors. The rush also confuses me for another reason - using a jobs based system there is no mad dash of freighters set to universe trade flying to the gates. Conversely they spend the first hour or two catching trades in their home cluster and then start wandering further afield for valid deals. This leads me to believe that using player.galaxy reference for the range (as this.ship.galaxy is rejected and dumps to error log) is doing something unintended.

Post by **BlackRain** » Fri, 6. Jun 14, 22:16

I think there is a bug where ships try to use their jumpdrives instead of going through the gates. This issue is fixed in RC3 of the latest patch.

YorrickVander · Post by **YorrickVander** » Fri, 6. Jun 14, 22:23

Yeah I've been bugging (tumbleweed) them to fix it for 5 months

I still think that the job method is the superior one. If 2 mods to add galaxy trade arrive with 2 different methods of implementation it's no biggie since the players can decide which version they like better

Or even both as they won't clash.

EDIT @ blackrain if you try the trade.ship patch outlined in this thread on a fresh 'free play' start and just sit watching the albion > devries gate you will see that things are not well even if the cap ships jump without fuel. It takes about 5 minutes to get going after game start (euclid's jump drive mod saves the pain here).

Post by **BlackRain** » Sat, 7. Jun 14, 00:00

Doesn't it always take a while to get things started at game start though?

YorrickVander · Post by **YorrickVander** » Sat, 7. Jun 14, 00:10

Usually into the hours scale. 5 - 10 minutes and 60+ freighters fighting both ways through one gate is suspiciously broken

Post by **BlackRain** » Sat, 7. Jun 14, 03:10

Is it still doing it in Rc4? The latest patch? It may have to do with some kind of collision or pathing issue. It may only be possible for 1 capital ship to go through the gate at a time and if there are so many sitting around the gate then it may be very difficult for any to pass through. This may be why they didn't initially have galaxy traders and why even now only a few ships are galaxy traders.

YorrickVander · Post by **YorrickVander** » Sat, 7. Jun 14, 04:28

It is exactly that - ie 1 ship at a time. The npc ship has to navigate to exact center of gate aperture and then jumps after a brief wait. *But* this is not the crux of the problem, although it appeared to be on first observation.

To repeat - setting all the l + xl to galaxy range has a very drastic effect which is not repeated using an ai job. There is simply no need for this massive amount of movement. We appear to be focused on a single issue here that's in fact largely irrelevant as the volume of traffic is not necessary.

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Attempting to make the AI Galaxy Trade