[MOD] Faction War/Economy Enhancer v5.63

[reanor]

I posted a picture couple of pages back, after I installed this mod and ran the game unattended on SETA for about 6 hours, it resulted in MANY defense stations been build in many different sectors. It seems there is no limiting mechanic on how many Defense platforms factions can build. They just start in the middle and go out like a flower. I did not start from scratch though, it was quite an end-game when I tried this and factions had a lot of resources. Looks like you did a lot of work though on this mod, since I tried last time it was just a patch for defense stations. I'll prolly try a new game with this mod again in a few weeks. Thanks for an amazing effort you put into all this, to make X4 so much better for all of us. Big to you and those who involved/helping!

[DeadAirRT]

It's not intended to be that way for anyone, it's just a matter that currently the attack station logic is a hack inside the "Defend Area" subgoal which only ends by time limit. Unfortunately just making a new subgoal is not trivial due to the way the faction logic is set up.

Oh very interesting. I started trying to look into the logic of the subgoal. Before I start trying to mess with the scripting, let me know if the following seem impossible:
1) having $defendareas assigned to every enemy station
2) assigning job ships to defendareas sequentially (right now it looks random)
3) clearing $defendareas after enemy station is destroyed and freeing assigned ships to next job

Of course that is assuming I understand the current logic using $defendareas as points of interest for invasion.

[Mysterial]

1) having $defendareas assigned to every enemy station

You can try but there aren't enough ships to commandeer so most likely you'll just extend the shipyards' already large build queue. You might also result in several of them getting a single ship and failing instead of one getting several ships.

2) assigning job ships to defendareas sequentially (right now it looks random)

Certainly could change the station selection to be something else easily enough.

3) clearing $defendareas after enemy station is destroyed and freeing assigned ships to next job

In theory the Defend Area goal can store off the station and set the cue to expire (set the time limit to player.age - 1) if the station is destroyed. Just haven't tried it yet.

[theborg921]

ohhh a sparkle of life in the X4 game! I dont know if it is already in the mod, but different colors of factions ships would be nice.

Thx for the mod I will try it asap.

[Dreamtide]

So this sounds awesome and I want to get involved.
What's the first step towards understanding what faction wars are and how they work for this?
Google's kinda letting me down, and I'd rather not watch someone play on Twitch for an hour to hear their speculation.

...or should I just enable this and find out the hard way lol

[Mysterial]

It basically just means factions that border each other that are enemies will invade each other, try to destroy the enemy stations and build their own. It's supposed to work in vanilla but currently doesn't for various reasons.

[Dreamtide]

It basically just means factions that border each other that are enemies will invade each other, try to destroy the enemy stations and build their own. It's supposed to work in vanilla but currently doesn't for various reasons.

Ah okay. What is the XML rep value of "enemies"? Just "-1"?
Is this controllable by editing the save file's faction rep levels?

[Mysterial]

EDIT: see below, better explanation

[Baconnaise]

It basically just means factions that border each other that are enemies will invade each other, try to destroy the enemy stations and build their own. It's supposed to work in vanilla but currently doesn't for various reasons.

Ah okay. What is the XML rep value of "enemies"? Just "-1"?
Is this controllable by editing the save file's faction rep levels?

-1 relations = -30 rep and 1 relation = 30 rep. Everything in between is 0.x or -0.x until you hit the cap of 30. Yes you can edit the relations in your save file yourself. It's at the beginning of the save and easy to find. You can even bypass the scaleplate relation cap that's in vanilla.

[DeadAirRT]

Awesome job Mysterial on new patch. I was messing around with stuff last night but ended up getting distracted on wanting to add nuetral sectors between factions. Can't wait to test it out.

Editing the save is one way. I personally set up a new gamestart (well more like frankensteined Argon Citizen because my syntax is terrible).

Here is the relation levels per libraries/factions.xml

Default Relation Ranges:
self: 1.0 to 1.0
member: 0.1 to 1.0
friend: 0.01 to 1.0
neutral: -0.01 to 0.01
enemy: -1.0 to -0.01
killmilitary: -1.0 to -0.1
kill: -1.0 to -0.32
nemesis: -1.0 to -1.0

UI value mapping (analogously for negative values):
1.0 = 30
0.32 = 25
0.1 = 20
0.032 = 15
0.01 = 10
0.0032 = 5

[Dreamtide]

Awesome job Mysterial on new patch. I was messing around with stuff last night but ended up getting distracted on wanting to add nuetral sectors between factions. Can't wait to test it out.

Editing the save is one way. I personally set up a new gamestart (well more like frankensteined Argon Citizen because my syntax is terrible).

Here is the relation levels per libraries/factions.xml

Default Relation Ranges:
self: 1.0 to 1.0
member: 0.1 to 1.0
friend: 0.01 to 1.0
neutral: -0.01 to 0.01
enemy: -1.0 to -0.01
killmilitary: -1.0 to -0.1
kill: -1.0 to -0.32
nemesis: -1.0 to -1.0

UI value mapping (analogously for negative values):
1.0 = 30
0.32 = 25
0.1 = 20
0.032 = 15
0.01 = 10
0.0032 = 5

You're my hero right now.

[Mindstrip]

I would just like to thank you for your work Mysterial!
Without this and e.g BlackRain's FoCW mod i would've shelved this game a long, looong time ago.

The changes/fixes in version 1.3 seems very promising!

[zebai]

Does this mod increase xenon hostility also? The Teladi appear to be on a warpath for them but there's little response that I can find.

[Mysterial]

Technically they should invade more since they won't get stalled waiting for a defence station that doesn't exist. But if you're using vanilla balance, Xenon ships range from mediocre to terrible and they will get obliterated by the other factions invading their space. As a result, they might not have forces available to actually invade anywhere in significant numbers.

[pioupes]

I play 5hours with version 1.3 and Xénons take 4 sectors to the Teladi. Invasion with 10K And 2 I.

[DeadAirRT]

Technically they should invade more since they won't get stalled waiting for a defence station that doesn't exist. But if you're using vanilla balance, Xenon ships range from mediocre to terrible and they will get obliterated by the other factions invading their space. As a result, they might not have forces available to actually invade anywhere in significant numbers.

AWESOME UPDATE! I think the new station attack and recon changes you made are working excellent.

Xenon invaded hatikvahs choice -> destroyed small argon fleet at gates, then proceeded to destroy 5 stations.
Teladi invaded silent witness -> destroyed 4 stations
Both invasion forces were down to 1-2 L class ships and actively attacking more stations
Argon shipyard/warf were desperate for engine parts (I don't have your fix, opted for my own changes instead)
Argon got some parts and made 2 behemoths -> sent one to each sector solo where fighting is ongoing.

All of this in the course of about 2 hours with no SETA active. I have a massive rebalance ofc otherwise xenon wouldn't be able to do squat but it looks like with your changes the game is turning into something good!

[Mr.Freud]

how is perfromance for everyone? I get a lot of microstuttering especially in sectors where battles going on. it started with 1.3. Maybe it has something to do with AI targeting? I had same problems with Agressive AI back in 1.5.
Overall game feel much more alive. Only thing I think is not balanced is that HOP seems to have more ships than anyone else. They have both biger defence and offense fleets.
update on performance: uninstalled the mod to check if performance would improve - went from 35 fps back to 100 with no stuttering.
I can't imagine how they will fix wars with such a bad performance. Won't be surprised if they decided to disable this feature at all

[Mr.Freud]

omg decided to check what was going on in Faulty logic - because Xenon were pretty inactive in HOP space - and for the first time witnesed the sector overtaken by a faction! they even build 1 trading station and 2 def platforms there already! they should hire you!)

[Baconnaise]

they should hire you!)

Whoa there buddy! I like EGO and X3/X4/XR but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Last thing I would want is for him to get hired on as staff. NESA mod (XR) was better as a mod for example when EGO put some of it into vanilla. We need Mysterial to stay free so he can possibly make more great mods without being put on a leash. Euclid and Unitrader do some great things as well but they also sort of work for the "man". Imagine how much more cool stuff Unitrader or Euclid would likely have if they didn't have deadlines and responsibility to papa EGO.

[DeadAirRT]

how is perfromance for everyone? I get a lot of microstuttering especially in sectors where battles going on. it started with 1.3. Maybe it has something to do with AI targeting? I had same problems with Agressive AI back in 1.5.
Overall game feel much more alive. Only thing I think is not balanced is that HOP seems to have more ships than anyone else. They have both biger defence and offense fleets.
update on performance: uninstalled the mod to check if performance would improve - went from 35 fps back to 100 with no stuttering.
I can't imagine how they will fix wars with such a bad performance. Won't be surprised if they decided to disable this feature at all

The faction war script is not causing your stuttering for the most part, it just makes the things that slow down the game happen more often. I think it has to do with the targeting as you guessed. I've watched a xenon k switch targets as fast as my screen could update against a station. The problem seems to be that they have very short memory of what should essentially be aggro against stations. They want to attack whatever turret hit them last (might apply against L/XL ships too). My rig doesn't seem to have any issues and I usually sit around 100-120 fps unless I'm near a station. I7 - 5930K, 32gb ram, 980ti. When I'm near a station it tends to drop to around 60fps and I've seen as low as 40fps. I barely notice it because of gsync though.

HOP does tend to have more ships from what I've seen, but it only seems bad because paranid ships in general are overpowered. With vanilla relations, they are at war with basically everyone so it makes sense for them to have more.