NEWS: Update in the download section AEGIS Gunnery Crews

[frymaster]

didn't see that post about the K before, we can take the higher intelligence as a given Greyhawk can use the script with a clear conscience now

I'm ASSUMING that the reason all the crew disappear so rapidly (none after 30s; generally only 5 at all) is that the AI ships are having to stock up and will have enough at some point, I have 4 TSs with jumpdrives collecting crew and it's taken me around 500,000 in reports to get 30

[ennokT]

My questions is if trading stations will show crew all the time even if they have 0 in stock .. or if they only show them when there's some there?

I've never seen crew listed on any trading station.

[frymaster]

2nd option - about a minute after the last crew leaves - which is about a minute after the ship arrives - the product line is removed from the price list

[Scoob]

Just got lucky

Traded within a second of the Transport landing & got 66 in one go!

Reckon crews should deplete a lot more slowly personally as I've just spent the last hour or so tracking Transports from Argon Prime & waiting at their destination to get crew.

Just about to actually test the script on my Phoenix once I've got some GHEPTs fitted

Scoob.

[fuzzywuzzy]

Does anyone know how much more effective a weak dragon will be with this installed?

How? The only good weapon they have is Gamma HEPT, there is nothing else to switch to.... You might get a tiny increase of performance if it switches to MDs when attacking smaller ships, but you have to supply them with ammo and that's not really worth it.... However, it's nice for a K to switch to HEPTs when close up! Personally, I think the cost is crazy! So I'll just stick with the old weapon layouts.....

[frymaster]

the cost is 1500 per crewman per hour, which is sod all really. and you're forgetting the tracking, fire rate and target selection improvements.

woot! just got 50 crew off a station! My oddy now has 2 turrets operational

[Scoob]

Ooops, mis-read the readme, thought it said 65 (15 + 50 support) crew to man all 6 turrets on my Phoenix, but that was 65 per turret by the looks of it. Just went into combat and got consant messages saying turrets were off-line.

Scoob.

[frymaster]

for the pheonix it's 50 to activate the system and 15 for each turret. so the first turret is 65, the next 5 are 15 each. just use the old commands for the others until you scrounge enough proper gunners

[Scoob]

for the pheonix it's 50 to activate the system and 15 for each turret. so the first turret is 65, the next 5 are 15 each. just use the old commands for the others until you scrounge enough proper gunners

Yeah, just realised that, thanks for clarifying though...really should go to bed but just wanted to try this out, you know how it is.

Scoob.

[lestabantam]

I've folllowed 3 of these transports and every damn time I've docked at their destination and missed buying the personnel.

Resorted to piracy but the ship only had 5 left when I capped it, I think the pilot shot the other 95 before she bailed out!

It'll take a long time to get to 150! hopefully they should get a bit more common with time.

[Scoob]

Tell ya what, the crew aren't being "used up" before you can buy. If you watch the stations stock screen as the Transport docks you rarely see it go as high as 5 before dropping to zero. That 66 I got must have been a bit of a fluke!

Scoob.

[Stonerkrieg]

Upgrading from the 2.11 version gave me the final reason to completely remove and reinstall my game.Iwanted to lose some other scripts anyway.Since I'm restarting from scratch there should be enough crew available by the time I'm ready for them.I do have three questions for Reven and TicKaci.
Now that we actually have crewmen on board will we start taking casualties in combat?{Betty;Hull breach in starboard turret.Seven crewmembers lost.}
Can we expect to find New hidden items like we did with the Patrol script?
Tickaci,what does R.T.F.S mean ?

[frymaster]

like I said, I'm hoping it's just initial supply problems, I'm going to go forward in time (SETA x 10) and verify this

I know that the crew disappear within 5 minutes of docking no matter what (in the changelog of the .pdf readme), but I'm hoping the "95 disappear before you can make the transaction" behavior will be less common.

The main "loser" in this script is the ray, the extra 420 cargo space needed for the crew gives it a jump range of a one-legged turtle.

Just tried this in x472 and... wow

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the xenon have a whole array of other weapons (cargo bay almost full), hepts, spare ppcs, along with lighter weapons for anti-missile... though as they carry 50-odd mosquitos, we can colour the hornet useless

Obviosuly my PSGs performed with their usual panache, but the main difference was PPC, optimising the fire rate works ludicrously well. The PSGs must have been cranking out more than usual as well from the time people took to die, but they are less obvious to see.

The titan is going to be a VERY sweet ship now (more cargo space + WMD), and the pheonix will make an even better gunship than it does at the moment. And given that GHEPTs fire very fast now, this could increase Dragon survivability significantly.

[frymaster]

Tell ya what, the crew aren't being "used up" before you can buy. If you watch the stations stock screen as the Transport docks you rarely see it go as high as 5 before dropping to zero. That 66 I got must have been a bit of a fluke!

Scoob.

atm I'm working on the assumption that the navy gets "first dibs" on the crew, and only the remainer get put up for merc duty. Probably wishful thinking, but we'll see

[Scoob]

Ok, just jumped to Family Njy where the Xenon are invading to test out my two "Gunnery Crewed" left & right turrets & sure enough the Xenon are switching weapons like crazy now on their M2 ships. Weird thing is that no matter how close I get my Phoenix never chooses to switch to GHEPTs on those side turrets.

I'm assuming the turrets should switch automatically if gunnery crews are set to action stations. My having manual control of the flight of my ship shouldn't make any difference should it?

Scoob.

[frymaster]

it shouldn't make a difference; certainly my odi switches between psg and ppc no problem (though I don't have hepts so I can't comment on that)

I'd forgotten that titans could carry PSGs, my next M2 is definately a titan!

I went code diving and I figured out how the game works out the amount of personnel that are available. One thing I discovered is the fact that all AI cap ships (not M6,Novas or TSs, strangely) will respawn with alternate weapon loadouts, which is a good reason to restart.

I haven't yet

(we don't just restart for patches and expansions now, we restart for scripts )

anyway, how you know how much you wil get:

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there's a 5% chance of you getting between 0 and all crew, a 10% chance of 0 to 20, or 0 to 5 crew otherwise. All will disappear in between 1 and 5 minutes. Which puts PPC shortages into perspective - yet it's a ludicrously good upgrade, so perhaps that's OK.

Idle crew - ones stockpiled on your own trading docks or extra ones on ships - disappear at between 1 and 50% every 15 minutes, at the same time as more transports are sent out.

[khanis]

are idle crew the same thing as inactive crew? if so, that kinda sucks

[Scoob]

Hmm, switching my Gunnery Crews to the Top & Bottom turrets all works fine, my ship switches to using GHEPT as expected.

I think this may be down to the spacing of the actual guns for the left & right turrets. For example the Left turret controls two guns on the outside of the left pylon & one gun on the inside of the right pylon so I reckon that the AI never considers anything actually in-range of the GHEPTs fitted to the side guns.

Nope, what I just said ain't true. Manually placing GHEPTs in the side turrets & leave them on Attack All Enemies works fine. It's just when under Gunnery Crew control that it never switches to GHEPTs. Odd.

Scoob.

[frymaster]

are idle crew the same thing as inactive crew? if so, that kinda sucks

no, that's why I used a different word for ships

by idle I meant ones you've transferred onto a player-owned equipement dock, for stockpiling say or ones on a ship above and beyond what it needs to run all its turrets

the crew you theoretically need to run all your turrets are SAFE, whether your turrets are actually running or not

EDIT: Hmm, at only 1 crew per nova I may upgrade them all soon, just a shame I can't set them all to action stations all at once

[PowerTrip]

This is sooooo cool I'm gonna buy a new M2 and upgrade it with all possible upgrades and weapons.

One question though; If I have more than one set of weapons, will it automatically switch to the best weapon for the job