[SCR][MD][TC][AP] LIFE-V0.95b (update: 06-May-2014)

[Binesi]

My god... you really understand simulation games. This is such a huge improvement over vanilla X3. So much more immersive than before. Please, whatever you are doing for a career - change it to game development! If the default game took design cues from the likes of this I think X series would reach far past its hardcore audience and maybe Ego would finally have the money to finish games instead of releasing them half-baked to scathing reviews.

[Shush]

I've noticed that LIFE kills/level display renames ships in a way that overwrites any possible previous renames. Well, I'm not sure if it does it to all renamed ships who get kills, but at least Lucikes military transports who get kills turn back to plain "Argon Express : K1 L0". Is there a way to make the kill display not to do this?

Others have reported this, it shouldn't as all I do is read the current ship's name and add LIFE leveled/kills status information to it. I need to setup a proper CODEA test bed and sort out these issues. For now you can just turn off the leveling name functionality using 'Disable or Enable Leveling Display:' within Configuration -> Leveling. Leveling will still function normally, you just won't see the level and kills within the leveled ship's name.

Yup sorry for bad info, was just stuck using old code working great now!

No worries, let me know if you find any other issues as obviously I have done very little testing with CODEA.

Name of TS will be something like "Boron Transporter" but it'll be a Caiman or a Mercury. And the escorts might be something like "Boron Jaguar Raider." Or Split Nova. Wrong races for the ships is what I'm getting at. I just don't know if these are LIFE's ships. I know they aren't XRM jobs, paul and Mizuchi were far too thorough for that, and their job ID is always 0 anyway. Does the game sometimes do this in vanilla?

I have seen this before and I always assumed it was part of Vanilla X3's random mission generation. LIFE doesn't do anything with jobs or built in missions, it also doesn't alter ship's races in anyway, (the most it can do is change a ship's name for level + kills or change a pilot's voice, face, race and sex depending on the options you have configured).

My god... you really understand simulation games. This is such a huge improvement over vanilla X3. So much more immersive than before. Please, whatever you are doing for a career - change it to game development!

Haaa, I didn't think LIFE was that much of an improvement over vanilla, for me it was just a logical extension of X3's capabilities; i.e. moving away from the rigidness of static missions and lack of dynamic feedback, to a fluid and reactive universe that feels immersive and alive. But thank you for your kind words, (I've been in the games industry for almost 20 years, with the last 2 years specific to simulations, ).

If the default game took design cues from the likes of this I think X series would reach far past its hardcore audience

I've always felt there was something crucial missing from the X series, (even though most of them were great games); immersion.

[builder680]

A report back (earlier than my promised 2019 deadline!) on the 250 kills required for cap ships to level. Even in XRM that's too high. The deepest lurking supercapitals are getting too few kills to ever become high level, and the front line attack ships have too high a turnover. I think your initital adjust to 50 kills was a good one, that's where I'll probably go. I still thank you for adding the option, as if I ever turn tunings up, I may go back to it for my own ships just to make it hard to get super high level ships.

I'm playing around with the ADS scripts, combined with this, and Advanced Fight Scripts at the moment. It gives results similar to the awesome CODEA video we saw earlier, but ADS is less micromanagement, which is more my speed.

My first post in this thread was something along the lines of this mod bringing something to the X Universe I'd never noticed was missing. Some recent posters have said similar things and I thought this was a good time to reiterate it. What may seem like little things (dynamic voice chatter, ship "progression," the news, and the entire slew of other things you have added... really combine to add up to more than the sum of their parts... and turn this game into something even more special than it already was.

[DrBullwinkle]

I have been enjoying LIFE recently. Nice, fun, additions.

Two things:

1) The race rep bribes are great, but could they maybe be on a logarithmic scale, as the race ranks themselves are? I wanted to buy my way up to rank 4 so that I could buy some stuff, and it needed a zillion purchases to get there. Approximately.

I don't mind bribes being expensive. Just having to push the button a zillion times (and stop to check) seemed a bit much.

Nice to have them at all, though!


2) The news... could there be an option to filter for relevance? I am interested in the missions that LIFE generates. I really don't care who is shooting at whom, or whatever most of the "fluff" news is about. And I could not figure out, at a glance, whether a topic was fluff or newsworthy (mission).

So the ability to only show missions generated by LIFE would be cool.


Overall, LIFE is a very creative and cool little treat.

[Shush]

A report back (earlier than my promised 2019 deadline!) on the 250 kills required for cap ships to level. Even in XRM that's too high. The deepest lurking supercapitals are getting too few kills to ever become high level, and the front line attack ships have too high a turnover. I think your initital adjust to 50 kills was a good one, that's where I'll probably go. I still thank you for adding the option, as if I ever turn tunings up, I may go back to it for my own ships just to make it hard to get super high level ships.

I figured those extents may have been a little high, but more flexibility and options is always better than less, so I'm glad we tried this little experiment.

My first post in this thread was something along the lines of this mod bringing something to the X Universe I'd never noticed was missing. Some recent posters have said similar things and I thought this was a good time to reiterate it. What may seem like little things (dynamic voice chatter, ship "progression," the news, and the entire slew of other things you have added... really combine to add up to more than the sum of their parts... and turn this game into something even more special than it already was.

If LIFE ever becomes a free to play mmo your quote will become one of my most prominent money making endorsements! Seriously though; thank you, feedback is always great, positive feedback is even better.

1) The race rep bribes are great, but could they maybe be on a logarithmic scale, as the race ranks themselves are? I wanted to buy my way up to rank 4 so that I could buy some stuff, and it needed a zillion purchases to get there. Approximately.

This was initially just used for testing, but I left it in to help players when starting new games. I have big plans for the conversations and missions available at the News Representatives, but for now this is just a place holder.

2) The news... could there be an option to filter for relevance? I am interested in the missions that LIFE generates. I really don't care who is shooting at whom, or whatever most of the "fluff" news is about. And I could not figure out, at a glance, whether a topic was fluff or newsworthy (mission).

None of the news is fluff, it's all generated using text templates from real events that have occurred within the X3 universe, (hopefully one day I'll get around to coding a natural language generator that will remove the repetitiveness and produce some crazy news articles). The idea is that the news articles adapt to and reflect the dynamic nature and current state of the universe and hopefully pull you in by providing some immersion. You can also use the news articles to your advantage, by hunting bounty fugitives or keeping track of enemy fleets and invasions or early game you could collect loot from the spoils of war or late game you could defend/attack known hotspots, etc.

Currently there are only two types of missions in LIFE, both dynamic and instanced, (meaning they are reactively generated by events that occur in the X3 universe and handled independently as multiple instances; instancing is handled in the MD in a very similar fashion to a Unix Fork).

• 1) Ship distress missions, depending on a multitude of factors, (civilian or military, ship class, number of enemies, part of a wing, etc), a ship can issue a mayday using the emergency broadcast channel, (it will also generate a "Fight" icon). The pilot will become an actor that offers a conversation, this conversation is pure fluff, (I have lots of ideas for expanding it and affecting the outcome of the mission), but the ship is now being handled by the MD. If you kill the ship's attackers, the mission will end and a new pilot conversation will be offered that allows you to receive a reward, ranging from a verbal insult to cargo/weapons aboard the ship, depending on many factors once again.
  
  2) Bailed pilot missions, once again dynamic and instanced, (I plan on having a mission to save hundreds of bailing refugees from stations suffering imminent destruction), allow the player to save pilots that have bailed during fights.

Both these types of missions generate news articles, whether there is NPC or player involvement, not the other way around.

So the ability to only show missions generated by LIFE would be cool.

The news does not show LIFE generated missions or where to find them, the news shows the results and outcomes of LIFE missions. There are no LIFE missions that you can go searching for, they all happen spontaneously, dynamically and instanced in sector as different X3 events occur.

[hourheroyes]

My feedback on the kills required to level--

I've come across M6's that have 300+ kills (using XRM) and even a couple M3's that went over 100. I've also seen the big station-protecting M2's with well over 200 kills as well. I may end up having to INCREASE mine!

I will say though that killing a Pirate Marauder that I can see has killed hundreds of people makes it so much more satisfying than vanilla--combined with the XRM bounty system, I can see this guy has a serious rep and is a threat to the universe, and killing him may actually save a few lives in the future.

Can't wait to see this mod continue to develop, Shush. Thanks for all your work.

[DrBullwinkle]

So you are saying that I can turn off News completely, and still get the LIFE-generated missions? That is good to know.

• (Just my personal opinion: Reading a dozen lines of nonsense does not add "immersion" for me. A line or two, max, might be fun. But more is just tedious. Perhaps others have different feelings... I just thought you might appreciate the feedback.)

Question: is it really necessary to use a race rep for signalling? Can't you use equipment on your signalling ships instead? Like number of Data Storage Devices, perhaps, which do not consume cargo space (I think)?

A "safer" signalling mechanism might be a nice enhancement, for those playing unusual mods.

Just a thought. Otherwise, carry on.

[Shush]

I've come across M6's that have 300+ kills (using XRM) and even a couple M3's that went over 100. I've also seen the big station-protecting M2's with well over 200 kills as well. I may end up having to INCREASE mine!

Haha, fair enough!

I will say though that killing a Pirate Marauder that I can see has killed hundreds of people makes it so much more satisfying than vanilla--combined with the XRM bounty system, I can see this guy has a serious rep and is a threat to the universe, and killing him may actually save a few lives in the future.

LIFE's bounty system seems to generally line up with XRM's bounty system I've noticed as well, also LIFE will generate news articles and post ships like this in the most wanted section making it simple to determine which ships are a serious threat.

Can't wait to see this mod continue to develop, Shush. Thanks for all your work.

Cheers.

So you are saying that I can turn off News completely, and still get the LIFE-generated missions? That is good to know.

Yes.

(Just my personal opinion: Reading a dozen lines of nonsense does not add "immersion" for me. A line or two, max, might be fun. But more is just tedious. Perhaps others have different feelings... I just thought you might appreciate the feedback.)

LIFE's basis is the news, LIFE was born because not only did I miss the static news from previous versions of X, but I felt that there was a massive opportunity to provide dynamic news that reacted to and reported on real events that happened within the ever changing universe.

• - You're not forced to read through dozens of lines of text, each article is generally around 2-5 lines length and has the pertinent information colour coded, which allows you to quickly scan which articles may be of interest.
  
  - You may not appreciate the writing style, but it is in fact the complete opposite of nonsense. It provides valuable information about real X3 universe events written in a consistent and mostly grammatical correct prose.
  
  - You are welcome to edit the "9500-L044.xml" file and re-write the over 100 separate news articles, which could then be retrofitted back into LIFE as an alternate version of the news.
  
  - LIFE's news doesn't just report on NPC events, but also reports on the player's interactions with NPC's and the X3 universe, (running the gamut from failed/successful missions to invasion attempts and sector takeovers). This is intended to draw the player in and make him feel as if he is not only part of a living breathing universe, but that the universe stands up and takes notice of the player's actions.
  
  - In the end, (as you stated), you can just completely disable the news within LIFE, but LIFE's backbone is the news, it loses most of it's intent, a good portion of it's functionality and a large chunk of its soul if it is.

Question: is it really necessary to use a race rep for signalling? Can't you use equipment on your signalling ships instead? Like number of Data Storage Devices, perhaps, which do not consume cargo space (I think)?

There are any number of ways to perform MSCI to MD signalling, none are as simple or as reliable as using race notoriety. LIFE currently uses neutral race.notoriety and I know of no mod or script that can cause a conflict. The real question here is why the Egosoft developers didn't provide a clean and sensible wrapper for doing this in the first place, all the data structures and code are already in place to support MSCI <-> MD communications through commands such as "MSCI:set homebase" and "MD:{object.ownedships.count@object} {object.ownedships.num@object}" or "MSCI:temporarily remove from wing MSCI:add ship to flight wing" and "MD:{wing.ship.count@wing} MD:{wing.ship.num@wing}"

I am playing a mod that probably uses the other races that you try to use for signalling. I suspect, but am not certain, that LIFE is monkeying with race reps in my game. So a "safer" signalling mechanism might be a nice enhancement, for those playing unusual mods.

LIFE doesn't monkey with anything and most certainly doesn't monkey with race reputations, it uses the available MSCI and MD functionality in the most efficient and reliable fashion possible to provide not only a signalling mechanism between the MSCI and the MD but also a way of passing a collection of data between the two. As I stated earlier, LIFE uses neutral race.notoriety for the signalling between the MSCI and the MD, if there is a conflict between one of your mods and LIFE because of this it can be changed. I suspect that there isn't.

[DrBullwinkle]

Poor choice of words; my bad. I didn't mean anything challenging... I just meant "changing". As I said, I am not sure that the issue I ran into is related to LIFE. It's just that LIFE is the biggest unknown (to me) in the installation.

Carry on.

[Centurion2008]

Yup the News works great, i sit in my home sector, and read the news!
when something interesting comes up I go and check and sure enough there is something to kill there, and then read about me killing it latter lol .

so far no problems, I started a new game with life and my mod, and so far no problems with vanilla missions, only one left is to end the war, and i dont want to end it yet, i like the to hear the smack talk in the war sectors.

"Split Pilot" All Hail the Mighty EgoSoft haha Rhonkar

to funny why the smack talk is not in vanilla is something i dont understand!

[Shush]

Yup the News works great, i sit in my home sector, and read the news!
when something interesting comes up I go and check and sure enough there is something to kill there, and then read about me killing it latter lol .

That's pretty much how I envisaged people using it.

to funny why the smack talk is not in vanilla is something i dont understand!

Completely agreed, there is a lot of unused audio in the X3 data files which I have tried to make available through LIFE. Unfortunately there is a lot of trial and error in determining which audio files actually exist and a lot of hacks within LIFE in enabling and using the more esoteric ones.

The Egosoft developers seemed to have started out using an orthogonal, clean and simple to access speech system, but as patches and new versions of X3 were released, audio files were added in a non consistent or haphazard fashion.
e.g.

• - Basic forms of communications missing, i.e. greetings, acknowledgements, etc.
  - A consistent and usable lego system; the speech system was designed so that you can string a few phrases together to build more complex phrases, but was implemented only partially and seemed to have been abandoned very early on.
  - Speech text added to all races, but some races missing the actual audio. You can only work out which ones are missing by laboriously mapping it yourself manually in the game's script editor.
  - Hacked and inconsistent races such as Goner, Terrans and Pirates; they should have been completely separate variations accessible in the same way as the other races.

You can explore the Speech data within the 0001-L044.xml file by searching for the string "variation "

LIFE 0.90b has some enhancements and additions to it's speech engine. There is a lot more variation in the mayday's and smacktalk, races/pilots that are capable, (shield and hull damage speech is limited to certain speech pages and hence pilots), are now able to elicit when their hull is breached and ships of little class will now more accurately whine about missile lockon's.

[Shimrod]

A news article reporting on one of my battles said I suffered a minor defeat losing 4 ships, but all I lost were fighter drones. There's an argument to say drones should be excluded from the tally, I tend to regard them as expendable.

[hourheroyes]

Having them not count towards leveling kills would be cool too. Or at least to have an option for that

[Shush]

A news article reporting on one of my battles said I suffered a minor defeat losing 4 ships, but all I lost were fighter drones.

I had a filter in the news generation module that should have filtered this event, the only way that I can see that it could be bypassed is if a mod added a new type of drone.

I've moved the filter to signal.killed and now check for the base class [drone] which will catch all drone types. I've also added an option to control it, "Disable or Enable Drone News Events:", in Configuration -> News.

There's an argument to say drones should be excluded from the tally, I tend to regard them as expendable.

I'm not sure if you're asking me to add a configuration option or if you have spotted something in the code, either way 0.90b should do what you need it to do.

Having them not count towards leveling kills would be cool too. Or at least to have an option for that

Currently "Disable or Enable Drone News Events:" enables/disables drones for both news generation AND leveling kills, so I inadvertently provided you with what you needed before you even asked for it

In 0.91b I'll separate that option out into two options, one under News for the controlling of drone news events and one under Leveling for the controlling of leveling from drone kills.

[Centurion2008]

@Shush

Thank You as always great release you never fail to surprise me with new features.

Laughing Pilots after a kill PRICELESS!!!!!

new vid in the works

[PDouma39]

@ Shush
Thanx for the great update.

[hourheroyes]

Great way to wrap up my weekend, right here. Thanks so much for your work on this, as always.

[Shush]

Thank You as always great release you never fail to surprise me with new features.

Thanx for the great update.

Great way to wrap up my weekend, right here. Thanks so much for your work on this, as always.

Cheers guys

new vid in the works

Looking forward to it.

[Centurion2008]

@Shush

Well since the Zenon have been pushed back to there core sector, this is there last stand, and last shipyard.
now they will repopulate there other sectors so i can make a nice fluid youtube vid.
but bonus this is life with a very heavy load of capital ships in one sector, if you hear a ship with wrong voice to name dont worry its not your code, with codea seems i have to release the ship from codea and fly it in space then do a life reset, not sure i got them all.

http://tempsend.com/494CDB458D

video/mp4 - 473.49 MB
6 days 23 hours 59 minutes until expiration
Attention many Zenon where harmed in the making of this video.
Enjoy

[Shush]

http://tempsend.com/494CDB458D

video/mp4 - 473.49 MB

I tried 5-6 times over the last 3 days to download your video and it was corrupted every time.

I haven't had any troubles downloading files from other sites, so I don't think it is my end.