[MOD-TC]Ship Rebalance Mod:Continued v1.10b (27/6/11): Now Discontinued...

paulwheeler · Post by **paulwheeler** » Fri, 17. Jun 11, 22:35

THE FUTURE
---------------

I thought I'd let you all know what is going to happen with the future of this mod.

Yes, I am working on XRM. It will be a stand alone merge of the SRM and CMOD. It will have new features including racialised weapon loadouts, several new weapons and lots more. It will require a new game.

I'm not going to go into details on the new features as I don't want to announce things if they subsequently don't come off, and also because I like surprises! But rest assured, there will be enough new content to make it worthwhile transitioning from the SRM. As I'm not bound by keeping save game compatibility, there are lots of possibilities to enhance the mod.

There will not be loads of addon packs like the SRM. I want to keep it all as straight forward as possible and as close to the vision of a mod that I actually want to play. Most things will be merged, although hull packs and cockpits will still be optional.

I have just fired off the first Alpha to Mizuchi to test. He is very involved in some of the new features of XRM, so you can expect his usual high standards.

Time is very much of the essence. I want to play XRM. I want to play it to death before Rebirth comes out and we all stop playing TC, so I will keep dev time to an absolute minimum. At the moment I'm thinking a few weeks. Of course, this is subject to whatever delays and real life issues get in the way.

As for the SRM. I may do one final release with a few more fixes in, such as the centred Zeus and Odysseus Mk1s and anything else I come across while working on XRM. The same goes for the CMOD 4 too. Of course, I won't be putting any of the new features in the SRM, simply because it can't be done easily. This is why I'm creating it in the first place.

So in a nut shell, XRM is on course and its going to be great! (I hope)

djrygar · Post by **djrygar** » Fri, 17. Jun 11, 22:39

paulwheeler wrote: First point - a better option is to make these traders use superfreighters which are XXL compatible

well, superfreighters are kinda not suitable for hi-traders. Forcing particular jobs-file is not really good idea, especially if Vkerinav's require EES.

XXL TMs seem good idea for me at least, perhaps it will mess their compatible weapons range a bit but nothing game breaking I guess

paulwheeler wrote: Second point - Another good call I think... should be relatively easy to implement. I'll put it in XRM and SRM if I do another release.

well, two entries in WareLists made it. there are several awkward ships like sentinel M3s that use same ware entry like big ships and they also get cargo life ss but I may live with that

paulwheeler · Post by **paulwheeler** » Fri, 17. Jun 11, 22:50

djrygar wrote: well, superfreighters are kinda not suitable for hi-traders.

why not?

Mizuchi · Post by **Mizuchi** » Fri, 17. Jun 11, 22:56

djrygar wrote:especially if Vkerinav's require EES.

It doesn't require CWP or EES. It just has built in support for those scripts.

It's optional. The Jobs file function exactly the same with or without CWP or EES installed.

djrygar · Post by **djrygar** » Fri, 17. Jun 11, 23:03

well, they are very slow and have huge cargo;
this means they are suited for EC-hauling or other wares like food/ore etc
ordering them to fly with 1 piece od PPC and 9000 empty cago seems irrational for me

as they are slow, they are also very easy targets OOS.

but that does not matter; as I wrote, changing just TMs will keep compatibility with other jobs

Mizuchi · Post by **Mizuchi** » Fri, 17. Jun 11, 23:05

djrygar wrote:as they are slow, they are also very easy targets OOS.

...but they have thicker hulls and far better shielding, and the speed is only relatively slower. Kind of balances it out.

I know which one I'd rather have hauling my expensive heavy weapons around (hint: not the one made of glass).

Sorkvild · Post by **Sorkvild** » Sat, 18. Jun 11, 01:35

paulwheeler wrote:
Sorkvild wrote:Now I see what you mean. Ported X2 ships are dwarfish. One time I noticed the same situation and I was wondering, hell, why they are shooting in front of him. After seeing this I was more determined to dump all X2 from tships and then I stopped using them.
Its not the size, but the fact the models are not centred in the scene. It ONLY affects the Odysseus and Zeus Mk1s.

I will try and centre them next week.

Nevertheless they are smaller than their new counterparts, right ?

paulwheeler · Post by **paulwheeler** » Sat, 18. Jun 11, 01:39

Yes... but then they are old designs.

A5PECT · Post by **A5PECT** » Sat, 18. Jun 11, 02:44

Sorkvild wrote:Nevertheless they are smaller than their new counterparts, right ?

It's a sort of unusual advantage. They're less shielded than Mk2's, but they're slightly harder to hit (or in the Paranid's case, much harder to hit).

OOZ662 · Post by **OOZ662** » Sat, 18. Jun 11, 07:21

Mizuchi wrote:
djrygar wrote:especially if Vkerinav's require EES.
It doesn't require CWP or EES. It just has built in support for those scripts.

Version 4 will, if it ever gets fixed.

aiday · Post by **aiday** » Sat, 18. Jun 11, 10:55

I've just been downloading the v1.10 files and found three links that don't seem to work. Please can someone have a look at this,
thanks,
moi

http://www.thexuniverse.us/downloads/cm ... TRAILS.zip
http://www.thexuniverse.us/downloads/cm ... 0STATS.zip
http://www.thexuniverse.us/downloads/cm ... 0STATS.pdf

OOZ662 · Post by **OOZ662** » Sat, 18. Jun 11, 11:05

aiday wrote:I've just been downloading the v1.10 files and found three links that don't seem to work. Please can someone have a look at this

The X Universe website has about a 50% uptime for some reason. Check back in a day or two.

paulwheeler · Post by **paulwheeler** » Sat, 18. Jun 11, 12:12

aiday wrote:I've just been downloading the v1.10 files and found three links that don't seem to work. Please can someone have a look at this,
thanks,
moi

http://www.thexuniverse.us/downloads/cm ... TRAILS.zip
http://www.thexuniverse.us/downloads/cm ... 0STATS.zip
http://www.thexuniverse.us/downloads/cm ... 0STATS.pdf

The stats don't work becauseci forgot to upload them.

Not sure why the other link isn't working.

Ill try and sort them today or tomorrow (v. Busy today)

djrygar · Post by **djrygar** » Sat, 18. Jun 11, 16:55

OOZ662 wrote:
Mizuchi wrote:
djrygar wrote:especially if Vkerinav's require EES.
It doesn't require CWP or EES. It just has built in support for those scripts.
Version 4 will, if it ever gets fixed.

thats right
and I must tell, since I installed ees/cwp, my IR broke up.
all of sudden perfectly valid scripts that worked for years just crash without any indication. I never seen something like this before (I'm not 100% that CWP.EES is reason, it just started to happen at the time when I installed it)

i just finished making new installation without srm jobs/ees and will investigate whats going on. Seems pretty hard to track as scripts are terminated by engine without any information. As for now I only found when it happens, no idea why.

paulwheeler · Post by **paulwheeler** » Sat, 18. Jun 11, 17:46

I doubt its a problem with CWP. CWP and EES are not the same thing. CWP is much simpler.

dienadel · Post by **dienadel** » Sat, 18. Jun 11, 21:22

Hi, I've got a quick question about SRM, and a kind of an idea for XRM...

first, some of my ships (eg. PX) have an issue with unremoveable IREs installed on their turrets. I remember vaguely of reading about this, these ships were from a previous installation of SRM (I think I had 0.90, upgraded to 1.01, then to 1.09), and if they got changed (like, extra turret guns), they have this issue; but I can't find that post again. Is there a quick solution for this problem? Right now I'm thinking of scripting-in copies of each ship, transfer the equipment, delete the old ones, but they are quite a few and if there's another faster solution I'd be glad to apply it instead.

----

As for my suggestion, I thought of it when I considered installing SSRP. I haven't (yet) because I find it a bit too extreme, some changes are more annoying than challenging to me (like making some SW XL-sized or more, I mean, it's software).

Although, I really like the idea of not letting the player jump all around the galaxy with a fighter. Also, our real-life fighters are short-ranged, require a base to operate, and definitely don't have much extra room for luggage... everything is optimized.

So my idea it to take a fighter, let's say a Perseus, consider a typical loadout, add room for a few missiles, and that's it. Say, limit cargo to 50. Even w/o missiles, if it's full of weapons and has max shields, it has barely enough room to jump 1-2 sectors away.

This is less extreme than making the cargo class of a jumpdrive XL. An M3 can fit a jumpdrive, just it's range it reduced. And you can emergeny jump, just not too far away.

There's also some kind of flexibility, if you want extra room for ECs, you can strip some military equipment off. If you fell more like an explorer and not a hardcore dogfighter, you don't need all those weapons, right? Drop them, use a single 25MJ shield, 4 IREs, and you have an almost civillian version of an Perseus, with extended jump range.

BTW, instead of just reducing cargo space that much, you can get the same effect by increasing lasers & shields size at the same time... which I think it's a better idea. Double all sizes, and make the cargo of a Perseus something like 100. With a full loadout, it has very little room for ECs. A minimally equipped one, tho, is able to jump 7-8 sectors. Or, use the extra room for missiles and you have a bomber version... Bombers being long-range not engaging kind of ships, it doesn't matter if they don't have heavy weapons on board.

It makes things a bit more challenging at the beginning, and makes it worthwhile to buy a TM as a mobile base for your fighter (or with a TS and an extra Jumpdrive, you can load the weaponery on the TS and jump in your M3, having the TS follow you - refuelling after each jump. It works better with a Transporer Device, tho).

This is for M5/M4/M3 only, of course. Any thoughts?

A5PECT · Post by **A5PECT** » Sat, 18. Jun 11, 21:24

dienadel wrote:first, some of my ships (eg. PX) have an issue with unremoveable IREs installed on their turrets...

Download the cheat pack. It comes with a command that clones an existing ship, right down to its installed equipment and the contents of its freight bay. However, it will create the new ship using the data from the latest cat/dat file, so the clone command can be used to "update" individual ships that use the stats of a previous version.

The cheat pack is really more of a debugging tool when you get into modding. It fixes 90% of the problems caused by updating or otherwise changing installed scripts and mods.

Wintersdark · Post by **Wintersdark** » Sun, 19. Jun 11, 01:59

Without a doubt, the cheat pack is the most useful, must-have mod I've ever used. Not for outright cheating, but for bug-fixing when using various other mods.

Takes a bit of self control, perhaps, but it's best to think of it as the Game Toolbox as opposed to "Cheats".

Osiris454 · Post by **Osiris454** » Sun, 19. Jun 11, 02:48

6. Added missing weapons from Teladi front M6 TCockpits entry to remove missile compatibility from Osprey Sentinel.

Are you sure? They still have the front missile launcher turret. I'm using a new game with a fresh installation BTW.

dienadel · Post by **dienadel** » Sun, 19. Jun 11, 05:45

KloHunt3r wrote:
dienadel wrote:first, some of my ships (eg. PX) have an issue with unremoveable IREs installed on their turrets...
Download the cheat pack. It comes with a command that clones an existing ship, right down to its installed equipment and the contents of its freight bay. However, it will create the new ship using the data from the latest cat/dat file, so the clone command can be used to "update" individual ships that use the stats of a previous version.

The cheat pack is really more of a debugging tool when you get into modding. It fixes 90% of the problems caused by updating or otherwise changing installed scripts and mods.

Thanks for your answer. I downloaded and installed the Cheat pack, and tried the clone command.

Meanwhile I wrote a script that clones a ship, and managed to attach it to a hotkey and it's actually faster than with the Cheats pack. What my script doesn't do is to clone Union pilots, and CODEA/MEFOS personnel and configuration. If the 'clone' command supports that (I haven't tried it on CODEA carriers yet), I'll use it for capitals. BTW, it does clone the nonexisting IREs into proper wares (which I have to get rid of - curiously my script doesn't copy them). Maybe I'll just borrow the code and copy it into mine.

The question was if there's a better solution ready... say I have 200 ships to fix, it gets quite boring to clone one a time. Expecially ESTs, CAGs and the like, or caps with all CODEA configuration. If LV cheats don't support those, and if I can find the time to dig into CAG/EST/CODEA etc. code, I may write a single script that clones all ships that need to be fixed (I already have one that detects buggy ships - it goes thru all ships of mine that have an IRE installed, tries to switch it off the gun, if it fails it's a buggy turret), still is quite a good amount of time to invest. Expecially studying all other scripts configuration... I have to copy every single local variable, and there's no way to get a list (that I'm aware of), other than reading each script (well, luckily most of them already have copy/move pilot, I can borrow those pieces of code maybe).

I just was hoping such a script was already out there...

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

[MOD-TC]Ship Rebalance Mod:Continued v1.10b (27/6/11): Now Discontinued...