[MOD] Salvage Mod V2.2 (March 29)

[kmardis]

I have some questions: If you have a ship on auto salvage and it finds a “good” or “damage” ship, how does it salvage it? Will it just take the cargo? Will it claim it for you? If it claims it for you, does it send it to the nearest shipyard or what?


I was wonder if you would consider including the following ideas in your next release:


Salvage scout:
This can be a M5 – M3 that screams around sectors looking for salvage opportunities. When it finds one it does one of the following:
It contacts the closest Salvage Tug (M6, TL, TP, TS) to come and salvage. (This is a auto salvage setting)
Send a message to player giving the following choices: Send this Tug…, Send closest Tug, On my way [player ship]. (if you have several scouts, but a one/few tugs then the request will be queued)
It will wait around to maintain your “claim” on the salvage until the tug or player shows up and then take off to hunt some more.
Maybe options to have the scout attack any of the competition, if they come near.

Salvage Tugs.
TL, M6, TS, or TP can be tugs.
Options on how to handle salvage: (Always salvage everything possible, or just get the ship.)
Will re-supply up to a predefined amount of drones and energy (for jumpdrive). If installed, will use jumpdrives.
Options on how to handle the savage. (Sell, notify player)
Will have a station sector that it returns to while waiting for scout to find salvage.



Great mod, I was able to find a husk of a transport and a damaged Nova Sent within a few hours.

[Malakie]

Hi,

I installed the new 1.3.01 beta patch and when I run the game it pops up a message to me saying there is a problem with the salvage mod and therefore it says it will stop it from executing.. When I check the plugins, sure enough the salvage part of your mod is disabled now. I cannot get it to activate again so something in the new patch did something.

Everything else I have installed, including the others parts of your mod and other scripts seem to be working fine.

Malakie

[AalaarDB]

I have downloaded the patch and am about to install it after I make a backup.
Most likely, the patch has overwritten file 06.dat.
Follow the directions on the EMP for updating.

[Blinki1984]

Do Pilots also exit ships if AI is fighting each other, or only if you fight them?

If they don't it would be a great idea to add it, this way I could salvage more ships

[AalaarDB]

You are talking about capturing ships. Capturing and salvaging are different things. Capturing was implemented by Egosoft and involves combat between the player and other ships. Salvaging involves any salvager and any derelict spawned by my script.

I am not going to do that. It would require something that is almost guaranteed to break other people's scripts.

[Malakie]

I have downloaded the patch and am about to install it after I make a backup.
Most likely, the patch has overwritten file 06.dat.
Follow the directions on the EMP for updating.

EMP??


never mind.. found it.. Extended mod pack.

Malakie

[kapitul8r]

When i first started using the salvage mod i was getting salvage messages every 30mins or so. Now it seems as though i get messages about every 24hours of game time. I wondered if there was a maximum number of derelicts spawned at one time, and should you not find them no more are spawned until you do? Im not sure if this spawn rate is normal or if i need to re-install the mod?

Is there a sneaky way to find derelicts i havent found? Ive heard something about a script in the editor you can use?

[AalaarDB]

This is as it should be. There are up to 20 messages out there, check in sectors you don't normally go to. There are no messages for capital ships, special ships, or alien ship.

You've found the easiest to reach, now go a bit farther and get the better things.

Turning off, waiting, turning on the mod will cause all derelicts to be destroyed, and you'll have a fresh new batch. But you stand the chance of losing a few capital ships.

[kapitul8r]

Thanks! I noticed i seemed to get more messages when i moved sector more often, but i didn't realise it was new sectors I also assumed that there were messages for all the derelicts (although i think its good there arent) will definitly get some autosalvagers goin now then i think to find the last few

Would also just like to say thanks for writing the mod...it has added a whole new dimension to X3 for me, and also for helping me through my many r******* noob probs. Cheers!

[999-JAY-999]

Pilots supposed to be unknown objects ???

Just wondered, could you not be able to give them names ???





Thanks.

[AalaarDB]

Well they are supposed to be dead...

[999-JAY-999]

ooohhh hahaha.... no no no, sorry I meant that the ships that go around space as salvages like myself.....

A Salvage M3 say...... it flies about looking for loot yes ???... like me...

Thing is... (same applies to another script on this board ironically)... the pilots are UNKNOWN OBJECTS....... a man/woman with no name so to speak.

[Cycrow]

if you dont use one of the main races, then when spawning ships it doesn't give them pilots names, so you have to assign them urself

the same was true for yaki pilots

[999-JAY-999]

oooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I had missed this nugget of info before now.......


tar very much... just wondered.

[MegaBurn]

I downloaded a decent selection of scripts, EMP, and the capship rebalance mod but I'm having some problems. I've tried troubleshooting, reinstalling everything, rereading everything, and starting a new game. I can't find the problem and now my only option is either ask for help or just give up on using a few of these scripts.

Sorry if this is a bit long but its a rough snapshot of my current setup. I'm not really sure where to post it but I figured I would start here since the Salvage mod is the script having the most problems at this point.


Installed Scripts
All of Cycrow's Scripts (CycrowsScripts.spk)

AalaarDB's Scripts:
- AStar Pathfinder Commands (AStar_Sector_Pathfinder_Commandsv1.2.spk)
- CCM Framework (CCM_Framework_v1.1.spk)
- Salvage Mod (Salvage Mod v1.5.1.spk)
- Station Manager (Station_Manager_1.09.spk)
- Escort CCM (Escort CCM V1.zip)
Note: Can you compile your mods into a multipack like Cycrow's mod pack?

LV's Scripts:
- Heavy Assault Capture Tech (hat.spk)
- Escort (escort1.5.spk)
- Self Repairing Hull Technology (hrt1.1.spk)
- BBS Plugins (bbs.offers.spk)
- Treasure Hunt (treasurehunt1.2.spk)
- Race Response Fleets (jtp1.5.spk)

Terra Corp:
- TerraCorps Combat Pilot Project 1.43 by Myros (cpilots.zip)
- Task Force Command 1.03 by Myros (cpilots_taskforce.zip)
- Fighter Base Commander V1.10 by dwgh (FBC110.spk)
Note: These all work together.

Other:
- Bulk Transporter Upgrade by al_main (Bulk_Transporter_Upgrade_v1.10.spk)
- Complex Manager by Naffarin (complexmanager.zip)
- Sector Takeover 1.7 by acrh2 (SectorTakeover_v17.zip)
Note: The first two are really small and shouldn't conflict with anything, but Sector Takeover seems to be little more than a resource hog at this point.


Installed Mods
{EMP} (Extended_Mod_Pack.zip)
Capital Ship Rebalance with Cockpit Callback (CapitalRebalance-CockpitCallback.R1.0.zip)


Possible Conflicts
- Escort CCM and LV's Escort mod, but everything appear to be working correctly.
- Terra Corp mods and Cycrow's capship crews, but I haven't tested that yet.
- Salvage mod and something else, no clue what.


Problems
Note: I'm getting no major error messages, just seemingly "normal" debug log entries. All tasks show "null" after the name.

- Salvage Mod: No license is available, only "Credits Upgrade" (costs 28 credits). When I activate the monitor comm command under custom commands, the auto pilot activates and my logbook is flooded with messages - but nothing related to salvaging. I'm also getting a large number of "you are being hailed" audio clues but no logbook entries, and seemingly no other by to reply to the hails. This seems to be a conflict with something else but I'm not sure what.

- Escort Missions: The AI is overly aggressive in its attacks and some of the early missions seems to spawn overly powerful ships. It just "B lines" for the ship I'm trying to protect while completely ignoring me unit the escorted ship is destroyed (even if I use up all available weapon energy, half a dozen missiles, and even ram it). This isn't a problem with M5's but my 3rd through maybe 10th missions were all failed simply because a Buster just cannot kill a M3 (Nova/Falcon) before it kills the ship I'm trying to defend. For what ever reason I only saw M4/M5 attackers after that (~10 missions) and now I'm not getting attacked at all (e.g. past ~15 missions were basically free money, nearly half a million credits).

- General BBS: I'm not getting as many posts as I expected, but this may be due to something in the engine limiting it to the normal 6 to 8 posts. I was hoping for upwards of a dozen at a time with maybe 25% repeats from one station to the next depending on station type.

- Economy: It seems to stagnate more rapidly with everything installed. I'm not sure if thats a factor of the added generic civilian ships, new NPC's, or something else. It seems like these masses of ships desend on equipment docks like locusts, I flew around for a few hours and all trading stations and equipment docks were pretty much out of stock. This happened before, with no mods installed, but it took almost a week of regular game play for the economy grind down. So this seems like a problem with the game thats just accelerated by installing these mods, is there another mod availabe to fix this? Like add more independent trader NPC's to keep the trading stations and equipment docks better stocked (e.g. 20-50% stock rather than 0)?


I'm not getting error messages, just "normal" looking stuff in the debug menu. I don't know how enough about X scripting to troubleshoot this but if someone can tell me what to do I'll put in the time to do it. I'm also hoping this eliminates a few bugs in these mods so other people don't run into the same problem.


EDIT:
What ever problem barrymid was having seems to be happening with my setup too, but I've read everything, twice. I don't think I missed anything but I might try starting from scratch, again, just to triple check. Thing is its a waste of time if this is a bug and not "user error" on my part.


Thanks,
-Burn

[Cycrow]

not sure about the problems with the salvage mod, but i quite often get 25+ articles in my BBS
with all those scripts installed, you should c a fair number in the BBS

[MegaBurn]

Yeah, thats what I was hoping for. Just stuff to make the game world seem more alive. I think I might add the TycPack to that list too. I like the BBS setup and always having something else to do.

Are there any script tools or maybe other scripts available that might catch conflicts/bugs? The only things I've found on these forums are more for script/mod development than debugging. I've tried poking around the files a little but I just don't know enough about how the X3 engine works, so its kind of pointless.

Does the main storyline make any difference? I started a new game with the story enabled, then after finishing the first patrol mission, I started checking to make sure everything was working (and salvaged the hauler in Merelous Frontier). Is it possible that something early on in the storyline is conflicting? Right now I don't think the mission is active, I have to dock at the Goner Temple to trigger the second mission. That still wouldn't explain the problem with the salvage mod though.


Thanks for the fast reply,
-Burn

[AalaarDB]

If you have credits for sale, most likely you haven't installed the EMP correctly, or possibly you are using a very old version of Salvage Mod.

Turn off SM, wait a minute, install SM and EMP, turn on SM.

[MegaBurn]

No effect. I've already tried disabling/enabling the scripts but that only causes weird stuff to happen. I think something broke EMP and that might be causing the problems.

I did discover the Capship rebalance mod wasn't updated for the 1.3 patch because about half the mod is covered in the patch. I disabled and then deleted it but that had no effect either.

Right now I'm reinstalling X3, checking the other scripts to ensure they were updated for the 1.3 patch, packaging five non-SPK mods into SPK, and waiting for a pizza. Then I'll run X3 once, install the patch, run it again, install EMP, install Cycrow's mod pack, install the CCM framework, install the salvage mod, and start a new game. If everything works at that point I'll selectively install the rest of the mods. I can't troubleshoot the scripts directly but with a clean slate I can narrow down specifically which mods cause the problems. Its a pain in the ass but the only way to be sure, without troubling everyone on here with my problems.

I'll report back in a few hours.


Thanks,
-Burn

[MegaBurn]

Took me THREE HOURS to actually find a scrap yard to verify it said salvage license rather than credits for sale... Anyway, problem resolved, sort of - I still don't know what the original problem was and as long as its working I don't really care to find out either.

Current Installed Scripts:
- Cycrow's mod pack
- CCM Framework
- Salvage Mod

Current Installed Mods:
- EMP

One more question, I was taking a look at the script and it seems the scrap yards would sort of randomly rotate when the script is activated. I don't fully understand how this works, the code makes sense but I have no clue what the rest of the stuff in the XML file means. So, if I deactivated/reactivated the script a few times could I just use that as a method of picking where I want the scrap yards to show up, or is there something else in there that determines which stations can be converted into scrap yards?

Finally, an idea, as an alternative to having the repair drones be "used up" during the salvage process, might it be possible to add a cargo bay to the drones and require that they have repair kits and power cells onboard instead? Then just make them standard repair drones to repair anything, from wrecks to normal ships to stations. They would be far more useful and the price tag for salvaging ships would be about the same. If the drones used the power cells as fuel then they would be dead in space after the power cells are used up, so they could turn into something else to salvage.

If the same were done for fighter drones then maybe those could be left for salvage too if their owner leaves them behind. That would add a new tactic to combat, just get the fighter drones to follow you a bit and just wait for their power cells to run dry, capture them, and transfer over new power cells. There are some other interesting possibilities adding different drone types but thats a bit beyond the scope of this script.


Thanks,
-Burn