[SCRIPT] Military Base Response revamp v2.16 [2011-10-27]

[paulwheeler]

Welcome back Thisisharsh!

I'm a big fan of MBRR so it's great to see it's very few issues will be fixed.

The main issue for me is that the default rearguard tokens number is ridiculously high which, I believe has led to people getting huge numbers of rearguard ships spawning, which in turn puts people off the script.

I run with rearguard tokens set to 120 and that seems plenty. I have also shortened rearguard patrol time to stop the rearguard ships hanging around, and also the token regen time a bit.

Other than that, it does exactly what it says on the tin.

one other thing, can you set it so that once MBRR takes control of a jobs military ship, once it's mbrr job is complete, can mbrr send it back to it's original sector? With XRM, we have hand placed military jobs. mbrr utilises them, but then leaves them where they end up and doesn't return them to their home sector, leaving that sector undefended.

Oh - and for some reason, with XRM, mbrr seems to take quite a while to start working at the start of a game. The bbs reports come in, but it doesn't start deploying ships till after an hour or so game time.



edit - sorry, one more feature request...

Can we have the ability to set invasions per race? There are already loads of xenon invasions going on in the XRM jobs, so it would be nice to have race invasions on and still use mbrr xenon military bases to defend their sectors, without them also starting invasions.

Also, khaak mbrr?


edit 2 - again sorry...

regarding jumpdrives, when mbrr takes control of a jobs military ship, can it check for the existence of a jumpdrive and install it if it's not there (and ECs)? XRM uses CWP to equip it's ships and this doesn't always put jumpdrives in military jobs ships, which means you end up with the ships having to traverse sectors to get to where mbrr tells them to go, making the response rather slow.

[ThisIsHarsh]

Thanks guys for the warm welcome.

@Paulwheeler: thanks for the suggestions...

I will modify the Rearguard token defaults as you suggest. Can you recommend any specific numbers (for regen time and patrol time)?

I will see what I can do to have jobs ships return to their home sectors quicker.

The lack of jumpdrives and the fact it takes a while before stuff starts happening are probably related. One of the first things ships do is buy a jumpdrive (and generally resupply) when they come across an ED or military outpost.

I will look at adding a per-race invasion setting. Good idea.

Cheers.

[corhen]

Great to see your back, Thisisharsh, i have been using your mod for a couple days now and loving it!

Just wanted to chime in and say "keep up the good work"

hope the argon eventually respond to the Xenon attack in black hole sun

Corhen

[Happyblue]

Glad to see you are back working on this. Big fan of your mods. The issue I am having with MBRR is the xenon emmisery mode. Ive slaughtered a ton of pirates adjacent to 101 that have {x} next to thier names and am at over 1k rep but when I try to ecs a xenon military base (yes I have it enabled in AL settings) nothing happens.

I've seen other people post issues with Ecs not working in this thread as well, could be something to look into. OR maybe I just can't figure out how to get those cold and distant machines to like me.

[ThisIsHarsh]

@corhen: thanks man.

Glad to see you are back working on this. Big fan of your mods. The issue I am having with MBRR is the xenon emmisery mode. Ive slaughtered a ton of pirates adjacent to 101 that have {x} next to thier names and am at over 1k rep but when I try to ecs a xenon military base (yes I have it enabled in AL settings) nothing happens.

I've seen other people post issues with Ecs not working in this thread as well, could be something to look into. OR maybe I just can't figure out how to get those cold and distant machines to like me.

Yeah, Xenon Emissary mode is a little underdeveloped and suffers a couple of bugs I need to iron out. It's a plugin in it's own right if done correctly, so needs a lot of attention. I hope to move on to sorting out the issues in that. I am tempted to just disable it for the time being, but if people are using it and having fun, then I will leave it in, but don't expect the next update to fix the issues with it.

Having said that, ECS *should* work with Xenon Military Outposts, so I will at least look into that.

I just want to fix the Kha'ak 841 sector bug and give individual race options for invasion behaviour first. I am nearly done with that (fixed Kha'ak bug and done menu options, just need to reference the menu options in the actual AI scripts).

[Archangel07]

One thing I've been wondering is where exactly are the Xenon military bases that you can flag with the ECS? I've seen their normal stations in the Xenon sectors, but have yet to come across any actual military bases...

If you have the time or interest, I think it would also be really cool to have some form of Kha'ak invasion system like the Xenon one. That'd be sweet.

[abinas]

I would like to know if anyone else is having this problem

For me the xenons are wiping everyone out no matter how I set things, I tried setting their tokens to x1, that had no effect so then set everyone's tokens to 600 still the xenons are unstoppable.

What I see are the xenons attacking in descent groups and the other races sending in ship unsuitable for assault (carriers and escort class craft) and sending those in one at a time to get mauled, they always leave me alone and then I get mauled. but for the most part the xenons are taking most of the systems unchallenged since it seems everyone's ships are tied up or destroyed with their single minded assaults on the pirates.

[ThisIsHarsh]

@Archangel07: have you enabled Xenon Military Bases in the Artificial Life options?

As for Kha'ak, I would like to do that, but to do it properly would be a whole project in it's own right. I need to get what is already on my todo list fixed first.


@abinas: the new version I'm about to post might help by giving more config options. Other than that, I have never really had *too* much of a problem with Xenon. They expand their territory quite rapidly, but are eventually stopped by the other races.

[ThisIsHarsh]

Update v2.14

Updating:

1. Install the new JSON parser library v1.2 (thread), if not already done so.
2. Install latest version of this plugin.
3. In the game, open the config menu and hit "Install/update".
4. Recommended (especially if you experience menu problems or general wierdness), open the config menu and hit "Reset options to default", then reconfigure as you like.

Added race-specific menu options to control invasion and sector takeover behaviour. Check OP for details.

Fixed Kh'ak 841 spawning bug. Was annoying egosoft bug where the command "find nearest military outpost" would prefer outposts in sectors with no gates(!).

Rebalanced default Rearguard settings to half of what they were. So max tokens are halved, but regen time is also halved, so the balance is similar. The patrol time is also halved to reduce spamming.

Ships called far away from their home sector for defence will attempt to jump back home once finished (if they can't jump then they will patrol back in that general direction).

Added seperate menu option to enable/disable ship spawn fix in conquered sectors.

[Scoob]

Hi ThisIsHarsh,

A big Welcome Back! It's good to see you back on the forums.

Really appreciate your continuing work on this script...I'll be firing up TC later just to try out your updates

Cheers,

Scoob.

[NOValdemar]

Hey ThisIsHarsh,

Could you possibly release the new version of MBRR and JSON / No Wrecks in file format (scripts/T files ect) alongside the SKP document? It would make it simpler to install with XRM and also help any person who like myself is on a mac and cannot open the newer types of SPK files....

awesome mod btw

[abinas]

Woohoo! Thank you for this, I will give it a try

[joelR]

Update v2.14

Updating:

1. Install the new JSON parser library v1.2 (thread), if not already done so.
2. Install latest version of this plugin.
3. In the game, open the config menu and hit "Install/update".

Added race-specific menu options to control invasion and sector takeover behaviour. Check OP for details.

Fixed Kh'ak 841 spawning bug. Was annoying egosoft bug where the command "find nearest military outpost" would prefer outposts in sectors with no gates(!).

Rebalanced default Rearguard settings to half of what they were. So max tokens are halved, but regen time is also halved, so the balance is similar. The patrol time is also halved to reduce spamming.

Ships called far away from their home sector for defence will attempt to jump back home once finished (if they can't jump then they will patrol back in that general direction).

Added seperate menu option to enable/disable ship spawn fix in conquered sectors.

Hey ThisIsHarsh,

When installing with the plugin manager its showing as being version 2.13 still. Just an FYI.

[ThisIsHarsh]

Hey ThisIsHarsh,

When installing with the plugin manager its showing as being version 2.13 still. Just an FYI.

Cheers for that, reuploaded with correct version number. A minor niggle.

[ThisIsHarsh]

Hey ThisIsHarsh,

Could you possibly release the new version of MBRR and JSON / No Wrecks in file format (scripts/T files ect) alongside the SKP document? It would make it simpler to install with XRM and also help any person who like myself is on a mac and cannot open the newer types of SPK files....

awesome mod btw

I will package them up as an archive asap. 4am and bedtime for now though.

[Archangel07]

Seeing a few weird things so far, in the various new invasion settings, the names of the races are sometimes replaced with things like "8", "1", or "null". Specifically, the race names Argon, Terran, and Xenon, respectively. This appears to sometimes occur after using the "install/update" function.

It also seems that invasions occur far less frequently than before. Any idea what's up with that too?

[Yacek]

Seeing a few weird things so far, in the various new invasion settings, the names of the races are sometimes replaced with things like "8", "1", or "null". Specifically, the race names Argon, Terran, and Xenon, respectively. This appears to sometimes occur after using the "install/update" function.

Also, I noticed it. But in the new game is OK.

[ThisIsHarsh]

@Archangel07 and Yacek: try hitting "Reset options to default", see if that helps. It won't affect your game, just reset the menu options, which you will then have to reconfigure as you like.

You guys have installed the latest JSON parser, yes?

I will investigate if there are updating issues. It may be that "Reset options to default" will be necessary for the update process.

Thanks a lot for the bug reports.

[Yacek]

You guys have installed the latest JSON parser, yes?

Yes, of course.

@Archangel07 and Yacek: try hitting "Reset options to default", see if that helps. It won't affect your game, just reset the menu options, which you will then have to reconfigure as you like.

Reset solved the problem.
Thank you.

PS. Again, after two years, playing with your script. I hope that XRM + MBRR will be a good duo in my game.

PS2. If you are interested in adding the Polish translation of the script, write to me PM.

[ThisIsHarsh]

I failed to reproduce the menu bug mentioned above. Here is what I did to test:

1. Installed previous MBR v2.13.
2. Started a new game using XRM mod (plus addons) and a bunch of other scripts.
3. Changed some options.
4. Saved and quit game.
5. Installed latest MBR v2.14.
6. Started savegame.
7. Opened config menu. All options were fine. Hit install/update. Still all options fine. Quit menu and re-entered. Still all options fine.

So I'm not sure what causes this menu bug.

But at least we know a workaround. Thanks Yacek for confirming that fix. I will add it to the update instructions in my post above.

@Yacek: I am very open to people doing whatever they want with my plugins. If you would like to translate, then feel free to do so.