[Mod] Apricot Tree SuperHub v2.01 for TCv3 / New Xenon Incursion version !

[apricotslice]

By mistake in a recent game, I cross connected both sides of the universe using the Hub and really liked the result. It sparked the thought of doing it more completely and seeing what would happen. (Particularly how much trade would improve in my trading dock in the hub sector, with all races going through there.)

I've used 3 of the lesser pirate sectors to create the Apricot Tree, cut off from direct access from adjacent sectors, but linking them to 14 sectors around the Universe, including most of the capitals.

To create a SuperHub, link the 2 gates in Apricot Tree 2 that lead to Trees 1 and 3, to 2 of the Gate pairs in the Hub, and most of the traffic going through all 3 sectors will pass through the Hub as well.

Use your Superhub for your retail ventures.

Beta test available for trial.

Download from my download site, http://apricotmappingservice.com/X3TCdownloads/

File X3TC-Apricot-Tree-SuperHub-v2-02.zip

Install as a mod by unzipping into the main TC folder. Or rename the mod files to the next available false patch number and move in to the main TC folder.

Adds 3 new sectors adjacent to the Hub sector. All named Apricot Tree and a number 1 to 3.

Uses :

text file 8688-L044
x3_universe.xtm.
00749.bod by Sunblade.
jobs.txt used by Xenon Incursion version.

Known issues :
Navigating the nav map is now chaotic using the arrow keys from the new sectors. I suggest mouse clicking on the sectors to select them. Find them with the A key.

Tested with the Merge Mod on a new start, with no obvious problems so far.

Comments welcome. Please test and see if I've missed anything important, or there are any bugs.

I've been asked about merging with other mods. Specifically DDTC, which has an extensively modified map file, making the 2 incompatible.

If someone would like to use this idea within their mod, my changes are limited to 3 sectors and should be easy to merge into your map file. All I ask is that you keep the Apricot Tree sector names (at least for text), and send me a copy of the modified map file, so I can host it next to mine, thus having all versions of it together.

v2.02
Fixed text file issue.
Fixed script issue.
Both versions updated.

v2.01 Xenon Incursion version.
The Xenon have hacked the gate network and now pour into the heart of the race worlds. What are you going to do about it ?
Alternate version of v2.01, do not run concurrently.
Not compatible with other mods using jobs.txt.

v2.01 Xenon Incursion version for Merge Mod add-on.
Install Xenon Incursion zip as the last patch (unzip into the TC folder, rename the mod in the mods folder to the next available patch number and move to the TC folder). Merge Mod should be the selected mod. Then unzip the addon zip into the TC folder, to add jobs.txt to the types folder to override the Merge Mod.

v2.01
Created 3 new sectors adjacent to the Hub sector.
Returned the original 3 sectors to vanilla.
Map debris file no longer used.

v1.02
Moved the gates further apart.
Claimed the Tree sectors for the Player.
Put adv. sats in each Tree sector.
Removed debri from Tree 1
Restart needed from v1.01.
Sat problem fixed.

v1.01
Farnam's Legend renamed Apricot Tree 1.
Bala Gi's Joy renamed Apricot Tree 2.
Olmankslots Treaty renamed Apricot Tree 3.

Tree1 links to Argon Prime, Siezewell, Asteroid Belt, Great Reef, Hatikvar's Faith and Tree 2.

Tree 2 links to Queens Retribution, Kingdom's End, Mars, Omicron Lyrae, Tree 1 and Tree 3.

Tree 3 links to Paranid Prime, Family Pride, Sanctity of Corruption, Nyanna's Hideout, Thurok's Beard and Tree 2.

As can be seen, the opposite gate of many is in a different tree, requiring travel between the trees.

If you join the 2 Tree gates in Tree 2 to the Hub, it becomes a Superhub.

The following gates have vanished : Three Worlds N, Priest Rings W, Rhonkars Cloud N, Atreas Clouds S, Elena's Fortune N, Brennan's Triumph N. As far as I can see, this will just cause rerouting of ships with no adverse effects. Let me know if I am wrong.


-------------Original Message------------------

I remember a while ago seeing a redesign of the HUB sector that I think had extra gates in it, but I cant find it on the sticky list.

I goofed when I first set up the HUB gates in my current game, and linked the player sector to it, then changed my mind about having it freely available to npc's. After I changed the gates to somewhere else, I found what looked like a huge convoy going through a xenon sector that is usually empty. Of course, what happened was that I joined both sides of the universe via the hub, and suddenly stranded a lot of ships a long way from home.

Anyway, from this, I've wanted to use the hub to join up the far flung corners of the universe. I really like having all the races travelling through my hub sector, as it makes having a trading post there very lucrative indeed.

So, the idea is to add in 3 extra gate sets. (Or more.)

Even if they have to be programmed via script or MD hardcoding.

Alternately, can the existing gates be de-paired ?

For example, Argon Prime/Home of Light - I really dont care if the north gate of Home of Light stops working because the south gate of AP goes only to the hub, and its opposite gate in the hub goes somewhere else. Ships will find the long way north to compensate. (maybe the gate has to be destroyed ?

Any ideas or suggestions ?

[s9ilent]

There is an ingame limitation, that the maximum number of 2 way gates in a sector, is 6 (gate 1a 1b 2a 2b 3a 3b) you can however have unlimited 1 way gates (id 0.. or -1 I don't remember)

And the hub sector already has 6 2-ways gates, so short answer no.



At least I think this is the case... It might be different for in game gates, thou map editor'ed ones are limited to this 6.

[apricotslice]

Hmm, ok.

Heres a question then.......

Can the Hub sector be duplicated ?

It would be interesting to see you could daisy chain hub sectors

Or an even more interesting question ......

Could you rig 2 sectors like the hub, 1 sector with 6 gates coming in, and the other with 6 gates going back to the pairs. 1 set of gates would join the 2 hubs.

So you could link in 5 incoming gates into a sector, that joins to another sector that links out to the original destination gates. The pairs just wouldnt be in the same sector.

Take that a step further, could you have the hub sector linking to 3 other hub-like sectors ? Truely turn it into a universe hub. Just add in a few extra sectors around the hub sector to make a super-hub network ?

[dillpickle]

The Hub sector can be duplicated, and daisy chained with no problems...

I was playing about with an idea where I had two hubs linked, with one hub connected to the existing universe, and then nine new sectors coming off the spare gates.

However, the option for realigning gates must be hard coded somewhere (at least I couldn't find it!!) so all gates in subsequent hubs are fixed - unless some scripting wizard can throw something together...

Personally I'd like an option to disconnect a set of gates at the hub, as there are times I don't want all 3 sets connected, but once connected they have to go somewhere...

[Retiredman]

For what it's worth..
I've tried to add extra gates and no go..
(In fact I have added gates thru the mods (jump point) and found you can only have 6 gates per sector (including the sectors with the broken gates - Although the Jumppoint will remove it and you now have a new package to redeploy elsewhere - and you can collect the few broken gates you encounter in the UF sectors.)

I can't remember that particular thread you are refering to.

If you want to depair the gate then you might run into a hard coding problem.

If "Home of Light" is hooked up only, where does the gate that it was originally linked? What happens to that gates connection point.
(Don't know the result if your are succesful with an MD script.)

So - for a workaround.
I once I used the JP to remove the Xenon gate in TUS3. I then added 5 new jumpgates that went to various sectors around the X-verse..(Access to all Commonwealth Main Capital sectors)
2 jumps from Argon Prime to Paranid Prime to Kingdoms End to Family Pride to Seizewell (I think thats the Teladi Capital) 1 Jump from TUS3.

I injected the Hub between TUS2 & TUS3. Should have seen the traffic. Terran weren't to happy with that.They sent in a fleet to cull the trade route ships and any other military ships travelling thru TUS3.
Plenty of spoils were had in that game.

Since then I use an Unknown sector that I have claimed. (Lets use Avarice) Hook it to a different unknown sector that I have, make a direct gate connection between "New Income and Montalaar. Remove and collect the 4 gates flatpacks,
that I disconnected from Avarice and use those for 2 sector connections, plus add three new gate pairs (6 flatpacks) to make 5 fixed gate connections around the verse.
I'm connected to it by my 2nd Unknown and I also can interject the hub and use the Hub's other two pair gates to connect to other sectors around the verse. But be careful, Xenons are like water, they take the least path of resistance(shortest route) for their migrations.

So thats my work around.

If you remove the hub gates then there a possible delinked sector since JP condenses both gates at the same time. Plus I never tried to have 6 fixed gates in the Hub ( the gates don't place them self exactly where the Workin Hub gates were. Super tractor can move the gate but the tractor distance is far enought that you run into the barrier and can't place the gate where the original was. and you can't normal tractor the gate.)
Plus you will probably never be able to realign the Hub gates again, in that game.

[apricotslice]

The Hub sector can be duplicated, and daisy chained with no problems...

How would you go about doing that ?

Is there an MD that created the original Hub, that could be copied and modified to create a new sector the same ?

I dont mind choosing gates to be hardcoded in.

Retiredman, flatpacks ? It rings a faint bell, but I dont remember where. (Apart from being a very powerful bomb in Wing Commander 4).

[Requiemfang]

The Hub sector can be duplicated, and daisy chained with no problems...

How would you go about doing that ?

Is there an MD that created the original Hub, that could be copied and modified to create a new sector the same ?

I dont mind choosing gates to be hardcoded in.

Retiredman, flatpacks ? It rings a faint bell, but I dont remember where. (Apart from being a very powerful bomb in Wing Commander 4).

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... t=#3404155

the mod I just linked had a duplicated HUB sector

[apricotslice]

Just had a look at that. Unfortunately, I cant see where or how its described.

I would have thought an MD was more efficient than a map these days.

Still, if I can figure out how to change the gates, that would be a starting place.

[apricotslice]

Can anyone do an MD to do the following as an example ?

Create a new sector. (Say adjoining the Hub sector).

Create 6 gates.

Link 1 gate to Argon Prime gate to The Wall. Link 1 gate to The Wall gate back to AP.

That would give me a basic frame work for experimenting with joining gates around the place and seeing what happens. Once I have something to follow, I can cut and paste to do the rest (2 sectors with the Hub in the middle when its linked in.)

[dillpickle]

The Hub sector can be duplicated, and daisy chained with no problems...

How would you go about doing that ?

Is there an MD that created the original Hub, that could be copied and modified to create a new sector the same ?

I dont mind choosing gates to be hardcoded in.

Retiredman, flatpacks ? It rings a faint bell, but I dont remember where. (Apart from being a very powerful bomb in Wing Commander 4).

You need a map file to create the sectors, an MD file to load the map etc..., a modified 00749.bod to add sectors to galaxy map and a text file for names etc...
I'll try and email you the stuff I did so you can take a look at the files, and hopefully get an idea of how it works.

[apricotslice]

Didnt egosoft do all the Aldrin changes just using MD ?

[dillpickle]

Didnt egosoft do all the Aldrin changes just using MD ?

Not all of it, the basic sectors are in x3_universe_2.0.xml in the maps file.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

How about this for an idea instead of adding more gates... how about adding an ability to the Hub to re-wire the existing gates.

There was an old bug that meant you could disconnect a gate by connecting to the same gate twice in succession (once to intercede the hub and second to disconnect the gate.

Given this it is probably possible to swap the destinations of two of the sets of gates resulting in those gates being rewired to the other gates destination.

For instance...

Gate Set 1: Xenon Sector 101 to Nopileos memorial
Gate Set 2: Argon Prime to Home of Light
Gate Set 3: (active but either disconnected or connected anywhere)

Apply the gate switch feature (at a cost of 30,000 EC and/or perhaps some other resources) resulting in say:-

Gate Set 1: Xenon Sector 101 to Home of Light
Gate Set 2: Argon Prime to Nopileos memorial
Gate Set 3: (disconnected - original sectors reconnected to each other if necessary)

Using the Hub in this way could (reversably) result in creating clusters of gated systems that are disconnected from each other... want to put an end to Xenon migration for instance? or make the universe more dangerous by spreading the Xenon sectors out so that the migration patterns cover more of the universe?

[apricotslice]

Didnt egosoft do all the Aldrin changes just using MD ?

Not all of it, the basic sectors are in x3_universe_2.0.xml in the maps file.

Ah.

Maybe I'm finally going to have to learn how the maps work.


Roger, I'm not sure that works now. You dont get to specify which gate you want to change, you specify the pair to be changed, and select a gate to replace it with.

[InvrSmall]

You can set up the Hub sector in the Gal editor then using scripts/missions you can destroy/spawn then link gates.

I don't know what affect this will have on NPCs flying through said gates though.

Here's a post I noticed a while ago which might help a bit.
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=284887


.

[apricotslice]

I've had a go with the galaxy editor, and cannot get the map to load, or the MD to work. Reminds me of last time I tried this.

I've got an idea for a Superhub setup using 3 new sectors, each with 6 gates in a ring like the hub, that link to each other, and 7 other gate pairs, with each pair in separate sectors. eg. Argon Prime E links to SH1 and The Wall W links to SH2. etc.

The 2 links that join the 3 sectors are then linked to the Hub, making the Hub into a superhub with most of the universe passing through it.

It needs :

3 new sectors added, with 6 gates each in a ring like the Hub setup.
14 gates changed in 14 sectors.
4 gates in 3 new sectors joined.

I can provide the new sectors locations and t file, and a list of which gate connects to where.

Anyone want to take on the challenge of whipping this up ?

[apricotslice]

I've had another go, and it seems my problem is with the 00749.bod file, which I assume is the jump map.

How do you add new sectors into that ? I dont seem to have a program that will open that file.

[TrixX]

Bod's are text files. Just open in Notepad++ (or notepad...) and edit away

[apricotslice]

Obviously too simple an answer for me to think of.

Edit : Notepad just opens up a gigantic close packed mess. How does one make any sense of that ?

[TrixX]

Don't worry I only found out by accident when I opened one up with notepad as I didn't have the Model Viewer installed