[MOD] Core shields 1.10 (Boarding fix)

[dingutis]

I've done almost the same thing more than a week ago, the difference of my mod is that it transforms the existing surface shields to cover the hull also, and total shield strengh was depended on number of shield generators
(taranis has 17 generators 100k each = 1700k shield), shield regen multiplies also. if generators are destroyed, no shield will be protecting the hull
it's here: http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=353728
if you want, you might add it to your mod.
btw, in my mod there are no local shielding, only one big shield with multiple generators, so you cannot destroy anything on surface without taking down main shielding.

[seedee]

In my own Hull Shield mod, I notice that the game doesn't "layer" the shields as some might expect. Rather the Hull shield just protects the Hull from damage while surface elements are still exposed. I.e. I can still attack and disable say the jump drive or individual weapons on a given ship, once I've brought the local shielding down.

If yours do that, it's actually what i'd longed to see for a long time
It always bugged me that weapons inside a ship-wide shield could fire outside of it

[Bobucles]

Creating actual core shield equipment slots likely means I have to make new wares. It means descriptions, factory compatibility, freighter compatibility, and the ability to purchase them for your ships. It'll take a TON of experimentation to get any of this done; I get a headache just thinking about it. Until then, default gear is the way to go. It's kind of why I call them "core" shields, as they are hard wired into the ship. Think of it as hull integrity if you like.

It was actually quite funny sending my test Taranis against a station and it's ships when it had a 10gj shield fitted

By 10GJ, are you using the X3 scale which means 10 million health? That would more than triple the Taranis' endurance!

I suppose I should explain my stance on the matter. Core shields are not for absorbing capital fire, and it's not meant to nullify a proper station defense. I don't think it's a good idea to have capital ships go through a significant battle without taking some kind of damage. Core shields are only a stopgap so you don't have to fear crappy OOS raiders from wearing down your fleet(of course it would help if ships defended themselves, but that's for another mod). Taking 10K damage here and 50K damage there adds up. A little bit of frequently used shields will negate that and make patrols worth while.

The core shield will give you some breathing room when a ship gets worn down to 10% and you have to frantically get it repaired, but it won't let your ship enter another major battle. Stuff like that is how Xenon Q's rampaged across the X3 universe. Broken ships should be easy pickings.

I deliberately kept shields light: 15K/40K/150K/400K for most ships. The Arawn has a super slow 1mil, and the Xenon has a fast 600K. That makes the core shield about 5% for civilian ships and 10%-20% for war ships.

The way that surface shields work is that you have to break the shield before you can damage the component. Core shield regen is slow and easy to suppress. If you can break the shield, there isn't much point going after the generator. If I could change that (like having the component unprotected ), it'd be really cool to have core shield generators as ship targets. I'll try doing the Arawn, because it's an annoying shield and flying inside is fun. But without extra options there isn't much reason to do any other ship.

In my own Hull Shield mod, I notice that the game doesn't "layer" the shields as some might expect. Rather the Hull shield just protects the Hull from damage while surface elements are still exposed. I.e. I can still attack and disable say the jump drive or individual weapons on a given ship, once I've brought the local shielding down.

Shields have a "group" property that shares damage with all turrets in the same group. The hull does not have a group, so an ungrouped shield only protects the hull. I don't think it's possible to have it both ways.

I kind of like it, because it gives a nice general purpose protection combined with a focused turret protection. The overall shield combo on a ship is nothing to scoff at.

I've done almost the same thing more than a week ago, the difference of my mod is that it transforms the existing surface shields to cover the hull also, and total shield strengh was depended on number of shield generators
(taranis has 17 generators 100k each = 1700k shield), shield regen multiplies also. if generators are destroyed, no shield will be protecting the hull

Careful with how that works. Try launching a novadrone at a turret cluster on that ship. It'll probably deal absurd shield damage because of splash damage multiplying across the surface elements.

My concern was that in my only paritially upgraded Skunk, I take out surface elements in seconds...seems a little over-powered to me.

Surface elements are stupidly fragile, like 1K health compared to a surface shield's 50k/100k/150k. It's probably better to buff the turrets a bit rather than protecting the whole ship.

[Grimm Spector]

I don't like the idea of having strong shields over the whole hull while also having component bases shielding.
Ideally a mod that used day the jump drive shield as a hull shield so it could be disabled or left off. And provided light shielding to civ ships (stop those single fighters random hits but not a real effort from 1 or 2 fighters to take it on). And moderate ones for military ships, something that requires 4 or 5 ships to burn through with basic weapons.

Actually, I did exactly that in my mod - Bobucles and I appear to have been doing a parallel development here - however, I actually switched to doing it a similar way to him. Reason being, it just seemed to work better. Plus, I hate adding things that only the Player seems able to take advantage of. I.e. the AI will in no way be able to target a specific component like the player can. I might re-visit this in case it IS possible to tune the AI for such behaviour - after all, I recall Egosoft saying how we'd be able to command our ships to take out specific systems and the like - but I'm doubtful.

I think the main difference between my mod and Bobucles, is that I've been a little more generous on the shielding, especially on Military ships. Still subject to balancing of course. It was actually quite funny sending my test Taranis against a station and it's ships when it had a 10gj shield fitted and I'd ONLY tweaked the Taranis at that point. Still, it was nice to see it not ripped apart in seconds by the stations own defences.

I'm actually NOT posting my mod up as I planned, Bob beat me to it by a few hours and I don't want to upload something that's so similar out of respect to his work...and him being a jammy git beating me to it of course

Scoob.

If the AI had a reasonable targetting script, I see no reason why it couldn't, an X3TC style rewrite of the combat AI could instruct ships to target shields, and engines, and the like, just like they used to only disable shields for boarding if commanded to.

Also, I think Stations should rip things apart that aren't large fleets, or lots of hacking and carefully staged.

One last note, it frustrates me that I cannot click on and target surface structures on ships I own, only on NPC owned ships...

[Bobucles]

Also, I think Stations should rip things apart that aren't large fleets, or lots of hacking and carefully staged.

Stations use the same surface weapons as everything else, except for one. The Platform targon tracer has huge range and good damage. If the platform could rotate(they're always given wide berths), it could at least keep its gun directed against enemy capitals.

I've never seen a military outpost in game. They would have been a great option to repair capital ships, house much of the military merchants/crew, and obviously be doom fortresses armed to the teeth.

One last note, it frustrates me that I cannot click on and target surface structures on ships I own, only on NPC owned ships...

The targeting UI leaves plenty to be desired. Ideally, you can get everything done with one "target" button, and having the information icons filtered by your scan mode.

[Scoob]

Morning Bobucles,

Heh, you're right, that 10gj on a Taranis was over-kill for sure. However I was just having some fun. Also, it does amaze me the pure damage output of your average station. Big ships go down so very quickly when they get in close so multiple "wings" of the station get LOS and open fire.

My idea of balance is slightly different to yours, so I've gone for much heavier shielding in general. I wanted to get some epic cap ship battles going, with them engaged for many minutes rather than just a couple. Additionally, the larger trade ships can regularly be carrying millions of cr worth in cargo, so I decided to keep them fairly well protected too.

I'm still tweaking the balance in mine of course, though I quite like it at the moment. I went through the shiplist provided by Roguey & tried to balance ships shields accordingly. Only the largest mother ship has the largest shields now, smaller ships have lesser shields. Frigates have a fairly small shield (by my scale) but they charge a little faster. Additionally, when one of my shields is taken out, there is a long cycle before it begins to charge again.

Cheers,

Scoob.

[Earth Ultimatum IV.]

SHIELDS or FREE REPAIR AT STATIONS, thats what this game needs.
Combat-oriented capital ships are ABSOLUTELY useless in player hands, because when those ships meet a single god damned scout drone, you have to pay millions for repairs of your capship, which is absolutely r*******.

[Bobucles]

Silly ultimatum. You can't pay to repair ships. That requires shipyards which work properly!

Big ships go down so very quickly when they get in close so multiple "wings" of the station get LOS and open fire.

It's pretty surprising how much damage those short range turrets can dish out. Perhaps another mod can look at that.

My idea of balance is slightly different to yours, so I've gone for much heavier shielding in general. I wanted to get some epic cap ship battles going, with them engaged for many minutes rather than just a couple.

I guess if you like that... but having ships shoot each other for several minutes without doing any damage just doesn't sit right with me. You can always make battles last longer by increasing hull health or reducing turret damage. The length of a battle is a simple matter of health divided by damage output.

[Scoob]

For me, I enjoy the fact that the larger ships keep fighting when many of their surface elements are destroyed. In some testing I did, I'd see unshielded cap ships blow because their hull hit zero, yet their turrets were still largely intact. With heavier shields I see cap ships that look quite heavily damaged with smoke coming from destroyed surface element, yet they keep fighting with what they have. Looks more epic to me. Also, a cap ship dead in space has the chance to do some degree of repairs and get back in the fight with good hull shielding.

Just personal taste, plus I hate the fact that (once fixed) I'd need to spend millions in hull repairs on my ships after simple skirmishes. I've also noticed that fighters seem to target surface elements very successfully - I've seen my ships with a badly damaged hull yes, but equally no surface elements remaining. This lends its self to my vision of capital ships slogging it out, while nimble fighters and drones buzz around targetting each other and surface elements.

Doubtless I'll continue to tweak my balance, if the AI gets smarter I'll tweak it some more.

Btw: I've not checked to see if weapons have a separate Hull and Shield damage value like prior games. It always used to be that things did MUCH more shield damage than hull damage, but I suspect that's changed.

Still, modding keeps me busy while we wait for v1.18

Scoob.

[MutantDwarf]

I guess if you like that... but having ships shoot each other for several minutes without doing any damage just doesn't sit right with me. You can always make battles last longer by increasing hull health or reducing turret damage. The length of a battle is a simple matter of health divided by damage output.

The way I'd prefer it is for anti-capital weapons to have damage that partially ignores shields. I think that's possible in the X-Rebirth engine, but I'm not sure anything actually uses it; experimentation would be necessary. If you're interested, look into the 'shield' and 'hull' flags in the bullet macros (assets/fx/weaponfx/macros) - they're visible on only a few weapons, like mg_player_macro.

[Bobucles]

The way I'd prefer it is for anti-capital weapons to have damage that partially ignores shields.

I think you can. From what I can tell about damage:

Code: Select all

value = straight damage, used for most things. hits shields first, then hull.
repair = apparently useless.
hull= bonus damage that pierces shields. Can also be used for repair (but is still considered hostile)
shield= bonus damage against shields only. Recommended for ion type weapons.
delay = Lol I dunno.
rate = ??????
    <multiplier mining=""> A subset of damage, only seems to exist for the mining beam.

Missiles seem to be the exact same thing except for splash. I don't know how to change splash range or damage falloff, as no missile seems to have such a property. Missile weapons use explosion damage, energy weapons use damage. They don't seem to be interchangeable.

Code: Select all

<explosiondamage
   value= raw damage
   shield = bonus against shields only
   hull = piercing damage against hull

If you want leaky shields, that requires rewriting all the weapon damage values in the game.

[Scoob]

Heh, just looking at that too Lots of editing to be sure...think I'll leave that for now...well, try to...the longer the next patch takes, the more I tweak stuff it seems.

Btw: not sure if you noticed during your edits, but certain ships have components, like Engines, under "Connection01" which means they are effective protected by a shield also on that connection. Usually, they have their own distinct group, whereas Connection01 is of course the "hull".

The Titurel is an example of this, I think it's a minor bug, as some engines are exposed, others not. Easy to patch out if you so desire.

Scoob.

[Bobucles]

Nono, don't play with that. The ship's <macro ref="part" connection="GOOD"> points to the part's macro file, which points to the part's component file, which contains the list of viable connections. If you set an invalid connection in the ship's <macro ref="part" connection="BAD">, the game explodes.

Edit: Yeah, it took me a few hours to figure that one out.

You might be able to play with the component file, and see what a connection's "tags" do.

[Scoob]

Nono, don't play with that. The ship's <macro ref="part" connection="GOOD"> points to the part's macro file, which points to the part's component file, which contains the list of viable connections. If you set an invalid connection in the ship's <macro ref="part" connection="BAD">, the game explodes.

Edit: Yeah, it took me a few hours to figure that one out.

You might be able to play with the component file, and see what a connection's "tags" do.

I'll test further, but my slight tweak seems to have worked, said engines are now exposed & only protected by their own local shield. It was just a quick edit mind, so possibly I have gotten it wrong. It's the macro file I'm editing, so:

"\assets\unitszsize_xl\macros\units_size_xl_cargo_hauler_2_macro.xml"

Scoob.

[MutantDwarf]

The way I'd prefer it is for anti-capital weapons to have damage that partially ignores shields.

I think you can. From what I can tell about damage:

Code: Select all

value = straight damage, used for most things. hits shields first, then hull.
repair = apparently useless.
hull= bonus damage that pierces shields. Can also be used for repair (but is still considered hostile)
shield= bonus damage against shields only. Recommended for ion type weapons.
delay = Lol I dunno.
rate = ??????
    <multiplier mining=""> A subset of damage, only seems to exist for the mining beam.

Missiles seem to be the exact same thing except for splash. I don't know how to change splash range or damage falloff, as no missile seems to have such a property. Missile weapons use explosion damage, energy weapons use damage. They don't seem to be interchangeable.

Code: Select all

<explosiondamage
   value= raw damage
   shield = bonus against shields only
   hull = piercing damage against hull

If you want leaky shields, that requires rewriting all the weapon damage values in the game.

Excellent. That's about what I figured, but I hadn't tested it.

Using this kind of thing seems like a pretty good idea, then, though it's more for a massive overhaul mod than anything else.

What I'd really like to see is something using this that makes it so anti-capital ship torpedoes have a 'lock on' time depending upon the target's shield strength - you can't fire the torpedo until the target is locked. The torps would then mostly or completely ignore shields. Meanwhile, fighter weapons wouldn't ignore shields at all and thus would be pretty bad against heavily-shielded capital ships.

It should make the combat much more like, say, Wing Commander or Freespace, which I think is a good thing. I just hope there can be some way to make 'lock on' times and graphics once UI editing is possible.

[imung]

Capital ship shields are CRUCIAL for this game.
Without them, player has to play millions of credits if his destroyer meets a simple M5 scout craft and takes some hits. Which makes all fighter-oriented capital ships absolutely ineffective.

Iam totally sure that Egosoft has to implement this mod into their game.

And there is no jump drive for your skunk...

[SieurNewT]

this is a nice mode, maybe small shield should have a delay = 1 or 2 seconds only ? as they already die so fast, some help could be good...

[Earth Ultimatum IV.]

Capital ship shields are CRUCIAL for this game.
Without them, player has to play millions of credits if his destroyer meets a simple M5 scout craft and takes some hits. Which makes all fighter-oriented capital ships absolutely ineffective.

Iam totally sure that Egosoft has to implement this mod into their game.

And there is no jump drive for your skunk...

It´s good that there is no jump drive for Skunk. You can still dock at capital ship and jump with it.



A little update, in 1.19 the engineer can repair the hull of capital ships. But only up to 75%. Luckily its quite fast.

[Bobucles]

New 1.05 mod! It's a tiny typo which makes the nividium ship work again. I think. I've seriously never seen one, I just tweak the file because it's there.

this is a nice mode, maybe small shield should have a delay = 1 or 2 seconds only ? as they already die so fast, some help could be good...

The Skunk is faster, stronger, and deadlier than just about everything else in the universe. A shield mod is not going to fix that. Look around for the hard mode mods, there should be one somewhere.

A little update, in 1.19 the engineer can repair the hull of capital ships.

Ugh. Tell me about it. IMO it has TWO major problems, very conveniently given in the same post:

only up to 75%.

A 75% ship is good enough for anything. This is not a handicap.

Luckily its quite fast.

Which brings us full circle to early X days, where ship integrity was tied to a single quickly healing shield bar.

It's really quite stupid. You will never have to repair your ships. EVER. Paying money for free things is a sucker's game. Just get more ships and win with superior numbers. It works all the time every time(given sufficiently functional levels of AI).

[Earth Ultimatum IV.]

You will understand once you will have to pay 2000 000 credits just because your Arawn has met a pirate M5. Which happens quite often.

A real life killer. Makes you want to suicide. Having to to spend a shitload of cash for repairs of a ship just because of a crap pirate scout hit it with one burst of laser fire, every two-three gameplay hours - a giant pesk.