Auto station and scouting script (need help)

WesternGunman · Post by **WesternGunman** » Sun, 15. Dec 13, 19:20

Hey all,
I've been trying to figure out how to write a script that I can assign to small ships that I own. Their sole purpose would be to fly through all known sectors and scan/refresh the stations. I envision it to be similar to the explorer command software from TC/AP.

I'm hoping to pull the ears of some of the experienced modders in our great community. This will be the first attempt I will be making for an X mod. Any and all help is appreciated.

So how do I get started? Meaning is a mod like this even possible in X-R?
Thanks

Post by **UniTrader** » Sun, 15. Dec 13, 19:57

working on this too with another approach. here is what i have and which works so far:

Code: Select all

      <do_all exact="this.station.usedbuildslots.count" counter="$i">
        <show_notification caption="this.station.usedbuildslots.{$i}.group" details="[ this.station.usedbuildslots.{$i}.sequence , this.station.usedbuildslots.{$i}.stage , this.station.usedbuildslots.{$i}.tags , this.station.usedbuildslots.{$i}.primary , this.station.usedbuildslots.{$i}.name , this.station.usedbuildslots.{$i}.child ]" timeout="3s"/>
        <set_object_scanned object="this.station" sequence="this.station.usedbuildslots.{$i}.sequence" stage="this.station.usedbuildslots.{$i}.stage" scanner="player.primaryship.scanner"/>
        <wait exact="4s"/>
      </do_all>

it scans a building stage of a station completely, although the first part (the initial sation without upgrades) is missing. and it doesnt reveal Trade Offers/Ports or Platforms, but this should be solveable, too ^^

WesternGunman · Post by **WesternGunman** » Sun, 15. Dec 13, 20:42

That seems to be limited to player.

I think I have a couple things to work with.

Several items to solve:
How to write a script that will work for any ship.
Determines which stations need scanned
Set course for said station and sector.
Scan the station, whether in parts or as a whole. Including trade offers.
How to assign script to a ship. (will this need to be tied to the UFO project?)

Am I forgetting anything?

Post by **UniTrader** » Sun, 15. Dec 13, 20:49

dont judge a code by its looks

this is in fact executed on a seperate NPC which is on the Station to be scanned

he just uses the Scanners of the Playership because i didnt get to the part where i install Scanners on the NPC yet (and it works even if the Player is somewhere diffrent so until the scanning part works completely its low prio)

and besides: i am not writhing this Code for your project, i am giving you what i currently have on this from my project.

WesternGunman · Post by **WesternGunman** » Sun, 15. Dec 13, 21:15

lol indeed, indeed.

I'm less than a novice at X modding, so reading into how a piece of code can be used is beyond my grasp currently. As i'm a programmer by trade, I just need to get a grasp on how things work in the big picture. ( I think i need to re-read the how to mod pages a couple more times) Reading XML is easy enough, but knowing how it will work when combined with the whole, is a whole other animal.

Post by **UniTrader** » Sun, 15. Dec 13, 22:12

ok, just a small update on this: made code cleaner and now scans the Base Station, too ^^ (as it seems the base Station is stage 0 and does not need a sequence attribute, so scanning it seperately)

Code: Select all

  <show_notification caption="this.station.name" details="[ 'Sequence X' , 'X / X' ]" timeout="3s"/>
  <wait exact="4s"/>
  <do_all exact="this.station.currentbuildplan.sequences.count" counter="$sequence">
    <show_notification caption="this.station.name" details="[ 'Sequence '+ this.station.currentbuildplan.sequences.{$sequence} , 'X / ' + this.station.currentbuildplan.{this.station.currentbuildplan.sequences.{$sequence}}.stage ]" timeout="3s"/>
    <wait exact="4s"/>
    <do_all exact="this.station.currentbuildplan.{this.station.currentbuildplan.sequences.{$sequence}}.stage" counter="$stage">
      <show_notification caption="this.station.name" details="[ 'Sequence '+ this.station.currentbuildplan.sequences.{$sequence} , $stage + ' / ' + this.station.currentbuildplan.{this.station.currentbuildplan.sequences.{$sequence}}.stage ]" timeout="3s"/>
      <set_object_scanned object="this.station" sequence="this.station.currentbuildplan.sequences.{$sequence}" stage="$stage" scanner="player.primaryship.scanner"/>
      <wait exact="4s"/>
    </do_all>
  </do_all>
  <show_notification caption="this.station.name" details="[ 'Base Station' , 'N/A' ]" timeout="3s"/>
  <set_object_scanned object="this.station" stage="0" scanner="player.primaryship.scanner"/>
  <wait exact="4s"/>

the "show_notification"s are just Info for developing purposes.

currently still does not yet reveal Docking Platforms or Trading Ports/offers, but will work on this, too ^^

WesternGunman · Post by **WesternGunman** » Sun, 15. Dec 13, 22:36

you have

scanner="player.primaryship.scanner"

in mastraffic.watchdog.xml it has

scanner="$target"

and in Drone_Scan_Hack.xml it has

scanner="player.controlled.scanner"

and several other references to

scanner="player.primaryship"

I wonder what the difference is.

Post by **UniTrader** » Sun, 15. Dec 13, 22:50

it determines which scanner to use when revealing something - some scanners are better than others

but seems only to work with existent objects & their scanners (additionally in case of player.primaryship.scanner (not sure about the variant without scanner) it makes a short scanning animation on the HUD Haircross and highligts the scanned parts for a moment)

hint: there is a tutorial how to set up eclipse for Scripting/modding

it displays the documentation delivered with the .xsd files while writing scripts

(although i dont use it currently, i prefer lighter programs)

darthmoll · Post by **darthmoll** » Sun, 15. Dec 13, 22:54

UniTrader wrote:it determines which scanner to use when revealing something - some scanners are better than others but seems only to work with existent objects & their scanners (additionally in case of player.primaryship.scanner (not sure about the variant without scanner) it makes a short scanning animation on the HUD Haircross and highligts the scanned parts for a moment)

hint: there is a tutorial how to set up eclipse for Scripting/modding it displays the documentation delivered with the .xsd files while writing scripts (although i dont use it currently, i prefer lighter programs)

please. point the way to that tutorial. i did see it somewhere. but now i dont know where.

mrowka · Post by **mrowka** » Sun, 15. Dec 13, 22:57

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... ht=eclipse

darthmoll · Post by **darthmoll** » Sun, 15. Dec 13, 22:59

thank you. that is the one i was looking for.

YorrickVander · Post by **YorrickVander** » Tue, 17. Dec 13, 21:04

If the player has trade software installed, wouldn't scanning the base structure of the station in that way automatically update the trade info? I'm barely understanding how mods are made atm, so can't test this for myself.

Post by **UniTrader** » Tue, 17. Dec 13, 21:17

thats worth lookin into, but its not a must work.. especially because we are revealing the Station per script (and with that there seems to be no range limit of the PS Scanner which indicates this works diffrent)

and i am currently btw a bit stuck with this, my current approach would be that the NPC deals out special offers exclusively for the Player (price depends on Relation, Storage and NPC XP) because it seems i cannt set the knowntoplayer value - either its exclusive for the player or he has to discover it (just by judging the command syntax, didnt try it yet)

YorrickVander · Post by **YorrickVander** » Wed, 18. Dec 13, 02:10

Making a little progress into modding tonight. I borrowed some code from NESA to add a menu item and used this code :

Code: Select all

<cue name="GTN_FindValidTrades" instantiate="true" namespace="this">
      <conditions>
        <event_cue_signalled />
      </conditions>
      <actions>
        <!-- Current state - Finds the buy + sell orders and can scan the station remotely. Does not update trade window with trade software from remote scan of station -->
        
        <!-- Read the list of stations made by a renamed copy of NESA_FindValidStations and scan the base element -->
        <do_all exact="event.param.{2}.count" counter="$i">
          <show_notification caption="event.param.{2}.{$i}.name" details="[ 'Base Station' , 'N/A' ]" timeout="3s"/>
          <set_object_scanned object="event.param.{2}.{$i}" stage="0" scanner="player.primaryship.scanner"/>
        </do_all>

        <find_buy_offer result="$lBuys" tradepartner="player.ship" multiple="true" />
        <show_help custom="'Found %1 buy offers.'.[$lBuys.count]" />

        <find_sell_offer result="$lSells" tradepartner="player.ship" multiple="true" />
        <show_help custom="'Found %1 sell offers.'.[$lSells.count]" />

        <reset_cue cue="this" />
      </actions>
    </cue>

the number of sells and buys for the players zone seems correct, but scanning the station base with your code doesn't update the trade window with trade software installed.

EDIT :

Adding these lines as test case

Code: Select all

        <do_all exact="$lBuys.count" counter="$i">
          <show_help custom="'%1 (Buy) @ %2'.[$lBuys.{$i}.ware.name, $lBuys.{$i}.owner.name]" />
          <set_object_scanned object="$lBuys.{$i}.owner" stage="0" scanner="player.primaryship.scanner"/>
        </do_all>
        
        <do_all exact="$lSells.count" counter="$i">
          <show_help custom="'%1 (Sell) @ %2'.[$lSells.{$i}.ware.name, $lSells.{$i}.owner.name]" />
          <set_object_scanned object="$lSells.{$i}.owner" stage="0" scanner="player.primaryship.scanner"/>
        </do_all>

confirms the validity of gathered orders, although the trade owner points us back to station not a trade node and the order to scan does nothing

YorrickVander · Post by **YorrickVander** » Wed, 18. Dec 13, 03:11

@ WesternGunman

Sorry fella hijacking your thread a bit here

To go with the scan zone loop in the code above this is the modified FindValidStations cue I used to check all stations whether previously discovered or not

Code: Select all

<cue name="GTN_FindValidStations" instantiate="true" namespace="this">
      <conditions>
        <event_cue_signalled />
      </conditions>
      <actions>
        <!-- Then we can start looking for stations -->
        <set_value name="$oSpace" exact="player.zone" />
        
        <find_station name="$lStations" space="$oSpace" multiple="true" >
          <match_distance object="player.primaryship" max="9999km" />
        </find_station>
        <show_help force="true" custom="'Found %1 stations within %2m of the player.'.[$lStations.count,9999km]" chance="0" />

        <!-- here we are doing an insertion sort -->
        <create_list name="$lStationsSorted" />
        <do_all exact="$lStations.count" counter="$i">
          <set_value name="$iIdx" exact="1" />
          <do_all exact="$lStationsSorted.count">
            <do_if value="player.primaryship.distanceto.{$lStations.{$i}} > player.primaryship.distanceto.{$lStationsSorted.{$iIdx}}">
              <set_value name="$iIdx" operation="add" />
            </do_if>
            <do_else>
              <break />
            </do_else>
          </do_all>
          <show_help force="true" custom="'Inserting station %1 (%2m) at index %3.'.[$lStations.{$i}.name,player.primaryship.distanceto.{$lStations.{$i}},$iIdx]" chance="0" />
          <set_value operation="insert" name="$lStationsSorted.{$iIdx}" exact="$lStations.{$i}" />
        </do_all>

        <!-- Set the return value and reset cue -->
        <set_value name="event.param.{1}.$aReturn" exact="[$lStationsSorted]" />
        <reset_cue cue="this" />
      </actions>
    </cue>

Hope that helps with your mod. Code of course is Mad_Joker's not mine. I just meddled with it.

Post by **UniTrader** » Thu, 19. Dec 13, 19:11

ok, i have a way to unlock Trade Offers for the Player. it is a temporary solution and probably needs some modification because it may cause errors:

Code: Select all

      <find_sell_offer seller="this.station" multiple="true" result="$SellOffers" />
      <do_all exact="$SellOffers.count" counter="$i" >
        <add_trade_offer object="player.primaryship" tradeoffer="$SellOffers.{$i}"/>
        <show_notification caption="this.station.name" details="[ $SellOffers.{$i}.owner , $SellOffers.{$i}.ware , $SellOffers.{$i}.amount , $SellOffers.{$i}.unitprice , $SellOffers.{$i}.knowntoplayer ]" timeout="3s"/>
       <wait exact="2s"/>
      </do_all>
      
      <find_buy_offer buyer="this.station" multiple="true" result="$SellOffers" />
      <do_all exact="$SellOffers.count" counter="$i" >
        <add_trade_offer object="player.primaryship" tradeoffer="$SellOffers.{$i}"/>
        <show_notification caption="this.station.name" details="[ $SellOffers.{$i}.owner , $SellOffers.{$i}.ware , $SellOffers.{$i}.amount , $SellOffers.{$i}.unitprice , $SellOffers.{$i}.knowntoplayer ]" timeout="3s"/>
       <wait exact="2s"/>
     </do_all>

with this Code all Trades of the Station are also available on the Playership and therefore known to the Player. it may cause trouble if someone wants to sell to the Playership, so i would suggest to create a new Player Object (Ship) inside the respective Station and add Trade Offers to this Ship - to be in the Tradelist it just has to be available on some player Object, so if you want to remove this offer from the Trading Menu remove it from the Ship

Credits: eMYNOCK the Guy who said "yes"to the question if the Player knows all offers from Stations he owns

Post by **UniTrader** » Sat, 21. Dec 13, 21:08

adding info how to get Zone Position of an Infopoint: (not sure if it will be useful, but maybe someone needs it)

Code: Select all

<transform_position refposition="$Scan.component.station.position" refrotation="$Scan.component.station.rotation" name="$pos">
 <position value="$Scan.component.position"/>
</transform_position>
<transform_position refposition="$pos" refrotation="$Scan.component.rotation" name="$pos">
 <position value="$Scan.offset" />
</transform_position>

$Scan is the Infopoint and $pos is the Position of it in the Zone (to which Positions are relative in many cases)

YorrickVander · Post by **YorrickVander** » Sun, 22. Dec 13, 04:24

Ran a test of your code on all stations in universe, just 1 log entry -

[=ERROR=] c:\dev\x4\X4\ui\xanark\anarkviewbridge.cpp(129): Too many UIObject updates in the current frame. We already scheduled 120 updates. The update calls will be skipped in order to prevent potential crashes. Either locate the underlying issue causing so many updates, or increase the limit to be able to schedule more updates per frame. [ Stefan ]
(version: 1.22 - Code revision: 179703M)

56 too many! doh. will have to seperate the checks to accommodate large numbers of info brokers building up over time if they all update simultaneously.

Excellent job on this, looking forward to seeing the final result

Reducing the range to cluster left no .log error at all.

WesternGunman · Post by **WesternGunman** » Mon, 23. Dec 13, 21:10

I've been AWOL for a few. Life got busy... you know how it is.

Yorr, I don't mind the hijack since it along the same lines, possibly even a better approach then mine ...considering mine also involves fleet management which is sadly lacking in game.

My questions, is it scanning all stations or just known stations?

YorrickVander · Post by **YorrickVander** » Tue, 24. Dec 13, 00:22

It scans all

Bit of a cheat doing it this way but it's crucial functionality for my approach to doing fast snapshots of the economy to the onboard trade comp