[MOD] Black Market Seminars

[strude]

So here it is, my first ever published mod. Be gentle

Black Market Seminars allows for virtual seminars to be available through black marketeers.

There is only a small chance that a trader will have any given seminar, and at most three copies. Prices for all seminars are between 1 and 2 million credits.

To install, just subscribe through Steam Workshop
Black Market Seminars
Or download from the Nexus
Black Market Seminars

Note that when adding to an existing game, seminar items will not be available until the player changes zones.

To uninstall, just go to any black marketeer and ask them to stop selling seminars. You can then save your game and unsubscribe/disable the extension. Seminar items will still be available until the player changes zones.

Anyway, if it sounds interesting, have a play and let me know what you think.

Mod uses page 777001

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

Nice idea! Nice to have another way to gain these without all the small talk.

[Ezarkal]

Thanks a lot! I'll have fun with this!

[Ezarkal]

It's good and fun, but I think the probability of a dealer having a seminar is way too high. Most of them I've seen had at least one or two, and I saw one with as much as 6 or 7 of them. (no more than 3 of any single seminar, as you said, but it had 3 kinds of them.)

Still, it's a good addon from what I've seen so far.

[strude]

It's good and fun, but I think the probability of a dealer having a seminar is way too high. Most of them I've seen had at least one or two, and I saw one with as much as 6 or 7 of them. (no more than 3 of any single seminar, as you said, but it had 3 kinds of them.)

Would you say the chance of a seminar appearing is too high or there are too many copies available? Or both?

I've set the the chance of each seminar at 15% with each having up to three copies. This was because black marketeers don't appear in the remote trader list, so the player needs to at least go to each station and comm a docking platform to see black marketeers at each station.

[Ezarkal]

I'd say both. Black market dealer are a little harder to find, but not if you know where to look. You can easily find 5-6 in some bigger stations, so it's still very easy to find every kind of seminar.

The way I get it, if they are within the 15% for holding the seminar, then they get a random number of them between 1 and 3, right? Then I'd suggest around 3 to 5% chances for holding seminars. But once again it's your mod, and thus it's your call.

On the other hand, I noticed they have a pretty fair price (1-1.5M each), so it balances out.

Overall it's a great addition, like I said earlier. Thanks!

[strude]

Having played it a bit more, I've decided to leave it as is for now. Most times when I've been looking for a specific one around Albion, it's a bit of a search. Perhaps a bit easier in OL where the stations are bigger, but that's to be expected in a larger economy I would think.

[XenonSurf]

A very good-sensed mod, thank you so much
I think it's still tricky to get what you want and the price is high but ok. A good alternative to the hard minigame.

[EDIT]
It doesn^t work with Marine Officer, that^s too bad...

XenonS

[strude]

[EDIT]
It doesn^t work with Marine Officer, that^s too bad...

XenonS

You mean having the seminar to increase boarding experience? It is available as a ware, but I thought it didn't seem right to allow training for something that is supposed to be experience. It is possible to find a 5 star experience marine officer though, and since you only really need one the entire game, I figured it was pretty reasonable.

Unless you meant something else?

[XenonSurf]

No, I don't mean the MO's Experience, this one cannot - and should not - be trained, only your nr. of boardings will slowly increase it (vanilla).
I mean the 'Combat' training. I've got it and I tried it out inside my Skunk with various NPCs. It would work on a Defense Officer whose skills are unknown yet: the 'Train' tab is active.
But if I tell my MO to show its skills, it won't work on his 'Combat', the Train tab is greyed. The MO is the most critical NPC to be trained, and because of the game impact I wouldn't mind to pay much more (say double) for his training.

I suppose I have to get another train unit by the Black Market Dealer for it?

Please don't consider this to be a lament of any kind, I highly enjoy *any* mod attempt, be it successful or not in the first place. I know there is always room for additions

XenonS

[strude]

Combat seminars should be available. I've seen them in my game. As long as you're aware that one seminar only allows one training, then it's used up. If you want to train twocombat stars, you'll need two combat seminars.

[XenonSurf]

I don't understand you, my MO has 1 star in Combat and i have got 1 Combat training from the dealer (shown in my Inventory too). Are you saying I need 2 units to change my MO from 1 star to 2 stars? And I would need 4 units to change from 3 stars to 4 stars?
This would be very expensive...

XenonS

[strude]

No, just one unit per star.

I don't make any changes to the way seminars work in game. Just make them available through a different channel (instead of having to play the small talk mini game for them)

[XenonSurf]

I have taken a look at the files, I understand now: only the BOLD skills are subject to be changed, like Engineering for engineer, Leadership-Navigation for Captain etc. But why does the Combat not work on MO? It should.

XenonS

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

I can't remember which skills are bold for the MO but only the bold skills are taken into consideration by the game engine IIRC. So if combat is not bold, it was a decision taken by Egosoft and it shouldn't matter from a game perspective how many combat stars they have.

[w.evans]

The Combat skill appears to refer to ship-to-ship combat: targeting, control of weapon systems, that kind of thing. Only NPCs that use them are Pilots and Defence Officers. Hardly a skill that a Marine Officer would be able to use. Although I agree that the skill name is rather vague, but I imagine that Ego wanted to keep it short.

Nice work, strude!

[strude]

Ah yeah, I see where we were getting our wires crossed. It's as Sparky says, only bold skills are considered, and only those can be trained.

I think all NPCs except the engineer have three bold skills. Engineers only have the one skill in bold.

[XenonSurf]

Yes, strude! This means your mod is working perfectly, I was just lured by the skill name

Again thanks for this great work!

XenonS

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

Hehe, I love it when a plan comes together

[XenonSurf]

I could now see it in-game:
The only MO's bold skills are Leadership and Morale.
There is also a Combat skill, but it's not bold and so not intended to be trained, as strange as it sounds
.
So by hiring a MO you really have to look closely to all these secondary skills to be sure to have a good one in the future!
That's it

XenonS