Creative minds wanted....again!

[Kailric]

I would like to add an NPC expantion to the game, that is to create named ships and pilots that go about doing odd or out of the ordinary or even ordinary tasks. These pilots will have a history of there own and a reason for being in space and could lead to side missions when incountered. Kinda like the Goner ships but will be more interactive

I will give you an example...


Trash Man...

This npc flys about in a junked out Goner ship. He is not all there in the head if you know what I mean. No one really knows his origin. When encountered he will rant alot, talking about crazy things, so much so that one would wonder how he manages to pilot his ship. He can be found in almost any non Xenon sectors collecting any kind of floating space debri or abandoned cargo. No one knows yet where he piles all the stuff. Some say he is just a total nut who likes to collect things, some think he is a spy who plays dumb, others believe him to be building a station killing torpedo or some advanced laser weapon. If encountered beware of his ranting.

Hijack Max...

Say your makeing your way to Argon Prime in your shiny new Nova when all of a sudden you find yourself ejected out side your ship! Congradulations you are just another victim of Hijack Max! Rumoured to be just a kid, but a mad genius, but who every it maybe he has somehow learned how to hijack certain vessels this way, then the ship speeds away only to engage its jumpdrive moments latter. Where these ships go is yet a mystery but all we know is a few days latter the ships reappear with some very hi-tech software installed that turns these ships into the Ace of Aces that has even challenged the best that Argon space could send against it. They buzz around the known sectors ramdomly attacking any vessel. To date no lives have been lost though becaue strangely once the victims hull has taken a good beating the captured ships break attack and disappear in the blinding light of the jump drive, only to reappear a few days later in exactly the same spot it was hijacked from in just as good condition as when it left. Some believe this mad genius enjoys the expression of shear terror his victims experience and of just knowing that a few more laser blasts would mean the death of his target, knowing their lives are in his hands so to speak. All we do know is this hijacker must be found and stopped before he gets tired of "just knowing".

These are just a couple...

If you have anymore interesting NPCs you could add to this..maybe from some of your storys and such then post them here or send them to me via PM.

And thanks for any and all your help!

[php]

one thing i would like to have is a way to make the ships in your stations have the max jump option in them rather then the stations, so you ex. can have your ships bying from the same sektor and your selling ship jumping ex max 10 jumps and so forth

[Kailric]

A few things that have been sujested are:

A gate window washer... A ship that frequents gates and will send you a message asking if you want your wield shield cleared of dead spacefly goo

A Pilot Ship.... this ship will lead capitol ships through an Sector...moveing all other ships out of the way so they don't go splat

News Reporters.... these guys show up when ever a big even takes place and take pictures and ask questions....they may pay a good price for Player's side of the story if he is around

just a few more.....

[Tommy Gun]

One character:
Police Inspector Rhimes
He has connections with high ranking people in nearly every race. Generally found in pirate stations making his way through space fuel and space weed. Should you find yourselfs enemy to a certain race, he will offer to clear you name (to a neutral state at least) for a price. From him, you can also purchase a device that fools police ships into thinking that your ship is free of banned goods...

Also, another one...
I posted this in the universe ideas forum, but it's only be looked at by myself, and it kinda of fits what you are talking about, except this a specific character (that would also be a pretty hefty mod in it's self)

The goner priest Simon Re'Haal was travelling through split fire, when if was attacked by pirates that almost destroyed his ship, before stealling it off him, and making him wait 6 hours in his space suit, before a passing Split trader picked him up.
Simon's excitment of his rescue was quickly destroyed, when he over heard the split making arrangments to sell him as a slave to a Paranid Duke in priest's pity. Using the split's comm device, he secretly sent out an SOS call.
Having just arrived in priest's pity, Simon was begining to think all hope was lost, when the Argon Centaur of Lt. Brail arrived.
Brail first tried reasoning with the split, but this was to no prevail. Eventually, he dealt with the split, in the only way that he would understand, and payed almost 100,000 credits for the goner priest.

Simon was contimplating his prediciment, of having being robbed 12 times in the last 2 weeks, having had 16 ships taken from him over the last year and now responsible for putting a good word in with the Goner Priest and Terracorp boss, Mr. Brennan.

The main reason that Simon could understand, for him being such easy prey, was his ship with no weapons. But what if he had weapons he thought...

He knew that the Goner high council would never allow the use of offensive weapons and would turn him away instantly, so he hired the help of munitions and ordinance expert, Mirdo Janus.

Together, they began the research and development of a number of weapons to outfit Simon's ship with.

The first of their incarnations, was the backfire shielding.
This uses large energy capacitors, to absorb the energy within the attackers blast. This would then result in the shields of the goner ship becoming "overcharged" and, unable to cope with the excess energy, release it in a shockwave in all directions. If the attacking ship was still wthin close proximity, then the shockwave would fry his circuits and cause him to lose all power to weapons, shields and propulsion, though causing no actual hull damage.
Unfortunately, this relies on the attacker having used energy based weapons, and not the mass driver or some sort of missile, and secondly, the attacker must be attacking from quite short range.

This lead to the pair developing a second defensive weapon.
The EMP missile is truely a master piece. Equipped with it's own targetting sensors and "intelligent shielding", it scans the enemy ship and works out it's shield frequency and calibrates it's own to match it. This way, it can travel through the shielding of the ship and hit directly on the hull. This close detonation results in maximal effect from the electro-magnetic pulse that follows, once again taking out non-vital systems such as shields, weapons and propulsion.

One of the most effective forms of defence, is the scrambler.
This device hides the ship from other ships scanners. This makes it easier to travel through dangerous sectors, as they can no longer be tracked by missiles and are rarely found by anyone that isn't in the vicinity to pick up the heat trace of the ship.

The V23X cloaking device was another one of there creations. Through optic blending and bending, the V23X can make a ship invisible through the human eye, although it works best with the scrambler, so that the ship doesn't show up on the scanners either.

Two of the more work in progress designs of Simon and Mirdo, were the Mk I and Mk II EEP (Emergency Evasive Procedures).
The Mk I EEP uses liquid plamsa cells which take up space in the ships storage, but refil over time. These cells release the liquid plamsa into the engine when triggered. This causes the power output are therefore top speed of the ship, to increase up to ten fold, which is ideal for making a quick getaway from attacking vessels. Unfortunately, the side effect, is that steering is disabled during this escape, to avoid weakening of the hull structure, should the ship try and turn.
The Mk II EEP is a lot more effective at getting the ship out of harms way. Based around a modified jump device, the Mk II instantly transports the ship to any gate in the universe. The price to pay for this instant escape, is the lack of control. Because the plotting and guidance prodcedures pre-jump have been bypassed, the ship can end up at literally any gate in the universe, chartered or unchartered. Because of this, Goner ships now carry the un modified jump drive, and many energy cells, should they find themselves stuck on the other side of the galaxy, and in need of a way home.

To compensate for all this new hardware, work on a new Goner ship, the X8, is well underway. A recent press release has mentioned the addition of a number of turrets and creater cargo space. It also mentioned comparions with the Argon Centaur and Teladi Osprey, which shocked many at the thought of a Goner M6 class equivilent.

Due to the success of these products, Mirdo Janus and Simon Re'Haal have set up a research and development program that both of them now have put their full attention to. Despite Simon's code of ethics, he has been involved in the development of an incredibly destructive weapon.

The sub-space atom bomb utilises the jump gate, and generates enough power to destroy an entire sector instantly.
The first step of the attack is to send a guidance beacon through the gate. This is the only stage at which the victims have a chance to defend themselves, by destroying the beacon, but after this, it is too late for them.
The second station is the releasing of a warp core through the gate.
The beacon causes the gate to freeze the partical transfer whilst the warp core is only half materialised. This has the unnatural effect of keeping an opening between space and the sub-space corridors through which the jump gates operate.
The third and final stage is the detonation of the warp core, by firing electrons through the gate and into the semi-materialised warp core.
The awesome power that is the driving force of the gates, is then released into the target sector, destroying everything.
After the test on the unihabited sector TX4-JCB9s, where the star that previously resided there, was detonated into a premature supernova, that destroyed the used jump gate itself, the International committy consisting of Argon and Boron deligates banned the continued research into the device and ordered the gathered technical designs and prototype to be destroyed. After this bill was passed, Simon vanished, and is still yet to be found.
The official line is that pirates tried to kidnap him to learn of his bomb, at which point he activated his Mk II EEP device, which failed, resulting in the molecular breakup of him and his ship. Unofficially, many believe that he has gone into hiding to continue his research and development, so that he may one day realise his dream of being able to "cleanse" dangerous pirate and xenon sectors, so that peaceful travellers like himself may go through without worry.

The Goner have officially disowned his actions and expressed that his views do not represent the views of the Goner. Mirdo Janus is yet to make a comment of his associates affairs and although he has not suggested that Simon is still alive and continuing research, he has not dismissed the allogations.

Additional Notes:
Since the development of the EMP missile, many privateers have reprogrammed the "intelligent shielding" to be attachable to destructive missiles, making them much more potent.
The EMP missile itself has also been modified extensively so that it knocks out life support aswell. This modification has been found to be most common in the hands of pirates, that use it to force pilots out of their ships, so that they can steal it, completely undamaged.
The scrambler device has also been modified by certain factions, so that it can completely manipulate another ships scanner readings.
This was taken advantage of, most notibly, when a single Teladi Fulcan, was able to create the illusion of an entire fleet of Ospreys, that he used to get a "better deal" out of his split trading partners.
This technology has also lead to the development of Heat Seeking missiles, that may not be able to distinguish friend from foe, and have even been known to turn back on the firer, but are the only missiles that can be fired upon ships equipped with the scrambler.
Already, a number of organisations with known affiliations with Pirates and other smugglers, have placed orders for the new unfinished Goner X8. Due to the X8's civilian origins, it is not under licensing laws that govern the purchase of military aircraft, yet could be easily modified to fit the "needs" or the pirates.

Just recently, the Janus and Re'Haal corporation released there latest range of ships, technologies and weapons.

These include:

Plamsa cloud ejector -
The ship is modified to controlably release it's plasma fuel out of the rear of the ship, and create a rather large cloud. This is highly volatile, and the exhaust of ships that travel through it can denote the cloud and cause serious and even fatal damage to the passing ship. The downside, is that the users ship, can experince a drop in top speed of up to 28% for a minutes after the release.

Mosquito Rack -
The mosquito rack adds a compartment to the ships hull, that opens to reveal upto 32 mosquitos all ready to fire. These can then be launched at the enemy simultaniously, turning these fairly weak missiles into a "rain of terror". An intelligent firing system ensures that the mosquitos don't collide or detonate one another whilst they are being launched.
Similar products:
- EMP Rack (Only holds up to 16 EMP missiles [about enough for an M1/M2/TL] )
- Wasp Rack (Only holds up to 16 wasp missiles)
- Dragonfly Rack (Only holds up to 8 dragonfly missiles)
- Silkworm Rack (Only holds up to 4 silkworm missiles)
- Hornet Rack (Only holds up to 2 hornet missiles)

Laser Tower Ship Upgrade -
This allows modified "mini" laser towers to be attached to the hull of the ship. The test flight was conducted with 2 of these attached to the underwings of a Teladi Osprey. The demonstration was conducted in Ore Belt, where the Osprey quickly decimated a number of asteroids. The key advantage that Mirdo pointed out was the ability to mine for minerals continuously, because of the fact that the mini laser tower houses it's own power source so loses no rate of fire during use. This property has been key in it's selling across the galaxy, though not for it's mining properties, but as a means to fortify a ships front weaponary, as well as being able to fire over sustained periods of time.

Gate control -
This device can is only affordable by governments and major trade organisations, but is well worth it. By adding, laser batteries around the gate ring, sectors have the ability to automatically fire upon, and almost always destroy any enemy ship that comes through the gate.

Additional Notes -
The corporation have finished the building of a new research base that takes out the need for other supporting stations. The new station is built around, and within, a large asteroid near the Goner Temple in Cloudbase Southwest.
It simply needs some crystals to start it off, at which point it will become fully infependent, with it's own energy and raw materials source built into it. Generating food for the workers, computer components, warheads etc. and lastly, crystals for further energy production. From here, they will be able to create their inventions in complete privacy, with no personel allowed in or out of the station until they have finished working on their product and it is on general sale. All approaches on all planes are protected by an 6 outer circles of mines and an 6 inner circles of mines with a plasma cloud between the outer and inner sets of mines.
The single approach from the north-east of the station is a thin tunnel in space, lined with laser towers.
The station also has 42 outposts, that house up to 4 M6s each, and many thousand drones to take care of smaller threats.
This impenetrable fortress is the largest station in the universe to date. The main critisism, is by the Goner, who believe it's hostile appearance and actions and very anti-social, and have asked the Argon Government to force the corporation to move it, as it has put off many preachers from travelling to the Temple.
The Argon have ignored this obstruction from the Goners and deemed the station fit for service in the sector. Many with a more cynical approach, such as Goner Priest Shelar, have pointed out that this could be something to do with the Argons getting exclusive trading rights to the stations products for the first season after release. This has been denied by the Argon council, who have since imprisoned Shelar for many months, for "incitement to undermine the values and moral standings of the Argon Federation".

[HCFC]

- The Devine Justice -

A fully PSG loaded Oddy that jumps in whenever you test a race beyond its limits. Captained by an unknown Argon known simply as Priest.

Nobody knows where it came from or where its based and it will only work for governments as they are the only ones capable of accomodating the massive bounties that the Priest demands.

It will only attack when your relations with a race drop to the lowest state and it can work for any of the races in the X2 universe except the Xenon and Khaak (the ship can often be found in enemy sectors blowing things up), even the goners. So if you every ignore the goners claim for fighter support one day a big oddy might turn up ready to rip your humble ship in two. The best way to get the Devine Justice to target you (and it will chase you whereever you go - and not just you but everything you own) is to blow up race stations, the trading docks inparticular.

You will know when you are being hunted as there will be a message in every station on the BBS - "To you who defy the righteous - hear me. Know that your death has been sanctioned and know that soon devine justice and retribution will rain down on you. You cannot run. You cannot hide. All that you own will be crushed. Resistance is Futile"

Now the ship should be capable of being killed but if you start to inflict more than 50% shield damage on the devine justice reinforcemnets arrive in the form of 3 dragons and 3 centaurs. These avatars of destruction as they are referred to will distract you whilst the devine justice recharges its shields. The M6s will then move off whilst the oddy comes back at you.

If you ever manage to destroy all 6 corvettes and get the oddys shield below 50% The Devine Retribution jumps in. This is a Split Python automated ship that has the sole purpose of protecting the devine justice should the avatars of destruction be destroyed.

Now again the oddy will back off and recharge but you have to work fast - if you can kill of the devine retribution in time so be it - there are no further reinforcements from the preist - if you dont you have to deal with both ships at once. They take it in turns to attack giving each other space and time to recharge. The python is now in it till the end. It will not leave until you are destroyed or it is destroyed. However the devine justice has one more trick to perform. As soon as you start inflicting hull damage she will jump. It will only jump a max of 2 sectors so if you guess right you can nail her. If you dont she will yet again hunt you down. You can kill her though and she can only be equiped as a normal oddy can. That includes ecells. Once she has depleted them she will run under normal propulsion.

And remember the Preist will never, ever give up. Remember this as you blindly attack the goners, remember this as you blindly assault the Boron and remember that by destroying priate bases there is no garanntee that the Priest will view this as a service to the galaxy. At the end of the day he is in it for the money. He dont think he will start with you. Invariably it is your assets that fall first. The one true enemy to your stations. You better have some good defence. oh and by the way you can never kill him oos he will jump as soon as your defends deliver significant damage and move onto another of your stations. If he jumps in whilst you are in sector that is when the fun begins

Probably quite hard to script that mind.

[Kailric]

Actually -The Devine Justice- would be pretty simple to script. The other goner priest Simon Re'Haal would require and intire mod or expantion but the Police Inspector Rhimes sounds doable...

Keep the ideas comeing....

[rock grover]

A rouge proto-type A.I. military ship that has become self aware. It's creators are extremely keen to get it back and a reward has been offered for information on it's where abouts or an even higher reward for getting it back. Maybe there are several parties looking to get thier hands on it.

Daniel Young, or as reporters have dubbed him 'The Smiler', the Universes most wanted serial killer, known to all for his grisly and bloody handy work with a las-knife. Local authorities are at a total lost and are desperate for information which will lead to his arrest before he can kill again.

Trevor Tung aka Ridz - Teenage tear away that gets his kicks from his ever so artist graffitti talents. Ships, stations, if it's floating and it's in space it ain't safe.

Pro-Human Activist Party. Organisation born by extremist Norman Barrett. Norman and his party travel from system to system recruiting new supporters of their cause, to increase inter-trading between human settlements and to keep human money in human hands. Although there are no direct links and local authorites have been unable to prove anything it is also rumoured that Norman is also the master mind behind several race related terrorist attacks that have taken place to try and disrupt trading relations between species.