they are available from http://www.marks-website.co.uk/Downloads.html and the downloads section of X2source.com
----INCOMING TRANSMISSION----
The Argon government has today announced that it will be selling a cut down version of it military flight command software. They have been forced to take this move after big corperations have been lobying for more to be done to stop the recent attacks by Khakk forces in Argon space.
Collateral losses so far due to the Khaak are belived to run into hundreds of millions of credits.
The software will be sold as "Fight Comamnd Software MK3" and will only be on sale at the Argon Equipment docks in Argon Prime and Light of Heart. This is because the military have insisted its sale be strictly controlled and it only be available to trusted Argon Citizens.
The exact contents of the software is not yet known, but it is belived to include commands to set up formations, order ships to perform missile defence of other ships, create both single and multiple ship patrols, and there are even rumors that it will include the code to allow fighter formations to conduct syncronised 'missile strikes' against targets.
----End Transmission-----
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Improvements over older versions:-
1 ) much beter compatability with the Xai Advanced Combat AI
2 ) Misile strike command added ( <- this is soooooo much fun it should be illegal..!)
3 ) Lasertowers will no longer be attacked if you specify 'pirate' as a race
4 ) Patrol a sector command replaced with 'garison fighter wing' command.
5 ) Ships on patrol will now scan for enemy ships every 10 seconds instead of just when they reach a patrol point.
6 ) Wingmen will now automaticly choose a new formation leader if a formation leader is destroyed. If this happens you will be sent a mesage informing you that a new leader has been chosen, and telling you which ship is now the leader, along with which sector it is in.
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In no particular order........
First, a big thankyou to zerogoki for letting me use his docked fighter scripts as the inspiration for the garison fighter wing command, you saved me a lot of time and headaches, cheers dude
Secondly a masive thanks to kailric, without whom I would know half as much as I do now (which I think is still half of not a lot..., but its more than before! ). Your help is MUCH appreciated!
Next, a big thanks to everyone thats contributed through testing and feedback.
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Introduction:-
These scripts started out as a way to make it possible to have several smaller ships work together to do the job of a bigger one. I was really dissapointed this wasn't in the game as standard for both the player and NPC's so decided to do something about it. It has now evolved along way since then!
Now personally I use them to carry out patrols of both 1, 3 and 6 sectors using 3 novas in each formation.
I also have an m6 which patrols aswell.
I have a couple of baracudas as my wingmen which follow me everywhere, and always have an argon discoverer covering my back on 'missile defence'.
I have just bought an m2 carrier which is currently being filled with formations consisting of 5 nova's each. This is set to patrol through paranid prime and surrounding sectors. 3 of the fighter wings are 'garisoned' on board and automaticly fly out to intercept enemy ships when the carrier encounters them.
And when its full of ships I'm gonna load it up with hornets and use the 'resupply fighter wing' and 'fighter wing missile strike' command to obliterate the xenon scum form the universe.
Hopefully this gives you a flavor of what these comands can do. Any and all feedback, both good and bad gratefully recieved.
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***IMPORTANT****
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Fresh Installation:-
1) Copy the files in the 'scripts' folder to the 'scripts' folder in your X2 program directory.
2) Copy the file in the 'T' folder into the 'T' folder in your X2 program directory.
3) Enable the script editor if it is not already enabled.
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Upgrading from an earlier version:-
1) Go into the command console of every ship that is running one of the commands from the earlier version and select 'none' as it's command, save the game.
2) Delete all the scripts begining with marks.patrol.xxxxx and the one begining with init.marks.patrol.xxxx from you X2 scripts directory.
3) Copy the files in the 'scripts' folder to the 'scripts' folder in your X2 program directory, overwriting any that are still there.
4) Copy the files in the 'T' folder into the 'T' folder in your X2 program directory overwriting the one that is already there.
5) load up your saved game and you may notice two problems....
Problem A:-
Your ships that had fight command mk3 installed no longer have it. Instead they will have something called "readtext 5813" in thier holds..
To correct this ensure all of your ships that had "fight command mk3" installed are not docked or landed anywhere (eg, are 'in space') and run the "marks.patrol.reequip.ships" script from the script editor on 'null'.
Only use this if the ware " readtext 5813 " is shown in your ships holds.
Problem B:-
The equipment dock in Argon Prime now has "Fight command MK 3" and a ware called "readtext 5813" for sale
To correct this problem run the "marks.patrol.patch" script from the script editor.
Only use this if the ware " readtext 5813 " is shown at the Argon equipment dock in argon prime.
6) Save your game and then proceed to reset up your formations/patrols.
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Instructions :-
This package will give you 8 new commands on the command menu of any ship with "fight command software v3" installed, these are.
1 ) Assign a Wingman to this ship
2 ) Assign a Wingman to this ship *missile defence*
3 ) Resupply fighter wing
4 ) Fighter wing missile strike
5 ) Garison fighter wing
6 ) Patrol a sector
7 ) Patrol 3 sectors
8 ) Patrol 6 sectors
*** PLEASE BEAR IN MIND THAT THE SCANNING RANGE OF SHIPS ON PATROL IS SEVERELY HAMPERED IF YOU HAVE NOT INSTALLED SCANNERS IN THEM.***
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1 ) Assign a Wingman to this ship
This is the 'main' command. It lets you create propper formations of ships by assigning wingmen to a 'lead' ship, then all you have to do is give orders to the 'lead' ship.
Step 1 - Decide on a ship to be the formation leader, and if you want ( highly recomended ) rename it to something suitable eg. 'Red leader' (aka star wars style)
Step 2 - Set the missile fire probability that you want the formation to use by setting it on the lead ship.
Step 3 - Set the homebase you want the formation to use, again by setting it on the lead ship. This is important as it is where any 'wingmen' will return too if the formation leader is destroyed.
Step 4 - Then just run the 'Assign a Wingman to this ship' command from the command menu of the lead ship you chose in step one, picking a wingman for the ship. Repeat ths step for each wingman you want to assign to the lead ship.
Step 5 - Give the lead ship whatever command you like, and all his wingmen will do the same (eg , one of the patrol commands, attack target, dock at, fly to sector, follow)
Features..
***No min/max number of wingmen that can assigned to a leader
***Wingmen set the same missile fire probability as the lead ship.
***If the lead ship 'jumps' more than a sector away using it's jumpdrive the wingman will follow with it's jumpdrive if possible (eg, if it has one and if it has enough energy). Otherwise it will follow using gates.
***If the leader is destroyed you will be sent a mesage, and the wingmen will return to thier homebase.
***they will now not only attack the same target as the lead ship, but also protect the lead ship if he comes under atatck and isnt attacking anything.
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2 ) Assign As Wingman *missile defence*
Similar to the above, but the wingman constantly follows the lead ship, buzzing around scanning for incoming missiles aiming at the 'lead' ship. If it detects one, It'll shoot it down. Works best with an m5 as the as they have the speed and manuverability to pull of most intercepts.
Run this command from the command menu of the ship to be protected and choose the ship you want to assign to missile protection.
Great for protecting your shiny new capital ship from Hornet missiles.
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3 ) Resupply fighter wing
Give this command to a formation leader whilst he and all of his wingmen are docked at one of your stations / m1's / m2's / TL's and you can re-arm a fighter wing in seconds.
Step 1 - From the command console of the lead ship run the 'Resupply fighter wing' command.
Step 2 - Choose the quantity of the item you want to load onto the leader and all his wingmen.
Step 3 - Choose what you want to load on.
As long as where the formation is docked has enough of the selected ware, the quantity selected is loaded onto each ship.
If you select more than each ship can carry, they'll just load on as much as possible.
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4 ) Fighter wing missile strike
Make sure the entire formation is loaded up with missiles suitable for the target, eg don't use mosquito missiles on a station... (unless you have a wing of 20+ novas with maximum cargo extensions all fully loaded with them, in which case give it a go, its pretty spectacular to see 400 mosquito missiles all heading for a station at once... !).
You can use the "resupply fighter wing" command to make equiping the fighter wing easier.
Next run this command from the command menu of the formations lead ship and choose the target (can be anything), followed by how close you want the fighters to get before they start firing (about 1100 meters is a good average distance).
The leader and any wingmen will unock if they are docked, form up into a group, then fly off to the target.
If they can the formation will use jumpdrives and jump to thier target if its more than one sector away. When they get to the distance from the target you specified each ship will launch missiles on the target at the rate of 1 every 1.5 to 2 seconds.
If the target isn't destroyed with mssiles all the fighters will then engage it normally using thier guns.
If the target surrenders they will stop firing, but don't expect many captures though, normally the target will die pretty quickly
The leader and all wingmen will then return home.
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5 ) Patrol a sector
Run this command from the command menu of the ship you want to do the patroling (or if you want a formation to patrol, give this command to the lead ship). Choose 4 points in space in a sector using the numberpad arrow keys and numberpad 'enter' key, and then the 3 races that will be attacked on site.
Your ship will now patrol round the four points in space you entered, attacking any ships belonging to any of the 3 races you chose that enter the sector.
You can choose a race more than once (say, if you were only interested in Khaak).
If your using a formation make sure you are using at least 2 fully equiped m3's.
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6 ) Garison fighter wing
Run this from the command menu of a formations lead ship, then choose where you want to garison them and which 3 races you would like them to destroy on sight (you can choose a race more than once).
They will then fly to the selected station an dock before commencing scanning. Once a suitable target has been detected the fighters will scramble and form up outside the station/carrier.
they will then fly out to intercept the target and detroy it before returning home.
Please note, the type of scanner installed in the lead ship IS important. It should be at least a duplex scanner, preferably a triplex scanner.
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7 ) Patrol 3 sectors
Run this from the command menu of a formations lead ship (you can also run it on a single ship if you want, eg a single m6 perhaps)
Then choose the three sectors you want to patrol, then the three races you want destroyed on sight. Your formation will fly around the 3 sectors taking out any ships belonging to the three races they find.
Please note, the type of scanner installed in the lead ship again IS important. It should be at least a duplex scanner, preferably a triplex scanner.
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8 ) Patrol 6 sectors
Works just like the above, but instead of patroling 3 sectors chosen by you, the ship will patrol between the 6 sectors chosen by you.
Let me know what you think
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