The Setting:
War can bring the best out of people, and war can bring the worst out of people. In the case of the second Khaak invasion, it seems to have brought out nothing but bad. The races began squabbling with each other. The Argon and Split declared war on each other, as well as the Paranid and Teladi. Xenon attacks increased in the frontier, and anarchy gradually spread throughout the galaxy.
Many Argon citizens have begun to question the Federation’s ability to survive. A radical splinter group from the Goner sect came to believe that the only way for the race to survive would be to finally discover and return to the lost planet Earth. Convinced by Boron reports that the Xenon are, in fact, the successors to the ancient Earth terraformers, this group decided that the Xenon would hold the secrets to Earth’s location. In an unprecedented move, a group of high-ranking Argon military officers defected to the Xenon. They took with them all the design plans for Argon military ships, and formed an alliance with the Xenon. This sect, dubbed the Mandarins, now fight alongside of the Xenon, and have posed a major security threat to the Argon.
The defection provided the greatest humiliation to the Argon Federal authorities. Martial law was immediately declared, and all elections were suspended. Admiral Ban Danna was called out of retirement to help fight the Mandarins, as well as to prepare further defenses against the Khaak. Danna outdid himself in every area. As time went on, however, he became increasingly dissatisfied with the Argon’s war against the Khaak. The Federation seemed to be so obsessed by the Mandarin that they forgot all about the Khaak, whose attacks were increasing day by day. The Ore Belt remained as nasty as before, and President’s End was rapidly turning into a Khaak sector. He pushed the Argon authorities to allow him to mount a major strike in the Khaak sectors, but was faced with continual frustration. Finally, he decided to go it alone. He selected line officers he knew would be loyal to him, and set out (against orders) to Khaak space. In a stunning display of military bravado, he destroyed hundreds of enemy ships, as well as capturing valuable intelligence. The Argon authorities, however, were not pleased with his renegade action. Officers jealous of Danna’s abilities conspired against him: Danna was immediately court-martialed on Argon Prime, along with all of his men. Drumhead justice was metted out: Danna was stripped of his rank and dishonorably expelled from the Argon military.
This act proved to be a grave miscalculation on the part of the Federation’s new military junta. Many soldiers and sailors were quite loyal to Danna, and sympathized with his cause. Shortly after his discharge, a mutiny broke out in the Xenon frontier sectors. Millions of Argon military personnel rebelled, seizing ships and stations in a mass act of revolt. All of this was done in Danna’s name, who now found himself unwittingly the head of a new rebel movement in the frontier sectors. The rebels demanded that the military junta step down and democracy be restored, as well as a more aggressive stance against the Khaak. Danna agreed to lead this new movement, and within a few short mazuras the rebels succeeded in establishing a new government along the frontier: the Argon Confederacy. Civil war has now broken out with the Argon, and Admiral Danna is looking for his old friend Julian to assist in the struggle…
Mods:
This mod encompasses a number of modifications, all at beta stage:
The StationWar Mod:
This mod modifies the gameplay of NPC races. Races now have a taxation policy in place, where they tax 20% of stations producing basic industrial resources (energy cells, ore, and silicon). They will use the money collected through these taxes to expand the factories producing these resources, as well as to build new capital ships to fight against their enemies. Races will also now launch regular strikes against each other if they are at war; if the players relation to these races is “enemy,” they will also be attacked. These strikes can be quite massive, usually with an M1-M2 combination. Depending on the defenses in the sector they invade, they may very well level the whole sector. If they do so, the sector will become “theirs,” and they will start building their own resource factories their in the future.
These strikes are not “spawn” attacks (except in the case of the Xenon/Mandarin). Strikes will only occur if a race has an M1 and M2 together in a sector. Destroying all of a race’s M1s and M2s, then, will prevent further strikes. They will, however, rebuild if they have the proper amount of tax revenue, and if they have a shipyard. As such, destroying spps, ore mines, and silicon mines will greatly effect the ability of a race to expand. Destroying sufficient numbers may very well cripple their station/ship building ability, and also their war ability.
Because of this, the map will always be changing. Sectors will (rarely) change hands, stations will be destroyed, and new ones will be built. Unfortunately, adding more than three station types for taxation/expansion seems to lead to great instability in the mod’s code, and so I’ve had to limit it to this. I will work on trying to expand the taxation and station building system if there is any interest.
The Mobile Infantry Mod:
A number of threads on various boards have indicated that some players are interested in a Marines modification. Given that stations play a somewhat more important role in this mod, I decided that Marines could play an interesting role in the “Station war.” This mod includes a new ware, the Mobile Infantry, which is produced at a new station, the barracks. The barracks takes food (relevant to the race) and another new ware, the Infantry Weapons ware, as its primary resources. Infantry weapons are themselves produced at their own new factories.
Mobile Infantry are used to capture stations. To capture a station, one must have a drop ship, a TS or TL ship equipped with a transporter device, a cargo life-support system, and a new drop ship computer. The drop ship must be in 5km of a target station. Giving the command (under the “special menu”) to the drop ship “Order Mobile Infantry assault…” will set the drop ship to continually scan the station’s shields until they are at about 1%. Once this happens, the Mobile Infantry will be beamed over, and combat will commence in a series of simple rounds. Pop-ups alert the player to casualties on both sides. When all the Mobile Infantry on the rival station are gone, the station is yours. You may also order a general retreat if things are going badly, and your soldiers will be returned to the drop ship (provided it is still in range). You may also use drop ships to garrison your own stations. NPC stations will always have 20-40 mobile infantry aboard if they are factories, and 750 if they are trading docks/shipyards/etc. As for your own stations, you must garrison them yourself in case some hostile race decides to attack them. Mobile Infantry can be bought at all races barracks and at pirate mercenary barracks. You can also remove Mobile Infantry from one station to another via a drop ship, or just with a cargo ship…for player stations, the Mobile Infantry are stored as a secondary resource (as player stations do not use up secondary resources). There is probably a better way to set the station garrison’s then I’ve done, and I’m well open to suggestions.
NPC races will also launch Mobile Infantry assaults against their enemies, in spawn fashion like the Xenon. If you are hostile to them, they may very well come after your stations. This should be a rare occurrence.
The Hacker Port Mod:
Another new station has been added, the Hacker Port. The Hacker Port is currently operated by the terrorist group Sektor 21. They sell a wide variety of software produced by the fictional HakeemCorp hacker group, mostly for use against stations.
-Lasertower Virus: Reprograms all lasertowers in a 10km radius of a station to attack that station. Does not transfer ownership of lasertowers to you.
-Station Defense Logic Bomb: Makes the craft docked at a station go “gun-crazy” and start attacking the station. Does not transfer ownership or control of the ships to you, though they will be IFF friendly to you. Some ships may go “berserk” and start attacking everything in sight, including you.
-Shield Hacking Software: Disables a station’s shields for a minute or two. Useful for Mobile Infantry attacks.
-Ship Hijacking Software: This will transfer one ship of the selected class to your possession. Very quickly after you do this, however, station defense craft will be launched against you, you will be banned from that station forever (or until you get one of these BBC guys to hack into the station and change your offender status), and you will lose your police license. Actually, this happens with all the scripts.
-Factory Crash: Removes a station’s product for a day. Good for temporarily knocking out competition.
These scripts are NOT designed to be cheats. They all cost a fare amount of money, and require the HakeemCorp Integrated OS upgrade to be installed, which itself costs a million credits (one time buy). After use, the program will be deleted, unless you buy the HakeemCorp multiple licenses upgrade (shades of Microsoft). You will also suffer banning and other penalties from station’s you use them against, unless you purchase the HakeemCorp Tracebuster upgrade. This upgrade will prevent detection with all software, except the ship hijacking software (since no matter what you hack, someone is going to notice that their ship is not where they left it). Because of the price, these software scripts probably will not be of much use until a player has a fair amount of money and wants to muck up somebody else’s stations (in preparation for an MI assault, perhaps). People might feel the prices are too much, and I’m perfectly willing to change them. I just didn’t want them all to be “cheat scripts” for the silly “wArEz d00dz” who are still out there.
New “Plot”:
At the beginning of the game, you will receive a message from Admiral Danna asking you to join his forces. Head out to Black Hole Sun and select “radio Admiral Danna” from the special menu to accept. From then on, he will give you a series of eight somewhat difficult Wing Commander type missions. No money will be made out of these missions, but it will allow one to gain new ships fairly quickly (a squadron of M3 Novas in the beginning, a Centaur, a (damaged Titan) and, for the grand finale, a fully loaded Khaak M2). Most of these missions will be anti-Argon, so you will take a major hit with them (it will all get fixed at the end though). Some people might not want to take the hit with the Argon, and some people might want not to get the new ships in this Wing Commander-type way, and others might just think my missions are stupid. In any case, the plot is purely optional. Danna’s confederacy and the Argon will keep fighting each other with or without player support. Playing the plot does, however, help alleviate some of the misery (misery for me at least) of installing a new mod and then having to start out from scratch in that death-trap of a Disco (apologies to all Disco fans). One can still take the red-line with the other mods if one wants, however, and ignore the plot, just like in the original game. The player is still free
Misc Additions:
Pirates now have M1s and M2s in Hatikvah’s Faith and Brennan’s Triumph. Teladi ships, of course. No mods have been made to them, but they are there so the pirates can launch their own “massive strikes.” If destroyed they will respawn after a good while.
Installation:
Just unzip the zip file to the X2 main directory. Just let it do what it needs to do, don’t worry, and be happy. Start the game, and click on the Select Mod Package option in the first screen. Select "stationwar." If it's not there, you've done something wrong; make sure you unzipped the file in the x2 root directory, not any of the subdirectories. After starting, load a saved game. You might want to go to the script editor and do a reinit cache for good measure.
And, for the love of God, backup your pre-mod saved games before installing it! Once you start saving games with the mod installed you’ve kind of crossed the point of no return. Just note the word “BETA” in capital letters at the top of the readme, grasp its meaning well, and you should be fine.
Issues:
1) “I can’t start a new game.” There have been problems with starting a new game. I’m stupid and don’t know what to do about it, to be honest, as I’ve tried everything to get it load normally with a new game when this bug has crepped up. I’m sure somebody who knows more about this than me can tell me how to fix it in two seconds. In the meantime, I recommend using the old Xai Corp method of starting a new game BEFORE installing the mod, saving that new game, then installing the mod, and then reloading from that save game. Alternatively, you can just start from one of your own saved games, as discussed above.
2) “What is this infinite loop detection business?” This is still beta. There are probably a lot of bugs still out there. I have enabled infinite loop detection on all scripts, in order to prevent them from hanging your game. Hopefully if something starts to spiral out of control, the script engine will kill that script and send you an incoming message of “Infinite loop detected!” and the name of the script. With the testing I’ve done, the only script that seems to crash from infinite loop problem is the stationwar.collect.taxes script, and this only very rarely. This is not a big crisis for the game, as this script is called by another resident script, and so you don’t need to do anything if this happens and the game will march on. I’m working on trying to find a new way to prevent this from happening. The main problem is that the script takes an array of all the station’s owned by a race, and then sorts them by the type of wares they produce. The array is obviously quite large and sometimes it just can’t handle it. I haven’t been able to figure out a better way than doing this. I can’t seem to get any maintype for a solar power plant, for example, and so can’t have it search for that “type” of factory without manually having it search for solar power plants of every race type (i.e., search for a solar power plant of any kind, instead of Argon SPP, Boron SPP, etc.). Doing it that way adds CPU usage and increases crash probability in my experience. In any case, this is a known issue, and I hope someone can help me. If people start getting infinite loop messages for OTHER scripts, however, please tell me.
3) “X, y and z didn’t work right.” This bundle should have all the correct files in it. I’ve tried it on a fresh install on my own machine and haven’t had any problems. I did, however, have a rather unfortunate incident where the script engine refused to save my changes to script files and kept reverting them to ancient versions. To my knowledge I fixed everything from that, but something stupid might still be lurking somewhere that I haven’t noticed. In any case, any bugs or anything, just tell me.
4) “This mod sucks! My dog could’ve done a better job.” I know, but a person has to crawl before they can walk. Give me you’re dog’s e-mail address and I’ll see where he can help me.
5) "Um...I looked at your code. This is your first mod I take it?" Yes, it is. Help from the gurus is appreciated.
The Mod can be downloaded here. This is my first experience with strike9. It seems you have to click on the link and then right click on the big image that comes up in the middle of the screen, and save that. I'll figure it out soon
http://sayfadeen.strike9.com
Helpful advice, suggestions, and so forth are welcome. Abusive flames are not.
