Shipjacker Project

[KrashKart]

I was sort of inspired by this thread to write a hijacking script. If it's been done already, my apologies.


I've excerpted the desc from the readme:

Shipjacker is a simple device that cracks a ships' security protocols, thus allowing one to venture through the airlock and make off with another pilots pride and joy. Shipjacker is only available while spacewalking, as it really has no place next to the hoola girl (and/or) plastic Jesus on your dashboard. xD


This is my first script, and it's a hurried alpha release, so there will most likely be bugs. It hasn't crashed my game though, so it should be safe. At the moment this script is much closer to being a cheat, but the next release will probably not make life so easy.

So, without further ado I give you Shipjacker 1.0a; and the README can be accessed here.

Drow has graciously offered to mirror Shipjacker. His main page can be accessed here.

Thanks Drow!




Comments/suggestions welcomed. Enjoy!

[InvrSmall]

The link is broken for me.

[nightfullyDARK]

This sounds like a great script for all pirates out there, I hope you'll hurry up and release the next version..

[KrashKart]

The link is broken for me.

PM me your email address and I'll send a copy.



I should have a new version up in a couple of days. At the moment Shipjacker will fail to steal the ship more often than it will succeed, which is good. I just need to add a check so it will only function in the station (not that a spacesuit can catch up to anything in space), and a couple of other things I probably shouldn't mention just yet.

If you have troubles downloading from the link above just PM me with your email addy and I'll send it.

[Eater1]

You know, if you somehow get the script to temporarily get some police fighters to chase you after you steal the ship, it might stand a good chance of getting signed, and then we could really re-enact the intro.

Eater.

[KrashKart]

You know, if you somehow get the script to temporarily get some police fighters to chase you after you steal the ship, it might stand a good chance of getting signed, and then we could really re-enact the intro.

Eater.

That's a great idea.

I've just added a couple of lines to do something similar and I'm testing it out. If the device trips the ship alarm the station will send out a patrol and wait for you to depart. I should be able to tighten it up and make that happen even when you succeed at stealing a ship. Help increase the fun factor.

I think I've run into a problem though: the spacesuit has no command console! Will have to be run from the editor (not what I wanted ultimately) unless there's a workaround.

[Burianek]

Hmm,
just thinking out loud here.
Perhaps you can tie into a ware called 'electronic lockpicks' (you can think of a better name) which are only available from pirate bases. Cost can be balanced later.
When the script is run, you can specify how many 'lockpicks' you'd like to use. Maybe the more you use the higher percent chance you have to take the ship. Perhaps chance decreases for increased class of ship (m3 harder than m4)
As far as not being able to run from the spacesuit, perhaps you can run the command from a docked ship (only available while the ship is docked, I think you can do that)
When you run the script it starts a timer, you have to eject from your ship and space walk to the other ship while the timer counts down. Maybe you have to get within 50m of the ship you want to steal and slow to a speed of 0 m/s. Then you have to sit there for 5-10 seconds before the timer finishes counting down. If you run out of time, you fail. If you succeed a dice roll is made to see if you set off the alarms (accessing a soundbyte for the alarm would be very cool) or if you sucessfully steal the ship.
I'm not certain if all of the above is possible, but I'm pretty sure it is.
Just some ideas.
I'd love to have a script like this. If you want some help, let me know.
Cheers.

[gatsby]

Naught to say really but that this sounds like an awesome idea that I hope to see come to fruition. I only used signed scripts with my current game, but a feature like this could make me restart a new game purely as a pirate.

Keep up the good work!

[Gandalf The White]

Sounds excellent!.

[nightfullyDARK]

You know, if you do it right, you might just go and make one of the best scripts for this game yet. Finally something for pirates to use!

You should try to make it work someway without having to open the script editor and try and get it signed when the time is right

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

"Five mizuras left... that should do it."

Heh. I can imagine it. The whole reason the intro started that way, is for once the countdown screwed up and the patrol came early.

[Burianek]

You should try to make it work someway without having to open the script editor and try and get it signed when the time is right

If one of the people on the signing team *cough* *cough* helps him write it, it stands a good chance.
Seriously KrashKart, plug away at it, and let me know when you get stuck, I'll try to stay out of your way unless you need me.

[psyichic]

That would be alot of fun to see that. To bad we cant activeate weapons and blow the doors off the station to! Dang that would be really fun. Just an idea mabey you can make a command that allows you to like override the speed limit and weapons inactive thing inside a base. But All i can do is dream

[rustybucket]

Has anyone been able to test version 1.0A?

It sounds like a great script. Best of luck with it.

[nightfullyDARK]

the script seems to have turned invisible in my script editor.... hmm...

[Burianek]

I've been playing around with this idea.
I was wrong about one thing.
You can't access a command menu from within a station at all, no matter if you're docked or not, in a ship or not.
What you can do, is start a script running from the outside of the station. It will continue to run even after you venture inside.

I've got a prototype knocked up. (I'm really hooked on this idea) The way it works is as follows:
1. outside the station you run the script and input how many 'lockpicks' you want to use. you get x number of seconds per lockpick
2. you enter the station and go eva (in your spacesuit)
3. you have to target, fly to within 15m of the ship you want to capture, and hold position for 10 seconds
4. if you exit the 15m window, you have to start over for another full 10 seconds within the envelope.
5. after this a dice roll is made based on the strength (class) of the ship and the amount of time you have remaining. If you pass the dice roll the ship is yours. If you fail, you take a race hit and a few ships are waiting outside for you.

Right now I'm working on sticking in some of the sound bytes. I'd like to have it give you spoken updates like '30 seconds left' or some such.

KrashKart, I'm not after glory here, this was your idea. I'd be happy to turn all of this over to you if you want to work on it. Alternatively, if you want to offer helpful suggestions and have me code it, I'd be happy to do the grunt work as well. This is a really great idea, and it deserves to be implemented.

[Aro]

Burianek, got a working test version of all that?

[kenf22]

Hmm,
just thinking out loud here.
Perhaps you can tie into a ware called 'electronic lockpicks' (you can think of a better name) which are only available from pirate bases. Cost can be balanced later.
When the script is run, you can specify how many 'lockpicks' you'd like to use. Maybe the more you use the higher percent chance you have to take the ship. Perhaps chance decreases for increased class of ship (m3 harder than m4)
As far as not being able to run from the spacesuit, perhaps you can run the command from a docked ship (only available while the ship is docked, I think you can do that)
When you run the script it starts a timer, you have to eject from your ship and space walk to the other ship while the timer counts down. Maybe you have to get within 50m of the ship you want to steal and slow to a speed of 0 m/s. Then you have to sit there for 5-10 seconds before the timer finishes counting down. If you run out of time, you fail. If you succeed a dice roll is made to see if you set off the alarms (accessing a soundbyte for the alarm would be very cool) or if you sucessfully steal the ship.
I'm not certain if all of the above is possible, but I'm pretty sure it is.
Just some ideas.
I'd love to have a script like this. If you want some help, let me know.
Cheers.

Another way would be to change the 'electronic lockpicks' to an AI program that is hacking the station alarms while you are picking the lock. the script would not change much, but would give a better reason to start it from the ship. Maybe buy the computer and that stays on your ship as an illegal good, and it needs copies of the virus or whatever to use up as the stations security protocols destroy them. The more copies, the longer you can take to open the target ship.

[Burianek]

Another way would be to change the 'electronic lockpicks' to an AI program that is hacking the station alarms while you are picking the lock. the script would not change much, but would give a better reason to start it from the ship. Maybe buy the computer and that stays on your ship as an illegal good, and it needs copies of the virus or whatever to use up as the stations security protocols destroy them. The more copies, the longer you can take to open the target ship.

Thanks that's a much better story. Run with that and see if you can flesh it out further, but only use one ware (the useable one). Ware slots are at a premium and it's extremely hard for a script to justify using two.

@aro, let me polish it a bit, and some sound files and clean it up. Also, I want to see if KrashKart wants to take over. It is his project after all, I'm kind of butting in.

I'm also toying with the idea of making you do some spacesuit gymnastics:
'ok first go to the right side of the ship and hold position 25m to it's starboard'
'ok, that lock is cracked, the next jamming signal is coming from the nose, get within 15 km of the prow and hold for another 10 sec'
etc.
have six possible locations: nose, tail, starboard, port, belly, roof
The script will pick a certain number of random locations to make you 'touch' in order before you unlock the ship. Maybe larger class ships have more touch points. I dunno, still experimenting here.
It is kind of an art to pilot the spacesuit around and not bounce off of things and ruin it. Stealing ships could really become an art of precision flying if done right (that a goal to shoot for at least) Would certainly bring out the skill aspect to pirating.

[kenf22]

Run with that and see if you can flesh it out further, but only use one ware (the useable one).

Just the one ware works fine too, make the virus copies illegal and it just needs the trading system extention on board. I really like the idea of making the pirate do somthing. Instead of a dice roll, the AI can keep the security system at bay aslong as you don't screw up, and if you do, then have a chance to sound it. If it is high, 60-70%, then you may get away with a mistake, but two is unlikely. If you succede then you just have the ship undock, if it stays onboard after the viruses run out the security system would notice the descrepency and sound the alarm. As far as stoping the AI, it may be better to have the pirate manually shut it down, not sure how hard it would be to detect the ship undocking, and storyline wise just say the computing power of the ship is completly dedicated to defeting the security and can't use its scanners. I will probably think of more later, but I think that covers the major theory.