Race Wars Mod - AL Plugin

Ampleforth · Post by **Ampleforth** » Fri, 21. Jan 05, 17:33

UPDATE Version 2.5

AI Race Wars V2.5 AL Plugin from X2Source

Overview:
The goal of this mod is to add more variety and excitement to the otherwise very uneventful late game without disrupting the economy and production of X2. Now, NPC races will build capital ships to protect their sectors and to invade enemy sectors. The player also has the option to help out with these invasions or to invade sectors independently.

***** NEW IN V2.5 *****
- BUG FIX - Paranaid Oddy will no longer have 3 other oddys as docked ships (should be perseus). The docked oddys didn't affect the gameplay since they don't launch. Put setup.plugin.oddy.fix into your scripts director for a one time fix tha removes the oddys with this problem.

- Player cannot invade a sector on behalf on non-standard races (i.e. Xenon, Khaak, Goner)

- If you would like to invade sectors in your M6, place the script in directory m6 into your X2 scripts directory.

***** NEW IN V2.4 *****

- When the player initiates an invasion, he can choose which race the invasion is for (Argon, Boron, etc). If successful, the sector will belong to the specified race. In addition, the player will collect a protion of the tax income from the stations, with updates every 10 minutes.

- If the player invades a sector, the targeted race will begin considering the player an enemy and will occasionally send ships to attack the player.

- BUG FIX - The ship building script no longer builds ships for the player, which caused crashes when trying to access the "r" menu. A fix is included to remove previously built ships.

V2.2
- Sectors with Equipment Docks/Shipyards cannot be captured.
- Trade stations in captured sectors keep their old allegiance.
- Invading and defending ships will intelligently target enemy ships (always target enemy M1/M2s) and ignore stations. This makes it unnecessary to change stations to neutral allegiance during an invasion.
- The player cannot invade Argon sectors.
- BUG FIX - NPC partol ships no longer lose the race allegiance during an invasion. If you have ships in your saved game that have no race allegiance (ID begins with M), put the fix into the scripts directory to remove these ships.

V2.0
- The player can capture sectors on behalf of the argon federation and collect a portion of the taxes from these sectors.
- Players receives a bonus for helping out with an invasion.

Major Features:
- AL Plugin - Enable or disable through the AL menu
- Preserves NPC stations and economy - no stations are destroyed
- NPC races build ships used for invading and attacking
- Should not directly affect player ships and stations

Invasions:
If a race has capital ships available, it may launch an attack on an enemy owned sector. Sectors that border on their own territories are preferred. The attacking force usually consists of one M2 and 2 M6s. The same types of ships will be sent to defend the sector. If the attackers are successful, the sector and all stations change hands.

Player Participation:
During an invasion, the player will get a notification of the attack and can choose to help out either the attacking or defending race for some reward credits. If you own an M1/M2, you can initiate an invasion on a sector to occupy it for one of the four main races. In addition, you will continually receive a portion of the tax revenue from that sector as a reward.

Installation:
Copy the scripts to in the scripts directory to the scripts folder in X2. Script editor must be enabled. Should be compabible with new games and saved games, and with other scripts/mods. Can be enabled or disabled usng the AL plugin menu.

* This mod was inspired by HakeemCorp's excellent StationWar mod, which addeds a new dimension to the game.
(http://www.egosoft.com/x2/forum/viewtopic.php?t=61939)

Greyhawk1 · Post by **Greyhawk1** » Fri, 21. Jan 05, 19:29

Sounds interesting however I reckon it would pretty much destroy any attempt at keeping the economy going. Should be fun though if you want a game to end in style.

Ampleforth · Post by **Ampleforth** » Fri, 21. Jan 05, 19:36

Actually it should preserve the economy since stations only change ownership and not production. An Argon Wheat Farm in a sector controlled by the Split will be considered a split factory in terms of race relations and the new taxation scheme, but it will still produce wheat. Even station owned ships, such as docked fighters and TS's on trade runs, will change to the new allegiance. That's whey you see Argon Nova's with split IDs and piloted by the split (try to com with them). The same goes for shipyards, eq docks, etc.

A lot of care was taken to preserve the stations in the game. That's why during an invasions all stations are temporarily changed to neutral so that they are not attacked and destroyed by the invading ships. When the fighting is over the stations change allegiance to the victor, but everything else remains the same.

shifty lookin spoon · Post by **shifty lookin spoon** » Fri, 21. Jan 05, 21:26

looks great! good thing im planning to build in pirate sectors!

Ampleforth · Post by **Ampleforth** » Fri, 21. Jan 05, 21:37

shifty lookin spoon wrote:looks great! good thing im planning to build in pirate sectors!

Thanks. This mod should not affect the player factories and transports since any invading ships will only set the targeted race as an enemy. For example, an Argon Titan invading a split sector will set all split ships as enemies, but otherwise just act like a normal patrol. I think that even if the race considers the player as an enemy it won't automatically attack the players assets. Of course, you might lose access to the neighboring stations if the invasion was successful

.

shifty lookin spoon · Post by **shifty lookin spoon** » Fri, 21. Jan 05, 21:54

just a couple of questions about this:

1) Can a race be completely obliterated this way? As shipyards/trading stations... will not respawn now.

2) I was in Home of Light when i got a message saying Ore Belt was being attacked by the Split, i then hurried to Ore Belt quickly to see what would happen but no Split ships arrived (although an Argon M1 and M2 were there). I stayed there for a bit waiting to watch the fireworks, but none came and i got another message saying that the invasion failed, did i miss the invasion altogether (are they over that quickly?), i was in the sector within a few minutes of recieving the first message. Im not sure if the split ever were there

and as a suggestion for the next version, disable the feature about being told whenever a cap ship is built... its a bit annoying with so many of the being built

Ampleforth · Post by **Ampleforth** » Fri, 21. Jan 05, 22:14

It is possible that the split ships were destroyed, especially since split m2s are pretty weak and the sector already had and M1 before the backup M2 arrived. Usually the invading M2 appears 30 seconds after the notification. Then, after 20 seconds, the defending M2 arrives and engages (i.e. actively targets) the invading M2. In OOS combat, it may take just a couple of minutes for an M1, M2, and 2 M6s to destroy a Split Python. Attacks should happen every 20 minutes if the races have ships available so you may be able to catch the next one. You should have a minute before the defenders show up.

I will increase the amount of time before defenders arrive to give the player more time to respond. The ship built notifications were more of a debug feature and will be removed or at least be made optional.

Ampleforth · Post by **Ampleforth** » Fri, 21. Jan 05, 23:32

shifty lookin spoon wrote: 1) Can a race be completely obliterated this way? As shipyards/trading stations... will not respawn now.

I am not sure if shipyards will respawn if the ownership is changed. I know that if they are changed to the player they will not respawn, but I don't know what happens for another NPC race. I think it may be ok since when a station or factory changes ownership it will still spawn support ships (i.e. a Split owned Argon Factory will still spawn Novas and Mercuries).

James_2k · Post by **James_2k** » Fri, 21. Jan 05, 23:50

this sounds great

im giving it a go tonight and will report tommorow

could you say though, i take it that allied races will remain as such?

i.e. no argon / boron or split/ paranid wars

shifty lookin spoon · Post by **shifty lookin spoon** » Sat, 22. Jan 05, 00:12

its boron and argon Vs split and paranid

Legion400 · Post by **Legion400** » Sat, 22. Jan 05, 01:16

Does that mena Teladi are 'Neutral'?

Ampleforth · Post by **Ampleforth** » Sat, 22. Jan 05, 03:35

Legion400 wrote:Does that mena Teladi are 'Neutral'?

Yeah, for this version at least the Teladi are netural. They will still builid ships for defense, but there is really no use for them since they never get attacked. This seems to be in line with their goal of more profitsss, plus adding them to either unbalances things a bit. This may change in future versions if there are pirate or xenon attacks or player initiated attacks.

Galaxy613 · Post by **Galaxy613** » Sat, 22. Jan 05, 05:38

Sounds awesome! I'm going to have to give this script a try. Sounds really well thought-out and workable.

Ampleforth · Post by **Ampleforth** » Sat, 22. Jan 05, 09:21

New version available for download (same link above)

*****NEW IN V2.0*****
- PLAYER CAN CAPTURE AND COLLECT TAXES FROM SECTORS. Initaiate an invasion with an M1/M2 through the ship commands menu. You will still retain control of the invading ship, but it must survive and you must destroy the defenders that jump in.

- You will not directly own the stations in a controlled sector, but they will pay you taxes every 10 minutes. They will officially be Argon stations since only stations from the main races seem to spawn support ships, but this may change in future releases.

- Player will receive a bonus for helping out with an invasion. 1000000 credits for destorying invading M2s and 250000 for M6s

- Also some minor changes to invasion notifications, etc.

James_2k · Post by **James_2k** » Sat, 22. Jan 05, 10:18

nice, are the commands compatible with the official scripts available?

and advanced combat ai?

any other compatability issues?

cheers

Ampleforth · Post by **Ampleforth** » Sat, 22. Jan 05, 10:31

It should be compatible with other scripts out there. The only issue might be the use of the ship command slot (slot 17) , but that should be easy enough to correct.

Greyhawk1 · Post by **Greyhawk1** » Sun, 23. Jan 05, 00:18

Ampleforth wrote:Actually it should preserve the economy since stations only change ownership and not production. An Argon Wheat Farm in a sector controlled by the Split will be considered a split factory in terms of race relations and the new taxation scheme, but it will still produce wheat. Even station owned ships, such as docked fighters and TS's on trade runs, will change to the new allegiance. That's whey you see Argon Nova's with split IDs and piloted by the split (try to com with them). The same goes for shipyards, eq docks, etc.

A lot of care was taken to preserve the stations in the game. That's why during an invasions all stations are temporarily changed to neutral so that they are not attacked and destroyed by the invading ships. When the fighting is over the stations change allegiance to the victor, but everything else remains the same.

Ahhhh right. Sorry I totally and completely misunderstood

James_2k · Post by **James_2k** » Sun, 23. Jan 05, 01:35

a couple of observations;

i was sitting in my uber buster 'JJMf Ambivalent' (i still cant decide whether to keep the name or not

)when i heard the call; Cloud SW targetted by paranid.

so i fired up the jump drive and reached the system.

i saw a couple of nemmys and a oddy. then a titan warped in and kicked thew oddys arse, i mean full on wastage, it looked like the paras werent even fighting back (no shots fired from them)

the corvettes were targeted by the centaurs which also jumped in (nothing else targetted the paranid). but the same thing, the nemmy was just cruising along with the centaur taking lumps out of it.

maybe an issue with IFF?

by the way when the oddy was destroyed the titan stopped moving (made no attempts to follow the enemy m6s)

it just seemed that

A: the argon werent bothered about defending the sector much

B: the paras were on a tea break

not critisism by any means, just my thoughts

(by the way, before this i had several notices about invasions (sucesses and failures) but i couldn't get to the sectors at the time)

Ampleforth · Post by **Ampleforth** » Sun, 23. Jan 05, 04:14

I think it might be an issue with the commands the ships have. The M2s are ordered to attack each other and the M6s are supposed to defend the M2s. So when the oddy they were defending was destroyed the nems probably didn't know what to do. At the same time, the Titan probably went on a break since its job was done. I will change it in the next release so that all ships are ordered to attack all enemies (the problem was they would get distracted by transports, etc).

Bhruic · Post by **Bhruic** » Sun, 23. Jan 05, 06:23

Why not make a priority system? Rank each ship in order of combat priority, then have the ship pick its target using that system. That way, the M2 will get targeted first, M6 second, etc (assuming that's what shows up), and they won't waste time on TS. But if the M2 is out of commission for some reason, they won't sit around idle.

Bh

Race Wars Mod - AL Plugin

What do you think?

Race Wars Mod - AL Plugin