Random Contacts

[Rastix]

Originally Posted by Goblin Wizard

At last good news Congratulations Nanaki.


Let me know one thing - Is it possible to have 2 pilots in mothership like in SW2? and how?

It's not possible at all. This functionality was remove. But are we speaking about engine or scripting ?

[Nanaki]

Well, now I have to figure out how to do the despawn script. Unfortunately, I have not the foggiest idea on where to start. I have been trying different ideas but all of them have failed so far.

Basically, I need the escort ships to despawn whenever the primary capital ship passes through a gate. The hardest part is making sure im despawning the correct escorts. My current attempt is focusing upon naming escort ships the exact same names as their parent ships, and adding an _escort1, _escort2, etc. etc. etc. at the end. Then, when the script is called to delete that random contact, it would also call deletion scripts for its escorts:

function trigger_inside2portal_Action()
--SLOG("Action done....");
local myTriggerContext = GetTriggerContext();
local flight = myTriggerContext:GetFlight();
flightelete();

local escort1 = flight.."_escort1"
escort1elete();
end;

Only problem was, it spat out an error:
[ScriptSystem] error: attempt to concat local `flight' (a table value)

So the triggers use tables? Getting data out of it is going to be harder than I thought, it seems.

[Goblin Wizard]

Originally Posted by Rastix

It's not possible at all. This functionality was remove. But are we speaking about engine or scripting ?

Thanks for the answer but I'm afraid this discussion will get us nowhere. Let's make it clear: You are generally right. The SW3 engine was changed but it can handle all functions the same way as previous SW2 engine.

[Goblin Wizard]

Originally Posted by Rastix

It's not possible at all. This functionality was remove.

Your answer has encouraged me to check the whole thing. I've been thinking - IMPOSSIBLE?? I CAN DO IMPOSSIBLE). Short story - I have Brina and KT back with two perk trees combined. I can even tech them new perks. It's better - I can teach any AI new perks. It's a little tricky. Because AIs can't gain skill points they use points stored by one of your other pilots. When one of your pilot has gained enough exp you go to my maintenance station shop and buy a perk. Nice and simple. The only problem is that you have to keep track of all bought perks somewhere outside PC (you can't see AI perk tree). I'm just testing it. Script needs some polishing.

[Nanaki]

Update:
Script is now fully operational. It properly spawns capital ships, their escorts, and properly despawns them as soon as they hit the jumpgate. It can spawn anywhere from one to four escort flights (two and one being the most common). Power has no effect on how many escorts spawn (so even a cap flight of a power level of 1 can have 4 escort flights... that is a lot of brigands)

Escort flights are random in power (although they do have an upper and lower cap, dependant on the Strength level of the randomcontact), and have a 66% chance of being a fighter flight, and a 33% chance of being a bomber flight.

After I finish making sure the script has no bugs, and perhaps cleaning it up a bit, I am likely going to revamp the ship spawning script, specifically the capital ship tables. As it is, almost half of the capital ships spawned in the table are freighters, and a freighter leading a fleet to the front lines is not really appropriate.

[Nanaki]

Update:
The mod is mostly finished. I modified most of the location files and added fleets, convoys, and flights to many of them. Many of these random contacts also have additional waypoints, which means they will loiter in a system longer and visit more places. Certain randomcontacts in certain systems had broken waypoints, so that was fixed as well.

So far, in most systems, flights have a 50% chance to spawn every time it runs the script (varies by system, usually 60 seconds), Fleets and Convoys both have a 10% chance to spawn. Pirates in the Triada systems have a mostly 25% chance of spawning a flight, and a 5% chance of spawning a fleet/convoy, so caution is recommended when travelling in Triada systems.

My Convoy script was gutted and redone to be exactly like the Fleets, except that they have 2-3 escort flights as opposed to 1-4 escort flights. Convoy flights are easier to poach, but the added fleets make gate camping risky and forward reconnassiance a must, since you have no idea weither a convoy is going to come out of a gate, or a very angry fleet consisting of a capital ship and four flights of fighters.

Overall, the only thing that is left is making changes to capital ship loadouts (such as equipping GKGuns to Pirate motherships) and testing the mod.

Update2: It seems like something broke... escorts are not spawning anymore.

I agree, space is entirely too damn quiet for a war to be going on - this mod sounds freaking awesome but is it still giving you trouble? I noticed that the convoy mod you posted a couple posts back is larger than the fleetmodbeta attachment.

[Nanaki]

Originally Posted by Trucidation

I agree, space is entirely too damn quiet for a war to be going on - this mod sounds freaking awesome but is it still giving you trouble? I noticed that the convoy mod you posted a couple posts back is larger than the fleetmodbeta attachment.

The fleetmodbeta attachment was meant for other people to look at to see if they can fix the issue, unfortunately im just not good enough with Lua to fix it myself. It only comes with the barebones script and does not completely work on its own (it is missing the randomcontact entries for the convoys and fleets). I did complete the work on the location files, but I figure theres no point in distributing a full version of the mod until I (or someone else) figures out how to fix this very serious bug that the mod has.

The issue lies with the GetRandomPortalIndexes function, listed below:

function GetRandomPortalIndexes(portalList)
local portalCount = getn(portalList);

if portalCount == 1
then
return {1, 1};
end;

local randomIndex = RAND(portalCount) + 1;
local newPortalIndex = randomIndex;

while (newPortalIndex == randomIndex)
do
randomIndex = RAND(portalCount) + 1; -- RAND is ZERO based
end;
return {randomIndex, newPortalIndex};
end;

The script works fine as long as portalCount does not equal 1. However, if Portalcount equals one, the despawn script for the flight's escorts prematurely triggers, which results in a capital ship's escorts despawning literally milliseconds after they spawn. Thus while this script works perfectly in certain systems (especially with multiple jumpgates), all capital ship spawns that are limited to only one jumpgate will spawn with no escorts whatsoever.

Here is the despawn trigger below:

local escort1 = getglobal("flight_randomformation_"..__formation_n umber.."_escort1");
if escort1 ~= null then
local escort1 = getglobal("flight_randomformation_"..__formation_n umber.."_escort1");
local trigger_deleteescort = CreateTrigger();
trigger_deleteescort:AttachEvent(_EVENT_FLIGHTINSI DEOBJECTVOLUME);
trigger_deleteescort:SetObjects(escort1, currentContact[3][portalEndIndex], 120);

trigger_deleteescort:AttachCondition(trigger_delet eescort_Condition);
trigger_deleteescort:AttachAction(trigger_deletees cort_Action);
trigger_deleteescort:Activate();
end;

function trigger_deleteescort_Condition()
local myTriggerContext = GetTriggerContext();
local portal = myTriggerContext:GetDestinationObject();
local flight = myTriggerContext:GetFlight();
local pos = flight:GetPosition();

portal:Start(5, 0);
return TRUE;
end;

function trigger_deleteescort_Action()
--SLOG("Action done....");
local myTriggerContext = GetTriggerContext();
local flight = myTriggerContext:GetFlight();
flightelete();
end;

It annoys me because I know what the problem is, but I have not the foggiest idea how to fix it.

[skrzacik]

Nanaki
i need this mod !!!!
do anything what u cn becouse is a little to quiet in space
good luck with modding

Nanaki, if I understand correctly, GetRandomPortalIndexes is to set a destination portal for a convoy/fleet? So in a system with only 1 portal, the destination portal = start portal, right?

I think the problem is when the fleet spawns it also runs through the "are we at the destination portal yet?" check, so it despawns immediately. We need a way of telling the fleet to NOT check for destination until it's reached at least 1 waypoint.