[SCRIPT] Sector Takeover v 1.7[Updated 1/10/06]

[Blinki1984]

When the enemy race has taken over your stolen sector again will they rebuild the stations ???


If they could allways rebuild their platforms once they have been destroryed
it would be possible to create a dynamic universe.

as above mentioned I am using the race invasion mod 8.3
and I would be glad to see the attacked sectors beeing conquered and stations beeing build

[El Toro]

I am getting 404 when opening the download page.

[acrh2]

When the enemy race has taken over your stolen sector again will they rebuild the stations ???


If they could allways rebuild their platforms once they have been destroryed
it would be possible to create a dynamic universe.

as above mentioned I am using the race invasion mod 8.3
and I would be glad to see the attacked sectors beeing conquered and stations beeing build

God engine takes care of rebuilding stations. It may be a slow process but it should work.

[acrh2]

I am getting 404 when opening the download page.

Fixed.

[Blinki1984]

Yes but this only rebuilds the original Stations from the original owner, not the new ones from the conquerer, which would be nessecary to have an complete change of sectors

for example Argon trading bay -> teladi trading bay

[Cycrow]

creating an invading fleet to take over a sector is pretty easy, you just need to think the best way to trigger it

you can create aload of ships, and run the fight.invasion script and they will start an invasion on the sector, then you just test for when the player stations are destoryed and send in a trading station of thier own

[acrh2]

Yes but this only rebuilds the original Stations from the original owner, not the new ones from the conquerer, which would be nessecary to have an complete change of sectors

for example Argon trading bay -> teladi trading bay

That is correct. Only the player will be able to take over sectors, since no races can attack other races' sectors to take them over.

If you would like that feature, you must speak to the author of race invasion script. You can tell him that he has my permission to use my code.

Personally, I prefer to stay away from long complex scripts, especially those than can modify the universe in complex and unpredictable ways.
They have the tendency to screw up my game.
What you are asking for would be just such script.

By the way, my uninstall feature will safely return the universe to its original state before the script was installed, which I personally value a lot in a good script.

[BlackRain]

true enough acrh2 but you could create the script for other people who want it. You don't necessarily have to use it yourself. I think most people want the more dynamic aspect of having races take sectors back from you. Or if anyone else knows how to do this, like maybe if cycrow can do it, that would be great.

[acrh2]

Oh nice!! I'll give it a try asap, but what about this?
For example i built a Crystal Complex in Hatikwas Faith, and it was the only station in that sector, so if i had your script back then that sector would change from Pirate to Player, right?
Now, the boring boron just built a rastar refinery or something there, does that affect the ownership?

What im asking is, if you own a sector, will that sector be a forbidden sector for the npc races to build in? Or will any npc station that is newly build in a player owned sector, make that sector neutral (or whatever) again?
I would like npc's to still be able to build stations in my sector i own, then all the same economy stuff is still the same, and if i wouldnt want it, i could just annihilate the TL's.

Once a sector belongs to a player, the only way its ownership will change is when player-owned Trading Docks are destroyed. I think the god engine will not attempt to build any npc stations in a player-owned sector, but this script will make sure that it's not so easy to own an overtaken sector by sending raiding parties of the original race (from enemy sectors of the original owner race located within 8 jumps of the sector in question), which will specifically target the player-own Trading Docks.

As for the NPCs building NPC stations in your own sector, I believe that the god engine is not programmed for it (although I could be wrong).
This feature would be impossible without making a code specifically for it.

[BlackRain]

If you take a pirate sector, will they also send raiding parties? Also, what kind of ships are involved in the raiding parties, any capital ships?

[acrh2]

If you take a pirate sector, will they also send raiding parties? Also, what kind of ships are involved in the raiding parties, any capital ships?

Pirates - yes.

Raiding parties currently consits of one M6 of the race with the orders to destroy a random player-owned Trading Dock in the overtaken sector in contention, and a couple of M3s to protect the M6.

[acrh2]

Another update:

speed optimizations
1 bug fixes
added install and uninstall messages

[octessence]

This looks excellent. I'll definatly use it later in the game when I'm in a position to start wars.

It would be cool to have the strength of the invasion party to be based on your fight rank. An M6 with a few M3s will probably be nothing to anyone with enough cash to buy a Trading Station.

Another (more realistic) approach would be to base the strength of the invasion party on the current strength of the race (e.g. by number of stations they have). That way, when a race is quite powerful, it will send in a stronger force. When a race no stations left, the invasions would stop.

[acrh2]

This looks excellent. I'll definatly use it later in the game when I'm in a position to start wars.

It would be cool to have the strength of the invasion party to be based on your fight rank. An M6 with a few M3s will probably be nothing to anyone with enough cash to buy a Trading Station.

Another (more realistic) approach would be to base the strength of the invasion party on the current strength of the race (e.g. by number of stations they have). That way, when a race is quite powerful, it will send in a stronger force. When a race no stations left, the invasions would stop.

These are very good ideas. I will definitely consider doing this.
As of right now, I equip raiding parties with the "add default items to ship" instruction, which, I believe, changes what items are added with respect to the fighting rank of the player.

However, in all honesty, if you are in a position to take over enemy sectors, I think they would probably send everything they've got to take them back.

Another consideration is this: I would like to keep the script as simple as possible, because it runs real time at all times, and not everyone has the computing power to handle the load.

So far, I have done only preliminary tweaking with respect to how these raiding parties affect the gameplay. Are they strong or weak, is there too many or too few of them and so on... My main testing goals have been eliminating all possible bugs.
I mean, I did try to fight them, and they seemed to be right to me, and the numbers and frequency seems to be ok. But I have a lot of resources in my game, and someone else might find them a bit too strong.

Anyway, any user input on general gameplay balance is greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[bladeuk]

I ahve alot resources too, but i think the frequency is a bit strong

http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/9932 ... 4854mb.jpg
(click on the image to get it clearer)

Is what farnhams legend looks like now....

with constant streams of reinforcements coming from all directions, i just spent the last hour fighting through ospreys to get to split fire, which is 2 jumps away!

[acrh2]

I ahve alot resources too, but i think the frequency is a bit strong

http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/9932 ... 4854mb.jpg
(click on the image to get it clearer)

Is what farnhams legend looks like now....

with constant streams of reinforcements coming from all directions, i just spent the last hour fighting through ospreys to get to split fire, which is 2 jumps away!

This does look a bit too much. But isn't this an extreme case? I mean you have a bunch of pirate sectors lining up donw the map, and I imagine, some of those osprey groups have been bunched up over a long period of time.
You want me to tone it down a bit?
By how much?

EDIT: just timed it with a stopwatch. Currently the spawn time is between 1 min and 4 min roughly. Should I make it something like 3-10? 4-15 min?

[bladeuk]

ye im thinking around 4-15 minutes, been a random time if you can do that, cus if it was every 5 minutes lets say, id be sittin waitin every 5 minutes!

I think it is an extreme case, i did take loomanstracks legacy, which got attacked once after about 10 minutes of putting a trading dock down.

how does the script work then? does it spawn an attack group in set places or in nearby sectors of the race i took the sector off?

this could be a problem if people start to take over other races sectors aswell......or a bonus, if taking from the big races you should have to fight for the sector, unfortunatly for me i had already took and placed a trading station in farnhams legend before installing the script, is there anyway to exlude sectors of a certain choice?

[bladeuk]

for double post

Ive been looking at the timer xml fil and this line

Code: Select all

055          $raid =  = random value from 3 to 21 - 1

055- is this the time, if so is it in minutes?

Do you mind if i change this to what i want it to be, becuase a more random timer would be fun for me (say 1 to 99), probably not suit everyone else, but then isnt that the point of scripting...to make the game they way you want it?

and thse lines

Code: Select all

084           $raidshiptype = Osprey
085           $escorttype = Falcon
086           $enemyrace = Yaki

i take it these are the ships that are called, if i wanted to change these to larger ships, do i just put the name in, like titan for example?

sorry but ive havnt done much scripting before

[acrh2]

ye im thinking around 4-15 minutes, been a random time if you can do that, cus if it was every 5 minutes lets say, id be sittin waitin every 5 minutes!

I think it is an extreme case, i did take loomanstracks legacy, which got attacked once after about 10 minutes of putting a trading dock down.

how does the script work then? does it spawn an attack group in set places or in nearby sectors of the race i took the sector off?

this could be a problem if people start to take over other races sectors aswell......or a bonus, if taking from the big races you should have to fight for the sector, unfortunatly for me i had already took and placed a trading station in farnhams legend before installing the script, is there anyway to exlude sectors of a certain choice?

I will update the script tonight.
I will make it so it's 4 to N number of minutes, with N depending on the fighting rank (lower rank, higher N).

Also, with respect to Trading Docks that shouldn't trigger sector takeover.
Excellent point. I myself have never used them (I find them a bit useless).
But someone might.
The easiest way that I can think of to implement this, without overcomplicating the script too much:
if you put a special character in the name of the dock, say, it should start with "$", then the script would ignore this particular dock in its routines.
Is this acceptable?

Otherwise, I can add a station command to label a dock but I would rather not because I like to keep things simple.

[Sandalpocalypse]

trading docks signify sector ownership, basically. that's why they're used. the only exception is getsu fune.