[SCRIPT] Sector Takeover v2.4.3 [Updated 20-Apr-2007]

[nirwin]

Loomanckenstrats legacy (which I am using to stop the respawning of shipyards and trading docks etc), respawns a pirate anarchy port which almost instantly spawns 3 fighters cause it's only pirates. I now have the script working that destroys the respawned structure, but it is not being called from the main timer script, so I will fix that problem today, and then see how it works.

I like the way a race gets more fierce when it gets closer to extinction. Makes the battle for domination of the galaxy that much more interesting.

Now I just need some time to actually carry on with my game...

[DesertEagle]

I need some time to play too! I'm moving this weekend, so things are on hold until I unpack my computer again.

DE

[nirwin]

I need some time to play too! I'm moving this weekend, so things are on hold until I unpack my computer again.

DE

I'm moving myself in the next few weeks.

Hmmm well, I've been playing X3 today instead of scripting on it , so the update will probably be early in the week, might get it done monday evening.

[Evans3rd]

This script is a good idea but the tax ruined it for me.
In my game I already have several closed loop complexes with several factories each. After loading this script my cr started dropping fast and my message box was spammed so bad I could not get any “ship under attack” messages.
I may end up using this eventually but not until I figure out how to modify it a little first.

added;
In all fairness my account was not falling but it greatly reduced my hourly earnings. If I had planed for this it would be different but as is this script greatly reduces the value of a closed loop factory unless you build in your captured space.
For those who want to capture/conquer the galaxy this will be ok but I just wanted to call one sector home for now.
The message box spamming is intolerable though.

2 Soya been
1 Soja husk
1 Crystal
1 beef
1 cahoona
1 SPP
1 silicone mine
3 computer plants
11 X 3,125 = 34,375 per complex per hour.

34,375 X 4 = 137,500 per hour.

And I have one more complex that sells nothing but makes shields and guns.
2 Soja been
1 soja husk
1 crystal
1 SPP
1 ore mine
1 beef
1 cahoona
1 AHEPT
1 25MJ shields
1 1MJ shields (this was a mistake. I was looking for a 1GJ shield but it was late at night Sigh!)
137,500 + 34,375 = 171,875 per hour in taxes.

[Alzara]

Hey guys. This post has been quiet for quite a while. I'm curious as to one point. Will this script work well with the Race Response Fleets script, or is it likely to cause continual incursions by race ships even after I've taken over a sector?

Thanks guys.

Am also wondering whats happening with this script nowadays?

Al

[al_main]

Evans:

But whats 300,000 per hour if you have 4 major complexes set up? You shuld be raking in 4x that! (NOTE: not bothered to work out your exact earnings, but it should be far more than 300,000)

Just take over the sector! - Then no more taxes!

(alternatively arent they switch offable? lol)

[nirwin]

Hello,

Yes the tax system can be turned off, so that shouldn't affect your enjoyment of the game, see the readme, or the first post for instructions on how to turn off the tax system. I too have factories in sectors I don't want to claim (Montalaar for example - dont want to start a fight with the Argon), but I am living with it for now.

Message log spamming huh? Well the reason this script is writing anything to the message log, was merely for debugging purposes, I meant to disable the debugging flag before release, clearly I forgot, I will look into that hopefully tonight and get a newer version uploaded to solve that problem.

As far as the what is happening with the script nowadays question, don't worry, it is still being worked on, the ability to capture a station is being added by DE, and I'm working on stopping SY's from respawning in sector's you've captured, then I will probably try adding a mechanism to populate player owned sectors with more factories. And the next release should also be in German for those of you that speak that language natively.

However at the moment DE and I are (seperately) in the process of moving house, so things are very up in the air at the moment, I for one may find myself without an Internet connection at home for a few days

But fear not, progress will be made soon.

---EDIT---
Race response compatability, well I use RR (jtp) myself and haven't noticed any bad effects, though I have only taken over pirate sectors so far. I imagine RR will add a lot more challenge to taking on the Argon or any other formidable race, but heck that's the way I think it should be.
The response fleets (in theory) will not try to reclaim the sector you stole, but they will try and put you in a coffin.
Anyone else had any experience with RR and sector takeover?

[Evans3rd]

Thanks for the reply. I did read about turning off the tax but I must have forgotten. Thanks for reminding me.
I thought the message box spamming might have been an oversight but it was so upsetting I think that may have been why I forgot about being able to turn off the tax.
I’m not ready to build my home sector yet anyway. After giving it some thought I’ll need a lot more cr so I’ll wait for the next version you release.
Unless there is a way I can turn off the debugging myself.

I was wondering, is it possible to exterminate a race by taking over all their sectors? Those Peranid have a lot to answer for in my universe.

[nirwin]

Thanks for the reply. I did read about turning off the tax but I must have forgotten. Thanks for reminding me.
I thought the message box spamming might have been an oversight but it was so upsetting I think that may have been why I forgot about being able to turn off the tax.
I’m not ready to build my home sector yet anyway. After giving it some thought I’ll need a lot more cr so I’ll wait for the next version you release.
Unless there is a way I can turn off the debugging myself.

I was wondering, is it possible to exterminate a race by taking over all their sectors? Those Peranid have a lot to answer for in my universe.

I think the message box spamming should stop if you disable the taxing, because that should be the only thing I was debugging (what messages are appearing in the message log?)

If that doesn't solve your problem, you can turn off the debugging yourself if you know how to use the script editor. Simply go into any script with SectorTakeover in the name and give the 'DEBUGGING' variable a value of false instead of the current true. This is assuming that I didn't leave one of the messages outside of a debugging check.
The debugging variable will only be in a couple of the scripts and should be located at the top of the file.

Sorry I didn't get to fix this for you last night, I was sorting stuff out for my new house, and tonight I am packing, and tomorrow I'm moving, so maybe I'll fix it at the weekend, but I won't be able to upload it until monday when I get to work.

To be honest, I have no hard facts to say you do or don't wipe out a race by taking all their sectors, nobody has acheived that feat to my knowledge (except maybe the Xenon), but I would guess once a race loses its last sector, you effectively wipe out their military, but they will still appear across the galaxy as civilians.

[Evans3rd]

I think the message box spamming should stop if you disable the taxing, because that should be the only thing I was debugging (what messages are appearing in the message log?)

You know as I get older I feel slower and stupid. As I was driving home, funny what we think of while driving, I realized that turning off the tax should stop the messages and it did. I also realized that I could easily turn off debugging myself. I’m not sure how to save yet but I have not looked at the scripting guides yet or spent much time in the editer. I really just want to play for now. The language looks like a mix of Assembly and Perl so I should not have much trouble with it..

The message is something along the line of “Your station in sector “place sector name here” has been charged 3125cr for tax. You account was “a hopefully large number here” and 3125cr has been removed for taxes. Your balance is now “a hopefully large number – 3125cr.”

I intend to make Yaki space my own eventually. I figure without another sector they should not spawn and hassle me. Taking this thought a bit further it should be possible to do the same to say the Peranid by owning all their sectors. Civilians aren’t a concern but if one more Border petrol suggests I leave Priest’s Ring, where I have two large complexes that sell them lots of good stuff, I’m going to kill him.
Actually I plan to remain friendly but at some point in this game I will be immensely powerful, have clamed all Xenon sectors, subdued the pirates and possibly taken their sectors too (I’m not sure what to do about pirates spawning at Teladie shipyards), and the only thing left will be the only real possible end game situation. Absolute tyranny of the entire galaxy/universe.

When I start my second game I plan to install a lot more scripts than I’m using now and yours is definitely one of them as I feel this is really the only way to end the game. For now the tax is just not in my plans but if starting a game with tax on it adds another dimension to the strategy/planning that probably should have been included in the original release.
Thanks for all your work and your help.

[voxol]

OK, I love this script, and certainly love what it could represent. Apologies for the length of this one, I'm just brimming with ideas for this and below is only a cross-section.

I've played around with the code a little, trying a couple of different ideas, and I've spent a lot of time thinking of the immense possibilities of this script.

The message log tax thing I simply changed to a running total, so rather than every single station being reported, you just get a message 'you paid X tax, you collected Y tax, account before A, account after B'.... after running the original script with all the messages for a while it takes 5-10 secs to open my message log.


The way I've had this script set up (far from perfect, but you get the idea):
-----
Ownership of sector requires:
(Original owner does not have trading station)
AND
(Player has Trading Station OR Player owns > X% factories)

Turn off raiding parties (a shame, largest part of the code!), rely on Race Response Fleets.

Mercenaries Guild
-----

This means that sectors (without trading docks) can be taken over non-militarily and not suffer raiding parties, but if you attack a trading dock to cap the sector, the RRF will kick in and your in for a fight.

Mercenaries guild means that, for a large price, you can hire mercenaries to attack an enemy trading dock so you can cap the sector, without losing rep with the original race. You have to pay a lot of cash though for the biggest fleet, since RRF will wipe the floor with them otherwise.

Obviously there are flaws with this setup, and a gazillion additions that could be made. What I'd love is a bunch of equally expensive ways of conquering the universe, through subterfuge, military, trade/respect, whatever.


Suggested new features:

One addition that is definately a requirement for any conquer-the-universe gig, is the ability to build your own ships and upgrade them, despite race relations.

One possibility: all stations in capped sectors are forced to be freindly, even if the owner race is not. Assuming complete extermination of all stations is not required to cap a sector, this would allow the player to buy ships from shipyards in player sectors, even if original owners are unfreindly.

Another possibility: BBS post in pirate stations with sacked shipyard employees willing to build a shipyard that is always freindly to you in a sector of your choice, if you front the cash.


In a similar vein, it would be cool if any police, customs, etc ships in a sector you just conquered would turn friendly and attack any enemies that encroach on your territory.


I think raiding parties are definately a must, I just had to disable them since they would attack even if I conquered non-militarily.

Might I suggest adding something like:
Far-from-core sectors get hassled by raiding parties of fighters, maybe M6's. Near-core sectors get raided by M1s, etc as well as fighters... With the addition that, as you conquer (number of sectors owned by enemy is reduced), the quantity of ships raiding is reduced.

This way, capping a core sector straight away will result in lots of capitol ships as well as fighters.

If you attack the fringe sectors first, you suffer lots of fighters, but as you cap more and more (fringe) sectors the number of fighters sent reduces.

As you continue towards core sectors, the number of fighters sent out continues to reduce, but the class of fighter you have to face in the newly capped close-to-core sectors increases.

This way it makes much more sense to progressively wear down an enemy before going for the core sectors.

Again, apologies for the length of this, but would love to hear any comments on these ideas...

Later.

[nirwin]

OK, I love this script, and certainly love what it could represent......

Thank you, glad the script is making people happy.

The message log tax thing I simply changed to a running total, so rather than every single station being reported, you just get a message 'you paid X tax, you collected Y tax, account before A, account after B'.... after running the original script with all the messages for a while it takes 5-10 secs to open my message log.

A good idea, a summary would definately be useful, so the player is aware of his economical incomings and outgoings. I will look into this, though at the moment I have removed all of those messages.

Ownership of sector requires:
(Original owner does not have trading station)
AND
(Player has Trading Station OR Player owns > X% factories)

No I think the player should have to place something that clearly marks his territory, simply owning most of the business in a sector is not enough to say you own the sector in my mind.

Turn off raiding parties (a shame, largest part of the code!), rely on Race Response Fleets.

I have raiding parties and RRF in my game, though I will concede it seems likely the raiding parties are bugged, will be looked into soon.

Mercenaries Guild
-----

This means that sectors (without trading docks) can be taken over non-militarily and not suffer raiding parties, but if you attack a trading dock to cap the sector, the RRF will kick in and your in for a fight.

Mercenaries guild means that, for a large price, you can hire mercenaries to attack an enemy trading dock so you can cap the sector, without losing rep with the original race. You have to pay a lot of cash though for the biggest fleet, since RRF will wipe the floor with them otherwise.

Obviously there are flaws with this setup, and a gazillion additions that could be made. What I'd love is a bunch of equally expensive ways of conquering the universe, through subterfuge, military, trade/respect, whatever.

That's great, using a combination of scripts you like is definately the way to go, make X3 what you want, and that sounds like a good mix of scripts to me.

Suggested new features:

One addition that is definately a requirement for any conquer-the-universe gig, is the ability to build your own ships and upgrade them, despite race relations.

It's already on our TODO list.

One possibility: all stations in capped sectors are forced to be freindly, even if the owner race is not. Assuming complete extermination of all stations is not required to cap a sector, this would allow the player to buy ships from shipyards in player sectors, even if original owners are unfreindly.

As stated above we plan on giving players the ability to have their own shipyards, so this won't be so much of a problem, I personally lean towards the idea you have to annihalate the owner race to take their sector.

Another possibility: BBS post in pirate stations with sacked shipyard employees willing to build a shipyard that is always freindly to you in a sector of your choice, if you front the cash.

it's possible, could be a good way of making them available. Time will tell when we get round to implementing shipyards.

In a similar vein, it would be cool if any police, customs, etc ships in a sector you just conquered would turn friendly and attack any enemies that encroach on your territory.

But that would mean if you blitzed Argon Prime you'd not really stand a chance of losing it, what with such high security forces, I imagine most ppl associated with a race would run or fight to the death, maybe we could add a small percentage chance of people deflecting to the conquering side (would certainly be more immersive), good idea.

I think raiding parties are definately a must, I just had to disable them since they would attack even if I conquered non-militarily.

They still lost an entire sector to you, I'd expect them to be a touch hostile.

Might I suggest adding something like:
Far-from-core sectors get hassled by raiding parties of fighters, maybe M6's. Near-core sectors get raided by M1s, etc as well as fighters... With the addition that, as you conquer (number of sectors owned by enemy is reduced), the quantity of ships raiding is reduced.

This way, capping a core sector straight away will result in lots of capitol ships as well as fighters.

Although this is a great idea, and I'd love to include it, it is an overcomplication, and would increase the time it takes the script to execute with no major gain. I do however like the idea, but either way it would take a while and be low on our list of priorities.
That said however, the work DE is doing, may make most of the suggestion a lot more feasible. Time will tell, I have an advance copy of his work which I shall hopefully be glancing at tonight.

If you attack the fringe sectors first, you suffer lots of fighters, but as you cap more and more (fringe) sectors the number of fighters sent reduces.

Again a good idea, extra calculations but nevermind, personally I'm more of the opinion that the less space they have the more ferociously they'll fight to reclaim, and they would also have a more concentrated fleet due to tactical withdrawel.

As you continue towards core sectors, the number of fighters sent out continues to reduce, but the class of fighter you have to face in the newly capped close-to-core sectors increases.

This way it makes much more sense to progressively wear down an enemy before going for the core sectors.

The main problem with this vein of thought is simply that we do not control the enemy. Their numbers, their strength are all left alone and they react as EGOSOFT has instructed them, this kinda thing would definately be right at the bottom of the to-do list, and IMO doesn't really need to be done.

Again, apologies for the length of this, but would love to hear any comments on these ideas...

Later.

That was a long post indeed, but mine is even longer (with the quotes ).
Thanks for your ideas and suggestions, they will be noted and in some cases implemented at the appropriate time, keep em coming people, ideas fuel innovation.

[nirwin]

Ok everyone, v2.3BETA is now available for your download pleasure.

It should remove the problem with spamming the message log. And it should also delete certain stations that respawn in your sectors (such as shipyards and trading docks), these stations will not disappear instantly, as is my current plan, but they should disappear, in my test runs they still had time to spawn ships in most cases, but not always. I will improve upon this soon so that you will never notice those stations were there (if possible).

Also over the weekend whilst testing this I got a few CTD's (Crash to Desktop) whilst loading some saves. This could be for a number of reasons (script inconsistency, enabling/disabling scripts left, right and centre, my computer still trying to connect to a non existent Internet connection, who knows?) but if anyone can confirm that this script causes an intermittent loading CTD, I would be grateful (though hopefully that isn't the case).

If it is the case, remember, previous versions can always be downloaded from http://www.thepipe-line.co.uk/sector_takeover

[voxol]

All fair points, I must say.

Though I think you misunderstood me here:

As you continue towards core sectors, the number of fighters sent out continues to reduce, but the class of fighter you have to face in the newly capped close-to-core sectors increases.

This way it makes much more sense to progressively wear down an enemy before going for the core sectors.

The main problem with this vein of thought is simply that we do not control the enemy. Their numbers, their strength are all left alone and they react as EGOSOFT has instructed them, this kinda thing would definately be right at the bottom of the to-do list, and IMO doesn't really need to be done.

I meant the class of fighter sent raiding to the newly capped close-to-core sectors increase, not the ships guarding the sectors. That much you certainly do control.

But I get what your saying, it would require a lot of processing to keep track of enemy strength and be very difficult to keep things balanced.

[nirwin]

Yeah, i certainly did misunderstand, it was a lot to read, and I'm at work, and was uploading the new release etc, was a bit distracted.

It really is a good idea though, because lets be honest, if you steal 'home of light' are the Argon really just guna send 2 fighters and an M6? NO!

So yeah hopefully we can make the response a little more tailored to the situation, but won't be for a while I imagine, there's some real major things to sort out first.

[voxol]

Another idea:

Not sure which of the two threads to post this in, but what about modifying LVs Heavy Assault Capture tech to cap stations, so you dont necessarily have to destroy everything?

[voxol]

Yet another idea:

How about, once you've destroyed all military/customs etc in a sector and have enough military units of your own sat there, you cap the sector... but you're holding it by force, so if too many of your military leaves, or too many of the ex-owner race arrives, the ownership reverts.

I thought of this thinking about the XFP mod and the Star Wars sectors/ships... I would really love my own Galactic Empire filled with Star Destroyers to ensure cooperation, and taxation, of my citizens.

EDIT: And maybe have some concept of 'Respect' or whatever, so over time you need less military to keep the sector from reverting...

[voxol]

And the hattrick:

How about getting the population of the sectors (you would no doubt have to manually go through writing down populations, then have a big if-then function), and basing some of the taxation/raid response on that?

[nirwin]

voxol,

idea 1: DesertEagle is working on capturing stations as we speak, and I am looking forward to it's completion, I don't know if he's using any part of LV's stuff, but all will be revealed in time (unless DE wants to jump in and clarify that for us?)

idea 2: I do like that, as it becomes more like the "total war" series' concept of total domination, which I thought was great fun, but would it not annoy the pants off people who are already up against a pretty huge challenge? After all that's a LOT of sectors to ensure your forces are spread through. I think we are probably better off sticking with the trading stations for ownership idea. The 'respect' thing, although I like it conceptually, would be a massive overhead.

Idea 3: VERY good, never thought of taxing the population too....... hehehehehe money money money money!
Wonder if the population can be retrieved via scripts, I believe it can, but can't be sure without loading the game up (which I can't do now, I'm at work), would be interesting though.
With regards to basing the raiding parties on population, maybe, it has been suggested that they be more context based, so maybe population is something we will put into the equation.

Thanks for the ideas.

[DesertEagle]

Hi All,
long time no post! Past couple of weekends, I rewrote most of Sector Takeover's core code. I sent Nirwin a pre-release version at the very end of the weekend. Bear in mind that he needs to approve any changes, as we are co-authors of this project. Tentatively, however, I wanted to outline what I did. Some of it is fairly radical, compared to what has come before.

1. The only requirement for capturing a sector is that a race have the only trade station in a sector.
a) Non-owner race stations are taxed by Nirwin's script. If you capture a sector, and enemy stations re-spawn, you can expect to be able to tax them.

2. For the 'Player' race, the Player must make an appearance in his/her claimed sector to actually claim it.

3. Other races are continually embroiled in a giant territorial struggle. They can, and will, capture sectors , including sectors that were not originally their own.

-I will be providing a fictional backstory for 3.

4. Enemy races are in a continual process of dynamically re-allocating force deployments in sectors. Artificial intelligence algorithms prioritize regions of strategic interest. Code has been carefully optimized to limit the framerate hit as a result of this.

5. Enemy forces are drawn from ships with "Military" or "Police" in the name, as well as any/all carriers destroyers for a race.

6. If, at any time, race forces exceed defense needs in a given sector, there is a strong possibility that that sector's forces will initiate a raid on a non-race sector. Raiding parties notify a TL ship if they succeed in destroying a trade station, and the TL warps in to drop a trade station for the raiding race.

7. Enemy races will respond aggressively if you attack their stations. I have preserved compatibility with LV's script, as well, but I want to highlight what I consider to be differences in our design philosphies:

A) I do not consider instantaneous response to be at all realistic. Forces take times to mass, battle plans need to be drawn, OPORDS written, etc.

B) I think that, given all the race warfare going on in this version of the X Universe, the constant use of jumpdrives would become prohibitively expensive.

Thus, my response fleets do not use jump drives. Instead, they drive the conventional way through adjacent sectors. Troop movements of responders result in dynamic military re-allocations as necessary.

All of the above is *DONE* in alpha stage.

Changes I am working on right now:

-Capturing a sector with a shipyard causes that shipyard to be converted to generic race 4 and you to be given extremely positive notoriety with that race (you can buy whatever becomes available) The result is that shipyard bearing sectors become points of great strategic interest to the player.
-Former owning populaces become more friendly to you over time.

The result of all these changes, at least in my tests this past weekend, is that X3 starts to feel like a giant game of high stakes chess. Sector defense can be incredibly difficult... but because enemy responses are dynamic and not pre-scripted, it is possible to use advanced tactics to weaken invading forces. For example, you can distract defenders in one sector by staging raids on an adjacent sector's stations, and then warp in and destroy their trade dock.

Also, because the enemy is not just focused on you, you can capitalize on intelligence you glean about enemy troop movements. Argon initiating a large attack on Paranid Prime? Go hit Argon Prime



__________________________________
Station Takeover...
is a whole other effort. It takes a model made by balogt (an astronaut with guns), and pits large numbers of these guys against each other in a battle to the death in order to determine whether you can conquer a station.
This one is about 50% complete right now -- I still need to balance it with my changes to ST.

Anyhow ---


Cheers and All Best,
DE