[MOD] Sector Satellites

[iforgotmysocks]

If a few ships on the map are really slowing down your game, just drop the satellites a little off sector center where no traffic happens and you're good.

[Kadatherion]

If a few ships on the map are really slowing down your game, just drop the satellites a little off sector center where no traffic happens and you're good.

It's what I did. Reverted back to vanilla radar ranges, and one satellite per sector with only a few of them in heavy traffic areas (near shipyards/wharves basically) is... well, manageable. The hit is still relevant and unacceptable as it's caused by the UI having to show more objects/render more icons rather than anything else, but at least you can play.

[iforgotmysocks]

I'm going to see if i can add interdiction satellites today, so i might aswell see if i cant come up with a satellites that doesn't cause issues for people having problems with the map and is still useful as a satellite. I got a few ideas, but i'm not sure if they will work.

[iforgotmysocks]

Version 0.8 is out, 2 more sats that tackle current issues and add some gameplay.

Hostile Detection Satellite:
- no active radar unless hostile ships are discovered and in range. If enemy l and xl sized ships come in range of the satellite, it goes active radar and notifies the player via sound, notification and logbook entry about the position of hostile forces. Once they leave the vacinity, the satellite goes passive again. (This will also help players that have issues with too many ships being shown on the map, as the satellite won't have radar if in passive state)
- same remaining features of the advanced satellite

Interdiction Probe:
- this probe disrupts and damages engines of l and xl ships if they pass through the 15km wide range of the Interdiction Probe.
- probes only disrupt ships if the player is in the same sector (this may change in the future if requested)
- shorter range of 15km (may need more balancing)
- affected ships will get pissed at you (probably not enough yet)
- no other features including price updates, this is soley a piracy tool (and not too cheap, so better don't leave them behind )

Have fun and leave me some feedback!

[argon_emperor]

Version 0.8 is out, 2 more sats that tackle current issues and add some gameplay.

Hostile Detection Satellite:
- no active radar unless hostile ships are discovered and in range. If enemy l and xl sized ships come in range of the satellite, it goes active radar and notifies the player via sound, notification and logbook entry about the position of hostile forces. Once they leave the vacinity, the satellite goes passive again. (This will also help players that have issues with too many ships being shown on the map, as the satellite won't have radar if in passive state)
- same remaining features of the advanced satellite

Interdiction Probe:
- this probe disrupts and damages engines of l and xl ships if they pass through the 15km wide range of the Interdiction Probe.
- probes only disrupt ships if the player is in the same sector (this may change in the future if requested)
- shorter range of 15km (may need more balancing)
- affected ships will get pissed at you (probably not enough yet)
- no other features including price updates, this is soley a piracy tool (and not too cheap, so better don't leave them behind )

Have fun and leave me some feedback!

Ooh, I like the sound of these XD Of course you had to post it like 5 min after I booted the game though, just my luck XD

Does the interdiction probe continually affect the engines? Or is it a once off effect first time they enter the range?

EDIT: also, 15km is probably too wide an area for the interdiction probe, given what it can do, I'd say no more than 5km, so you basically just drop it near a capital you plan to board

[TR0LL]

Really liking the options this mod adds, is it possible to make the pirate factions use the interdiction probes? that would be amazing.
it would also be neat if factions used them on enemy borders as well.

[Kadatherion]

Neat. A solution that's both effective and functional, that's what I call elegant.

[Kadatherion]

Played with them a bit and placed a HDS where I had adv satellites before: they're perfect. I had already cleaned my network of satellites a bit, so there wasn't a huge gain in performance, but every bit helps.

One thing though I realised while playing: it's already annoying enough with vanilla satellites when a stray pirate or xenon blows them up. You get no alert, no message log, and the only way to notice is to see there's no more radar coverage when you zoom over a sector (or noticing the stations there don't give you real time offers anymore). With the HDS there's not even that, so when you've lost one of them it's virtually impossible to notice unless you specifically, and periodically, pixel hunt every sector to ensure they are still where you've placed them. It would be nice if they actually sent an alert/message log when destroyed or - but this could be a bit more tricky - if they weren't considered a valid target by the AI at all. In a sense, they already behave a bit like "cloaked" satellites, as they stay off and silent until a cap ship comes in range, so it would kinda fit (although it could be seen as "cheating" by some).

[iforgotmysocks]

Hmm... i'll look into it. U'll get ur destroyed notifications, i'll just need to implement it right so that HDS switching states won't spam the log. I'm destroying them to replace them as deactivating and reactivating didn't always work properly.

I might have an idea how to have enemies ignore them that doesn't involve going through every single ai combat script, but that would indeed be a tad cheaty.

[Requiemfang]

Hmm... i'll look into it. U'll get ur destroyed notifications, i'll just need to implement it right so that HDS switching states won't spam the log. I'm destroying them to replace them as deactivating and reactivating didn't always work properly.

I might have an idea how to have enemies ignore them that doesn't involve going through every single ai combat script, but that would indeed be a tad cheaty.

I remember there was a mod... I think it was a universal sat network mod for X3TC/AP where there was an upgrade you applied to sats or there was a different version of the adv sat you could use that made them stealth sats and prevented enemies from seeing or knowing where they were thus they couldn't destroy them. This upgrade came at a cost though in credits to upgrade them and it wasn't cheap, you had to really sink in your credits in order to upgrade them. It was somewhat cheaty cause it was a simple script that ran that turned them into stealth sats but the credit cost for the upgrade balanced it out.

[iforgotmysocks]

Ya, i guess i could create a license or inventory item that would allow that to happen, just gotta be expensive enough.

And i'll need to test first if it works anyway.

[Kadatherion]

I remember there was a mod... I think it was a universal sat network mod for X3TC/AP where there was an upgrade you applied to sats or there was a different version of the adv sat you could use that made them stealth sats and prevented enemies from seeing or knowing where they were thus they couldn't destroy them. This upgrade came at a cost though in credits to upgrade them and it wasn't cheap, you had to really sink in your credits in order to upgrade them. It was somewhat cheaty cause it was a simple script that ran that turned them into stealth sats but the credit cost for the upgrade balanced it out.

I remember that mod, even though back then I never felt the need to use it. Fact is, if we had commands to autodeploy a satellite network like we had in X3 it wouldn't be an issue: when you got the notification of one or more satellites being blown out, you'd just order your M5 to "deploy satellite network" and it would automatically replace the destroyed ones wherever in the universe, buying them as needed. 3 clicks and you were done. It was quick and user friendly enough that there was no need for them to be in god/stealth mode. Here we have to manually replace them sector by sector (or, at best, manually order a ship to do it each time), so it becomes a drag after a while, and such a feature would probably feel more like QoL than a "cheat".

[iforgotmysocks]

Well morbideth is currently working on that in a way. He probably doesn't have the ships actively filter and cover sectors without sats yet, i believe they still look around for the next sector and move on when if it already contains sats, but as such a mod is already in development i'm not gonna mess with that functionallity myself aswell. That's just common decency that some people ripping off mods don't seem to understand.

And i totally agree, i would dislike that "cheat" aswell. I may implement satellite safety for a hefty price if i can make it work until morbideths script works that way tho.

[thanos]

Quick question: Is it possible to switch all satellites to the hostile detection version? I have explored all sectors and all non-xenon sectors now have a lot of satellites. I'd like to install the hostile detection version for performance reason but I'd have to go and manually pick up everything and then place down the new one, which is...cumbersome.

I could probably do it myself by just copy-pasting the hostile detection code to the other 2 sats, but I was just wondering if you had considered making that an option for those of us that have already littered the universe with sats

[iforgotmysocks]

I was just wondering if you had considered making that an option for those of us that have already littered the universe with sats

Ya, i can write up an additional small mod that replaces them when i'm releasing the next update.

[thanos]

Thank you, that would be greatly appreciated!

[iforgotmysocks]

Thank you, that would be greatly appreciated!

Hey there, sorry to say that i didn't have enough time tonight, but i'll get on it tomorrow.
But what i managed to get done was:


Version 0.8.1

- Added destruction notifications for satellites being killed
- Nerfed the Interdiction Probe range from 15km to 8km to not have them shut down entire parts of sectors
- Fixed a bug that stopped the list temporarily keeping track of hostile ships being purged sucessfully under certain circumstances
- Fixed the Hostile Detection Satellite's short message notification only displaying 3 ships if they were too many to be displayed on the quick display, it now only shows the amount of xl and l ships in this case, more details can be seen in the
logbook entry
- Fixed a bug that sometimes led to station price updates not being removed when a satellite was quickly picked up again after placing it

[Rupert Hound]

Sorry if this has already been asked i havent read the comments, can you add a way for the satellites to update the station info in sector.

[iforgotmysocks]

Sorry if this has already been asked i havent read the comments, can you add a way for the satellites to update the station info in sector.

What exactly do you mean by that?

[Rupert Hound]

For eg i can place adv sats next to stations but when i click on info like storage/production etc all i see is ????