(LEVELED) - DDRS V2.5 with 55 custom ships and 6 custom shipyards

[kamikazepenguin]

Some ships have incorrect Class Description numbers, causing them to work improperly with the TerraCorp Combat Pilots. The A-wing is marked as an M4 in class descriptions, the Roger Young is marked as a TL, and I think the Grendel was marked as a M1.

[DeadlyDa]

kamikazepenguin - Thanks for finding that...I forgot to clean up the TShips. I even found a few more as I was updating it, so I'm really glad you said something. It's now corrected in my current working directory, and will included in the next release.

zfotoguy - all the standard M6 ships now have external docking...but I didn't do anything to make them more powerful. The 2 new M6 ships in the DDRS mod do have more lasers in the turrets (2x3), and slightly improved performance...but you still won't b able to conquer the galaxy with one of them.

I intentionally didn't include any "killer" ships in the mod, since one of the main design points was to maintain the balance of the game. In a well-balanced game, the player will find a use for each ship class.

As I mentioned in the readme, once Egosoft release a stable "fully featured" version of X3 (yes, I am an optimist!), I will consider a re-balance mod. However, my guess is that Egosoft hasn't yet had time to tweak the balance on the various ships and weapons...and we may well see things being altered in a subsequent patch.

I had originally put some awesomely powerful M6 ships into my X2 mods...but it soon became apparent that players were picking their favorite "fire hose of death", parking their bastu into it, and never bothering to change ships. Why have 9 ship classes, if you only need one to rule the universe?

What I ended up doing for X2 was incorporating Mauzi's most excellent re-balanced type files as a core part of my mods. His work was pretty popular over on the German side of the house, but didn't get a lot of attention from the rest of the X2 community. The reason I mention it is that a lot of the thinking that went into the last (unreleased) X2 mod I was working on with Mauzi still makes sense to me...so we'll just have to wait and see. If the balance of the ships and weapons doesn't come together via Egosoft patches, then I'll almost certainly start adjusting things using the balancing concepts developed by Mauzi.

(Sorry...didn't mean to go "on" like that, but game balance is a bit of a religion with me.)

[zfotoguy]

DeadlyDa, thanks for replying and explaining, it is much appreciated!

My biggest complaint with X3 was that the default M6 is supposed to be a corvette class ship. The default is horrible... you easily get picked apart by one/two M3s or a few M4s. Whats the point of an M6 that can hardly go up against 2 or 3 M4's. The default M6 needs to either be faster, have a faster turn rate, or heavier weapons. As it is right now, it is a ship I would rather NEVER buy or use. It is a brick that can hardly shoot back if the target is not directly in front of it.

With the MOD I mentioned earlier, you could stand a chance against a few M3's. Turning and speed were not changed. Turrets and shielding were increased which helped make it a mid-sized ship worth buying. It was a stepping stone before you could buy the capital ships. Even with his mod, I still found myself often cruising around in my M3 and at times asking my Centaur to follow me or provide backup. Or sometimes the other way around. Or it was fun to have an M4/M5 following me to provide cleanup while I picked off a few more M4's.

I often still had to watch which battles I should choose. A couple M3's from the right angle could still take me out.... and if they used missiles at the right angles, I was dead.

And who wants an M6 with only one turret in the back? Like the Boron Hydra.....thats pretty much worthless for an M6... heck, the Argon Nova is almost as well armed, faster, much smaller, and turns a heck of a lot better. Why even have the ship in the game when at default specs it is horrible and no person would really want a ship like that unless it was free.... Free is good... haha but I digress....

My point is the default M6 needs a little help. Maybe double up on the turrets instead of only 1 gun per turret, make it 2 per turret (The mod I reffered to had 2 turrets with 2 guns in each placement on the centaur (4 right, 4 left, 4 back)... maybe this was a bit much?). Increase shield capacity by one more 125M? Increased weapon reload/max charge?

By the way, I am not complaining one bit about your mod!
I think it is wonderful you have spent so much time on it and I intend to play it more this weekend. You guys have done a great job on it!

I would just like to see the M6 be a real corvette class ship.
I guess I have high expectations... like the USS Defiant kind of ship. haha... kicks butt, takes names later... but still can be beaten.

Have a great weekend.

[doru0186]

i have instaled the mod but when i enter the game the mod is disabled .. when i try to enable it .. i got a messege that i did not finish the plot ... but i did ... pls can you help me ... tx

[Red Spot]

i have instaled the mod but when i enter the game the mod is disabled .. when i try to enable it .. i got a messege that i did not finish the plot ... but i did ... pls can you help me ... tx

have you selected the mod as 'mod-package' ..?? ..



G

[Mobuj]

What?? No "Imperial Srar Destroyer"?

Next you will be telling us there will be no "Death Star".

Any copyright problems?

Cheers!

Millennium Falcon here I come. (who new freighters could be so much fun.

[COLDGANSTA]

were do you buy the stations
ive looked in all the shipyards were are they?

[COLDGANSTA]

do you have to play a plot game for this mod to work?
ime curently playing on humble trader will i need to do a new game and all the missions?

[999-JAY-999]

In the Plot game you cant use this mod.... either play game out of plot or finish plot then enable mod...

[X_x_X]

i found the new station, what do i have to do to get the first mission??

[DeadZone]

Ok, stupid question, how does the missions end

Ive got that mission to grab a Tie Interceptor, which Ive captured (And about a dozen Tie Defenders too)
Yet, where do I send it too in order to complete the mission?

[Red Spot]

Ok, stupid question, how does the missions end

Ive got that mission to grab a Tie Interceptor, which Ive captured (And about a dozen Tie Defenders too)
Yet, where do I send it too in order to complete the mission?

this has been told in the messages you recieve .. you'll have to dock it at the base you got the mission ...


============================================
you cant 'just' buy any station .. you'll have to earn them ..

============================================
to recieve a mission (first read the readme ... )
you'll have to dock at the roid-base (and this is no garantee you will recieve a mission .. when you meet ceartain req. you'll be offered a mission once you dock..)




G

[DeadZone]

Got no idea what base I was docked at when I got the mission (I think it was in Home of Light, but thats all I can remember)
And the read-me is a little cryptic

The way you gain ownership of the Asteroid Base is to......xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Explains nothing about how to gain ownership
Not even sure Ive found it yet, Ive seen a pirate asteriod base, but I dont know if its the intended base for the Player HQ, or is just a pirate asteriod base

[DeadlyDa]

DeadZone,

I think you must be looking at the readme that went out with RC4. I just checked the readme file contained in the mod package for V1.0 , and while it still needs a bit of work, it does contains the following section that should help:

Game Play:
-------------------------

As previously stated, this mod is not just about providing you with custom ships and stations. To get access to the ships, you will need to complete a series of missions.

===> Introducing custom ships into the game:

It is also important to note that the custom ships will only be introduced if you are playing a non-plot game, or after you complete the plot (if you chose to play through the Egosoft plot).

The basic premise is that there will be a new shipyard spawned in for each of the 5 races. It uses the new custom shipyard model (so it is easily recognizable), and is always spawned into a random sector that has an equipment dock, but no existing shipyard. When it is spawned, there are no products available for purchase. Before a new shipyard is spawned for a given race, you must first have visited a number of "important" sectors for that race. (Just visiting Kingdom End is not going to get you the new Boron shipyard!)

There will also be a special Pirate Asteroid Base spawned into one of the "unknown sectors" using the custom Asteroid Base model. It is initially spawned into the unknown sector between Montallaar and New Income ( 8,8 ). When you dock at the 'Roid Base, you will be offered a series of missions. As each mission is completed, an additional ship type will be added to one of the new shipyards. Eventually, you will have populated all 5 shipyards with custom ships (and of course the Asteroid Base, which you can buy as your HQ).

There is also a surprisingly "challenging" special mission that will provide you with a PHQ of your very own...if you survive! You will need something stronger than an M3 before this mission will be offered.

Once all the ship types have been loaded into the 5 shipyards (45+ missions...eek!), the 'Roid Base will continue to offer you missions that earn you a ship.

Be aware that you are playing in a hostile universe! The 'Roid Base will, in all likelihood, be destroyed at some point. Once it is destroyed, it will be re-spawned into a random "unknown" sector. There aren't that many unknown sectors, so the search isn't all that hard.

Once you have managed to get the Asteroid Base added to a shipyard, you can then purchase one or more as your HQ. The benefits of having your own private HQ to store goods and dock spare ships is pretty obvious. However, an additional (and unique feature) of your HQ is the ability to build your own ships locally (as opposed to going to a shipyard and buying them).

===> The PHQ Ship-Building Feature:

You will need to provide a ship to use as the "blueprint" for the initial ship of a given type. The template is then saved for future use. When dismantling the first ship of a given type, all that really happens is that the PHQ creates a "blueprint" of the ship that can be used to build new ones of the same type. You will need additional resources (Ore/Silicon/ECells/Computer Components/Quantum Tubes/Microchips) n order to actually build new ships.

The price of a ship is equal to the cost of the resources you provide. So if you have loops of player-owned stations (or are engaged in piracy), and can get resources cheap, then you can build cheap ships!

While the actual cost of a ship is generally close to the actual purchase price (sometimes more, sometimes less), it also can take a fair bit of time to build. As an example, while the Buster can be built in 1.5 hours, a Nova (approximately 1.6m credits) will take about 4.5 hours, and a giant capital ship costing 100m credits would take about 10 to 12 game-days! Think twice before committing your ship production capacity on monster ships!

Still, if you have engaged in a life of piracy, and most of the races hate you (and therefore won't sell you any of their ships), this feature is essential. Also, with multiple PHQs being fed from your trading loops, you can quickly build a nice fleet of fighters to use with your carriers.

There are two basic functions:

--Build Ship commands:

+ Select a player-owned station or ship

+ Start or stop production on the selected player-owned station or ship

+ Select a moveable ship that is of a type that is not the current "production type", and ship will move to the HQ. If the HQ is currently producing ships, than it will automatically start dismantling the targeted ship once it is done with the current production cycle. If there is no active production cycle, you will have to activate production yourself.

+ Re-select a ship that has been selected to be dismantled, and the ship will be "de-selected" (e.g. remove from the "dismantle--ship" queue). NOTE: the "dismantle" ship command only works on a ship with full hull (100%), and all equipment/wares will be destroyed unless you first remove them!

--Remodel Ship commands:

+ Select a player-owned ship to be remodeled (only works on big ships, M6 and greater), as well as another ship of the same class that you would like to use as the remodel "target". (There is nothing to prevent you from remodeling a ship to the type it already is, so pay attention and don't be wasting your time and resources by remodeling a ship into something that it already is!)

+ The player-owned ship that is to be remodeled will dock at the HQ and then have it's hull be stripped until only 50% is left. It will then change to the target type (destroy ship A create ship B) and the new ship will slowly start building back up to 100%.

+ This will cost you the 10% of the average price of both types of ships (meaning remodeling a 12m credit ship to a 10m credit ship will cost you 12+10/2/10...or 1.1m credits. The time taken uses the formula "ship price/200*1000", or in the example given...15.3 hours.

Again, both functions use Ore, Silicon, Energy Cells, Computer Components, Quantum Tubes, and Microchips. These these wares will automatically be added to the HQ if it doesn't already trade with them.

I think once you have had a chance to play with the PHQ ship-building scripts, you will find them invaluable! I know that I have already developed altered strategies to take advantage of this added functionality.

[DeadZone]

Crap, your right, I was looking at the wrong readme, my bad, thx for pointing it out

Ok, mission now completed (appears you have to be OUT of the target ship for the event trigger)

[junker_81]

Ok, so I have a quick question. Did you make it so that you have to complete the plot firt because of some incomplatability (ie if the mod is enabled and you try to do the story your computer will blow up) or is it simply for role playing reasons (it would make the plot too easy)?

[X_x_X]

to recieve a mission (first read the readme ... )
you'll have to dock at the roid-base (and this is no garantee you will recieve a mission .. when you meet ceartain req. you'll be offered a mission once you dock..)




G

thx for telling me this, didn´t see it in the readme

i already played a normal game until havin M1 s , so i dont want to start over again from the beginnning , so could you PLEASE tell me what exact I need? (fighter rank etc.) no matter in this tread or via PM

[alphalvr]

i was wondering if i copy n paste the egosoft folder (in proram files) where the game is installed to somewhere else (ie so i have two game installs) then make a shortcut to the new copy so i can strt the original installation and the copy.......will this work????

ie i will then mod the copy and as it will use the same save game folder ill use 0 - 5 for this modded version and the rest of the saves for my current game.

basically i want to leave my current install standard.

i ask if this is possible as they(ego) suggested doing this to beta test the x3 demo

thanks for any input.

it looks stunning by the way, although i like egos ships as they are...no ts docking etc....and i really love roids...in fact i want more, how dare you???? but im being picky

[Cycrow]

yes, that will work

i have multiple copies of X3 that o've jsut simply copied the folder. so i can have differnet scripts running on differnet copies while im testing

the only thing to remember, is that they will all use the same directory for the saved games, so they will all share the same save game files, so just remember which games are for ur modding game, and which ones are for standard game

[-XTM-]

Working with multiple logins and x3 installs will also give you multiple savegame-dirs

DD && RS, Congrats on a job well done!