[MOD] Miscellaneous IZ Combat Tweaks

[w.evans]

odd. thanks for the save. i'll take a look this weekend.

[ezra-r]

more info:

later I tried the nexusmod latest version for IZ combat tweaks only (not oos) and I got the same result. Paying attention the Balors just had order "follow albion skunk" despite me selecting and ordering to attack the enemy ships repeatedly.

When I tried to set the defence officer of one of the ships to Attack instead of defend, the game locked up.

[w.evans]

the Balors just had order "follow albion skunk" despite me selecting and ordering to attack the enemy ships repeatedly.

When I tried to set the defence officer of one of the ships to Attack instead of defend, the game locked up.

This does help. Thanks. Sounds like my hooks into the vanilla scripts aren't landing anymore. If that's all that's wrong, should be a quick fix.

[ezra-r]

the Balors just had order "follow albion skunk" despite me selecting and ordering to attack the enemy ships repeatedly.

When I tried to set the defence officer of one of the ships to Attack instead of defend, the game locked up.

This does help. Thanks. Sounds like my hooks into the vanilla scripts aren't landing anymore. If that's all that's wrong, should be a quick fix.

Wow, hope its that then I don't want to cause you headaches. Thanks for the support and the awesome job!

[w.evans]

Ha! Thank me when i solve it. If.

[ezra-r]

Ha! Thank me when i solve it. If.

I thank you anyways, you and the great modders of this community.

[w.evans]

bad news i'm afraid. was suspicious that it looked so easy. the hooks are still good, so it's something else. will have to really take the time and debug during the weekend.

[w.evans]

@ezra-r Quick question: did you:

1. play the game with the workshop version,
2. save the game,
3. get the nexus version,
4. then either:
4.a continue with the same save with just the nexus version installed,
4.b or (possibly worse) load the save with both (workshop and nexus) versions installed?

And did you by any chance get the CES edition of MICT from the nexus?

Just a theory.

.......
Couldn't reproduce the hang with switching DO orders by the way, with your save. (i know i wasn't supposed to work on it now, but it itches!)

i did get "follow albion skunk" sometimes when issuing an attack order, but i think that's a vanilla thing. Usually happened when ordering them to attack while they were already attacking. Reissuing the order (after they're firmly at "follow") did get them to attack, but i'll take another look.

.......
And regarding your first report with the Balors not firing, yeah, that's a known bug with the mod that happens sometimes. They have roughly the right orientation, but not quite good enough for a firing solution. Will see if i could improve that, but it isn't new. Issuing another order sometimes snaps them out of it by having them plot a new position and orientation. Hm. Maybe they could afford to loosen up the firing angle a bit.

Tested three times: first with my local version that i usually play around with, then with the version at steam, then with the version at the nexus.

[w.evans]

Wait. i just realized. linux. could you try this?

http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?fi ... 0266072126

[ezra-r]

Wait. i just realized. linux. could you try this?

http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?fi ... 0266072126

Thanks, will test it tonight when I can play the game, thanks for your time!!


I will tell you what I did though (I took care to not mix versions)

* First installed the workshop version. Felt the issues.
* Disabled and unsubbed the extension from the game.
* Exitted the game and deleted the extensions directory for this extension.
* Went to nexus mod and installed the IZ combat tweaks.
* Loaded a previous save with no combat ongoing.
* Tried again.

[Brinnie]

Hi.
A question about supplement 8, the repair function, am I to understand that I can have a ship to repair fighters?
If so how do I set up a ship, say a Lyramekron, to automatically fix S and M ships?

EDIT:

... and can stations automatically repair ships that cannot normally fix themselves, like S and M class?

[w.evans]

@ezra-r, Thank you for the detailed breakdown. So this last, more serious, report involves having the scripts from the workshop running on some entities, then replacing those scripts with the ones from the nexus. Think i know what's going on. Let me know if those files from the new link work.

@Brinnie, Yup. Can't remember if i implemented it for engineers on stations, but engineers working on CVs, certainly. Worked on that with Marvin Martian back in the day, and wouldn't be surprised if he has something better by now.

Requirements for setting them up as stated in the OP:

A MICT Repair Ship is:

- a non-combat ship (freighter, miner, CV, the disguised destroyer that is the Lyramekron)
- that is run by a MICT crew (crew requirements specified apply)
- that has Construction URVs equipped.

Details on what constitutes a MICT crew:

Crew Requirements:

To qualify for MICT, the crew of a ship has to consist entirely of the best of the best:

A MICT Captain has to have at least 4 stars in Leadership, Navigation, and Morale.

A MICT Engineer has to have at least 4 stars in Engineering.

A MICT Defence Officer has to have at least 4 stars in Leadership, Combat, and Morale.

Only ships whose entire crew satisfy the above requirements qualify for MICT.

ALL ships, including NPC ships, will use MICT movement if they meet these criteria.

edit: Haven't looked at that bit of code in a while but, unless i'm mistaken, they just have to see the ship that they could repair and not need any repair themselves. So any ships that need to be repaired have to be within their radar range. You could check to see if it's active by looking at the engineer's details. Should say something like "Supporting someship". They'll only repair hull though, not damaged surface elements.

[Brinnie]

Sounds good, if it works as I am hoping it does it will give me a chance to make some use of smaller fighters which are otherwise too much hassle to bother with.

Thanks

[ezra-r]

Hey @w.evans I'm sure you will like to know the script seemed to run without issues now, Balors had the right attack orders, did minimjumps, manuver to escape in a quite smart fashion, etc but I do have a cuople of comments about its behaviour.

For what I see:
* Balors seem to get in possition and mini-jump to stay in range which is fine, sometimes it seems they could use their engines to pursue their enemies as they move but instead they stay still and jump when enemy gets too far. Perhaps this is intended.

But most importantly
* Balors are extremely lazy to shoot missiles (is this normal?). For instance I had 3 balors against 2 Light Suls + 1 Rahannas. Ordered the Balors to attack 1 Light Sul, they jumped into possition , stayed there without shooting missiles, re-ordered several times with no success. Then I decided to tell the defence officer of the ships to set "attack enemies" and re-issue order to Attack (F+ Attack menu), then they started shooting missiles. Is this normal?

In a later situation 2 Balors vs 1 Enemy Balor, they still had their defence officer in Attacking Enemies, but I had to reissue the Attack Order several times, later after 2 or 3 minijumps to relocate after the enemy was moving, they finally started shooting missiles.


No matter I added a save so you could check scenario if you desire:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1vIfln ... n22hWP5fBF

[w.evans]

Wait, so the stuff in the link i gave you worked? You could change the DO's settings fine and the ship attacked? That's good news! If you can confirm, i'll update the nexus upload.

Regarding Balors not firing much, i'll see what i could do. They fire if they're pointed towards what they're shooting at within a tolerance that can be set in the script. Sounds like they're trying to shoot a surface element or something small like that if the fire is erratic. Will check the DO and captain scripts.

Thanks again for your help!

edit: sorry, missed this.

Then I decided to tell the defence officer of the ships to set "attack enemies" and re-issue order to Attack (F+ Attack menu), then they started shooting missiles. Is this normal?

No, they should fire as long as their ship is attacking regardless of what the DO's setting is.

[w.evans]

Correction, and i'm sorry, it really has been a long time since i've looked at this code.

MICT ships will neither fire missiles using forward-mounted missile launchers nor use combat drones if the Defence Officer is not set to Attack. i remember now that this was added so that you have control over when the Balor in particular fires its torpedoes since they're designed in the mod to be long-range, highly destructive, highly inaccurate artillery.

And the Defence Officer Attack/Defend setting is propagated through a whole squadron. So if you have two Balors subordinate to another Balor, setting the commander Balor's Defence Officer to Attack will have the whole squadron start firing.

[Brinnie]

@Brinnie, Yup. Can't remember if i implemented it for engineers on stations, but engineers working on CVs, certainly. Worked on that with Marvin Martian back in the day, and wouldn't be surprised if he has something better by now.

Unless I am mistaken I have no engineers on my stations but if the CVs do repairs to ships assigned to the station it would be nice as they seems to be redundant when they have completed the stations.

What do you mean when you say that Marvin might have something better by now, I would be interested in anything that improves fleet behaviour with regards to responsiveness and general automation.

As far as your script works I must congratulate you, I had some fun yesterday. My destroyer was actually responding (quickly) to my commands to engage targets which I could not have taken myself, on top of that the Lyramekron was also automatically repairing the fighters that I managed to capture and had assigned to follow the destroyer.
A set up that made for some maintanance free entertaining fleet battles in Maelstrom .
Also when my Fulmekron jumped in to attack the enemy on my command it took the S fighters along which I presume is due to your script.

The one thing that is annoying is that the follow the Skunk or the leader instruction is taken very lazily by the subordinates (XL and L) but that is not a criticism directed at your mod which, at least on the bases of my experience last night, lessens the consequences of this issue.

Do you know if there is something for Rebirth like:

Wing Hotkeys by Cycrow
Custom wing manager by Zypherg
and a script that adds shorctuts - protect my ship, protect ship, attack my target, protect my target, etc.

Thanks

[w.evans]

Unless I am mistaken I have no engineers on my stations but if the CVs do repairs to ships assigned to the station it would be nice as they seems to be redundant when they have completed the stations.

There's a mod for that:

Station Engineers

What do you mean when you say that Marvin might have something better by now, I would be interested in anything that improves fleet behaviour with regards to responsiveness and general automation.

Just meant that Marvin's a lot better than i am and, as far as i know, he kept modding when i stopped, so he might have something better. i don't know that he does, though. Haven't kept up.

As far as your script works I must congratulate you, I had some fun yesterday. My destroyer was actually responding (quickly) to my commands to engage targets which I could not have taken myself, on top of that the Lyramekron was also automatically repairing the fighters that I managed to capture and had assigned to follow the destroyer.
A set up that made for some maintanance free entertaining fleet battles in Maelstrom .

Glad you had fun!

Also when my Fulmekron jumped in to attack the enemy on my command it took the S fighters along which I presume is due to your script.

i don't remember implementing anything like that. i vaguely remember something like that in a different mod, though. Possibly CWIR or World War X?

The one thing that is annoying is that the follow the Skunk or the leader instruction is taken very lazily by the subordinates (XL and L) but that is not a criticism directed at your mod which, at least on the bases of my experience last night, lessens the consequences of this issue.

i don't think i changed that behavior at all. You might want to try this mod by Oliver though:

Squad members Jump to Skunk

As the title suggests, it has Yisha's sending coordinates acting like a jump beacon so any of your direct subordinates jump directly to your location. Only capital ships and frigates though since small ships don't have jump drives.

However, haven't tried that particular mod myself in a while, so i can't tell you if it still works.

Wing Hotkeys by Cycrow

Not to my knowledge. Don't think anyone's managed to crack custom hotkeys yet.

Custom wing manager by Zypherg

Closest i know of is Mad Joker's UFO. Hasn't been worked on in a while, though, and getting the interface back up and running will need some work. (Think the way the mod adds its custom UI element just needs to be updated.)

and a script that adds shorctuts - protect my ship, protect ship, attack my target, protect my target, etc.

Same problem as with wing hotkeys.

[Brinnie]

Thanks for all the info.

It looks like the CVs are indeed fixing ships, my damaged M traders assigned to stations are not damaged anymore and I have not fixed them. So I' ll not bother, for now, with Station Engineers.

But the fighters did jump with their superior (Fulmekron), or I don't know what they did but they (more than once) appeared on the scene at the same time as mama, while funnily enough the other Capital ship - also a subordinate - was left behind in the other sector following by other means at the speed of paint drying.
If it is due to your script (meaning the fighters behaviour), whether intentional or not, please don't change it because it's marvelous .
If it isn't your script implementing it then I am baffled as I haven't got any other mods, unless of course it's what that funny looking guy was babbling about in that station, something about the advantages of AGI over AI

Shame about the hotkeys situation.

cheers again

[w.evans]

But the fighters did jump with their superior (Fulmekron), or I don't know what they did but they (more than once) appeared on the scene at the same time as mama, while funnily enough the other Capital ship - also a subordinate - was left behind in the other sector following by other means at the speed of paint drying.

Oh wait, i apparently did. i seriously have to refamiliarize myself with my own mod.