X2 - Fight Command Mk3 needed

[oceanway]

I wish there was a Fight Command Mk3 in X2-The Threat. I tried to set up fighters the same way I set up traders using the Trade Command Mk3. But there's no Fight Command Mk3 for fighters to help me (or Julian) earn rewards and gain combat rank. The traders help earn profits by trading and earn ranks up to Production Director. The fighters however, would help earn rewards by combating enemies in the sector during their patrol and earn combat ranks up to Commander, or at least Captain. The Split and Terracorp would sell the Fight Command Mk3 at a higher price.

With those two commands, Trade Command Mk3 and Fight Command Mk3, I could set up Privateers who trade and fight on their own provided both commands are installed. They fight only when attacked by enemies while traders do not fight but use drones and would also patrol when there's nothing to trade.

Would Egosoft upgrade the game with the Fight Command Mk3? I think it would be cool to have fighters and privateers other than traders in the game. Adding privateer ships that is a cross between trading and combat ships among transporters and fighters would be a plus.

[Alan Phipps]

Moving from Tech Sp to X Trilogy Universe (vanilla gameplay) forum.

I cannot really see Egosoft working any more on a game of the age of X2 given their development of released and future X games since. There is/was always scope for the modding community to help though.

[oceanway]

That's the thing, I don't know how to modify games. It was worth a try.

[fig]

Privateers that could fly M6 ships and use jump drives would be useful to defend sectors. At the moment you pretty much need ships in every sector to defend them. You can put an M6 on patrol across multiple sectors but they don't jump. I don't know if you can script this in X2.

[oceanway]

True. But they don't help the player earn bounties and combat ranks the same way traders do when they profit and help increase trade rank. To compromise that, I personally fly the corvette and fight in Thyn's Abyss to boost combat rank while my hired traders boost trade rank. It's the least I could do.

As for privateers, the player is the only privateer in the game and I use a Paranid TL to do all kinds of trading and combat missions. It's a pretty handy ship to carry all your tools of the trade with a Boron M6 to handle shuttle missions, Teladi M6 to handle bounty hunting and rescue missions and Split M6 to lift me out of deep space after setting coordinate for station building as its escorts.

[RAVEN.myst]

Trade rank is increased by any transactions conducted on your behalf, whether directly by yourself or by your minions. Fight rank, however, only increases by kills earned by you personally, where you actually fire the killing shot (ie. your drones or launched fighters don't count) - this is standard throughout the X trilogy, and as far as I'm aware, it's hardcoded into the games, quite possibly beyond even the possibility to mod (though I'm not sure about this - I only know that I have never seen any reference to delegated fight-rank increase through owned assets.)

Aside: personally, I wish it were possible to get one's minions to increase one's fight rank, as it would make ranks such as "warlord" meaningful - after all, warlords aren't such by dint of killing thousands with their own hands, but by LORDing it over their subordinates, who carry out the bulk of the dirty work. But this is neither here nor there, of course...

[Nanook]

...
Aside: personally, I wish it were possible to get one's minions to increase one's fight rank...

I wouldn't. As it stands, fight rank is much quicker and easier to gain than trade rank. Lot's of players have made X-Treme in fight ranks but very few have made X-Treme in trading. That's because the X-Treme fight rank only requires 1,000,000 points whereas the trading X-Treme requires 10,000,000 points, 10 X as many. And that's why a player's AI traders can earn trade rank but their AI fighters can't.

[RAVEN.myst]

...
Aside: personally, I wish it were possible to get one's minions to increase one's fight rank...

I wouldn't. As it stands, fight rank is much quicker and easier to gain than trade rank. Lot's of players have made X-Treme in fight ranks but very few have made X-Treme in trading. That's because the X-Treme fight rank only requires 1,000,000 points whereas the trading X-Treme requires 10,000,000 points, 10 X as many. And that's why a player's AI traders can earn trade rank but their AI fighters can't.

Where's the problem? If the ability to enable by-proxy fight rank gain were to be implemented, then the targets would simply need to be adjusted accordingly - "problem" solved.

(Incidentally: how many players made X-treme in one and not the other may be less a metric of the relative difficulties of the goals, and more a measure of people's priorities and play styles, perhaps. I'm not necessarily saying this is necessarily the case, merely that no valid conclusion either way can really be drawn.)

[Nanook]

...
Aside: personally, I wish it were possible to get one's minions to increase one's fight rank...

I wouldn't. As it stands, fight rank is much quicker and easier to gain than trade rank. Lot's of players have made X-Treme in fight ranks but very few have made X-Treme in trading. That's because the X-Treme fight rank only requires 1,000,000 points whereas the trading X-Treme requires 10,000,000 points, 10 X as many. And that's why a player's AI traders can earn trade rank but their AI fighters can't.

Where's the problem? If the ability to enable by-proxy fight rank gain were to be implemented, then the targets would simply need to be adjusted accordingly - "problem" solved. ...

If you 'adjust the targets', by which I surmise you mean making them harder/tougher, then I don't get the point. Either way, it would take a similar amount of time to achieve X-Treme. So I don't get it. Anyway, combat rank is supposed to be a measure of a pilot's personal prowess.

Trading rank is combined because it requires the player's knowledge and expertise in setting up trading situations. And only player trade ships give trade rep. NPC traders that buy and sell at a player's factories do not generate trade rep for the player.

Besides, can you imagine the amount of work a player would have to do if trade rank only increased with trades personally by the player? I shudder to think! I think the current system is fair and logical.

[jlehtone]

Where's the problem?

It ruins the pacifist lifestyle. Some players avoid all personal confrontation.

A good commander is benevolent and unconcerned with fame.

How to "remove obstacles", yet remain humble Harmless, if you are blamed even for the actions of apprentices (to whom you don't even pay any salary)?