Invincible stations (X3AP)

[orangenee]

Hi.

I have a n issue in certain pirate sectors with invincible stations, one of the most prevalent being Brennan's Triumph.

I have M7 and M8 teams from 3 different races (Paranid being most notable) attacking a Bofu lab for the last 22 game days, which is still sitting at 93%.

Due to the amount of Phased Lag Generator action going on it's making the sector rather a bore to sit in and conduct business,

This is going on in other sectors too, the thing in common they all have though is that they are all from station build missions.

My main question would be; is this invincibility able to be turned off by scripting or other means? Or am I going to have to send my acquisitions team over to have a word eventually about maybe finding something else to do with their time?

[Fulgrymm]

Well, if you're fine with scripts, you can always use the cheat script package to delete the offending stations from existence.

[orangenee]

Well, if you're fine with scripts, you can always use the cheat script package to delete the offending stations from existence.

Yeah, that is an option I guess. Modded plenty of annoyances out already. Trying to avoid out and out cheating though, especially as it'll just happen again once I inevitably put my Mammoth on philanthropic duty to build stations gain, the more I do for the pirates the more paranid seem to direct firepower on removing them.

Just really wondering if it's a megaglitch I'm experiencing or it's by design. I can understand plot relevant stations being immune to fire but regular unneeded staions?

My stuff gets detonated just fine as some pirates who decided I made one bad batch too many out of my spaceweed complex discovered (it was an unsightly mess so I left it to burn).

[SirNukes]

Just really wondering if it's a megaglitch I'm experiencing or it's by design. I can understand plot relevant stations being immune to fire but regular unneeded staions?

The Dual Convoy generic mission will set 4 stations invincible when it spawns, but only clears invincibility if you accept the mission (on success or failure). If you ignore a Dual Convoy mission offer until it cancels itself, the stations are left invincible. There might be similar bugs with other scripts, but that is the main one I know of.

I did put together a tentative (only lightly tested) fix for this in the X3 Customizer, that will edit the buggy script and optionally reset invincibility flags in general (as a 1-shot call to existing egosoft code that tries to preserve plot-related station invincibility).

[orangenee]

Just really wondering if it's a megaglitch I'm experiencing or it's by design. I can understand plot relevant stations being immune to fire but regular unneeded staions?

The Dual Convoy generic mission will set 4 stations invincible when it spawns, but only clears invincibility if you accept the mission (on success or failure). If you ignore a Dual Convoy mission offer until it cancels itself, the stations are left invincible. There might be similar bugs with other scripts, but that is the main one I know of.

I did put together a tentative (only lightly tested) fix for this in the X3 Customizer, that will edit the buggy script and optionally reset invincibility flags in general (as a 1-shot call to existing egosoft code that tries to preserve plot-related station invincibility).

I've never done any convoy missions, dual or otherwise in this playthrough nor have I done any missions that directly link to said stations, so I'm not sure what's going on.

In any case I shall give your script a whirl and see what turns up. Playing the GoG version but I doubt that has any exclusive bugs over the steam version.

[jlehtone]

I have the same issue of "honeypots" in the Pirate sectors. I'm not sure whether trapping faction military is good or bad on the big picture.

The Dual Convoy generic mission will set 4 stations invincible when it spawns, but only clears invincibility if you accept the mission (on success or failure). If you ignore a Dual Convoy mission offer until it cancels itself, the stations are left invincible.

4? Two destination stations I know of, but do the convoys start from stations too? (I've never paid attention to such.)

The "set on spawn" makes sense, because something could demolish a station already between mission spawn and accepting the mission.

I presume that "ignore" means "does not accept a mission"? With or without reading the briefing.


There seems to be an exploit: go around a lot (to spawn missions) and ignore all Dual Convoys. That should flag more and more stations indestructable, leading to rather permanent, "rich" economy.

Furthermore, "acquisitions teams" in Pirate Sectors do not wake up RRF like they do in faction space.


The "vanilla cure" is to accept each and every Dual Convoy mission (which requires checking every mission that spawns). Whether the freighters make it or not is irrelevant; the stations will regain mortality.

[orangenee]

I'm well aware crack teams of republic commandos (they sure sound like them to me) don't set off RRF teams in pirate sectors as I do a lot of piracy there, though I might add Grand Exchange's RRF seem to be said to "Eh, the player has his own M2s, let him do it" 70% of the time. Can't tell if the stations there are also of the immortal variety as the Qs usually just do a tour bothering the Teladi funeral directors (have a sense of irony at least those Xenon).

As a side note it's interesting to see three factions working together to attempt the impossible. There's two Cerberus', a Thresher and two Deimos at it. Occasionally they'll take a crack at the pirate base which is of course also made from adamantium.

Once I can play again I'll see what I can engineer.

[SirNukes]

4? Two destination stations I know of, but do the convoys start from stations too? (I've never paid attention to such.)

I presume that "ignore" means "does not accept a mission"? With or without reading the briefing.

The script selects 2 stations as start points, though they don't actually contribute to script logic otherwise. There is even a bug in the parameter list of an underlying library function that labels both as "StartStation1", which doesn't matter since it doesn't otherwise reference them.

Yes, the invuln bug will occur when you never interact with or even notice the dual convoy mission, which makes it particularly bothersome to prevent in a vanilla game.

[orangenee]

In the end I decided the gentlemanly thing to do was deploy three condors and all fighters available to remove the nuisances.

Complete overkill and led to around 12 fighters lost mainly due to having the coordination of vodka fueled dance instructor with severe inner ear issues.

Guess I'll be needing CODEA after all....

So my understanding of the underlying issue is that even if I don't know the convoy mission exists it still makes stations attached to said mission invulnerable? I know I've looked at a few which would explain those but I don't recall any going to some stations. But this game has been going a while.

[ConorC]

Guess I'll be needing CODEA after all....

I'm currently playing an unmodded game. Oh God I miss CODEA SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!