[Script] Universe Explorers v1.0.1: Update Apr. 16

7ate9tin11s · Post by **7ate9tin11s** » Tue, 15. Apr 08, 04:38

It could be a conflict, the command should appear if you have Navigational Software on any player ship of any size. The command number is COMMAND_TYPE_NAV_33 and it should appear directly below the 'Move Universe Explorer Pilot' command in the navigation menu (or close to the bottom on non-explorers). I don't see any conflicts listed under the community post so please tell me if you figure out what it is

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Legionnaire · Post by **Legionnaire** » Tue, 15. Apr 08, 13:19

well been through the plug in manager, no conflicts or even potential conflicts showing for that command. its not available on any ships i own, not even on ships currently running Universe Explorers. theres not an AL toggle ive missed or anything like that?

Legionnaire

7ate9tin11s · Post by **7ate9tin11s** » Wed, 16. Apr 08, 04:07

I forgot to include the proper setup file for the player beacons...uploading a fix right now new minor version will be posted in a minute

Legionnaire · Post by **Legionnaire** » Wed, 16. Apr 08, 12:38

Missing Command has appeared now cheers muchly 7ate9tin11s

Legionnaire

Legionnaire · Post by **Legionnaire** » Thu, 17. Apr 08, 01:31

OK i reckon im doing something wrong. Let me explain

i flew into LoomankStrats, which is where i have lost every Explorer thats died so far in this game. i had lost a lvl 24 and i believe it was a 19. Hence wanting to drop a permanent hazard Beacon.

Anyway i flew in to drop a beacon , let it go and got out fast.

5 minutes later i got the message remote connection lost. My new level 19 that i just hired off the bbs has flown straight ou of the south gate in Ceo's Doubt into ---- Loomanks.... while there is a Warning Beacon there

do we need to rename them or something??

totally lost

Legionnaire

7ate9tin11s · Post by **7ate9tin11s** » Thu, 17. Apr 08, 03:41

A Navigational Hazard Beacon has been deployed in SectorName for 2000 credits. All universe explorers and other AP controlled ships will avoid entering SectorName to the best of their abilities until the beacon is destroyed by you or an enemy.

Hmmm...the only I time I know that an explorer will ignore a beacon is when they are under attack or overwhelmed by enemies in a sector. To the astar movement routine used for everything else, sectors with beacons literally do not exist. Was there is message prior to the destruction about abandoning the sector through the south gate or that the explorer was under attack?

Either way I will look into it and make sure that there is not some routine that I forgot to use the new movement routines in.

Legionnaire · Post by **Legionnaire** » Thu, 17. Apr 08, 14:00

Quote:
A Navigational Hazard Beacon has been deployed in SectorName for 2000 credits. All universe explorers and other AP controlled ships will avoid entering SectorName to the best of their abilities until the beacon is destroyed by you or an enemy.

ok this is in my log, and the beacon was still active but the explorer had been targeted by a pirate falcon.

09.46 ok im going to tune my ship up

09.47 giving the i am targeted by, attempting to escape message.

09.50 then i got the it is too dangerous to explore in loomankstrats

09.51 followed by we regret to inform you..

short life span.... possibly challenges a mayfly for shortest lifespan....

and that was a lvl 19 lol

Legionnaire

Phier · Post by **Phier** » Thu, 17. Apr 08, 19:39

@Phier
Experience also brings wisdom, the pilot will purchase wares needed to explore more efficiently and, eventually, will just order in wares to the edges of space so they never have to stop exploring. Then again their new addiction to exploring is just as bad as their old space weed/fuel addictions due to the 10% delivery surcharge!
Freshly bought explorers of high enough level will just order in parts they need. If you watch you will see a ts vessel jump into the sector, head to the explorer, and transport the part they need.

Nice, you added quite a bit since I used the early versions I see.

One feature that might be nice for the early game is a 'find all sectors' type of option, where they would not stop to explore a new sector but just go gate to gate to gate to gate.

7ate9tin11s · Post by **7ate9tin11s** » Fri, 18. Apr 08, 05:02

@Lego

Yeah, just as I thought. They were attacked and ran to the nearest gate since the enemies were between them and the other gates. That is about the only time they will ignore the warning beacons because nothing could be more dangerous than being under attack. I guess you could say I programmed the pilots to panic

@Phier

The problems is that they do not know of any other gates when entering the sector and have to explore it to find another gate...

Also, there is no built-in way to determine if a sector is only partially explored so if they went through the first gate they found once entering the sector then that sector may never get fully explored.

Jaga_Telesin · Post by **Jaga_Telesin** » Sun, 20. Apr 08, 05:25

A bit of feedback regarding this script and my successes and failures with it...

My universe has had a lot of exploration done to it by the 20 or so explorers I have hired over the last five days. Most sectors (except Yaki/Xenon/Pirate) are mapped. Many of the resources in common sectors (asteroids) have been surveyed. For the 2-4 mil I spent hiring their ships, it was probably worth the time.

However (you knew this was coming..), out of those 20 explorers, only two remain alive, and they are new hires. All of the others decided to explore either in dangerous sectors (Terran in my game) or were killed OOS by one hostile ship or another. That doesn't bode well for their survival, and at best makes them a short term investment. At the rate they died, a leveling system means almost nothing at all. And at the rate they die, I probably won't hire any more.

I see their longevity as a big issue, expecially for games with the Terran sectors and their invisible race rep (doesn't show up readily). You might want to consider other options for them, like allowing them to install jumpdrives in their ships and use them to escape. If they currently do, the implementation of it is poor, as most die.

For comparison, using the EST trader script, I have had exactly 1 EST (UT) die in the last six days, and there were 20+ running all the time. That means they have exceptional longevity. I would really like to see explorers with the same level of respect for life that ESTs have.

Other than that, a good script. Unfortunately it is probably time for me to uninstall it, as nearly all my explorers are dead, and there is no leveling up explorers if they can't "find" anything. That means even fixes to their longevity won't make them useful to my game in the future. Sad but true.

Cheers.

7ate9tin11s · Post by **7ate9tin11s** » Mon, 21. Apr 08, 05:08

@Jaga

You have no idea how much time I have spent on trying to make the explorers survive longer.

The races that cannot be toggled are a real problem with this script. If your using the XTM universe you can drop a warning beacon in the connecting paranid sector to prevent your explorers from going up through the terran sectors (or just work on your rep

). If your in some other universe it is a bit more complicated, but I think there is a script out there that allows you to set friend/foe status for unlisted races...not sure of the link though. Explorers that have a jumpdrive and are of level to use it will, but the big problem is that most explorers have from 1MJ to 15MJ of shields. They just cannot survive the first blast from a well equipped M3 in out of sector combat. On the other hand, having an M3 as an explorer is so slow to explore sectors it is almost worthless (not to mention expensive!). Currently the only idea I have that could make the explorers last longer is for them to scan the other side of a gate before passing through to prevent ambushes (My explorers most often die to gate ambushes). If anyone has other ideas for survival I would like to hear them

Carlo the Curious · Post by **Carlo the Curious** » Mon, 21. Apr 08, 05:23

Yaki Raijin M5s (or even M4s) make good exploring ships, if you can get hold of them.

Mobuj · Post by **Mobuj** » Tue, 22. Apr 08, 01:38

Fab script!

But, could you have it downloadable from, say, XAI. File sharing sites with ads

give me the wollies.

Sandalpocalypse · Post by **Sandalpocalypse** » Tue, 20. May 08, 18:45

I really like this script so far. Some criticisms.

1.) The station offers obsolete training.

2.) Possibly related, there may be too many levels.

3.) One problem that causes a lot of losses is fleeing a sector into another dangerous sector. Guaranteed death in my experience. Rather than fleeing back to the first dangerous sector, an explorer may be better advised to run for a station or a different jumpgate.

bp2019 · Post by **bp2019** » Wed, 21. May 08, 00:59

Perhaps fitted with a jumpdrive they could jump 3 - 5 sectors away in any direction? Assuming its explored of course, kind of like a panic jump.

ScorpiusX · Post by **ScorpiusX** » Thu, 22. May 08, 03:47

Hi I installed this script and have been using it for a couple of days, I must say I'm impressed very nice script well done. However i do have one critisism. When the explorers are deploying sats they're dropping them in places where they ARE going to get destroyed i.e close to the centre and pretty low, where any passing pirate/etc can quite easily see it and blow it to hell and back. Eventually replacing all those sats is going to have cost me a lot of money.

What I suggest is to add another AL option "Engage Satellite Safety Mode" default being No. In Default Mode sats will continue to be dropped as they are now, in Safe Mode they would be dropped at 0/100/0 (not perfectly safe, but far safer than in Default Mode). Safe Mode deployment should carry an extra fee of a couple of hundred creds, which will still be a big saving over replacing every sat several times.

Like I said apart from the sat deploy this script is perfect and should be signed in my opinion.

AnakinRadick · Post by **AnakinRadick** » Thu, 19. Jun 08, 01:14

I know this is an older thread but does anyone know of such a script for X2 (because i presume this one is for X3)?

7ate9tin11s · Post by **7ate9tin11s** » Thu, 19. Jun 08, 05:10

I don't know of anything like this for x2 myself or even if this would work in x2

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If anyone wants to try installing the scripts into their x2 and seeing if they work let me know. My x2 disks are on the other side of the world right now and I don't plan to have them shipped to me

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Thoradin · Post by **Thoradin** » Fri, 27. Jun 08, 16:05

Does anyone have the problem of explorers all wandering to Kingdom End and getting stuck there?

I generally have 6 / 7 explorers (level 15+) all stuck in KE, all with places to go (upgrading themselves or off to other sectors to scan asteroids etc) But it seems they can't get out of the sector.....

Also moving them out manually and restarting UE doesn't seem to help, most of the time they just make there way back and get stuck again....

Any ideas?

Running :
XTM
RRF
GCS3 + GAIUS

+ a few others which I doubt have any impact (like jumpdrive kits)

BallBag112 · Post by **BallBag112** » Sun, 20. Jul 08, 22:23

I have the same problem as Thoradin.

All my explorers just keep going back to Kingdom End to get stuck there.
Even if i move them to the other side of the universe and restart UE they keep going back to KE. Most of the time they want to fly to an equipment dock for the cargo bay upgrade, but instead of going to the equipment dock they fly to KE.

I have the same mods/scripts running as Thoradin + the bonus pack and improved Xenon script.

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

[Script] Universe Explorers v1.0.1: Update Apr. 16

Should the following be added?