[Script] Litcube's Bounce V1.7: Player Owned Autopilot Fix

builder680 · Post by **builder680** » Sat, 1. Feb 14, 07:47

Hello there, back playing X3 since Rebirth didn't pan out as expected. It's been a couple years, but I recall being very grateful this mod existed and wanted to say thanks again to Litcube for making it.

I just bought Albion Prelude (because why not) and installed XRM 1.3

I noticed that the most recent wall file for XRM in your download was for 1.19f

I'm not sure if there have been updates to the actual ships and such in XRM since that version, however as a precaution, I generated my own wall file for XRM 1.30 and it came out to be twice the size (~34k) of the one included with your download (17k... the one which says 1.19f)

Litcube if you like I will email this file to you for future inclusion. However, as I'm not positive it's right (it's twice the size of 1.19f... that seems odd to me) I'll defer to you to decide if you actually want this wall. The xml looks to be right to me as far as ships are concerned though. Let me know, and thank you again for this mod.

Tom5Cat · Post by **Tom5Cat** » Tue, 25. Feb 14, 19:34

Yeah...well...

I installed this, making a new wall (needed it I guess, because I scripted in two player ship models) and that went all exactly as outlined by the OP (gr8 job!!)

So, I took it for a spin (bound a hotkey and toggled Bounce on). Flying my scripted carrier with 100 fighters (run under CODEA) headed for an enemy battle group. My 70 attack fighters launched as they should (catapulted by CODEA, so transported into space instead of actually taking off), some of them get spawned at the other end of my ship and... one of them crashes into my carrier trying to get to the enemies! Mind you, my carrier is laying dead in the water, not moving an inch at the time of launch! Even so, the lieutenant (!) pilot of the fighter happily tries to find a shortcut straight through my ship. Emphasis on 'tried'. Sure, he damn well ejected, but that's a bit besides the point talking about 'bounce', isn't it?!

In short... did I miss anything?

apricotslice · Post by **apricotslice** » Wed, 26. Feb 14, 01:01

I'm wondering the same thing, did I miss anything ?

I've an off and on game going at the moment where I'm building M2's for sector defense duties as I expand my influence.

My manufacturing base is in a sector with a lot of roids. So I'm docked at the PHQ in that sector, and in the distance there is this large explosion. I check the player log and you guessed it, My M2 destroyed by roid.

So what am I missing ? Is there any way to check if bounce is actually turned on ? I must admit, I did not see the message saying it was turned on, even though I inserted mail messages to inform that the scripts had run. Even knowing they ran, I am not at all certain that bounce is actually running., expecially given on major explosion that I wasnt expecting.

So what have I missed ?

PDouma39 · Post by **PDouma39** » Wed, 26. Feb 14, 02:55

If you turn Bounce on, you will (or should) get a temporary message on your screen. In flight or battle(when you are easily distracted) its easy to miss this message if you turn on/off Bounce.
And well to be honest when IS with a large or even small complex those tubes/roids are, even with Bounce on, a real challenge for your patrolling ships.
For that I use the mod TCM Tubeless Complex Mod, that way my ships will never have to deal with those tubes when I am IS (OOS it doesn't matter, collision is off then).
But even then I had, when IS, rarily but still, some ships crash into one of my stations.
I allways save before going IS with my ships patrolling my complex(es), especially when traffic is murder, so to speak.
I think of Bounce like a calculator, the busier it gets with more ships and stations, the more it has to calculate and the higher the chance that something will or might crash, even with Bounce on.

Tom5Cat · Post by **Tom5Cat** » Wed, 26. Feb 14, 20:17

I'm 100% sure bounce was activated, because I specifically took notice of the message, being it my first tryout of the script. Also, my fighter did not crash into a roid, nor into a complex (don't have a complex in that sector), nor into a gate, nor even into an enemy ship. He crashed into the carrier he was launched from just seconds before. He launched, turned 180° towards my carrier and hit the padel (and it wasn't the brakes!) Not too smart huh.

And with me it's just a fighter. apricotslice loses a destroyer to a roid, while a script specifically for those kind of instances is running? Oh my!!!

I'm ok with accidents still happening in rare occasions. That's life for you anyway, right? But running this script, I fail to see the improvement in absolute idiotic vanilla ai behaviour when on first tries a fighter hits its own carrier and a M2 crushes into a roid.

builder680 · Post by **builder680** » Wed, 26. Feb 14, 20:41

A Destroyer crashing into an asteroid sounds like a SETA-related accident, but I could be wrong. It could also be an instance where you had just jumped in and the Destroyer happened to be "inside" the asteroid, so to speak. Or maybe the AI got creative with a Tractor Beam? Hehe.

You can tell Bounce is running (aside from the message on toggle) by undocking big ships from big stations (while you're watching from another ship). Very often your big ship will 'teleport' a few kilometers from the station after a few seconds. That's one way, I'm sure there's others.

Collision detection is turned off if no enemies are within 10km, but if there are enemies nearby obviously things can still crash into "your" ship. Any imminent impact that doesn't involve the playership is supposed to trigger the "evade," basically bouncing the ship away from doom, but still susceptible to enemy fire.

It's hard to say why your fighter crashed into your carrier. I've occasionally seen some ship crashes but not nearly as much as vanilla behavior manages to create. All I can say for this script is that it obviously isn't perfect, but it's pretty damn good compared to the alternative.

Litcube · Post by **Litcube** » Wed, 26. Feb 14, 20:43

dooble post

Litcube · Post by **Litcube** » Wed, 26. Feb 14, 20:43

builder680 wrote:It's hard to say why your fighter crashed into your carrier. I've occasionally seen some ship crashes but not nearly as much as vanilla behavior manages to create. All I can say for this script is that it obviously isn't perfect, but it's pretty damn good compared to the alternative.

This has been my experience as well. It's far from perfect. LU's bounce implementation is far superior (and no wall files! hooray!).

builder680 · Post by **builder680** » Wed, 26. Feb 14, 20:46

Litcube wrote:This has been my experience as well. It's far from perfect. LU's bounce implementation is far superior (and no wall files! hooray!).

LU's?

Oh, I'm gonna guess Litcube's Universe? How is it different from this one? If it's better, is there a chance we could have that version as standalone?

Litcube · Post by **Litcube** » Wed, 26. Feb 14, 22:37

builder680 wrote:If it's better, is there a chance we could have that version as standalone?

There's a chance, but it's desperately low.

apricotslice · Post by **apricotslice** » Thu, 27. Feb 14, 01:03

builder680 wrote:A Destroyer crashing into an asteroid sounds like a SETA-related accident, but I could be wrong. It could also be an instance where you had just jumped in and the Destroyer happened to be "inside" the asteroid, so to speak. Or maybe the AI got creative with a Tractor Beam? Hehe.

No.

The M2 was the only ship in the sector. No enemies of any kind. No other ships of any kind.

I had been docked at the PHQ for some 5 minutes before the M2 blew. I'd just finished a lot of transfers when it happened.

So nothing to do with jumping in, nothing to do with enemies turning bounce off, nothing to do with creative AI's.

Tom5Cat · Post by **Tom5Cat** » Thu, 27. Feb 14, 01:29

Litcube wrote:
builder680 wrote:If it's better, is there a chance we could have that version as standalone?
There's a chance, but it's desperately low.

Should we offer you a bribe?

Anyway, as I understand it, enemies or no enemies, within 10 km or beyond, isn't really that relevant. True, if they are abscent, bounce claims to make your ships crash-free, but even if enemies are close, it still supposedly offers a better avoidance routine than vanilla. Am I right at that? So the result is still up for scrutiny.

siddham · Post by **siddham** » Mon, 5. May 14, 21:00

I am just beginning with Terran Conflict on Steam and was wondering is the collision problem still a big issue or have Egosoft resolved it?

Thanks

apricotslice · Post by **apricotslice** » Tue, 6. May 14, 02:41

siddham wrote:I am just beginning with Terran Conflict on Steam and was wondering is the collision problem still a big issue or have Egosoft resolved it?

Thanks

No, they never did. Not even in AP either.

So Bounce is the only fix available.

siddham · Post by **siddham** » Tue, 6. May 14, 05:35

apricotslice wrote:
siddham wrote:I am just beginning with Terran Conflict on Steam and was wondering is the collision problem still a big issue or have Egosoft resolved it?

Thanks
No, they never did. Not even in AP either.

So Bounce is the only fix available.

Well that is a shame.

Thanks for reply apricotslice...and thank you for the great work you have done to support these games. I have your X3 Handbook

apricotslice · Post by **apricotslice** » Tue, 6. May 14, 06:41

siddham wrote:Well that is a shame.

Thanks for reply apricotslice...and thank you for the great work you have done to support these games. I have your X3 Handbook

Yes, it is a shame. That was my big hope for Rebirth, that they would fix the pathfinder and collision system, but alas, we know where that went.

Bounce isnt perfect, but it is an improvement.

I am still thinking of doing an AP version of the Handbook for kindle, but last time I looked, there was very little AP stuff to add.

xxx_L.E.O.P.A.R.D_xxx · Post by **xxx_L.E.O.P.A.R.D_xxx** » Sat, 7. Jun 14, 13:15

Hi!
Set all as it is written in the first post. Play the assembly XRM_v1.30d + MSP_v1.7
Trouble trouble. Ships do not bounce right. They begin to rebound only when they begin to switch hotkeys.
Here, I took a little video.
http://youtu.be/eYmr1tnoZBs

stgatilov · Post by **stgatilov** » Sun, 13. Jul 14, 02:48

Litcube, you are my savior!!!

I'm playing unmodified X3TC, started as terran marine. Since I soon got three small ships thanks to plot mission, I decided to go "lots of blazingly fast ships" route. However, these dumb asses kept crashing themselves, so I had to watch constantly over how many ships I have and to load saved games very often.
I have not engaged in combat with bounce enabled yet, but I feel completely safe while traveling now!

I also had some unpleasant installing adventures. I play localized (russian) steam version, and I couldn't enable scripts for quite a long time. Double 'l' was the first problem =) The second one was: I tried to change the name of my SHIP instead of the name of the PILOT.

GlassDeviant · Post by **GlassDeviant** » Tue, 14. Apr 15, 16:49

Should I make a wall file for the Goblins from MARS, or will it work fine with the existing drone walls?

outtaspace · Post by **outtaspace** » Fri, 20. Nov 15, 16:57

Link down, or better, link is up but the file is broken,,,!

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

[Script] Litcube's Bounce V1.7: Player Owned Autopilot Fix