[Mod] X-tended X-pantion [v. 1.4, OHEMGEE][RELEASED 2/16/2017]

[RoverTX]

/jaw-drop

All the new ships are just AMAZING! I am already merging them into my personal mod! You just keep getting better!

[Mechanis]

thanks. TBH, this mod is pretty much an extension of DLing Red Spot back in the day and wanting to put my own ships in, my initial clumsy Gmax models (I actually still have those somewhere, ha) to doing kitbashes like the Pteranodon, to getting a feel for doing my own stuff from scratch. honestly I keep getting better becuase I, well, AM getting better, finding out little tricks with MAX that aren't common knowledge, getting a better feel for what modifiers to use to get the effect I want, and so on.

its current incarnation was spawned when, after about three hours playing XTM, I suddenly realized that while XTM had added loads of gameplay features and immersion enhancers it still hadn't fixed some of the vanilla immersion breakers (****** TURRETS) or inconsistencies, and, well, I've always regarded the variant system as basically a hack to pad the ship list, so axing it was... VERY satisfying, personally.

and more RELEVANTLY, axing the variant system will allow me to use it to add immersion enhancers- namely, Civilian ships and Police ships- a lot of people like the idea of bringing back the 'classic' X2 ships, for example, and it occurred to me that having them as civvie ships would make loads of sense- they may not be viable combat vessels anymore, but the basic systems and spaceframes are 'tried-and-true' long-tested stuff, with all the interesting bugs squashed and eccentricities well-known.

and the Police, of course, need some nice distinctive paintjobs and possibly flashy lights!

[Mechanis]

LIST OF KNOWN ISSUES:

-Elephant docks in wrong positions (Fixed, hotfix pending)
-some variants continue to spawn (mostly fixed, XTC's retrieve ship custodians and some Pirates still spawn deprecated variants, trying to figure out why)
-Mammoths are available at several docks they shouldn't be (not sure what's going on there)
-some ship names display text references (mostly argon) while still voicing the names (I have no friggin' clue)
-bottlenose scene reference is wrong (fixed, hotfix pending)
-some plot missions and MD-based spawning spawn deprecated variants (mostly fixed, I think, hotfix pending)
-new fighter-class ships aren't spawning as often as they should be, particularly Argon (working on it, spawning is weird)
-NPC colossus doesn't get shields (fixed, hotfix pending)


quick questions: if anyone knows how things like the PNR get "Pirate" tacked to the front, I'd like to know- thinking of solving the Police issue by belting out some ships for 'em, but knowing how to make 'em show up as "Your Police... ...Sentinel" would be nice (and slots well with Pirates having the Raider variant)

[enenra]

The Mammoth issue stems from the scripts not finding a ship type ( usually referencing a non-existing one). The Mammoth is at index 0 of the TShips and if a script can't identify a ship type it returns 0. Hence the Mammoth gets used instead.

[Sorkvild]

Is ai using new ships or these are for player only?

[wotano]

thanks a lot really great work

[Mechanis]

@ Enenra: thanks. that means that it's something buried in XTC's fooking labyrinth of scripts and not fixable quickly. joy.

@sorkvild: 1.4 has 'passive' integration, meaning some scripts will use them, and a small amount of active integration from an altered jobs file. 1.4.1 will include significantly more active integration, but I'm still ironing out the kinks.

[Kraosdada]

Hi. Uhh... so... have you tried using both your mod and the one that brings Cadius' ships into XTC?

Link

I wanna use them both, and i want to know if they're compatible, and if not, if there is a compatibility patch. [/url]

EDIT: They're not, unfortunately...

[Mechanis]

yeah, not compatible.

I'll be honest, I'm not gonna bother with making compatibility patches myself until XPM is content-complete. it'd be ENTIRELY too much work otherwise.

[RoverTX]

A few issues I have noticed.

The Coyote, the M6 split pirate ship, all the Gatling gun with the right gatling gun scene reference ordinal 2 with a value of 1 instead of 0. Meaning the ones on the right don't work right.

The M7 turrets don't move.

PS. Playing X3 AP and ported ships and props over. Have verified both components.txt and dummies.txt

PS 2. I had my components.txt imported in reverse order from yours. So something was wrong with either the terran turret or the split captial that then stopped the M7 turrents from loading correctly.

[Mechanis]

@ rover: I'm aware that the Split capital turrets refuse to work right- I honestly had forgotten about that. I've tried several things to fix it (the version in-game is actually the FOURTH iteration of starting-from-a-clean-file exporting) but as it was just the animation not functioning rather than lasers I left it alone until I'd finished other things. not sure why it would be causing OTHER turrets to malfunction, since the base file has the Terran turret added after the split turret and it was working during my tests AFAIR.

I'll have a look at the Coyote, that looks like a genuine human-error.



though I can't say how much of your issues are being caused by running AP, since IIRC the XTC build for it is still experimental and not being actively maintained, and I don't have it at all and thus don't mod for it.

[KRM398]

well the idea was good anyways,wanted to see TC with a lot of new ships in it. downloaded the latest version,added your mod and fired it up. found myself sitting inside (literally) of some new ship, with body panels all around and a solid nose I cant see past. remembered from mods before if the files dont go in right then there's trouble, mainly the script files. went back downloaded it again, unzipped it and copy and pasted to the file folder for TC and said yes to over write the files. then went back in..same thing, ship is a mess and every vessel in Omicron has hull but no shields. tried three different times with same result, so deleted it from the files and went back to the regular old TC, boring but still my only other choice.

[X2-Illuminatus]

You do realise that this mod is an extention to the X-Tended Terran Conflict (XTC) mod, don't you? Your post sounds as if you would try to run it with plain X3TC.

[RoverTX]

@Mechanis I managed to fix the cap ship turrets. Will post the fix when I get a chance.

[KRM398]

got the TC setup, then got the XTC set up, and then the new mod. I start out in the same old elite, fly around a bit and get to the argon wharf and dock. it shows 3 new corvettes, and a list of things named as CQ etc, with numbers, so some of the names didnt make it in. all the specs are there for the M3-4-5 ships but not the names.

[Mechanis]

... try re-running your script cashe?

or manually running the setup script.

... unless you forgot to put the setup script in, which, obviously, will mean the game doesn't read the custom text file. which is the other cause of that.

also, quick brainstoming session- I'm doing custom Police Cutters for each race (flashing lights and spiffy paint-jobs included) and was wondering your thoughts on light colors- I've decided to use 'classic' red-and-blue and the American iconic black-and-white colorstyle for the Argon, but I'm wondering if anyone had some ideas for other races.

(it always sorta bothered me that there was effectively zero distinction between actual military and police [who are, in any sane regime, FIRMLY civilian] and the civilians. I'm working on civvie ships based on X2 stuff, and police are just the easiest to handle since they have specific job files which are easy to alter, rather than the annoying jobs-scripts hybrid that half the game uses and the maze of inter-reactive scripts another third uses. I swear to god I've broke the game at least a dozen times every time I try to get the MSCI to co-operate.

and don't even get me started on stuff that uses jobs, MSCI and MD scripts, which is OH GOD WHY

[RoverTX]

Components.txt

Code: Select all

ships\Mechworks\props\M7_Turret2_Weapon; 2;
NULL; 0.040048;0.026836;0.723101; 0.000000;0.000000;0.000000;
NULL; -0.040047;0.026836;0.723101; 0.000000;0.000000;0.000000;
ships\Mechwoks\props\M7_Turret1_Weapon; 2;
NULL; 0.040048;0.026836;0.723101; 0.000000;0.000000;0.000000;
NULL; -0.040047;0.026836;0.723101; 0.000000;0.000000;0.000000;
ships\Mechworks\props\M7_Turret3_Weapon; 2;
NULL; -0.055049;0.036890;0.993992; 0.000000;0.000000;0.000000;
NULL; 0.055050;0.036890;0.993992; 0.000000;0.000000;0.000000;

Dummies.txt

Code: Select all

ships\Mechworks\props\M7_Turret1_dummy;GUNF_ROTATE;1;GUNSTATUS_INITIAL;ships\Mechworks\props\M7_Turret1_scene;2;ships\Mechworks\props\M7_Turret1_body;GUNPARTF_ROTATEALPHA;ships\Mechworks\props\M7_Turret1_Weapon;GUNPARTF_ROTATEALPHA|GUNPARTF_ROTATEBETA;
ships\Mechworks\props\M7_Turret2_dummy;GUNF_ROTATE;1;GUNSTATUS_INITIAL;ships\Mechworks\props\M7_Turret2_scene;2;ships\Mechworks\props\M7_Turret2_body;GUNPARTF_ROTATEALPHA;ships\Mechworks\props\M7_Turret2_Weapon;GUNPARTF_ROTATEALPHA|GUNPARTF_ROTATEBETA;
ships\Mechworks\props\M7_Turret3_dummy;GUNF_ROTATE;1;GUNSTATUS_INITIAL;ships\Mechworks\props\M7_Turret3_scene;2;ships\Mechworks\props\M7_Turret3_body;GUNPARTF_ROTATEALPHA;ships\Mechworks\props\M7_Turret3_Weapon;GUNPARTF_ROTATEALPHA|GUNPARTF_ROTATEBETA;

The file naming capitalization didn't match the scene files also if I remember correctly.

Here is what I ended up with for a scene file with the turrets working.

Code: Select all

// Converted with x2bc from "C:\Users\rover\Desktop\Mechworks-Props\M7_Turret1_scene.bob" at Sun Feb 26 23:20:24 2017

/# Exported with dbox2 1.13 from M7turret.max at 1/3/2013 7:46:42 PM

VER: 6; 

P 0; B ships\Mechworks\props\M7_Turret1_body; N Bships\Mechworks\props\M7_Turret1_bodyb; // idx 0, flags: 0
{ 0x2002; 0;0;0; 0.000000;0.000000;0.000000;0.000000; -1; 1; } // 0

P 1; B ships\Mechworks\props\M7_Turret1_mount; N Bships\Mechworks\props\M7_Turret1_mountb; // idx 1, flags: 0
{ 0x2002; 0;0;0; 0.000000;0.000000;0.000000;0.000000; -1; 1; } // 0

P 2; B ships\Mechworks\props\M7_Turret1_Weapon; N Bships\Mechworks\props\M7_Turret1_Weaponb; // idx 2, flags: 0
{ 0x2002; 0;0;0; 0.000000;0.000000;0.000000;0.000000; -1; 1; } // 0

P 3; B laser; N laser; // idx 3, flags: 0
{ 0x2002; 1340;894;23695; 0.000000;0.000000;0.000000;0.000000; -1; 1; } // 0

P 4; B laser; N laser; // idx 4, flags: 0
{ 0x2002; -1340;894;23695; 0.000000;0.000000;0.000000;0.000000; -1; 1; } // 0

[Milite Ignoto]

Hello Mechanis,

really glad that someone still gives some love and attention to the old XTC. It deserves this, and your ships are really awesome! I really needed the changes in the TS .
I hope you will continue to work on this, I'm very interested in see what you will do!

By the way, do you have any plans for the Aran? I miss that giant in my XTC games.

Thank you for your work!


EDIT: There's a little problem in my new game with the 1.4, the Colossus, the Advanced versions of the Elite,Buster and Discoverer have some weird numebers before their names.

[Mechanis]

yeah, the numbers thing is a known bug. I am COMPLETELY baffled about it and have just given up trying to fix it until more of my actual planned content is done, since it doesn't really affect much beyond minor immersion issues.

as for the MSY... I've thought about it on occasion, because, well, I'm an incorrigible pirate and having a completely mobile infrastructure (via TL+ and MSY) appeals to me. perhaps once I'm a bit more competent with Mission Director I might whip up a short plotline to reward one, though if I do I might end up going whole-hog and making a few different ones.

honestly the biggest thing on my list for 'major update' now that I've got the TS stuff done and (most of) the silly variant thing cut, is getting the Terran stuff done- especially TLs, since they don't have any. as much as I like the Ozias, it really strains my suspension of disbelief that the isolationist, militaristic and more-than-moderately paranoid Terran government presented in XTC would entrust all their TL needs to the Goners, who, it must be said, don't always get along with them in XTC's lore.

and while I don't play a terran, I know a few people who do and have endured the (MANY) complaints about not being able to find hireable TLs until much later than other races.

[Milite Ignoto]

Yeah, the numbers issue is not a great problem.

as for the MSY... I've thought about it on occasion, because, well, I'm an incorrigible pirate and having a completely mobile infrastructure (via TL+ and MSY) appeals to me. perhaps once I'm a bit more competent with Mission Director I might whip up a short plotline to reward one, though if I do I might end up going whole-hog and making a few different ones.

Heck, if you manage to add more plots in XTC I could start to worship you
No seriously, XTC need a story badly, especially considering the lore written in the manual. As for now, the Aldrians, the Goners and the Yaki are basically useless, IMHO because the developers wanted to implement them with plots, but ended up with only the M2+ plots.

honestly the biggest thing on my list for 'major update' now that I've got the TS stuff done and (most of) the silly variant thing cut, is getting the Terran stuff done- especially TLs, since they don't have any. as much as I like the Ozias, it really strains my suspension of disbelief that the isolationist, militaristic and more-than-moderately paranoid Terran government presented in XTC would entrust all their TL needs to the Goners, who, it must be said, don't always get along with them in XTC's lore.

Yeah, it's weird. The Terrans have the Kobe, but it's only buyable. That said, it's also true that the Goners are the only faction that still have some degree of favor with them, and we have to think that in the Solar System ALL the ships in space belong to USC or ATF. So, what I think is that the Terran Democracy doesn't care much about civilian enterpreneurs, it lets them to buy factories but it can't be bothered to set up a service of station deployment for them.
However, if they used the Ozias to develop new sectors unlocked, that would be a major lore-breaking problem,yes. I don't remember now, in most of my games I'm against them


Oh, there's another thing: are the Yaki Washi supposed to be OP?