[SCR] Beacon Jump (p2p jump) v1.1 (AP only) (18-02-12)

[Shimrod]

Beacon Jump (AP only)

Description

If a jump beacon is on board the ship this enables point to point jumps.
- The jump beacon is projected to the destination
- The ship and its followers jump to the beacon
- The beacon is recovered after all ships have jumped to it, or if the jump is cancelled.

Beware of jumping when enemies are about as they may shoot down your beacon before you can get there!

Jump beacons not included.

Download

[ external image ]

Usage

Beacon Jump is hooked into into the the following ship jump commands. If no beacon is available they'll behave as normal.
- Jump to Me
- Jump and Fly to Position
- Jump to Station

A Beacon Jump hotkey is supplied for use as an alternative to the builtin jumpdrive hotkey
- If no beacon is available this performs as 'jump to sector'
- If a beacon is available, this does a point to point beacon jump.

Optionally Beacon Jump can be integrated with the game more deeply by replacing a stock script. UT's will for example perform p2p jumps directly to remote stations, as long as they meet the usual jump requirements and have a beacon / beaconless cheat mode enabled.

Notes

This uses the jumpdrive rather than warping to position
- The game applies a jump countdown
- This requires and consumes normal amount of jumpdrive energy
- SETA will not usually speed up the jump countdown for the player ship. This is a quirk of the game engine.

Rationale

Conventional p2p jump scripts have disadvantages. The ship must warp to the target sector then reposition itself to target coordinates
- The effect is noticeable and immersion breaking
- The repositioning often fails and leaves ship or followers in center of sector.
- There is no flash of light like when ships jump properly

They have to do this because you can't normally jump to a position. AP's jump beacons offer a way round that as you can jump to them directly and spawn them like ships.

Compatibility

Tested on Albion Prelude + XRM.

References
- Developed using Exscriptor
- Hosted by XDownloads

Cheat Mode

If you want to use the script without needing jump beacons in cargo, insert the following entry in the 9052-L044.xml file to remove the requirement:

Code: Select all

<t id="666" />

Resources

Text file: 9052-L044.xml


Edit [1st Dec 2015]: replaced outdated with working xdownloads link. X2-Illuminatus

[Shimrod]

1.1
- Included a missing script from 1.0. It probably didn't work at all!
- Included an optional replacement !move.jumptogate.nearest script so ships will make use of Beacon Jump when they jump between sectors. Universe traders will then perform p2p jumps to remote stations. They need to have a jump beacon on board or the beaconless cheat mode must be enabled, in addition to their normal requirements for jumping.

[joelR]

Wow I totally missed this one. Thanks shimrod.

EDIT: Is it a simple matter of changing a value somewhere to increase the cost of ecells per jump?

[Shimrod]

Energy cell usage comes from the builtin 'use jumpdrive' command, I don't actually subtract any myself. Its the same as jumping to one of the preset beacons.

I'm not planning on increasing ecell costs for jumps. My 'can jump' checks derive from !lib.check.jumperror like all other scripts, making integration painless. I can use the default command preloads, for example, without having to write my own logic for checking if followers can jump.

[Shimrod]

I've uploaded version 1.1.

Most notably I included a missing script from the zip. I'd be surprised if 1.0 actually worked.

Second I've included an optional replacement for a stock script (!move.jumptogate.nearest) which adds a small hook into Beacon Jump. This will make all ships do p2p jumps instead of regular ones if they meet the requirements (beacon in bay or beaconless cheat mode enabled).

Universe traders will for example do p2p jumps directly to remote stations when going between sectors, although they'll still crawl when moving between stations in the local sector.

[Dinoff]

now does this require you to pick up the beacon or can it leave the beacon for future use?

[Shimrod]

The beacon is automatically projected to the destination sector location, and after jumping or when cancelling the jump, the beacon is automatically recovered and placed into cargo.

If enemies destroy the beacon before you jump it isn't recovered. If the ship jumping to the beacon is destroyed IIRC the beacon will just stay where it is.

If you want to leave the beacon for future use just eject it from the cargobay as normal.

[Dinoff]

ok sounds good enough to me
just checking if it was an option.

[dispostableatheist]

Where do you get Jump Beacons from in XRM:AP? They cost 240 mil. each at the weapons dealer and can't be bought.

[Shimrod]

Sorry for the belated response. Beacons weren't available in vanilla when I last played.

Beacons are necessary to support the script's p2p jump mechanism. I could have more easily coded it not to require that the ship has a beacon, but it seemed best to add the cargo requirement for default balance, while also providing a config file setting to allow beaconless jumps if that's what someone wants.

You can use Custom Start to gift yourself with beacons at the start of a game, but there are bound to be mods out there that add beacons to the game in a way that balances out the power of this script (i.e. suitably expensive/difficult).

[DrBullwinkle]

In vanilla AP, you get jump beacons by stealing them from certain RRF ships.

[d_ka]

@Shimrod

Great script i somehow managed to misss

I´ve got a question though:
Is it possible to restrict the usage of it to capitals only?
I do not consider the "beaconless" jump a sort of cheat provided the only ships that would be able to use it were the true capitals ( M1+M2, maybe M7 ). Also i don´t like the idea of traders beeing able to jump at all, to be honest, and adding that feature to them seems not appropriate to me either.

Thanks in advance.

Edit:
If there is no way to restrict it to caps only, is it possible to plant a software needed to be installed, like JD i.e ( in XRM, at least, the M7, M2 and M1 have all XXL Cargo ware size, which would perfectly suite the restricted requirements ).

[Shimrod]

There's no current setting to enforce such a restriction but it would be possible in future to add config options to restrict it. I've no plan to restrict it unconditionally.

Given that jump beacons cost some 300M credits and are very hard to find I think the entry costs are more than balanced without additional software, in its default mode of operation.

But also since jump beacons are so hard to obtain, and even impossible in some mods, I'm also interested in the possibility of a custom p2p jumpddrive ware to enable a mode of operation that doesn't require a jump beacon. Just like the current cheat mode but with a ware requirement.

Unfortunately in my experience so far with Replicators it's not possible to add custom wares in a way that's compatible with everything. The plugin manager offers a possible solution, but I don't know how compatible that is with XTC.

[d_ka]

Optional configurations are always welcome as far as i am concerned
That´s what i had in mind when i was talking about "capitals only" version, since i´d love all the races to be able to use it, not only me, while hopping smaller ships are rather a no go for me.
The high costs you are refering to are a valid argument, but only for the early game, and we all know what happens once you become an industry magnat - a 10 mio. mission for transporting passengers negates any balance ( or a couple of complexes etc. ).
IIRC, in XTC there is kind of p2p jump, which only works within friendly sectors, so there is a clear restriction where you can use it - that´s why i thought a "natural", immersive restriction would would work better than any financial limit. But then, there must be kind of ( physikal ) jamming installation that prevents such a jump, so you could take it out, and bring in the reinforcements; which adds a strategical element, imho.
Also, those collisions at the gates, or the inability of reinforcements to get quickly enough to the point of battle is kind of lame, while a p2p jump ability allow capital ships to quickly join the fights, while smaller ships can use their speed advantage to get there ( carriers becoming even more valueable, too ).

Anyway, thanks for your quick response, i´m looking forward to any kind of improvements in this matter!