[SCRIPT] Slipstream Drive V1.10 : Updated 09/06/2009

[Cycrow]

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Script: Slipstream Drive
Created: 09/06/2009
Version: 1.10
Author: Cycrow
Game: X3: Terran Conflict
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Installation

• [ external image ]
  
  Requires: Ware Manager
  Requires: EMP - Spk Download
  Recommended: Hotkey Manager
  
  DrBullWinkle's Modified Version
  
  To install, you use the plugin manager, download and open the spk file.
  
  The Hotkey Manager is highly recommended, without it, hotkeys wont get removed if you ever uninstall the script

Introduction:

• After comissioning Cycrow Technologies Inc, to create thier Turbo Booster they got obsessed with more speed. They went back to Cycrow Technologies and prosposed a new drive
  
  The result is the Slipstream Drive, Unlike the turbo booster, slipstream was not designed for combat. This device is all about speed and goes considerable faster than the turbo booster.
  
  The devices wraps the ship in a slipstream bubble allowing ships to litterly cut through space at incredible speed

Using the Device:

• The device is designed to integrate into any ship and a simple hotkey can be used to activate and deactive the device.
  Configure this hotkey in your ships control system to use.

Restrictions:

• Due to the devices slipstream field, it requires to have a minimum safe distance from any other objects inspace, so the device cant be actived when close to anything else
  The device also automatically powers off it detects something in range.
  
  Also, due to the enourmous power requipments the device draws all available energy and drains your ships laser generator, the device needs a few seconds when activing to get
  enough energy.
  
  The slipstream field also prevents the ship from makin sudden movements, so any attempt to turn your ship will deactive the drive, so you can only travel in a straight line while actived.

[Mithril Prime]

You phishing Cycrow? Sounds an awful lot like STA to me.

[Cycrow]

STA?

[Mithril Prime]

The singularity time accelerator. It seems to me like this is exactly that...only you're in real time going frelling fast, instead of going slow while speeding up time.

[Cycrow]

if u mean SETA, then yes, it was based on that. This does a simlar thing but makes your ship move fast, not the whole universe

[Axeface]

This sounds excellent.
Hopefully got a bit of time to play soon so i'm gonna give it a go

[Realspace]

this is exactly what we need when creating very large sectors so to have not too boring travel distances. Thanks!

[LordTaral]

Slipstream Drive... sounds like Star Trek Voyagers "Quantum Slipstream Drive"
I'll try it later at home, a "ship-accelerator" is still something i missed in X3

[spacefueladdict]

this is exactly what we need when creating very large sectors so to have not too boring travel distances. Thanks!

I second that Realspace, Will make huge sectors more viable especially if it can be scripted for npc's to use them effectively.

Your on a roll here aint you Cycrow! Glad your back and firing on all cylinders!

[Meltdown]

Sounds pretty much like Freelancer's fast travel drive thingie. Interesting, I'll give it a go. I just hope it doesn't deactivate all the time when it senses stuff even remotely near like SETA does, damn thing drives me insane.

It's working, but I find it too restrictive. The proximity alert kicks in far too soon, and it doesn't let me change aim even a bit.

Edit: I edited down the distance requirements and now it works.

A suggestion, if I may: it seems to me that the script does not in fact accelerate you, but teleports you quickly forward in small steps. How about instead adding to the ship, say, 5x of its maximum engine tunings and just letting it fly under normal power, with deactivation of the device causing the additional tunings to be removed?

[LordTaral]

Nice... really nice but its buggy.
Sometimes the drive accelerates in a different direction than i'm flying...

testet with an M2 starship at Family Ryk and Zyarth sector, newest X3 patch installed

[Meltdown]

Yes, that happened to me twice too.

[LordTaral]

A suggestion, if I may: it seems to me that the script does not in fact accelerate you, but teleports you quickly forward in small steps. How about instead adding to the ship, say, 5x of its maximum engine tunings and just letting it fly under normal power, with deactivation of the device causing the additional tunings to be removed?

This sounds good, maybe those bugs can be solved this way too.
Sometimes using the Slipstream drive i've been teleportet to a totally different location of the sector.
For example: I was in west direction of a starbase and when activating the slipstream i teleportet to a position north of it (until travelling fast)
That happend 2 times.
The other bug, travelling in a wrong direction happens very often.

[Cycrow]

ill have a look at the current system.

the reason i didn't do it by adding engine tunings was because in X3R high speeds didn't work, it would ages to accelerate/decerleate to the speed, and the game couldn't handle moving it that fast.

as the script is simply converted from my old X3R one it was still based on the same restrictions, which is also y the proxity check is so big, it needed to be to work properly in X3R.

ill look to update it properly for X3TC trying a few different methods.

althou one thing to do as well, when you activate the drives, it speeds up for a few seconds before starting, make sure you do not move when its doing this, as its computing the forward vector for movement

[baric]

"Slipstream" makes me think of "Andromeda" and flying through the slipstream and exiting without blowing yourself up.

[Meltdown]

the reason i didn't do it by adding engine tunings was because in X3R high speeds didn't work, it would ages to accelerate/decerleate to the speed, and the game couldn't handle moving it that fast.

Hmm. You have a point for big ships with slooooow acceleration, but most fighters don't really have this problem, so far as I can see. I've occasionally added ungodly amounts of engine tunings just for fun, and when you hit the afterburner the ship's pretty quick to get to max speed. Slowing down might in fact be more of a problem... not to mention that I'm not sure if the afterburner can be activated through a script...

Y'know what, your small-step teleport idea ain't so bad but could it be made in shorter steps, so as to make it less choppy? Also perhaps you could remove the annoying "whoosh" sound that runs at every teleportation step, or maybe make it so it only runs once every five or ten steps... the constant "sho-sho-sho-sho-sho-shoooom" doesn't go easy on the ears.

[ezra-r]

if u mean SETA, then yes, it was based on that. This does a simlar thing but makes your ship move fast, not the whole universe

Great idea!

--


btw, Im trying to use it assigning the hot and nothing happens, do we have to buy something?

Maybe it is not working because I installed Ware Manager, EMP and Hotkey Manager at the same time I installed this script?

[Meltdown]

You need to buy a slipstream drive. I just cheated it on my ship for testing.

[Cycrow]

update available that should hopefully fix a few things.

• Fixed angles when drive starts up, so you cant turn while its starting to accelerate making its vector more accurate
• added failsafe to prevent the drive jumping out of position. Drive will shut down if its next position is wrong
• Added delay between running sound

[Meltdown]

I'll try it as soon as I can and report.