[Request/IDEA] Stealth Generator (REVISED)

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[Request/IDEA] Stealth Generator (REVISED)

Post by BlueShade Zero » Sun, 21. Jun 09, 01:05

UPDATE!!!(9/17)

We've fleshed out some new propositions, and courtesy of S1lverhair, its been pretty well summed up. I've posted his words down below. Its a fairly accurate representation of what we have in mind right now.

UPDATE(9/15);
With some progress in the right direction, i've added a "goals" section so we know what will still need to be done. As we gain USABLE materials, i'll amend the appropriate "idea's" section.

Update(the start);
So i thought it would be helpful to manage my topic by re-organizing all the things that have been thought and considered, and stating the actual goal, then further append it with ideas and desires.

Of course, ideas/comments are not just welcome, but necessary. If i missed something, or didnt state something true, or if you'd just like to see your idea up in the front, PM me about it.

BTW, i tend to ramble, case no one noticed... If you can restate something better, please do lol.


The Main Goal
To have the player ship be able to move about "undetected" by other, enemy ships. Basic concept being stealth.


Heres some goals i've setup so we have a visual marker of what we need done:
Progress Key;
:thumb_down: Not Completed
:thumb: Made Progress
:thumb_up: Completed



:thumb:Script that allows players to fly around "undetected", or unengaged by threats.
Looks like we have something that might work. It will need a few tweaks

:thumb_down:Script that will detect if a ship has entered the appropriate conditions to be detected, based on the Base Variable

:thumb_down:Script to determine the "Base Variable" which will be used for most everything. Likely an algorithm based off the base value, being ships size(type), then variable factors such as speed and turn rate.

:thumb_down:Script to determine energy consumption. This will probably be a factor of the Base Variable. Makes sense, since its using the same stats

:thumb_down:Hotkey that will run a check to see if the device is present in cargo, then, if true, activate the stealth script

:thumb_down:Get something that works in game

:thumb_down:Conduct testing to make sure its stable and works properly, then polish and Complete.




So far, we've tossed around a few concepts. Let me describe them.

As of 9/17, this is where we stand. It does a pretty swell job i may say of rounding up what's been tossed around. An entirely new concept has been devised that varies from the original idea's. Check it out!
S1lverhair wrote:righto lets do a roundup on the ideas coming out here.

pardon the lack of spelling.

first we want a way to cloak the player ship so we can get into a bit of skullduggery. such as sneaking up to a carrier and boarding from point blank range or uncloaking a destroyer and watching a pirate swarm quickly revise their plans.

second we want it to be fair, not just some magic ware which costs a lot but makes the game easy because only you have it and noone else uses it *cough* jumpdrive*.

TrixX and blueshade's ideas are both completely differeent and quite compatible.

Blueshade has suggested a device which once adtivated consumes some energy from the ships generator and uses that energy to masks the ships signature. this active cloaking device may hide the ship from enemy scanners. it has been suggested that this cloaking device exist in various forms from the bargin basement models which chew up masses of energy and slightly reduce energy output to state of the art models which would make klingons proud.

Trixx is suggesting a far seperate mode of stealth in that instead of the player actively invoking a piece of high tech to mask the ship that instead the ship is hidden my just maintaining its energy output profile a la Normandy from mass effect. To do this the energy profile for every ship at leas IS would need to be calculated and Maths would need to be done to determine if a ship is bieng detected or not. and for truly effective hiding while remaining mobile a speccial class of ship would have to be used. call them Shadow variants. like raider but with a bigger price tag and a straight 50% off emmissions (yould be suprised how much you can reduce emmissions (sound) in RL by just a bit of careful design)

both ideas are valid and excellent and I firmly believe that both should be used. but the implementation is going to be a real kicker.

how will this all work

first is the matter of calculating energy emmissions, how much energy a ship emmits and it what way it emmits energy. Some ideas have been thrown around.

1. that a ships energy signature is the sum of all of the energy emmitting stuff on board e.g. generator, engines, weapons shields, energy emmitting cargo (warheads, hammerheads etc.) and it all comes out to a numberwhich then goes to MATHS to figiure out if the ship can be detected.

2. same as in case 1. except each thing on the ship emits energy in a different spectra, lets call them colours. say there is about 10 of them ranging from red to violet like a rainbow and each component emits energy in one or more bands based on its type. this woy you can know what type of ship it is and what kind of heat it is packing from its passive energy signature alone.

How are things going to be detected. just as important as what you are going to detect the how of detecting it comes in a variety of forms based on RL examples.

1. passive. the most used kind of detection, passive is basicly seeing or hearing where you watch for the energy signatures of other things, this requires no energy. but, as you know if you ever have heard a bump in the night provides little information about any contacts it finds unless the signal is distinctive. Blueshade has accurately described the process of hiding from passive sensors like going quiet in a submarine where tou have to reduce as much energy emmission as possible and hope you arent noticed.

2. active. the other type of detection, active works by sending out a signal yourself and watching or listening for the reflections. common examples are using a torch, radar, echolocation, sonar etc. active sensors typically provide much more information about the contact. Trixx has proposed a powerfull ping scanner as a form of active sensing but smaller normal radar type devices could easily be implemented as well. I envision the primary difference bieng that the smaller versions could not pierce the active camoflage of mid range cloaks unless at close range.


right thats it for my basic recap of the ideas thus far. I have forgotten stuff but lets talk about how we want this implementedon a basic level first and thene get into the extranious (like how exactly will you not notice a destroyer sneaking up behind you) stuff later.


Ideas to prevent hostile ships from engaging the player
Basically, the running idea is to have the script change the status of the HOSTILE ships in the area. Basically, so long as the ships wernt actively engaging the player they would be set to "neutral". The script would then remember the relation values, and set the player hud to display the hostile ships as such.
When the stealth is dropped, the saved value will be returned, and everything will be as was.


With any luck, this should be what we need:
TECSG wrote:@BlueShade Zero,

Below is the modification I make to the script !fight.targeting which is the script all NPC ships use to acquire a target.

The targeting script attempts to find a target that is not a satellite but if it doesn't find anything it will look for a target of any sort. I patched the 2nd part of the script to ignore a satellite if it has a local variable called 'stealth' set to [TRUE]. I don't actually check the object is a satellite as it would just be a waste of time given that my scripts should be the only ones setting such a variable, however, even if they are not, ships would still be targeted because the first check in the script would find them.

The first check in the script (for any non-satellite target) could easily be modified in the same way to ignore a ship if it has a Camouflage Device in the cargo bay.

I'm not sure if a ship would remain 'cloaked' as far as the enemy were concerned if it started shooting at it though, in such cases, the enemy may target the ship directly rather than using the targeting script.

Code: Select all

073    * target any ship: long range
074    * **using class Mvable ship instead of null should prevent sats being tageted
075    * during combat. Check for sats and beacons after
076    skip if $enemy
077     $enemy = find ship: sector=[SECTOR] class or type=Moveable Ship 2134 race=null flags=$flags refobj=[THIS] maxdist=$maxrange maxnum=null refpos=$arefpos
078    if not $enemy
079     $visible = find ship: sector=[SECTOR] class or type=null race=null flags=$flags2 refobj=[THIS] maxdist=$maxrange maxnum=50 refpos=$arefpos
080     $found = size of array $visible
081     while $found
082      dec $found =
083      $target = $visible[$found]
084      $stealth = $target -> get local variable: name='stealth'
085      if $stealth != [TRUE]
086       $enemy = $target
087       break
088      end
089     end
090    end



Not perfect, it needs a few tweaks to work with the player ship, but its been said that shouldnt be a huge issue.
Thanks to TECSG for generously sharing this with us.

Ideas as to being stealthy(detection)

So far, the idea is to use an array of values, some constant, others variable, pulled from various sources to determine if a ship "sees" or detects the stealthed player.

RANGE is what everything will boil down to in the end. Every value will be to determine how far away the player ship will be detectable at.



Heres some of what we've considered.

Ship size - (M5, M2, M6)
Ship speed - (faster they go, the easier to detect)
Ship Maneuvers - (i KNOW turning speed can be detected)
Enemy Scanner type - (better scanner, better detection right?)
Environment - (is there something in the way?)

know i missed some, throw some ideas up!

As for being detected, as mentioned RANGE is the determining factor. I've also rambled the idea of having a small variable put in, so the player doenst just "know" how far they'll be detected at, and add a chancy element to it.

When the player is "detected", the HOSTILE ship which detected it should engage the player. An idea was put out to have that ship also "inform" the player position to all other hostiles of the same race. I dont think the Split would tell the Kha'ak that your there, but if it cant be helped, oh well.

Balance
Some things where put forth about balance, and it makes sense.

So far, we've accepted that some form of renewable resource would be acceptable. So far the idea is to deplete weapons and or shields.
My thoughts on the matter, is to deplete weapon energy first, then the shields.

Some further idea's suggest to cut shields all together once the stealth is on. I like this idea personally. If the shields could be "turned off" and then "turned back on" with out having to recharge, i'd find this ideal. That way, getting shot while cloaked would be VERY painful, and incite the player to drop the stealth as quickly as possible to regain shields.

Perhaps when shields are turned back on, they should take a "re initialization" hit of a certain %?

An idea i put forth, was to have the "depletion" a variable factor, affected by ship size, speed, maneuvers, weapon fire, the works. Something to note, would be that this value could be taken from the detection range estimates, since those would already be calculated.

The base factor SHOULD BE ship size. Just a quick quote.
I'm thinking the ship size should be a STATIC depletion, and be the most effectual. A small ship will consume little energy, while a large ship would consume a far greater amount of energy. This would force the distinguishment that a small ship is for covert ops and at low speeds could remain stealthed for a long long time, while a large ship would be black ops, only ever being able to stealth for a few minutes, and could move more freely since its speed isnt very high and doesnt factor as heavily, but it would have more bravado and bluster in its appearance.
That sums it up nicely.
Last edited by BlueShade Zero on Fri, 17. Sep 10, 16:15, edited 8 times in total.

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Post by BlueShade Zero » Tue, 14. Sep 10, 08:12

UPDATE
Everything below this point are ideas/comments/suggestions. The jist of whats being said is described above, however reading through isnt a bad idea. Things get missed, ideas misunderstood, the works.

As always, idea's/suggestions arnt just appreciated, but necessary. I'd like to see this turned into something people will enjoy.



Lol damn this topics old... Yay usin old topics! Even though this is technically grave digging... anyways...

I've read in various places that the ideas i'm about to put forth SHOULD be possible. I've read this and that has this and that and with little-no explanation as to exactly wtf anything is what it does or how it works, if at all... Particularly mentioning the Death Match mod and the EvE mod.

Anyway, what i'm proposing is a STEALTH GENERATOR (dun dunn!). What i'm thinking it would do is modify the recognition range of NPC's when said script is active, and use three main variables, governed by a constant base recognition differential. The affecting factors would be your ship size (simple as just looking at ship class), your speed the ship is moving (fast ships put out more radiation/noise), and their scanner (duplex and triplex scanners are obviously more powerful).

Basically, the bigger you are, the faster your going, the easier you are to detect. Think of factors that would influence your ships signature.

All this would basically be affecting how "far" the NPC ships would detect your ship. Naturally, you'd only need be concern with hostile ships, and maybe customs.

A way to do this might be to have the script "see" all things in your immediate area (triplex range) and check their status toward the player. If theyre aggressive, set the NPC as "neutral" but, your ship will keep their icon as hostile. That way they wont react but you'll know their aggressive. Then, start running an algorithm that would decide if they've found you. Obviously a factor of range, ship size, scanner type and speed and anything else that would make it more realistic. The "check" doesnt need to be 400% up to date either. Maybe a check once every 10 seconds, or better yet, let the player decide how much CPU to devote (and thus cycle time).

However, something important would be that, once a hostile has SEEN you, your spotted, and you cant just go back to hiding. Or if your clever, a "escape and evade" system could be implemented, but that'll be up to the creator genius.

Thats the jist of it. From what i've read and understood, it SHOULD be possible, but definitely not for me. Or something using a similar idea could be used for the same ends.

And, if this could be added in and fully integrated, i can forsee some really kickin AI mods that would introduce covert/black ops...
Last edited by BlueShade Zero on Thu, 16. Sep 10, 01:59, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by TrixX » Tue, 14. Sep 10, 08:28

Well technically ships shouldn't have glass/clear hatches anyway due to the forces against them. Technically it would be closer to viewscreens like in Star Trek than the Star Wars style. Otherwise the viewports would be a HUGE weakness in the hull allowing enemies a much greater chance at damage and so on.

This all equates to flying on software via a viewscreen or HUD of some sort. Instead of needing to hide the ship visibly you would need to cloak it's energy signatures and emissions. That would lead to black ops capable ships pretty easily.

However if it sticks to having open viewports then visual as well as energy suppression is needed. In this case there are a few things I can think of that would work, whether they can be implemented in game however is a different matter.
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Post by BlueShade Zero » Tue, 14. Sep 10, 08:57

I happen to agree with the above statement about having clear panels, but since theyre already in theres not much we can do except roll with it. Besides, i like having a nice clear view of the wonderful scenery.

Anyway, my thoughts were that, since a visual cloak doesnt seem possible, radar suppression would work best. And technically speaking, it would be VERY difficult to both see and recognize a ship with thats 15km out with out the aid of radar anyways.

Its realistic that they'd pick you up is when your signal strength was high enough for their radar to get a return, or they'd have to pick you out visually if their radar was weak (think ship standard). So basically the base would start at 5km detection for a small ship, M5, and then go up. A M1/2 would easily be seen from ranges of probably 15km, and then subtle differences, such as a carrier has multiple ships of its own and is running internal ops (maintenance/repairs of internal ships/whatever else they'd be working on) its signature would be bigger, even though its the same size as the destroyers.

Maybe we could think of something like, an initial "visual detection" chance, which would decrease with range, and then a separate "radar detection" probability based on all the signature factors, not just visual.

So many interesting idea's to implement/consider. Its why i keep checking back to see if any one's figured it out.
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Post by TrixX » Tue, 14. Sep 10, 09:31

What about making it show up (the boxes for everything) only once it has been ID'd by the gravidar. If you are running energy signature suppression, then you don't get acquired a box until you get within a certain range which is dependant on scanner type (normal/duplex/triplex) combined with signature enhancement software or somesuch to increase detection ranges.

I wonder how this could be implemented as I'm no scripter ;)
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Post by Botpwned » Tue, 14. Sep 10, 10:41

Sounds like the same idea as the stealth system on the NORMANDY from MASS EFFECT. Capture the emissions within the hull and refrigerate the hull so the heat is masked. And shield all electronics within the ship to prevent detection....Like was said before You must be quite close in space to see a ship.

A ware that does such a thing might not be possible script wise BUT I just remembered that LV has such a item in his DMA script so it must be possible also quite a few scriptors are now experimenting with Stealth satellites. But I am unsure if that is scanner only or visual as well.

I am sure that LV would be able to answer the question.

Wish I had the Scripting expertise to implement such a device....oh the joys I could have with one....
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Post by BlueShade Zero » Tue, 14. Sep 10, 13:55

Botpwned wrote:Sounds like the same idea as the stealth system on the NORMANDY from MASS EFFECT. Capture the emissions within the hull and refrigerate the hull so the heat is masked. And shield all electronics within the ship to prevent detection....
Actually... My idea is based off of how submarines and sonar works. Sonar is fairly similar to radar, except you dont have propagation paths to BS around with, and submarines use a plethora of techniques to mask and hide the signals they emit into the water, from special hulls that absorb signals, to perfectly trimmed gears and super smooth bearings to reduce the noise they make.

Mass Effect basically just did the same thing, with some special considerations for space... As did I :D If you hadnt made the comparison i wouldnt have thought of it lol.
I am sure that LV would be able to answer the question.

Wish I had the Scripting expertise to implement such a device....oh the joys I could have with one....


Lol, actually i was hopping LV himself would roll around, or some other scripting guru. I remember that mod you mentioned but i'm unaware if the one in it actually did anything. I cant say whether it, or the one mentioned in EvE did anything, but it would be hella cool if they did.
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Post by Bobucles » Tue, 14. Sep 10, 17:38

Would this stealth device be more effective on small ships, which are hard enough to see with the naked eye?

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Post by TrixX » Tue, 14. Sep 10, 18:10

Well if you go by reality then yes due to their much lower signature they would have a better chance at getting closer undetected.

Thing is it can be made rare and very in demand ware. Something like working for ATF Black Ops or something.
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Post by EmperorJon » Tue, 14. Sep 10, 18:47

Not sure about the detection, but I can think of a way around that...

Set the PLAYERSHIP as Neutral to enemies until they get close enough?

Then they have a chance of reporting you as an enemy, so your location and details are reported.

This means that it'll take a while for your... 'heat', to die down again afterwards?
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Post by BlueShade Zero » Wed, 15. Sep 10, 01:21

Hey EmperorJon, not a bad idea. I mean, i would basically treat it the same, being that its a stealth device, but having things not attack the player untill a certain range is going to be the biggest key.

I'm still thinking that, once the player is detected, the hostile would basically "report" them to their allies, so all hostiles would know your there. And perhaps it would only work "in race", because lets say a xenon, kha'ak, and split fleet were all in the same general area, and theyre all hostile toward you. Just because the split caught you, he's not gana just go off and tell the xenon and kha'ak, but he will tell his allies.

Also, i'm thinking the stealth gen should use a resource, such as shields and or weapon energy... Again, this would be affected by size, since bigger ships are harder to stealth, and speed, since a faster moving target emits more signals. These particular depletions would invoke the player to choose to either remain stealthed to the other surrounding hostiles, or to drop the cloak and fight.

This would impose to the player to avoid drastic maneuvers/movements in effort to conserve energy. This would induce however, a very complex balancing scheme. Smaller ship, smaller reactors/less energy, but also factoring in its a small ship (uses less energy to stealth) but can achieve higher speeds (uses more energy to keep engine "noise" suppressed).

I'm thinking the ship size should be a STATIC depletion, and be the most effectual. A small ship will consume little energy, while a large ship would consume a far more great amount of energy. This would force the distinguishment that a small ship is for covert ops and at low speeds could remain stealthed for a long long time, while a large ship would be black ops, only ever being able to stealth for a few minutes, and could move more freely since its speed isnt very high and doesnt factor as heavily, but it would have more bravado and bluster in its appearance.
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Post by TrixX » Wed, 15. Sep 10, 05:14

Most sci-fi usually have to have shields disabled to run in stealth mode (too much energy usage to cloak a shield) which would be a nice balancer. Though shield recharge rates for ships that are able to cloak would have to be high.

ALso to balance they need to pretty much be of the glass cannon type too, so think Star Trek's Defiant in that it's fast, manoeuvrable powerful in a head on attack but can't take too many hits therefore needing support or it has to run away.
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Post by S1lverhair » Wed, 15. Sep 10, 07:46

excellent idea but to do it properly it would require some serious revision to the game code.

first for a stealth generator to work there has to exist an emmissions system which keeps track of the emmissions of all objects is space, or to go the whole hog, the energy profiles of all objects in space, asteroids, energy reflections as well and the noise of free space.

to detect an object it would have to be detectable as somthing other than free space ie. either somthing emmitting energy like ships and stations or somthing absorbing energy relative to the surrounding space such as a cold asteroid in a hot area or a ship desperately trying to stealth.

to detect the difference in energy levels and detect the object the ships passive radar must be able to detect the change in relative energy from a distance (according to the inverse square law) behind any noise eg. nebulae in the way, and above the noise of the ships own energy emmisions. This however creates a problem, while knowing that there is somthing out there is onthing and knowing roughly what its energy profile is you still dont know what the object is. is that a piece of small space debris just coming out of the shodow of an asteroid or is it a M3 waiting until some poor sucker is in missile range to spring an ambush. is that energy signature an asteroid filled with valuale uranium or is it a asteroid base filld with pirates and a no witnesses policy.

this creates a problem, one i believe can be solved through the use of different energy bands dependant on the equipment carried on a ship and the state of the ship itself. for instance a ship idiling with everything powered down will appear like a piece of space junk, that is apart from the radioactive glow from its Hepts and the pilot light for the engines each of which provide spikes in different spectra. there should be different energy bads for each piece of equipment active or inactive on a ship e.g. warheads will always provide a radioactive energy spike while massom will not 1Gj shilds will emmit in a different place powered than when in cargo and weapons generators will produce a distinctive spike so you know when someone is ready for a fight. weapons fire on the other hand will light the combatants up like a christmas tree with shields flaring, and missiles etc.

now the cloak. i once played a game called Ares Rising which is the basis for most of the ideas ive put forth, in that the cloak chewed up quite a bit of generator power (which had to be shared among weapons, shields engines etc) and visually disguised your craft fooling image recognition missiles and targeting but the low value cloaks actually increased your energy emmission while the high value cloaks reduced it. it lead to some desprate games of cat and mouse when all ships were using cloaks and limiting some other ships functions (like shields).

the advantage in adding such a system to the X games is that it allows for easy assesment of the threat presented by an enemy (if weapon energy is above X much run away), quite a bit of subterfuge with ambushes, secret asteroid bases, scouting and stealth boarding operations and it will make all unshielded stattions appear on the radar as soon as you arrive in any given sector.

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Post by TrixX » Wed, 15. Sep 10, 09:13

Yes a lot of that would need to go on behind the scenes. It would literally add in another attribute to the items in game. Also would make more sense of the Power Generation Unit too. Though banding wouldn't be needed. It can work off the energy output of the item. If there is no banding you can have it so the different scanners work vs the total power generated by a ship, and seeing as they are passive scanners for energy that would make a lot of sense.

Though that would also lead to the ability to have active scanners (like the Bier Scanner mod) which is more like a sub's sonar and works on reflections of emitted energy. However the issue with that is that if you use it you light yourself up like a christmas tree...
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Post by BlueShade Zero » Wed, 15. Sep 10, 16:03

TBH i love the idea, but atm it would be FAR beyond the scope of what X3 is right now, and would require some new code to be integrated.

Also, what your describing S1lverhair, to have various devices emit various frequencies, and do kind of a "search and analysis" type deal, scanning the area for signatures and identifying the wavelengths coming off. Though i could 100% dig it, it really is something beyond 98% of everybody.

Realistic signature analysis is incredibly difficult, and takes years of experience to become proficient. Those who do learn its trade are generally shunned and misunderstood, or atleast thats how i feel. Not alot of people understand it, and even more think its unnecessary.

I suppose it could be dumbed down so that you wouldnt have to wade through all the clutter and nonsense, and get clear precise "oh this is this, and this is that", but realistically thats not how it works.

However, lets keep the ideas toward whats actually capable in the scope of X3 and what can actually be done. Excellent ideas, and i'd love to see it happen, but i doubt we ever will in any game, ever.
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Post by BlueShade Zero » Thu, 16. Sep 10, 01:49

I revised the topic slightly, and put a summary up top for scripters considering the idea to get the concept. Any help in the revision to make more sense, or better stated is welcome, however PM it to me.

As i said, if i missed something, or your want your idea put up there too, PM me and i'll gladly do it. Otherwise, keep shootin around ideas. I feel the more "fleshed out" the idea is, the better it will be if/when some one decides to give it a shot.
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Post by TECSG » Thu, 16. Sep 10, 03:48

@BlueShade Zero,

My Salvage scripts (here) are just about to have a new version released (V3.37) that incorporates 'stealth' satellites. These are Player owned satellites that all the other races (even Kha'ak and Xenon) cannot detect.

I did also (as an extension to that idea) plan to implement the 'Camouflage device' to render ships undetectable too. I know how you could implement that quite easily, but the logistics would be something you would have to work out as I am concentrating on getting V3.37 out rather than adding new features at the moment.

If you are interested, let me know and I’ll post the info or send you a copy of the scripts.

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Post by TrixX » Thu, 16. Sep 10, 04:50

Awesome work TECSG :D

Been keeping an eye on that and can't wait to try it.
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BlueShade Zero
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Post by BlueShade Zero » Thu, 16. Sep 10, 06:10

TECSG wrote:@BlueShade Zero,

My Salvage scripts (here) are just about to have a new version released (V3.37) that incorporates 'stealth' satellites. These are Player owned satellites that all the other races (even Kha'ak and Xenon) cannot detect.

I did also (as an extension to that idea) plan to implement the 'Camouflage device' to render ships undetectable too. I know how you could implement that quite easily, but the logistics would be something you would have to work out as I am concentrating on getting V3.37 out rather than adding new features at the moment.

If you are interested, let me know and I’ll post the info or send you a copy of the scripts.
Cool! If you wouldnt mind, anything you could offer that would help scripters to make this little project happen would be extraordinary. This is something i've wanted to see happen for a good long while so i'm kinda excited knowing it might actually finally be possible.
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TECSG
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Post by TECSG » Thu, 16. Sep 10, 06:29

@BlueShade Zero,

Below is the modification I make to the script !fight.targeting which is the script all NPC ships use to acquire a target.

The targeting script attempts to find a target that is not a satellite but if it doesn't find anything it will look for a target of any sort. I patched the 2nd part of the script to ignore a satellite if it has a local variable called 'stealth' set to [TRUE]. I don't actually check the object is a satellite as it would just be a waste of time given that my scripts should be the only ones setting such a variable, however, even if they are not, ships would still be targeted because the first check in the script would find them.

The first check in the script (for any non-satellite target) could easily be modified in the same way to ignore a ship if it has a Camouflage Device in the cargo bay.

Code: Select all

073    * target any ship: long range
074    * **using class Mvable ship instead of null should prevent sats being tageted
075    * during combat. Check for sats and beacons after
076    skip if $enemy 
077     $enemy = find ship: sector=[SECTOR] class or type=Moveable Ship 2134 race=null flags=$flags refobj=[THIS] maxdist=$maxrange maxnum=null refpos=$arefpos
078    if not $enemy 
079     $visible = find ship: sector=[SECTOR] class or type=null race=null flags=$flags2 refobj=[THIS] maxdist=$maxrange maxnum=50 refpos=$arefpos
080     $found = size of array $visible
081     while $found 
082      dec $found =
083      $target = $visible[$found]
084      $stealth = $target -> get local variable: name='stealth'
085      if $stealth != [TRUE] 
086       $enemy = $target 
087       break
088      end
089     end
090    end
I'm not sure if a ship would remain 'cloaked' as far as the enemy were concerned if it started shooting at it though, in such cases, the enemy may target the ship directly rather than using the targeting script.

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