X3AP Capital Emergency Jump needs attention (split from X3AP 3.0 thread)

[swatti]

With my knowledge of coding involved in making a game i cant say for certain "how hard can it be" to fix the E-jump i keep mouthing about but seeming what has been done and it has been partially modded in it cant be that hard AND it would truely be a major game-changer for most "end-game" and would turn frustrating micro-management of cap-fleet into fun.

Small reminder: RRF ships "e-jump" and if i remember correctly two mod-bundles have such feature but sadly interfere with mods i allready use and bring other undesirable features i dislike.
Also there is a basic code in the user-interface for E-jump but its broken, "how badly" is unknown to me but i'd imagine its partly there or the UI-element would have been removed.

EDIT: this may seem like a small issue to many and i admit i quite selfishly try to bring it up. While a plot is important, this single feature effects far larger area of gameplay and would even benefit any player using capital ships regardless of their plot-status.

[Ketraar]

The words "it cant be that hard" are only valid if followed by I "I'll show you by doing it myself".
Cause its always "not that hard" if someone else has to do it.

Regarding the Bonus Package, the reason why its not going to be updated with 3.0 is due to mostly the same people being busy with 3.0 anyway.

MFG

Ketraar

[swatti]

No-one so far told me "how broken" the E-jump feature is really or what would it take to fix it. While the code-work i cannot understand very well, a simple comparison to something i can understand and if indeed it is "pointlesly hard" to fix, then my mind is at ease... And best thing about it, i'l shut up about the matter.

[eldyranx3]

Someone, somewhere, will find a reason to be disappointed with FREE DLC.

[Ketraar]

this single feature effects far larger area of gameplay and would even benefit any player using capital ships regardless of their plot-status.

You already answered the question. Its in the bit with the words "affects lager area of gameplay", which usually means a ton load of work just to make sure you did not break anything by trying to fix it, never mind actually do it. Hope that satisfy you.

@eldyranx3
worry not, many will enjoy it.

MFG

Ketraar

[Nanook]

No-one so far told me "how broken" the E-jump feature is really or what would it take to fix it. While the code-work i cannot understand very well, a simple comparison to something i can understand and if indeed it is "pointlesly hard" to fix, then my mind is at ease... And best thing about it, i'l shut up about the matter.

As I see it, the reasons people think it's broken is two-fold. First, there's the normal runup to the jump occurring, the 'countdown' from 10 to zero. That can seem like forever when your ship is under attack.

Second, the algorithm randomly chooses a gate in a nearby sector to jump to, and if there's already a queue of ships there, your ship has to wait until their place in the queue to actually jump. And that can sometimes be long after your ship is destroyed.

The first issue you simply have to live with since that's the normal behaviour for the jumpdrive. The second I suppose could be fixed with a change to the jump algorithm to find an unused gate, assuming it's within range of the energy reserve in your ship. Not being an Egosoft employee, I have no clue how they'd fix it, whether it's hard-coded and unmoddable or in a script somewhere that a modder can fix. Judging from the lack of a 'fix', I'd guess it's hardcoded and not easily fixed.

[DrBullwinkle]

Emergency jump could certainly be enhanced by a script, and difficulty may not be a huge barrier.

What *is* missing is a clear, constructive, suggestion about what could be improved. The current feature does its intended job just fine. If somebody thinks it is "broken" then they need to suggest different behavior.

In general, if anyone wants a feature to work differently, then they should make a clear suggestion of what behavior they would like to see. Random complaints are usually ignored. Specific, constructive, suggestions can be acted upon.



That said, take a look at Signal_Targeted (with Emergency Jump). I use it on non-Mk3 traders and important non-military assets.

• (MK3 Improvement adds similar code to UT's (along with many other fixes).)

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

A scripted alternative to Emergency Jump could be implemented as an "Advanced Command" in a similar fashion to MDM or at least controlled from a console available via an "Advanced Command" (c/f my CPLS and PMTS scripts).

The Improved Emergency Jump could be implemented along similar lines to the Unfocused Jump Drive (i.e. Gateless Jump) but could have either a higher energy cost than a normal jump, or a risk of destroying something (e.g. the Jump Drive) after the jump (perhaps if insufficient energy the jump happens but the drive is destroyed). It could even be perhaps restricted to jumping to a location with-in the same sector or to specific destination sectors.

This would probably need to be implemented so that it can be either user initiated or initiated by other scripts.

[Cycrow]

A scripted alternative to Emergency Jump could be implemented as an "Advanced Command" in a similar fashion to MDM or at least controlled from a console available via an "Advanced Command" (c/f my CPLS and PMTS scripts).

The emergency jump is fully scripted
The only engine code for it is the menu item

But its not broken, it just doesn't work the same way that some people are expecting it to, it is working, as it was designed to.

And there is no way to "fix" it without remaking it, its not difficult but there are other things of higher priority

[Huillam]

And it was designed to? No irony, only curiosity.

[ajax34i]

Probably designed to: "In case of emergency, pick a nearby gate and activate jumpdrive script." Jumpdrive script counts down from 10 seconds and then jumps. Gate queue, however, overrides the script if the gate is busy, and makes it wait. Players do not wait because we're special and queues don't apply to us (we just collide with the traffic if it's there, blowing up our ship), but all NPCs have to wait in the queue to not collide. Or something.

So the expectation is that the trader should emergency jump within 10 seconds like we do, but unfortunately the code is different for NPCs. The whole gate queue may not even be in the emergency jump script, or in the jumpdrive script. It may just be something GoD does by default to all NPCs. Changing it will probably affect what the Autopilot will do if you tell it to fly to the next sector through a gate.

I have no clue; this is all pulled out of thin air, I am not a programmer or have any scripting experience.

EDIT: actually, it may be trying to jump and dock to a station, in which case the station queue may be blocking it. The station queue blocks the player too if there are no available docking slots because a whole NPC fleet has docked.

[swatti]

Oh great this again, my apology but:

ITS NOT MK3 TRADER E-JUMP, ITS CAPITAL-SHIP E-JUMP THAT IS BROKEN! (exclude all trade-ships from this conversation)
Mk3 traders for me atleast jump perfectly fine. They jump the moment someone does damage to em, regardless of any setting.
Atm mk3 e-jump works as intended. Capital-ship e-jump does not work at all.

There is an existing setting in capital-ships to jump when below certain shield or hull % but this feature does not work and i have done much testing on it. It was broken in TC too.

If this function worked, capital ships could jump out of harms way at sertain shield-level and since i have over a dozen ships, its nearly impossible to micro-manage all of them to jump out in time.

This feature alone will enable player to effectively use large capital fleets but its current state makes it pure frustration instead of fun.
Also a similar feature should be aviable to figters that have a carrier assigned as a home base so when hurt, they retreat back to the said carrier.

I have waited maaaaany patches and built my fleet so one day i can actually use em to their fullest and truely enjoy the large capital-fleet battles but as of yet no one has given me real answer why it hasnt been fixed. Or "how hard can it be" compared to any other bug-fix allready ingame.

My apology for derailing the topic. My apology for not making it clearer, but please, do not mix mk3 trader jump with this. These two are totaly different.

[DrBullwinkle]

Instead of complaining that the existing feature does not work (when it does), how about suggesting what behavior you would like to see, swatti?

Also, just how useful is the feature, anyway? TL's spend most of their lives docked or in a safe sector, so they won't use it (much). Military ships do what they are commanded to do (often fight to the death).

So, really, what would you want a capital ship emergency jump to do?

• (and who mixed Mk3's with non-Mk3's, other than you? )

[swatti]

Argh! The capital ship emergency-jump DOES NOT WORK!

It never has, i have never seen patch notes saying it has been fixed.

I dont want my capital-ships "fight to the death" FFS, i want them to jump out when their shield reaches certain threshold, like there allready is a existing setting, but this setting and the entire feature does not work, at all. Please, prove me wrong.

[Cycrow]

And it was designed to? No irony, only curiosity.

its part of the combat scripts, and as a result, its only active when the ship is in combat (actively attacking another ship)
But as pointed out, it cant always jump straight away anyways, because it could get stuck in a gate queue waiting for it to be free

swatti, you're the only one that even mentioned the mk3. Everyone else have been talking about the capital ship one.
it hasn't been changed because its not a high priority

[swatti]

There were minor MK3 references so i might have jumped the gun. My apology, but its often mixed with cap-ship E-jump.

Im very saddened to see such a vital component of end-game considored a low priority. Considoring NPC-ships (RRF) allready use such feature AND the Ui-component is allready there.

Also my question stands. "How hard can it be?" In comparison to any other feature.

[Nanook]

And it was designed to? No irony, only curiosity.

its part of the combat scripts, and as a result, its only active when the ship is in combat (actively attacking another ship)
But as pointed out, it cant always jump straight away anyways, because it could get stuck in a gate queue waiting for it to be free...

If that's the case, then the obvious solution is to have the command check to see if there's a queue at the chosen gate. If there is, try another gate, and keep trying until one is found that doesn't have a capital ship queue. I don't know if this is easy or hard to do, but it seems like the obvious 'fix'.

[TTD]

emergency jump is one feature I have never relied on.
Even I can't always jump out in time when under attack.
So why should I expect my capitals to always do?

IIRC there is a hull damage setting.
If that is set too low,then there's only a cat-in-hell's chance of it working anyway.

[Nanook]

Actually, it's a shield damage setting. And I have had it work a few times when the setting was 75% or higher (that's the remaining shield value), and the ship chose a gate without an active queue. But it doesn't work often enough to rely on, as you said.

And I just realized what the real solution to the problem with the queue should be. Just ignore it and have the ship make a non-autopilot jump like the player usually does. It doesn't matter if it jumps to a crowded gate, as long as it's OOS, since collision is turned off anyway. Having a threatened ship try to join a queue seems like an odd way to do things.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Actually, it's a shield damage setting. And I have had it work a few times when the setting was 75% or higher (that's the remaining shield value), and the ship chose a gate without an active queue. But it doesn't work often enough to rely on, as you said.

And I just realized what the real solution to the problem with the queue should be. Just ignore it and have the ship make a non-autopilot jump like the player usually does. It doesn't matter if it jumps to a crowded gate, as long as it's OOS, since collision is turned off anyway. Having a threatened ship try to join a queue seems like an odd way to do things.

Try going to A&E in most UK hospitals - it is a similar situation