Litcube's Universe: Emergent Mission System

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Jack08
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Litcube's Universe: Emergent Mission System

Post by Jack08 » Sat, 15. Nov 14, 01:13

Litcube's Universe: Emergent Mission System Tech Support Thread

EMS is LU's offical mission system replacement, more information can be found on the LU wiki, the link provided below. This thread is for tech support and feedback.

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Litcube's Universe: EMS Wiki
Tahl’s Tips on Finding Missions

What to Expect

In keeping with the harsh nature of LU, EMS, unlike the standard mission system, will not hand you anything on silver platters. It is up to you to find missions in the game world, you must explore to do this in both hostile and friendly space.

If your an avid mission runner, EMS will drastically change your game play, providing emergent experience throughout the game via event scanning - this should create a more believable atmosphere within the game as EMS will not spawn enemies for the soul purpose of letting the player kill them.

This is just the begining
EMS is in its infancy, Its current mission set are the basics required for release but its event scanner will be updated and improved over the course of EMS's lifetime, New missions will be added as well as new functionality to improve the amount of events happening in the universe.

Please provide feedback, and any suggestions you may have, both are always welcome. As this is the first release there are bound to be holes in EMS's event detection grid, and i already know a couple of them. I will work to fix these holes to provide you more content in the patches to come, but for now - Enjoy version 1.0.0.
Last edited by Jack08 on Tue, 26. Jan 16, 04:03, edited 2 times in total.
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Wanabe
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Post by Wanabe » Sat, 15. Nov 14, 04:38

Hi there.

I have encountered an error when trying to run this with certain third party software. In my case specifically Radeon Pro, but only if certain options are enabled.

"Assertion Failed!
Program [folder]/d3d9.dll
file: src/GUI.cpp
line: 265
Expression: m_device == nullptr"

The crash stops occurring if under general settings of Radeon Pro "Disable API Monitoring" is ticked. This allows the use of RadeonPros profile feature to force core affinity to a single core while not crashing the game. Useful for those with AMD cards as if the game is not forced to a single core the frame rate tanks very badly when viewing a lot of the interface menus.

Perhaps in your installation notes or something you could advise against using software with a similar purpose to Radeon Pro and maybe in this case how to stop it from occurring while using Radeon Pro for the profile feature.

Thanks for developing your EMS system. I haven't yet played it so I cannot currently give any gameplay feedback.

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Post by Jack08 » Sat, 15. Nov 14, 05:12

Hi there Wanabe, Thanks for the report, i will try to reproduce (As i have an AMD card) and see if i can make it compatible. In the mean time you may be able to solve the menu stutter issue by placing an extracted atiumdag.dll from the driver series of 12.11 or lower into your games install directory.
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Wanabe
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Post by Wanabe » Sat, 15. Nov 14, 06:09

Choice. On behalf of probably a few people, thanks for trying to take the time to reproduce that error even though the problem may not directly have anything to do with what you're doing on your end.

As to running version 12.11 of ATIUMDAG.dll file. When initially trying to find a solution some time ago to the frame issues I tried that first and it caused an immediate game crash on launch. I tried again just now and the same still occurs. My hardware or OS may be too slightly too modern (HD 7970, windows 8.1. Also happend on win 7) or perhaps there's some *other* software on there that I need to find that's causing it issues. Anyway, that's why I use the profile feature of Radeon Pro. All that needs to be changed on my end is the core affinity to any single core which could be done manually aswell but it's nice to have some software to do it automatically :).

Just to clarify, as long as "Disable API Monitoring" in Radeon pro is ticked in the settings menu the game does not crash and the profile feature I use it for works for the automated Core Affinity setting which seems to do the trick for me personally.

Primarily thought I'd post as I'm sure at least some others may get a similar issue with conflicting software and knowing what it is and a potential fix could be quite useful for some in saving some time and/or stress.

Thanks very much for responding and also for attempting to offer an alternative to Radeon Pro, even if in my case the alternative (probably preferred) method doesn't work for me I know it works for a lot of other people.

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Post by Jack08 » Sat, 15. Nov 14, 06:23

Thanks for the information Wanabe. I have added a note to the install instructions and will look into fixing the crash with RadionPro if possible, im glad you were able to find a way around it.

I may also be able to build in a core affinity swap into EMS to fix the menu stutter which would eliminate the need for RadionPro.
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Joubarbe
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Post by Joubarbe » Sat, 15. Nov 14, 09:58

Congrats for the release ! I'll try that for sure ! (and steal all your ideas to make XM-R better !)

Laserzwölf und 1
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Post by Laserzwölf und 1 » Sat, 15. Nov 14, 11:50

Hi there.

I'm running LUV1.4.7 and GUI1.2.3. After I've installed EMS the game doesn't start at all and shows me this error:

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Where did i miss something?

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OneOfMany
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Post by OneOfMany » Sat, 15. Nov 14, 13:13

Hi Jack08,

thanks for getting this going, the original ES mission system was way to exploitive.

Question. Should I have a CMD DOS like window open when running LU with EMS installed.

The window is reporting every sector change and action performed.

It can be minimised but I was not expecting it.

On a slightly more twisted and evil note.

I could not help noticing the timing of the release reminded me of something, now what was it :twisted:

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Post by Lord Kellmar » Sat, 15. Nov 14, 14:47

Yay, Missions !

How easy it is to un-install EMS ? In case anyone's not satified with the current state ?
Gnature Gnature Gnature Gnature Gnature Gnature
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Post by Hector0x » Sat, 15. Nov 14, 15:31

Lord Kellmar wrote:Yay, Missions !

How easy it is to un-install EMS ? In case anyone's not satified with the current state ?
My guess is, that this should not be a problem. LU Import to a new game without EMS could remove it.

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Post by Jack08 » Sat, 15. Nov 14, 15:52

Laserzwölf und 1 wrote:Hi there.

I'm running LUV1.4.7 and GUI1.2.3. After I've installed EMS the game doesn't start at all and shows me this error:

Where did i miss something?
Have you renamed your exe? it is very important that the nosteam exe be named X3AP_n.exe, otherwise the dll dosen't know that your running X and wont correctly startup.
OneOfMany wrote:Hi Jack08,

thanks for getting this going, the original ES mission system was way to exploitive.

Question. Should I have a CMD DOS like window open when running LU with EMS installed.

The window is reporting every sector change and action performed.

It can be minimised but I was not expecting it.
Yes, the console output is normal, it serves two purposes - the first is to allow any errors that occur to be reported easier, the second is for any user still using the steam EXE - Steam dosent quite get along, the console is a trick to prevent steam from crashing X if you launch it via steam when EMS is installed.

The console is also an extremely powerful debug tool for anyone wishing to write missions for EMS, or anything while EMS is installed.
OneOfMany wrote:On a slightly more twisted and evil note.

I could not help noticing the timing of the release reminded me of something, now what was it :twisted:
We shall not speak of that game, nor the fact that im currently playing it.
Last edited by Jack08 on Sat, 15. Nov 14, 15:55, edited 3 times in total.
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Jack08
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Post by Jack08 » Sat, 15. Nov 14, 15:53

Lord Kellmar wrote:Yay, Missions !

How easy it is to un-install EMS ? In case anyone's not satified with the current state ?
Its easy to remove, but it does require an EI as Hector0x said. If you are going to remove it, please let me know why so i can improve it.


-----------

On a totally unrelated note, Has anyone tried scanning for undercover pirate traders yet? - Yes, thats right, finally a purpose for that police licence!
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Informer
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Post by Informer » Sat, 15. Nov 14, 21:02

Hi Jack08,

My problem was indeed the same as Wanabe, and the solution was also the same. So x3ap is starting up fine with the disable api monitoring ticket on in RadeonPro.
(thanks for that Wanabe).

Have just a question about EMS.
Are missions just pop up? I mean do I jump from sector to sector to find a mission? I did try to find a mission that way only to be sure that ems is working, but hadn't any luck so far. So do I something wrong?

Thanks

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OneOfMany
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Post by OneOfMany » Sat, 15. Nov 14, 21:03

How often doe the EMS system pole the universe?

I ask because I got jumped by a Phannom hunter group when going into PTNI, they were waiting at the gate.

I bailed 3 of the m4's and then had to jump to safety as the rest were kicking my arse.

I jumped 1 sector away, got my shields back to 60%, approx 5 mins, and then rejoined the battle. As I spawned in there were 3 ships for sale and you can guess which ones they were.

Jack I think you just made salvage ships redundant in sector. OOS might be another tale.

Watch this space...

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Jack08
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Post by Jack08 » Sat, 15. Nov 14, 21:26

Informer wrote: Have just a question about EMS.
Are missions just pop up? I mean do I jump from sector to sector to find a mission? I did try to find a mission that way only to be sure that ems is working, but hadn't any luck so far. So do I something wrong?
They generate themselves based on scouts, and god engine spawning, as well as signals and specific code events - Xenon are the most prolific of the missions, so long as EMS is functioning, missions will be being generated in the universe, you just have to find them. Look in sectors like Aladna hill, hatikvah's faith, and anything adjacent to a xenon sector, if combat is your thing.

You can locate them by looking for mission symbols in the sector map, they show up if you have player property in sector, even a satellite. Ill ask Tahl to post some pointers on finding missions. Also, try hunting for undercover pirate traders :D
OneOfMany wrote:How often doe the EMS system pole the universe?

I ask because I got jumped by a Phannom hunter group when going into PTNI, they were waiting at the gate.

I bailed 3 of the m4's and then had to jump to safety as the rest were kicking my arse.

I jumped 1 sector away, got my shields back to 60%, approx 5 mins, and then rejoined the battle. As I spawned in there were 3 ships for sale and you can guess which ones they were.

Jack I think you just made salvage ships redundant in sector. OOS might be another tale.

Watch this space...
Im not sure what your saying. Sell ship missions are generated when a NPC salvager claims a ship - If by chance the sale price on thoes ships was uber good to the point of simply buying and reselling that is definitely a bug, please provide more information.

Polling is actually one used by one component of EMS, thats the recon scouts and military base detectors - the rest is signal and event based.
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Tahlmorra
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Post by Tahlmorra » Sat, 15. Nov 14, 23:01

Tahl’s Tips on Finding Missions

General
EMS generates missions based on regular NPC ships spawned by the game. This means that combat missions will be most prevalent in the game's natural conflict areas. Basically, you'll find more missions where two sectors connect that are owned by races hostile to each other: Pirate-Commonwealth and Xenon-Commonwealth border sectors for example.
Missions can be found on the sector map much like vanilla missions (an icon next to the most important mission object, mostly ships and beacons). Unlike vanilla missions, however, missions are created in all sectors whether or not the player is present. As long as you have property in a sector, you can see all the missions offered in it. This makes satellite networks extremely useful in locating missions.

Intercepting Xenon
Xenon interception missions are generated by any xenon group with an invasion mission targeted at commonwealth space. This means that most Xenon forces that enter commonwealth space will have a mission attached. This includes groups from small fighter wings to large capital ship fleets, making Xenon Invasion missions worthwhile no matter your combat strength. The best place I've found for these missions is in commonwealth sectors bordering single Xenon sectors. This means that the Xenon invasions will only have to make one jump before they enter commonwealth space and become 'accessible' (i.e. not suicidal to attack, assuming you don't have the firepower to take on a xenon sector). Sectors like Black Hole Sun and Getsu Fune tend to be mission dense.
If you do have the firepower to take on a Xenon sector, drop some sats in xenon space and go to town!

Intercepting Pirates
As of writing, only pirate patrols that contain a capital ship will generate a mission when detected by a scanning entity (military base, task force commander, OWP, recon scout), which makes them a lot less useful early game. If you want to test your luck (you will get rewards for picking off escorting fighters!), you can find these missions in commonwealth sectors bordering pirate space (Jupiter 3 and Elena’s Fortune have fairly frequent pirate incursions).

Looking for Smugglers
With EMS, you are now offered are reward for detecting/killing smugglers. As LU has changed the smuggler spawning mechanic to make them persistent (as opposed to only existing in the sector the player is in), scanning freighters in the sectors surrounding pirate space is a good way to make money early game. Keep in mind that the mission icon will not appear on a pirate smuggler until he has been revealed!

Saving/Avenging Freighters
Have you ever softly chuckled to yourself as a drunk freighter wandered into pirate space and got an extremely warm welcome? Now you can get cash for saving their bacon! Xenon/Pirate incursions and patrols seem to like chasing those juicy freighters. These hapless civilians will offer rewards for killing the ships attacking them. If a freighter with a protection mission is destroyed, there is a chance that it will spawn a vengeance mission. These missions are centered on a newly created beacon (with the mission icon attached) located at the site of the freighter’s foul murder and require you to kill hostile ships around it.
Both protection and vengeance missions tend to last only a short time, so finding these tend to be more a matter of already being in-sector rather than searching for them on the sector map. Like all combat missions, these are most common in conflict areas and hostile sectors that tend to be frequently traversed by freighters (Xenon Sector 347 and surrounding sectors, for example).

Purchasing Used Ships
Missions to buy used ships may generated when the jobs engine abandons a ship, a ship takes hull damage, or a ship is salvaged by an NPC salvager. These three events tend to occur in conflict zones. To find ships for sale, look for ships marked with the commerce icon in the same sectors as the combat missions described above and in the sectors between those combat sectors and the sector containing the nearest shipyard, where those ships are sent to despawn.

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Informer
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Post by Informer » Sun, 16. Nov 14, 00:50

Hey Jack08

I did find some missions, so EMS is working great.
But....

I tought I make a ingame video of the ems, and I use Mirillis Action for it.

So when I have started Mirillis Action, then I have the same error again to start X3ap when I had with radeonpro.

I start X3, the dos box appears. Last line in the dos box: Creating LUAXPipe: Missions.
After that I get a windows box, saying X3AP has stopped working. So X3Ap isn't starting.

Even if I don't use radeonpro, and only start Mirillis Action for ingame recording, X3AP is not starting at all.
So it seems it can be also other programs like radeonpro, or Mirillis Action,
to keep X3Ap with ems from starting.

Hope this helps you in anyway.

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Jack08
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Post by Jack08 » Sun, 16. Nov 14, 01:02

Thanks for the info Informer, its likely that EMS does not like the way Mirillis Action is attempting to "hijack" the rendering device in order to record, as EMS does the same thing to the game, so its kinda a hijacking of a hijack, Fraps however should be able to function.

Ill be looking into the crash, i know where in the code its happening, i just need to figure out Why its happening, these programs are making the DirectX API's function differently then they should, reallocating the DirectX device several times, when EMS expects and asserts that it should only ever happen once.
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Informer
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Post by Informer » Sun, 16. Nov 14, 02:43

Thanks jack08,

I will give fraps a try.

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Post by hlking » Sun, 16. Nov 14, 07:58

Hey, just wanted to drop by and thank you for all your hard work. I'm going to try this out tonight and I'm sure it's going to be amazing.

So, a huge thank you to you, Mr Litcube and everyone else involved in LU.

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