Protectyon after the Plot: Demand, Business, Exploit?

[/root]

Situation:
I spaced the egg-yoke twins, took their ships, secured Leap of Faith, tore VIG apart and then paid them to like me (duh... they should've paid me for not wiping them off the map... hmpf).

Now some questions came up for me:

1. Now I should be the sole distributor of protectyon. Correct?
2. If I don't supply Avarice with protectyon the stations will go *plop* and I can establish my energy cell monopoly in that 1390% sun sector. Correct?
3. What is the consumption rate of protectyon? 1 protectyon per station per tide?
4. Can someone tell me the exact frequency between tides?
5. Does the full tide loop (including damage to ships) work even when I'm out of sector and does it happen with the same frequency?

Regarding the market at the time I finished the plot:
Tidebreak is sitting on 5000 protectyon and prices are down to <23k Cr (I didn't sell anything yet). Almost feels like a bug since the Avarice system was supposed to be kept on high demand by the twins? At least the plot is about the "high price" of protectyon and that only comes with low availability in X4 - when there is 5000/5000 available, prices are as low as they can get. Did anyone experience low stocks right after that plot? I tried to drain their stock but I didn't figure out how to store 5000 protectyon. The 2 Astrids can hold 860, my station module only 5 more and and one Raleigh only 25, so it's kinda hard to drain that supply.

If #3 is correct I fear it might take around 100 hours for Avarice to run out of protectyon. Could someone share a bit of experience about how the supply develops over time? Am I overthinking this because assumptions 1 and 2 are ultimately incorrect?

<edit>
Oops! I just found the Condensate storage module size S which, according to the encyclopedia, can hold 10000 "somethings" of protectyon. Probably m³? So 1000 protectyon per module
</edit>


Exploit found?
Last but not least I think there seems to be a little exploit on Tidebreak. Fooling around with the new protectyon stuff I noticed that once I got Astrid and ~10 million credits to spare I could buy 430 protectyon for 22500Cr from Tidebreak, which will raise the price of protectyon to 22980.69Cr. Now I can instantly sell it to Tidebreak, making an on-the-spot profit of 205024Cr. Rinse and repeat for infinite amounts of cash..? Not sure if Tidepoint will run out of credits at some point, but doesn't look like it

Did this loop about 5 times until I got the achievement "Market Regulation" - tho I'm not sure what the achievement was exactly. The in-game CBNN News report a new Northriver competitor... is this triggered by selling x amount of protectyon or by building a station that sells the stuff or.. ehm.. duh? Super puzzled.

[splc]

/root Oops! I just found the Condensate storage module size S

.

Where?

I scanned an Avarice station for the protectyon shield blueprint. Is the storage module part of the 'Twins' mission, (which I haven't completed), ? I haven't see one on any stations.

[Witzzard]

/root Oops! I just found the Condensate storage module size S

Where?

I scanned an Avarice station for the protectyon shield blueprint. Is the storage module part of the 'Twins' mission, (which I haven't completed), ? I haven't see one on any stations.

Yes you get the blueprint after deciding to "compete" with the twins.

@/root sorry got no idea. But please keep us updated on what you find. I've yet to finish the quest as i'd normally go against them, but am not interested in seemingly needing to manually supply the Avarice sectors with Protectyon (Or better said now and then transporting protectyon from Leap of Faith towards the sector).

[Pesanur]

Exploit found?
Last but not least I think there seems to be a little exploit on Tidebreak. Fooling around with the new protectyon stuff I noticed that once I got Astrid and ~10 million credits to spare I could buy 430 protectyon for 22500Cr from Tidebreak, which will raise the price of protectyon to 22980.69Cr. Now I can instantly sell it to Tidebreak, making an on-the-spot profit of 205024Cr. Rinse and repeat for infinite amounts of cash..? Not sure if Tidepoint will run out of credits at some point, but doesn't look like it

This exploit not only affect Tidebreak, instead it affect to all of the Trading Stations. Buy some stuff for a trading station, and you can shell again to it for an higher price.

[splc]

@Witzzard and Pesanur, thanks for the info.

[Aphil]

I have found that after setting up my base to store Protectyon, that Tidebreak is just constantly full of Protectyon. There's almost no opportunity to really compete or enhance prices since Tidebreak is happy to sell a ton of Protectyon at a low low price. Dal Busta hinted at the possibility of being able to keep prices high and make a ton of money. I mean really, the Twins seem insanely rich but this Protectyon stuff really doesn't seem like a very good money maker.

If it wasn't for the fact that siding with the Twins seems to leave me with a -15 rep with Vigor (after hours of grinding to +20), I probably would have gone that route. The rewards fighting against the twins really don't seem worth it.

I feel like after you complete Avarice, Tidebreak should stop automatically replenishing past a certain point. Maybe no more than 20 Protectyon at a time so that there's still some ability to protect Avarice if you don't want to micro manage the manual collection of it? Then you could also benefit from the better prices to make it all actually worthwhile.

[erroneous zip code]

I feel like after you complete Avarice, Tidebreak should stop automatically replenishing past a certain point. Maybe no more than 20 Protectyon at a time so that there's still some ability to protect Avarice if you don't want to micro manage the manual collection of it? Then you could also benefit from the better prices to make it all actually worthwhile.

It appears to be quite literally the other way around-- after a certain period of time (or quantity of protectyon?) the Eye is the thing that runs out. I was running several Asterids in per tide cycle and had a station literally set up around the anomaly to make it more efficient and it just....quit generating, even before I realized Tidebreak was undercutting everything with minimum price 22500 Protectyon. Out of curiousity I used a mod to explicitly drain the storage of Tidebreak and after a minute it sprang back up to 100% capacity once again, so it seems like once you've made whatever plot decision there's literally no incentive to continue interacting with that area of space for any reason, and an entire new category of resource is just...kind of left useless except as "something to keep topped off if you happen to build in 3 sectors with not much else going on".

I was all ready to jump the PHQ into Leap of Faith and set up shop, too...

[Berhg]

I get the feeling that the whole protectyon supply thing is just fiction for the plot story and isn't developed for in game mechanics.

[mskyweb]

I finished the quest with forcing evil twins out of Astrid. Claimed one Astrid with the second one still floating around The Station in Leap of Faith. I can't claim the second Astrid or destroy it. The Station churns out Protectyon containers from all 3 sides of it. I can't pick them up at all.
The Condensate module is awailable for me in the station building menu.
What I noticed is multiple RIP and VIG ships in the Leap of Faith all over sudden after completingthe quest. How they got there is a mystery. I teleported my HQ into the Leap of Faith with all sorts of ships docked to it (just in case) and full or resourced to jump back as the Leap sector has none. RIP and VIG ships are just buzzing around my HQ. If I Comm them and ask how to get to Shipyard (trick question), I get 'I have no idea' response
I assume the following (after going against twins):
1. Twin's secret of existence of Leap of Faith is out and anyone can come and get Protectyon. They can buy it for rock bottom price if they are lazy to fly to LOF sector. (The greedy telady lizard that gave me the quest in the first place is 'reformed' and now thinks that there are more important things than creditsssssss or something along these lines)
2. Condensate module is also a public knowledge now after the bluprint got made available.
3. Protectyon is plentiful and worst resource to buy/sell .

Questions:
1. What's the deal with second Astrid floating on it's own with no chance to claim it?
2. Do I need to buy protectyon for my station as I can't take Protectyon containers myself?

If anyone got answers please let me know

[/root]

I have found that after setting up my base to store Protectyon, that Tidebreak is just constantly full of Protectyon. There's almost no opportunity to really compete or enhance prices since Tidebreak is happy to sell a ton of Protectyon at a low low price. Dal Busta hinted at the possibility of being able to keep prices high and make a ton of money. I mean really, the Twins seem insanely rich but this Protectyon stuff really doesn't seem like a very good money maker.

^ this + the rest of your post = 100%

I killed the twins and I'm keeping a tight watch over Leap of Faith to kill everyone trying to get on my turf. But it doesn't seem this approach works with the current scripts around protectyon supply. I think it would be nice if Northriver was a small(!) faction so that we could declare war and hunt them down to actually rip that monopoly out of their hands and make it our own

If Northriver was a faction and had like one or two stations, the scripts could be changed so these stations "generate" enough protectyon and deliver it to Tidebreak in order to keep Avarice alive, even if the player killed the egg-yoke twins. But the difference would be that the player could actually change that by taking out the protectyon transports (would be a nice new purpose for the condensate Raleigh too) and/or destroy the Northriver faction and their stations.

I was all ready to jump the PHQ into Leap of Faith and set up shop, too...

At least you were just ready to - I already set up a scrap factory with 6x condensate storage to store 6000 protectyon... then I proceeded to empty Tidebreak - just tried to buy them up completely and sunk close to 100 million into that endeavour when suddenly I notice their stock being up to 4974 again and the price of protectyon crashed to min again


...I think I'll try to and destroy Tidebreak. Certainly cheaper than buying them out and I'm kinda curious if the tide announcer will shut up after that rock has been turned to dust.

I get the feeling that the whole protectyon supply thing is just fiction for the plot story and isn't developed for in game mechanics.

Yeah, feels like it. But the whole Avarice situation with the tides and real demand for protectyon suggests that we're experiencing some unintended behaviour - at least I hope Egosoft will tend to it and improve it a bit. It would just be so massively awesome to grasp that monopoly and then fill up your supply from time to time. It actually seems like just 1 protectyon per tide and station, so 430 protectyon (max you can carry with a single Astrid run) would be enough for quite some time - meaning no real tedium and still the cool feeling of kinda "owning" Avarice (which btw I actually do... after I put an administrative module on the scrap factory I popped the single defence station in Avarice IV).

(...) I can't pick them up at all.
(...) What I noticed is multiple RIP and VIG ships in the Leap of Faith all over sudden after completingthe quest.
(...) Questions:
1. What's the deal with second Astrid floating on it's own with no chance to claim it?
2. Do I need to buy protectyon for my station as I can't take Protectyon containers myself? (...)

To your first question: As I wrote in your thread ( viewtopic.php?f=182&t=446259 ) you should be able to take the second Astrid and I think you're experiencing a bug. I'm not sure how to proceed in your case - maybe someone at Egosoft would agree to take a look at your save game?

What you describe doesn't seem to reflect the common situation others experience. Especially the fact about VIG and RIP in Leap of Faith sounds weird - for me the sector is completely empty (other than my stuff) and I've never seen any other ships there except the two Astrids (none of them escaped since I instantly captured both). Have you installed a mod that adds a jump gate to Leap of Faith or something like that?

To your second question: If you can't find another way to fix it and if you don't want to load an old save to check if you can get a different outcome, I fear you're left with buying protectyon, yes. But I'm having difficulty believing that you can't pick it up.

Can you please make exceptionally sure that...
a) you have free cargo space and it reads "Filled Capacity (Condensate Container): 0 / 4,300 m³" in your ship's general information screen
b) you use that ship to fly over the protectyon that floats around in Leap of Faith

...because if this fails you really have a weird bug on your hands and there's more wrong with your game than just a quest state, I think...


/edit/ps

...I think I'll try to and destroy Tidebreak. Certainly cheaper than buying them out and I'm kinda curious if the tide announcer will shut up after that rock has been turned to dust.

Well...
The GOOD NEWS
Tidebreak got a defence like a 3yrs old in Kindergarten and doesn't pose any challenge when attacked.

The BAD NEWS
There are no explosion effects for station modules - the total hull goes down with every module you attack, but hull drop stagnates and the modules don't go pop. No matter if in sector or out of sector - it doesn't seem possible to get the hull down below 15%, which essentially means that Tidebreak is immortal

[Aphil]

The BAD NEWS
There are no explosion effects for station modules - the total hull goes down with every module you attack, but hull drop stagnates and the modules don't go pop. No matter if in sector or out of sector - it doesn't seem possible to get the hull down below 15%, which essentially means that Tidebreak is immortal

I had the same idea, I wanted to destroy the storage arm since that's what has the condensate containers but nope. Not allowed.

This really seems more like a bug, with how much the game talked up selling Protectyon, and that's the whole point of being rewarded with the storage option, it seems like this is just not working properly.

[/root]

This really seems more like a bug, with how much the game talked up selling Protectyon, and that's the whole point of being rewarded with the storage option, it seems like this is just not working properly.

I sure hope so. This little project cost me my last shirt, which I happily gave hoping for some big return of invest - but so far I've not even got fish bones for it (even tho I match Tidebreak's price for protectyon, grrr).

For now I'm trying to change ownership of Tidebreak to the player faction by hacking it into the guidance system - but I'd much more prefer to pay for it (see help request viewtopic.php?f=181&t=446309 for a mod idea to make it less cheaty/op).

Btw: When I returned to the HQ the little Teladi gave me some kind of "final speech" which seemed like a debrief for the plot. No idea if anything changed afterwards tho


/edit/addition
I just hacked Tidebreak and transferred ownership to faction.player ... hoooowever, looking at the logbook of Tidebreak I fear this whole protectyon business seems to be a huge scam since there are no trade entries whatsoever - except the ones where I tried to buy them out. This explains why there are no Raleigh Condensate freighters to be seen anywhere - nobody buys that stuff! Also there's not a single station offering to buy protectyon in my game. The only station that I need to supply with protectyon is my own scrap processing facility (and now Tidebreak, probably)..?

I'll continue to monitor the situation as tides come and go, but so far it looks as if this all is but a hollow fake. I don't want to point fingers or something, since I'm not that deep into the scripts, but as far as I can see and interpret it sure looks as if all of what we're talking about here in this thread is fundamentally impossible due to the fact that there's nothing like an actual market or infrastructure that could even make any of this possible in the first place


/edit/update
Owning Tidebreak, watching things closely after the first tide. Most stations first drop to 4/5 protectyon but then magically rise back up to 5/5. Some stations seem to remain at 4/5 a bit longer, but i can't see any reason why. Tidebreak dropped to 4999 from consuming one protectyon itself but also was automatically replenished to 5000/5000. Still there are no trades in the logbook whatsoever. It's all a big ol fake.

The only way I see how to make at least a tiny profit from selling protectyon would be to fill up Astrids and let them race to provide the stations back to 5/5 before the script does it. Not worth it


/edit/update
Setting Astrids up as traders for a station manager doesn't work. They just don't care if they could sell 1 protectyon to the stations around and prefer to idle around the den instead.

I got it "somewhat" working with a repeat order and adding all the stations to the loop - but one Astrid isn't fast enough to supply all stations with +1 protectyon before they receive their free refill by magic bukkit.

Next thought: buy one Raleigh Condensate freighter for each and every station in the Avarice system and create a repeat order for each of the Raleighs to care for exactly one station each, so as soon as there's a demand, the trade will match and hopefully block the station from receiving the magic bukkit fill. But since Raleighs cost 330k with low preset they would need 15 tides to be worth the investment, which would be dragged down further because they can't survive the tide and would need a shield mod each. So that leaves us with 1 Astrid for maybe 3 stations with added redundancy in trade paths, but that would be so super expensive... I really don't see the point.

[Mistle]

I get the feeling that the whole protectyon supply thing is just fiction for the plot story and isn't developed for in game mechanics.

Nothing to add, tried also make business with Protectyon but without any luck. Maybe even someone has a good idea at the start but the end is ...

[erroneous zip code]

This really seems more like a bug, with how much the game talked up selling Protectyon, and that's the whole point of being rewarded with the storage option, it seems like this is just not working properly.

I sure hope so. This little project cost me my last shirt, which I happily gave hoping for some big return of invest - but so far I've not even got fish bones for it (even tho I match Tidebreak's price for protectyon, grrr).

For now I'm trying to change ownership of Tidebreak to the player faction by hacking it into the guidance system - but I'd much more prefer to pay for it (see help request viewtopic.php?f=181&t=446309 for a mod idea to make it less cheaty/op).

Btw: When I returned to the HQ the little Teladi gave me some kind of "final speech" which seemed like a debrief for the plot. No idea if anything changed afterwards tho


/edit/addition
I just hacked Tidebreak and transferred ownership to faction.player ... hoooowever, looking at the logbook of Tidebreak I fear this whole protectyon business seems to be a huge scam since there are no trade entries whatsoever - except the ones where I tried to buy them out. This explains why there are no Raleigh Condensate freighters to be seen anywhere - nobody buys that stuff! Also there's not a single station offering to buy protectyon in my game. The only station that I need to supply with protectyon is my own scrap processing facility (and now Tidebreak, probably)..?

I'll continue to monitor the situation as tides come and go, but so far it looks as if this all is but a hollow fake. I don't want to point fingers or something, since I'm not that deep into the scripts, but as far as I can see and interpret it sure looks as if all of what we're talking about here in this thread is fundamentally impossible due to the fact that there's nothing like an actual market or infrastructure that could even make any of this possible in the first place


/edit/update
Owning Tidebreak, watching things closely after the first tide. Most stations first drop to 4/5 protectyon but then magically rise back up to 5/5. Some stations seem to remain at 4/5 a bit longer, but i can't see any reason why. Tidebreak dropped to 4999 from consuming one protectyon itself but also was automatically replenished to 5000/5000. Still there are no trades in the logbook whatsoever. It's all a big ol fake.

The only way I see how to make at least a tiny profit from selling protectyon would be to fill up Astrids and let them race to provide the stations back to 5/5 before the script does it. Not worth it


/edit/update
Setting Astrids up as traders for a station manager doesn't work. They just don't care if they could sell 1 protectyon to the stations around and prefer to idle around the den instead.

I got it "somewhat" working with a repeat order and adding all the stations to the loop - but one Astrid isn't fast enough to supply all stations with +1 protectyon before they receive their free refill by magic bukkit.

Next thought: buy one Raleigh Condensate freighter for each and every station in the Avarice system and create a repeat order for each of the Raleighs to care for exactly one station each, so as soon as there's a demand, the trade will match and hopefully block the station from receiving the magic bukkit fill. But since Raleighs cost 330k with low preset they would need 15 tides to be worth the investment, which would be dragged down further because they can't survive the tide and would need a shield mod each. So that leaves us with 1 Astrid for maybe 3 stations with added redundancy in trade paths, but that would be so super expensive... I really don't see the point.

I ended up reloading a save that was accidentally "far earlier than expected" when I first did the decision point and out of curiousity at the time, got into Leap of Faith before I was "supposed" to find out about it. At that point in the plotline, taking Protectyon out of the sector seemed to be at least somewhat profitable with Astrids finding delivery points on automatic trade, so I have to wonder if there's an explicit "the user's done with the quest and we don't want to force them to stick around" trigger that subsequently causes all stations to just spontaneously generate protectyon? Or maybe the Astrids were just moving fast enough to beat that magic timer?

It's a shame that the actual final bit of the questline isn't "the player takes proper ownership of the Eye and does something to get Leap of Faith to be added to the gate network proper" so that the existing NPC AI can take over, instead of it being fully and completely hand-waved after all the talk about monopolizing or being magnanimous with it...

[Sandtrooper]

Just completed that entire plot BUT...

After one has 'demonstrated' that the Vig should consider NOT trying to roll up the carpet on me - destroyed their spice station as per the final objective -
Hostilities cease and they 'consider the conflict (with the human player) is at an END , why then do their remaining fighters continue attacking my ships?

Try this out -
Upon destruction of their spice farm, I immediately paused the game,
disarmed all turrets on both Asgards, the Raptor and four Rattlers,
Redirected them to each fly out of the southern gate and return to sentry duty at the western gate of 1st Contact F'point,
Tried to stay awake as they each slowwwwwwwly crawled out because travel drive is inhibited when puny ships are shooting at them,
Witnessed almost all turrets being damaged and rendered 'red' during their hindered withdrawal
Saw the Vig punies eventually return from whence they came to harass the three 'biggies' after the Rattlers had finally escaped...
But yet, if I let the ships defend themselves against the Vig remoaners, my reputation is hit by "unauthorised kills'
That's not a bug - that's a poorly written and ill-executed mission script that (in typical Egofashion) has NOT been tested and corrected.

Furthermore, as others have said on this forum, the entire Protectyon saga is just a scam/con. The value is non-existent despite being a so-called station saver from the tide. My personal experience is that King Kanute would have done a better job (the tide, get it?). Unlike other mission plot lines, this seems to have been a complete exercise in anti-climax.

What are other players' experiences of the final objective upon destroying their spice farm? Please let there be someone who saw all Vig fighters turn from red back to blue upon that Syndicate woman's message...

[ChrisF0001]

What are other players' experiences of the final objective upon destroying their spice farm? Please let there be someone who saw all Vig fighters turn from red back to blue upon that Syndicate woman's message...

Well it was a food factory for me, but...

1) Made sure all my ships were well out of the way of VIG ships
2) Flew to the satellite in the Astrid and paid the 15 million. VIG now at -20 I think, most stations now pink rather than red, ships still red.
3) Flew the Astrid to the target station (not attacked as it seems to count as a trader). Dropped s huge stack of FoF Mines, stuck a spacesuit bomb on them, backed away in the ship, trigger the bomb, one module destroyed...
4) Repeat step 3 until the whole station was destroyed. Then again because they'd started to rebuild the first module and I had to blow that up again, despite none of that module being visible. Took out the build storage too. I did have to reload once as the VIG found my fleet and engaged which put me back in the red again - moved it further away on reload.
5) "We consider this situation resolved". VIG now at -11, everything was pink. Couldn't dock, but no hostilities in progress.
6) Flying through WIndfall, I saw a Repair Satellites mission. Did that, VIG at -10. Repair Data Leak, still -10. Patrol sector for 20 minutes - VIG now at -7, and I can dock and trade.
7) Ongoing, get a rep-builder trader working, but all seems on track for someday getting that Barbarossa blueprint...

[erroneous zip code]

What are other players' experiences of the final objective upon destroying their spice farm? Please let there be someone who saw all Vig fighters turn from red back to blue upon that Syndicate woman's message...

Mine was still "the casino" before they fixed that being the target, but

1. Cleared everything possible out of the Avaraice sectors ahead of time, from prior experience and a reload of "everything's hostile and I've already got trade fleets winging around making things worse"
2. Made my choice from Leap of Faith
3. Sent The Fleet up from Black Hole Sun and wiped the station off the map from OOS
4. Disabled all guns and turrets, set response override to Flee while teleporting over to a fast ship parked near the sat in Avarice IV
5. Paid the 15 million, everything except the remainder of the small fighters around the smoking remains of the casino remained hostile
6. Sent the fleet back out towards Black Hole Sun, sent the ships that were able to safely make the jump to cruise speed out towards Second Contact and kept everything else aimed towards Grand Exchange while getting fighter swarmed
7. Eventually everything deaggroed, absent any reason to continue shooting, with a couple claimed "Rep reductions" from my ships that had literally nothing turned on to shoot with that I was never able to figure out

[/root]

What are other players' experiences of the final objective upon destroying their spice farm? Please let there be someone who saw all Vig fighters turn from red back to blue upon that Syndicate woman's message...

Well, I thought it was a "pay OR fight" decision and I didn't want to give them 15 million credits - hence I beat them up pretty thoroughly... even boarded some of their freighters, thinking it might weaken them before the fight and, of course, "free ships \o/" rite? But nah, their huge appearance in swarms when you attack seems (and feels!) totally scripted - it's like the whole sector turns red (from enemy blips popping up everywhere) and it really doesn't feel like a "real" X4 battle. Somehow I got the impression it's impossible to "win" that battle - just beat up that station OOS and GTFO (had several attempts, but in the end I think I was in sector, luring the mob around as a distraction and doing the old hit-and-run).

So as I wrote above: up to that point I didn't pay any credits to VIG... and got pretty pissed when I learned that I still had to despite having turned into what felt like their worst nightmare. They should've paid ME, but well. When I got to the satellite to have a talk and pay, my ships had already withdrawn from the sector and when my reputation shot up again after paying them there were no more conflicts.

Maybe, to make it less frustrating, one should steal and sell 15 million Cr worth of ships from VIG and then steal even more - enough to build an army to attack their station. That way it may not feel as much like a rip off?

Fun fact: "from whence" is a pleonasm. Like "dead cadaver" or "arrogant Paranid". Please don't hit me - just trying to show off as a non-native English speaker and I really do think it's a fun fact

Then again because they'd started to rebuild the first module and I had to blow that up again, despite none of that module being visible.

Oh yeah, I found that to be a very very frustrating experience. Searching that invisible module with that huge red mob on my 6. I guess that works better OOS.


/edit/ps
Been combing through the ego_dlc_pirate xml files and found this in story_thefan.xml

Code: Select all

<!-- Sell Protectyon four times at a low price to trigger the dialogue -->
<signal_cue cue="PlayerProtectyonSaled_SoldLow"/>

Code: Select all

<cue name="PlayerProtectyonSaled_SoldLow">
<!--
I have received word from my Riptide Raker contacts that you are selling them affordable Protectyon!
This will save lives, thank you so very much!
-->
<unlock_achievement name="TOA_PLOT_TWIN_7" comment="Market Regulation"/>
<add_faction_relation faction="faction.player" otherfaction="faction.scavenger" value="0.067" reason="relationchangereason.missioncompleted" comment="All RIP relation rewards add up 0.1 (+20), so that the player can buy the Protectyon shield module."/>

The above is what I got - the achievement "Market Regulation" and some reputation gain.

But there's another achievement in case you manage to sell for a high price...

Code: Select all

<signal_cue cue="PlayerProtectyonSaled_SoldHigh"/>
<!-- You only need to sell Protectyon at a high price twice to trigger the dialogue -->

Code: Select all

<cue name="PlayerProtectyonSaled_SoldHigh">
<!--
I have just received word that you are selling Protectyon now as well.
You seem to offer it at a similar price point to the Northriver Company's Protectyon.
How could you?!
I thought we agreed to help the people of Avarice?
Now you just profit off all their misery, no different than those loathsome twins!
-->
<unlock_achievement name="TOA_PLOT_TWIN_6" comment="The Freest of Markets"/>

I don't think anyone got this achievement yet, since with the current code it's (almost) impossible to ever sell protectyon for an above average market price. But the achievement "The Freest of Markets" being in the code strongly indicates that what we're experiencing is an unintended behaviour - a bug that will hopefully be fixed in the future - because as long as everyone is being supplied to 100% capacity protectyon for free it's 100% impossible for players to ever achieve "The Freest of Markets" by ehem... normal means. We could of course buy ~3000 protectyon from Tidebreak and then sell 2x 1 unit for "above average price", but that's kinda expensive and we'd either have to dump all of it into space or buy many Astrids to store it. Not sure if there would be enough time to deliver it to your factory's storage before Tidebreak gets restocked to 100%

If anyone knows where I can find the cue that fills the Avarice stations automatically, please let me know. I think I found the one that supplies Tidebreak for free, but not yet the one for the other stations. It feels like it should be an easy thing to fix with a mod once we know where the cues are and how the current implementation works exactly. Alas, regarding xml coding and modding I'm the one-eyed among the blind at best - maybe one of the more advanced modders would like to jump on our band wagon?

[XIII8]

[quote=/root post_id=5117148 time=1648540104 user_id=169349]Well, I thought it was a "pay OR fight" decision and I didn't want to give them 15 million credits - hence I beat them up pretty thoroughly... even boarded some of their freighters, thinking it might weaken them before the fight and, of course, "free ships \o/" rite? But nah, their huge appearance in swarms when you attack seems (and feels!) totally scripted - it's like the whole sector turns red (from enemy blips popping up everywhere) and it really doesn't feel like a "real" X4 battle. Somehow I got the impression it's impossible to "win" that battle - just beat up that station OOS and GTFO (had several attempts, but in the end I think I was in sector, luring the mob around as a distraction and doing the old hit-and-run).[/quote]

I dont think its scripted; Ive long made peace with the VIG and they got that many fighters in most sectors. Their shipyards are super powerful because apparently the just need the scrappers ressources to build ships.

In the sector, I've cleaned out the fighters after three attempts. They do get replenished, but only slowly. I think what makes the entire sector attack you is the bounty though; in my last and successful try, I had paid the 15 millions and the enemies were way less aggro.

Battling that many fighters was a lot of fun though, if costly!

[/root]

Mh.. I fooled around with the "SetupTideBreak_Resupply" cue and gave it a go. To my surprise changing the Tidebreak resupply cue also seems to stop the other stations from being topped up..??

Need further testing. Maybe the station selection doesn't only target Tidebreak, but all stations in Avarice? The selector looks like this:

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<find_station name="$PirateLandmark01" space="$PirateSectors" godstationentry="'pirate_landmark_01'" required="true"/>

After that $PirateLandmark01 is used as identifier for the whole cue. I suspect the space="$PirateSectors" applies to all Avarice stations... and I've got no clue what godstationentry="'pirate_landmark_01'" might apply to..

...

Aaaaanyhow. If someone wants to test my changes - there's a download link at the end of this post. My experience after the first Tide with this mod was that my Astrids were able to sell protectyon to all the Avarice stations - but maybe I just got a lucky time window.

Here's what I did so far ...

I added a condition to the resupply that feels like a logical choice for Northriver:

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<conditions>
	<check_value value="$PirateLandmark01.cargo.{ware.condensate}.free gt 4929"/>
</conditions>

Considering that Tidebreak can hold 5000 protectyon and Northriver only sells for very high prices, keeping the demand high and supply low makes sense, so I added the condition above to only resupply Tidebreak if there's storage capacity for at least 4930 condensate - meaning there's only 70 protectyon left (I hope, see below). Before it has been unconditional.

I'm not sure if my code is correct regarding the "...free gt 4929" since 4929 is the qty for protectyon but m³ wise it would be 49290 (1 protectyon = 10m³). Also considering the "$PirateLandmark01.cargo.{ware.condensate}.free" to be the available storage capacity for protectyon is nothing more than a wild guess by me. I'm not sure how to discover variable contents and make sure that I'm doing the right thing

Next my replacement of that cue changes this

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<add_wares object="$PirateLandmark01" ware="ware.condensate" exact="$PirateLandmark01.cargo.{ware.condensate}.free"/>

into

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<add_wares object="$PirateLandmark01" ware="ware.condensate" exact="430"/>

Meaning instead of filling Tidebreak up to 100% (as I understand the original line) it will only provide 1 Astrid's cargo worth of protectyon. Along with the condition above it should be like Northriver only supplies Tidebreak with only ONE cargo run of protectyon and only IF they are in desperate need and are willing to pay the very high price as presented in the story. My goal is to keep Tidebreak between 70 and 500 protectyon as long as the player doesn't provide any.

Being somewhat lazy I've put that into my mod "Casual Story Mode", which aims to ease out some of the crazy numbers Egosoft considers "appropriate". Tho it's just been an idea so far and only changes the 15 million to pay VIG into this:

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<set_value name="$Ch10_BribeAmount" exact="(([[15000000, (player.money / 1Cr)i / 3].min, 150000].max)i)Cr"/>

Meaning the amount to pay changes based on the player's cash. By default it's 1/3 of the player's cash, but min 150k and max 15m Cr. Mod comment:

Spoiler

Show

This should hurt but not be an impossible wall to climb for players that just started their game.
Poor soul: Can we expect the player to work a bit to gather 150k? Hunt some crystals... seems feasible.
Normal guy: We'll take a third of your current balance. Thank you.
Rich prick: Okay, you'll get off the hook for the original 15 million credits.

Here's the mod: vxCasualStoryMode-v0.zip
If anyone likes to test the Tidebreak change but doesn't want to change the bribe amount: just delete ./vxCasualStoryMode/extensions/ego_dlc_pirate/md/story_thefan.xml from the mod directory after extraction.