[MOD] [TC/AP] X3 Rebalance Mod (XRM) - Total conversion - v1.30d (02.12.13)

[DrBullwinkle]

Which script/mod creates the Pirate Marine Training Barracks in a random sector and tons of Marine Base Mules?

I don't know what a Marine Base Mule is, but Quantico Marine Base adds a training center in a randomly-chosen pirate sector.

[DrBullwinkle]

DrBullwinkle's new version [of Marine Repairs] should have addressed [the AL pile-up problem], and while it's still a bit heavy (it's the first AL plugin that my system begins to skip when under stress), it shouldn't have any permanent impact anymore.

If you find Marine Repairs to affect your system's performance, then you can slow it down by changing the timer and overall effectiveness.

Default timer is 15 seconds. So change it to 30 (or 60), then change overall effectiveness multiplier to 2 (or 4). That will give you the same repairs in the same time -- but with fewer runs of the script.

Warning: Do not set the timer to less than 15 unless you *want* trouble with your saved games.

• (Personally, I have never seen a performance hit from Marine Repairs. However, I don't use SETA.)

[Sairaf]

I don't know what a Marine Base Mule is, but Quantico Marine Base adds a training center in a randomly-chosen pirate sector.

It's a Mammoth with that name. They spam the universe, in 100+ numbers. I don't have Quantico, unless some other mod I use is merged with it and I'm not aware of it.

[paulwheeler]

does anyone have any Alternative download? i cant download from the link on this. its too slow and then fails completly

I can give you an alternative link, but not till monday (not near a pc i can upload it from till then).




Busy thread this evening....

[DrBullwinkle]

I don't know what a Marine Base Mule is, but Quantico Marine Base adds a training center in a randomly-chosen pirate sector.

It's a Mammoth with that name. They spam the universe, in 100+ numbers. I don't have Quantico, unless some other mod I use is merged with it and I'm not aware of it.

OK, something else then. Quantico would not affect ships anyway.

[agleave]

I've played the XRM pack for a day now, and it seems XRM is really made with the combat pilot in mind, not trade. I started a new game using the ATF Veteran, and whilst I am supposed to be some sort of hero I don't even have the notoriety with any race to actually buy a transport ship of any kind? So off I go in my M3 Thor having some good battles, but without a jumpdrive its pretty annoying even doing just the first mission which involves flying all over the place (WITHOUT a jumpdrive) to sort some Paranid's company issues out.

Having no jumpdrive is really frustrating, honestly. I thought a work around would be to buy a TM transporter, and dock my M3 into it and use the TM to warp around the galaxy so I can dock/undock etc without my M3 having the jumpdrive itself. Sort of like a small mobile HQ. But no, of course not, can't be this easy can it? Well, it seems I cannot dock my player M3 ship at my TM ship. Yep, I have to actually exit my M3, be an astronaut, fly over to my TM, enter my TM, then command my M3 to dock. Seriously, this is more hassle than its worth.

Conveniently (NOT), all the *usual* things you would have on your ships have their price changed to ridiculously high amounts. Docking Computer, Jumpdrive, Freight Exchange, and a few others. I don't understand the concept behind making these items so expensive and awkward (i.e. no jumpdrives for M3s etc)?

Is there a way to keep XRM intact, but change the ware size of jumpdrives to S or M, and alter the prices on a couple of things to be back in line with how AP was before? I have the vanilla AP, with only XRM installed at this point and really would prefer not to cheat my way through things.

EDIT: Also, I equipped my TM Magnetor with "special command software mk 1" so that I could command it to collect wares and guess what, the menu option is not available!? Is this a known bug?

[cjm3fl]

EDIT: Also, I equipped my TM Magnetor with "special command software mk 1" so that I could command it to collect wares and guess what, the menu option is not available!? Is this a known bug?

TM's have never been capable of collecting cargo containers/wares in space.

edit:
Hmmm....a whole day now!
XRM is a completely "Rebalanced Mod". The things you're not happy with are some of the basic/fundamental changes.

I know how to fix all those issues you're experiencing....you just have to read my signature for the answer

[imperium3]

I've played the XRM pack for a day now, and it seems XRM is really made with the combat pilot in mind, not trade. I started a new game using the ATF Veteran, and whilst I am supposed to be some sort of hero I don't even have the notoriety with any race to actually buy a transport ship of any kind? So off I go in my M3 Thor having some good battles, but without a jumpdrive its pretty annoying even doing just the first mission which involves flying all over the place (WITHOUT a jumpdrive) to sort some Paranid's company issues out.

Having no jumpdrive is really frustrating, honestly. I thought a work around would be to buy a TM transporter, and dock my M3 into it and use the TM to warp around the galaxy so I can dock/undock etc without my M3 having the jumpdrive itself. Sort of like a small mobile HQ. But no, of course not, can't be this easy can it? Well, it seems I cannot dock my player M3 ship at my TM ship. Yep, I have to actually exit my M3, be an astronaut, fly over to my TM, enter my TM, then command my M3 to dock. Seriously, this is more hassle than its worth.

Conveniently (NOT), all the *usual* things you would have on your ships have their price changed to ridiculously high amounts. Docking Computer, Jumpdrive, Freight Exchange, and a few others. I don't understand the concept behind making these items so expensive and awkward (i.e. no jumpdrives for M3s etc)?

Is there a way to keep XRM intact, but change the ware size of jumpdrives to S or M, and alter the prices on a couple of things to be back in line with how AP was before? I have the vanilla AP, with only XRM installed at this point and really would prefer not to cheat my way through things.

EDIT: Also, I equipped my TM Magnetor with "special command software mk 1" so that I could command it to collect wares and guess what, the menu option is not available!? Is this a known bug?

You should be able to dock an M3 to the TM. Just select the TM and shift+D. Might have to be a little patient as the autopilot has a habit of slooooowly coasting to a stop, then realising its in the wrong place and starting again, but that is a vanilla issue.

I think the point of jumpdrives being more expensive is to a) make the early game harder and b) make carriers necessary for fighters in the late-game. Doesn't bother me so much, the one that does bug me is the docking computer being capitals-only, because it takes away its most important use of docking with TMs etc - as autopilot-docking under fire is both impossible and suicidal.

Both of those can be changed by editing the files but it takes a bit of setting-up if you don't know how. Take a look at the modding guides stickies at the top for starters - I think the file you want to edit is types/TWareT.

[paulwheeler]

You should absolutely be able to dock your M3 to your TM.

That was the whole point of taking the jumpdrive away from fighters - to make carriers like the TM relevant.

[VaporSnake]

Does anyone have any recommendations for M7 player ships that can mount main guns?

Right now I'm piloting a Shrike, but it's so slow and bulky that I may as well just pilot an M2. Unfortunately, I think it's one of the only M7s that can mount capital class main guns. All of the other more maneuverable M7s can only mount corvette class weapons (ie. CIG, FPG, ISR). I was hoping to fly the Tiger, but the ISR's 2.89km range kind of makes it just an oversized corvette.

I'd love to hear your suggestions, or at least convince me that an M7 mounting corvette class lasers is somehow the superior option.

[AcidWeb]

@Kadatherion: Finished my tests. And found something.

After hour of SETA x6 there is no slowdown in new game.
Running Script Tasks oscillated between 13k-17k. No constant buildup - looks like everything is cleaned properly. Global Script Task list is also clean.

On my save (5d played) Running Script Tasks number is similar. But Global Script Task is completely flooded by stale al.xrmbounty.corescripts.main. It is there over 60 times and they don't disappear.

I guess that is bad?

[Kadatherion]

If you find Marine Repairs to affect your system's performance, then you can slow it down by changing the timer and overall effectiveness.

• (Personally, I have never seen a performance hit from Marine Repairs. However, I don't use SETA.)

Yeah, it really shouldn't be giving any performance impact, after all since you fixed the AL pileup issue the worst that can happen is that it gets skipped. Lately I noticed it skipping even when not in SETA, but the fundamental difference is that I was running it with XRM that indeed brings my system to its knees.

BTW, I began to experience a similar overall slowdown (5+ game days in), with actually less tasks running than in a fresh game (~12k vs ~15k).
So it might really be an issue related to the sheer size of XRM itself.
Couldn't really make a difference even by disabling pretty much everything else that was running and destroying all my assets, but I had already played all the plots, beaten the Phanon, built a huge empire and brought all the mayhem I could to the universe, so it felt a good time to do a fresh install and try some other things. There might not be as much variety, but hell, once in a while it feels good to play things at full framerate

@Kadatherion: Finished my tests. And found something.

After hour of SETA x6 there is no slowdown in new game.
Running Script Tasks oscillated between 13k-17k. No constant buildup - looks like everything is cleaned properly. Global Script Task list is also clean.

On my save (5d played) Running Script Tasks number is similar. But Global Script Task is completely flooded by stale al.xrmbounty.corescripts.main. It is there over 60 times and they don't disappear.

I guess that is bad?

Speak of the devil...

I didn't notice it in my game, but I could've missed it, so I'm not sure if it indeed isn't normal. I didn't really do a thorough investigation, I mostly went for the "oh well, who cares, I've had my fun" followed by "AcidWeb surely jinxed it, though"

[SVAndrei]

Good day. I posted this in a different thread, as for some reason i couldn't post here today. However, I think that more people familiar with XRM read this thread, so i may stand a bigger chance of actually getting an answer.

I have the latest Steam X3 AP with the latest XRM version. I followed the step by step instructions when i installed the mod. I am using the NoSteam EXE 3.0.

What usually happens is the game runs smoothly for a random amount of time, and then suddenly stops responding, to the point where i have to use the task manager. In 80% of cases this happens when entering sectors, and the rest is apparently random.

So far i checked my RAM, and no issues were found. Other games, both older and newer than X3AP run perfectly fine.

Also, i have been running X3 with Process Explorer open these days. It seems that the program crashes every time it hits 2.4 - 2.5 GB of RAM usage. To make sure it's not something in the OS, i ran another game, and it could hit 3-4 GB's with no issues. I suspect a memory leak, but i'm not sure where to go from here.

Vanilla AP is running properly.

I posted a DXDiag here:
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=355936

Any help would be appreciated, as i love X3 AP a lot, and XRM seems like a very good mod, but right now I can't run it more than 30 minutes at a time.

[DrBullwinkle]

Global Script Task is completely flooded by stale al.xrmbounty.corescripts.main. It is there over 60 times and they don't disappear.

I guess that is bad?

Yes, it is bad. That is an AL Pile-up. The whole point of Artificial Life loops is that you should only ever see *one* instance of them in the Global Script Task list.

You can delete them manually, but they will return if the same set of circumstances happens again.

@Paul: The common way of preventing AL pile-ups is to make sure that the timer is long and the script is fast. However, there is no guarantee that some combination of SETA, hardware, Jobs, and other scripts will never cause a pile-up.

A really easy way to kill them forever is to use a mutex. In the Timer event, set a global variable "mutex" when you enter the loop, and clear it at all exit points. Immediately before setting the mutex, add a test that skips the loop if the mutex is already set. That way, the loop can *never* run more than once at any given moment in time.

[StormR1d3r]

Whats with the never ending volley of missiles? I saw a tiny wittle khaak ship and in my attempt to destroy it the little bastard shoots a never ending chain of thorns that blasts my corvette class(full shielding) to shreds in no less than 5 seconds.

[adrianx]

In the instructions for TC the following is given :-

- To install the load screens copy the contents of "loadscr" in part 2 to the "addon/loadscr" folder.

and for AP :-

- To install the load screens copy the contents of "loadscr" in part 2 to the "loadscr" folder in your TC install.

I assume these have been swapped by accident (given that TC has no addon directory) ? Or is the AP version correct but the TC one incorrect ?

[Reido]

Whats with the never ending volley of missiles? I saw a tiny wittle khaak ship and in my attempt to destroy it the little bastard shoots a never ending chain of thorns that blasts my corvette class(full shielding) to shreds in no less than 5 seconds.

That seems to be an issue with the A.I. routines in AP, if you're playing XRM with TC then it's something different.

I have read of and seen video of people playing XRM+AP where an enemy ship has spewed a continuous stream of missiles that looked like it was firing a laser but they were in fact missiles, that was quite a while ago and it may have been fixed by now and maybe a different issue.

I played XRM with TC for hundreds of hours and never saw this behavior until I installed XRM in AP and noticed it for the first time just a few hours into a new game. In my case it seems to happen when a ship I'm attacking is taking heavy damage from me and lets off a constant string of missiles in a last ditch attempt to destroy me which also causes the missile warning to have a fit of "whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop...".

I've found that I have the most problems of missile spam from Pirate Blastclaw Prototypes and using Cyclone missiles are a good way of dealing with them. Occasionally I've had M6's or larger ships missile spam me and there's not much you can do about it then unless you've got at least an M6 or larger ship yourself with lots of turrets set for missile defense and/or lots of Mosquito missiles and/or spam them back with Cyclones (if they're fighters) and get rid of them as fast as possible and hope that you have enough shields and hull to survive the incoming missiles still flying.

EDIT: Edited for clarity.

Reido

[cellsafemode]

This is so addictive. I finished the loose ends plot for the terrans and took over much of the argon sectors on the eastern end of the universe map.

The only issue i have isn't really with the mod but with the game itself. When building defense stations around gates it's extremely difficult to gauge where you are actually placing the defense stations. And then once they are placed, they can't be moved. This makes it very difficult to secure systems from xenon and khakk invasions without significant military presences or lots of laser towers. It would be much less of a load on the engine if it were possible to precisely place orbital defense stations than to drop 20+ laser towers. But meh. There is always going to be some friction when you're wiping a race off the face of the universe. I'm aiming to contain the argon race to just a few of their western core sectors ...then take out the split and xenon. Terran supremacy FTW!

[Phier]

What carrier/fleet scripts are people using that works with XRM?

I was using CODEA but due to a conflict with the adv fight script mod and the cheat nature CODEA uses to make your pilots better (it makes the enemy worse/idle), I'd rather not use that one.

I'm looking for basic wing orders and resupply. Anything else is a bonus.

[Sairaf]

It would be much less of a load on the engine if it were possible to precisely place orbital defense stations than to drop 20+ laser towers.

Try Gazz's Ring of Fire, and make sure you have lots of microchips if you want to make your C/GPU's job easier.

I'm aiming to contain the argon race to just a few of their western core sectors ...then take out the split and xenon. Terran supremacy FTW!

Cleaning sectors is always fun, but they respawn. There's probably mods preventing that, though.