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

[paulwheeler]

@ paul:

I´ve mentioned problems wth Corporation Troubles plot a while ago, and also in one of my last postings, actually.

I think so far all the issues that have been reported (and the vast majority of people have complete this plot just fine) are not issues caused by the XRM, but just general bugs with the plot or X3. The XRM does not alter this plot except to change its starting conditions, so its very unlikely that the XRM has caused any issues.

In any case, bug hunting these issues is extremely difficult for anyone other than the plots author.

[d_ka]

Well, yea, i might have a weird installation then, didn´t want to be nitpicky
But just to be sure a question to you guys with HQ´s:
Has anyone Terran ressources needed for building ships like

Susanova Prototype
Mamba Vanguard
Mamba Sentinel
Heavy Centaur Prototype

My previous playthrough was with Terran char, but i was wondering then why would some Pirate Terran ships need Commonwealth ress for building; i think this was covered a bit here, but the standard racial versions in the list above just shouldn´t requre Terran ress. So, is my game screwed up?

[valefore]

when I activate the Chimera PAR ships, they do not arm the first two weapon slots. They still have the weapons though so I can arm them manually, but that's a pain. When I use other PAR ships like the Kea PAR, all weapons are armed normally.

The Mamba PAR also is not arming one weapon slot. I'm going to look at the other PAR ships but this may be a general problem.

[valefore]

Has anyone Terran ressources needed for building ships like

Susanova Prototype
Mamba Vanguard
Mamba Sentinel
Heavy Centaur Prototype

I think all ships generally need the same mats. I was looking at Vanilla mats to plan my factories and HQ but found that all the ships I tried to make in XRM (which were all commonwealth) needed Terran mats too. I started out with the Xenon rogue so I had to befriend everybody to set up my self sufficient HQ ship building.

If you need to befriend Terrans while they are enemies, I suggest getting a decent fast/strong ship (preferably M7) with Turbo Booster mk2 and camping Xenons in Segaris. Scout and out run anything you can't or won't kill (like Terrans) and kill any Xenons that come through the East gate. It gets much easier after Terrans turn neutral.

[d_ka]

So, it´s not only my installation, so far so good.
I don´t think i´m gonna befiend Terrans, actually i´m a certificated "Terrorist" according to my rep list And one day i should cap a Tyr ( buying it doesn´t satisfy as much, hehe ). Instead i´ll barter those ress, though i think it´s not right that i need them at all, so probably i´ll end up filling my HQ with them via cheats, and build the standard chips&co. factories as usual.
Btw: i would even accept some Terran ressources prerequisits for some Prototypes, which can mount Terran weapons, for example, but the whole concept of beeing forced to befriend certain races, instead of playing your char rather authenticaly, i find quite unsatisfying, tbh.

[paulwheeler]

The terran resources thing is a known bug - ill fix it in the next update.

[fiby]

Ever since I installed XRM I've been having sound issues, I can hear the ambient sounds, sounds of my weapon flying however I am unable to hear Betty speak when looking up info for other ships, or even hear any of the NPC speaking. Is this a known issue with XRM?

[paulwheeler]

Ever since I installed XRM I've been having sound issues, I can hear the ambient sounds, sounds of my weapon flying however I am unable to hear Betty speak when looking up info for other ships, or even hear any of the NPC speaking. Is this a known issue with XRM?

Are you by any chance playing on a mac? Macs have codec issues with the XRM sound format. There is a fix, if I can find it...

Otherwise, ensure part 3 is correctly installed.

[fiby]

Ever since I installed XRM I've been having sound issues, I can hear the ambient sounds, sounds of my weapon flying however I am unable to hear Betty speak when looking up info for other ships, or even hear any of the NPC speaking. Is this a known issue with XRM?

Are you by any chance playing on a mac? Macs have codec issues with the XRM sound format. There is a fix, if I can find it...

Otherwise, ensure part 3 is correctly installed.

Thanksfor your reply, im currently using windows 8.1, but I'll have a look at part 3 and come back if there is further issues.

[paulwheeler]

Another possibility is that part 2 is not installed correctly and you removed the 00044.xml file as per the installation instructions. In this case you'll be missing a lot more of the XRM than just the voices - you are in fact still playing mainly vanilla.

Do you see all the new XRM sectors? Do you see any new ships?

If this is indeed the problem, you will need to restart your game after fixing the problem.

If you're unsure, please post a screenshot of your installation folder and I'll take a look.

[dfm5000]

Ive not had any reports of problems with this plot with the latest version of the XRM. Ive not actually played the plot myself though. The xrm doesnt actually alter the workings of the plot.

It's a time bug, after waiting an hour the guy contacted me. Eventually I completed it and received my reward.

Which seems to be bugged.

Spoiler

Show

The headquarters seems to be missing the options such as reverse engineering and spray paint.

I'm using Logan's FDN mod and PM 2.7 and research, could these be causing the problem?

[fiby]

Another possibility is that part 2 is not installed correctly and you removed the 00044.xml file as per the installation instructions. In this case you'll be missing a lot more of the XRM than just the voices - you are in fact still playing mainly vanilla.

Do you see all the new XRM sectors? Do you see any new ships?

If this is indeed the problem, you will need to restart your game after fixing the problem.

If you're unsure, please post a screenshot of your installation folder and I'll take a look.

I've had a look at my installation folder andit appears I didn't install it correctly, so thanks for flagging that up. I do have 1 issue that has just come up as a result of the reinstalltion of the mod. I can't seem to see small fighters instead I just see weapons being fired. I also have issues with clicking any ships/station when flying around. If I get attacked/dock I have to select it via map.

I may just need to reinstall x3ap all togeaher install XRM first and see if the issues presists.

[paulwheeler]

Ive not had any reports of problems with this plot with the latest version of the XRM. Ive not actually played the plot myself though. The xrm doesnt actually alter the workings of the plot.

It's a time bug, after waiting an hour the guy contacted me. Eventually I completed it and received my reward.

Which seems to be bugged.

Spoiler

Show

The headquarters seems to be missing the options such as reverse engineering and spray paint.

I'm using Logan's FDN mod and PM 2.7 and research, could these be causing the problem?

Any time related issues with plots will be bugs with the plots themselves - its not a bug with the XRM.

As for the HQ missing options... Again, the XRM HQs are fine, so I can only assume you have another mod installed that alters HQs?

[paulwheeler]

Another possibility is that part 2 is not installed correctly and you removed the 00044.xml file as per the installation instructions. In this case you'll be missing a lot more of the XRM than just the voices - you are in fact still playing mainly vanilla.

Do you see all the new XRM sectors? Do you see any new ships?

If this is indeed the problem, you will need to restart your game after fixing the problem.

If you're unsure, please post a screenshot of your installation folder and I'll take a look.

I've had a look at my installation folder andit appears I didn't install it correctly, so thanks for flagging that up. I do have 1 issue that has just come up as a result of the reinstalltion of the mod. I can't seem to see small fighters instead I just see weapons being fired. I also have issues with clicking any ships/station when flying around. If I get attacked/dock I have to select it via map.

I may just need to reinstall x3ap all togeaher install XRM first and see if the issues presists.

That sounds as if something still isn't right. Post a screenshot of your installation folder and I'll take a look.

[Nemesis_87]

Well, after playing solid for the past few weeks after a long unfortinate break it just reminds me how awesome this mod is

Cheers Paulwheeler for such an awesome mod

[ltdan81]

I have spent the last week trying to figure out why I couldn't get this mod to run smoothly on my system as I've read quite a few other people have the same experience with similar multi-core gaming systems.

Explaining the performance level with fps is the common misnomer as it points to graphic short comings, but what other unit of measurement is there to hard lag flying through empty space?

I didn't even bother with an fps monitor until I was so frustrated with not being able to play this mod I applied every hack I could dig up and overclocked my system and I couldn't get better than 25 fps staring into empty space and seta x 5 would pull me down to 8.

I finally broke down and decided to do a very meticulous fresh install of XRM which would give me a much needed way to track and control the mods I was using.

The work payed off... Big TIME!
I'm now playing XRM with 50-60fps Herron's Nebula in an Advanced Discoverer through the fog and around all the asteroids with engine trails flaring at least half a click behind in external view. I'd also like to note that my graphic settings were all set to high with filter set to 8x and the dynamic lights and ship color variations turned on. And my Aran looks flipping sweet cruising through the sector as I buzz by. Oh! and I can run seta x 10 smoother than was running x5 before (measured ~20 fps with it on while auto-docking to the Aran in the M5).

The problem is I'm not sure which part of what I did was the magical "trick" to making it work. I combined some of the base mods that had to be manually false patched and I repackaged everything into spk files that weren't already, but that was for management purposes... One thing that I know helped is I made sure to start my new game with only the mods that had to be installed before XRM as per the instructions, XRM has a LOT of setup scripts to run for a new game and anything else trying to setup at the same time is likely to cause issues.

Even after "cleaning house" I'm not skimping on mods, most of them are ship commands or passive additions but, counting libraries and packages I've combined I have a total of about 50! that's FIFTY mods loaded and I'm still getting these amazing results. I'm sure after the universe ages things will change, but I'm at a better starting point that I was a week ago...
FYI: I started a new game on the old load before re-installing and even with a fresh game I would only peak at ~28 in Argon M148.

@Paul: I know you catch a lot of crap about performance but from the work I put into this new load, I can confirm that the proper order of installation is key. I think part of the problem might be the temptation to have everything installed on the first load, and I think that there are scripts being added that prevent the XRM installation from being properly finished which causes performance bugs. I would like to note that while I was ramping up my cpu speeds it seemed like Xennon and Khaak were attacking a lot more often, is it possible that the event timers for invasions are affected by core speeds resulting in an exponential growth of active ships on bigger systems and forcing more load on the cpu?

[leoriq]

About the M7M and their duties:
As Flail Barrage and Ghoul missiles are no longer Flail in XRM, and I can't force the M7M to fire those in salvos at capital ships, they can't be used to distract enemy capital ship from incoming Boarding pods. I think maybe you can change them back to flail-type and forbid missile boats to use them in salvos? They will launch them as regular missiles, number of warheads will be roughly the same, anti-fighter effect would not change, and they will be useful again during the boarding.
I know about the Hackerchips, but it would be great to have a choice.

[NOValdemar]

Paul / Anyone else who knows!

First of all Im so glad to come back to X3 forums to find that this mod is still being cared for! I was a big fan of SRM and XRM a long time ago and its great to find I can still play the old mods I loved so much!

Which brings me to my point. I really like 99% of the changes XRM makes except one. The old jobs file for SRM i used to use (http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=294532) added a one thing I really miss. Wilst XRM covers alot of the things that the job file had, one of the things XRM changed was to remove / limit the amount of M3-M4 traders there were in the universe.

If I remember correctly this was a balance decision you made paul as M3-M4 should be the sorta F16s of the Universe and it made little sense they were used as trade ships. I just dont like it personally and its just one of those things I cant get over and I really miss so I was hoping to make a custom jobs file for myself (and anyone else who is interested... if i succeed)... Also I was hoping to add back some of the civilian named ships the old SRM jobs file had and in general boost the numbers of ships in the universe.

Soo... to anyone out there who has time to help I have a few questions.

-1. Do we have permission to make our own versions of your script for private use? (Ill check your front page to see if you posted a terms of use there after i post)

0. Does something like this already exist for XRM? If so, goodie goodie! Im out of here to spend the next 300 hours or so making life for the borons traders very unplesant...

1. Where is the XRM jobs file found in the XRM setup? Is there a txt copy somewhere readily available? Im guessing its in one of the cat or dat files as its no longer just in a types folder. I was hoping to use the original XRM file as a base then add my few changes in the things I want on top of that.

2. Once ive added my changes, if I add a folder called types to my directory and put the consolidated jobs file in it´will it overwrite the default xrm one so that the consolidated one is used?

3. I noticed that the jobs are numbered in the file for SRM ive found and I assume that modifying an already numbered job tasks will work directly (ie changing what ships an existing task can use?).

4. If I want to create a completely new task like adding in a SRM jobs file task that doesnt have a counter part in XRM is it as simple as just adding it into the list under a new number or would I need to call the task somewhere else to make sure it gets used?

Thanks so much for the help. If this is posted in the wrong location so sorry!

NOValdemar

PS...

5. If anyone else likes this idea and actually knows what they are doing please contact me if you want to help, give advice or you know... do everything while i sit back with a margarita and thank my lucky stars

EDIT:

PPS.

Just if anyone is wondering what Im trying to achieve the difference between the old SRM jobs file (as I remember it) and the current jobs file is very apparent in sectors like hatikvah's which in my current vanilla XRM game contains 18 SFs and 2 M4 traders dodging a sizable pirate m3-m4 spamm. The old SRM jobs made this sector really feel like a bottleneck sector with probably 4x as many traders, a lot of them m3 m4 on high risk, high speed tech deliveries. Im hoping thatll be what is possible to tune back into game.

[Nicoman35]

2. Once ive added my changes, if I add a folder called types to my directory and put the consolidated jobs file in it´will it overwrite the default xrm one so that the consolidated one is used?

Definitely no. The game will just use the jobs file found in the types folder, while the original will remain untouched in some cat/dat file.
By deleting your changed jobs file in the types folder the game will simply use the original one again.
As for the other points - someone else pleasse

[NOValdemar]

Definitely no. The game will just use the jobs file found in the types folder, while the original will remain untouched in some cat/dat file.
By deleting your changed jobs file in the types folder the game will simply use the original one again.
As for the other points - someone else pleasse Wink

Yea thats my point. I want to add a folder called types and have it use a Jobs file there in so as to "overwrite" (have highest priority) the one that is used by XRM in some cat or dat file somewhere.... I was hoping that adding the file to the types folder will be the highest priority thing loaded! I was not sure if the Cat Dat takes priority to folders in the adon directory or vice versa...

That said to make the new jobs file I was hoping to nick the original xrm jobs file somehow so I have that one to start out with and can just add in a few more traders into the universe!