[Realspace MODS] "STARS" - "XRSGE" - "REM" - various

[Realspace]

I finally have good news. I managed to resolve the move.gate error... but the stuttering persists. So I tested previous version of the mod (the one you play now) and found out that stuttering there is even worse. The 1% fps low etc.. So the big distances are not an issue. This is good news because the whole xrsge 8 is based on these gigantic sectors and huge distances covered by many superhighways.
Somehow seems that in xrsge even vanilla job (ships built/spawn) causes a burden. Maybe the reason is that all ships are created at start instead than with time as in vanilla I only know that if I remove vanilla jobs for test, stuttering is no more. So ships and ship numbers are indeed the cause. Will do a strong removal of vanilla ship count before releasing the alpha.

Edit: remade all jobs, performance has never been better. I reduced a lot the number of trading ships but also rewrote patrols. Universe is very different, a sector can be as big as 10 vanilla sectors so ships require more precise areas of action.
I also went further into editing the universe, better integrating all new 7.0/7.5/timelines sectors. I am thinking about a little diversion: let some sectors be accessible only after specific plots are ended, in order to have the map open with time. All the frontier sectors for instance (some already do, after boron plot is completed).

[ziplock815]

Sectors opening with time - sounds quite similar to X-Tended Terran Conflict concept of expanding universe. I' m playing XTTC at the moment and it feels like the last wave of expansion is never going to happen
But I definitely like the idea

[Realspace]

Since there is a weekend for players I decided to upload the ALPHA of the mod for feedbacks and suggestions.
Working title for the mod: The Expanse

Part of the map is still to be redone, you can visually see what part is still to be redone, almost all the southern quadrant (the Frontier sectors) is only partially redone, so some of the Boron space. Some sectors will receive the "enlargement treatment" later on..

I proceed for steps because the problem after BETA is to change things not add things. I can add superhighways and move gates without problem for the save file, while moving existing superhighways is a problem (I have to delete them and rewrite with different ids, which is quite painful).

It is highly suggested to use at least REM Hyperdrive to cover the big distances between gates (yes superhighways can cover +100.000km but then between gates there is still a 3-4000km space to cover).
REM Hyperdrive also adds some more disrupts and instant stops and effects. Anyway many disrupts are made in the map of XRSGE, asteroid fields and nebulae will stop the use of travel speed.

For the moment I need more feedbacks and comments than bug fixes which we'll cover in the BETA of the mod. Of course some bugs can be reported, such as superhighway's entrances that overlap or go in wrong direction, or any wrong position of things internally, etc.

Also very usefull feedback about wrong atmosphere around gas giants, planets or sun coronas: it is normal to lose ONLY shield, if the damage is instead lethal to hull too and you did not travel towards the planet/sun, then there is probably a mismatched placement of damage area. Lethal damage is supposed to happen only if you intentionally enter the atmosphere (about 500-5000km far from the lowest orbit zones, depending on planet types). I handplace tens of them so an error can happen...you can intentionally test how it is to enter the atmosphere thou, I find it particularly immersive

There are a lot of new features that I'd like to have commented, to eventually improve: general layout and internal layout, new features of the map (planets, etc), performance, clarity of view etc. and the new stations and random objects.

You'll notice for sure how much the performance has increased, due to the correct number of ships in the galaxy (don't know why vanilla jobs added so many more). This will be talked about later in the beta of the mod, but I will eventually release an additional jobs mini-mod for having more ships for those having a capable pc, anyway there are quite a lot patrols so I'd like to have a feedback about these new patrols that sometimes are linked to specific sectors or zones or even stations ("true" space is huge, a ship could never patrol a sector of 300.000km).

Enough talking, here it is...

Mod is to be found in the MISCELLANEOUS TAB in the nexus

https://www.nexusmods.com/x4foundations/mods/1140

edit: I forgot, Timelines is included, check please if the gates open normally

[ziplock815]

Big thanks for the update! Checked it out and here's the first bug report: near Argon Prime 16 there're some kind of dodecahedrons floating in space (I believe they should've been asteroids, but missing textures? )

Btw, I so love the new map, looks great!
And fps is better than ever

[Realspace]

yes they will be removed, a leftover from an experiment with imported asteroids that may be missing textures, there are a lot of things in the sectors. Asteroid bases, huge roids, big wrecks. Forgot to remove those particular ones.
Edit: you meant the satellites, they had bad position and no animation, fixed.
How do you feel the new scale of sectors?

[ziplock815]

The scale feels enormous, the feeling of the void is even greater than it was. You made a wonderful job of turning X4 into true space sim game while keeping it to it's roots. There're still busy areas with ships minding their own business and at the same time there're remote areas that are interesting to explore. eager to find what you hid there - I remember you wrote about some cool things to find in deep space exploring is my favorite part in your mod
The only thing I regret that you removed some cool sectors (such as Neptune). Btw, with this new huge sector approach Oort Cloud could fit well - I think it'd be very immersive to explore vast areas of space. For example you could put some abandoned mine complex on some planetoid (Makemake, Eris and so on)...
P.S. Is REM a mandatory or is just recommended?

[Realspace]

No other mod needed, just to traverse the big space it helps. I meant REM Hyperdrive not the overhaul.
Also I will upload my custom color settings so the map will look as intended (f.i. gates and superhighways having both a blue line).

P.s. abandoned mine complexes are to be found, some are handplaced but some are added using the randomizer by looking for asteroid belts, there you can seek. Unfortunely I still had not enough time to try writing some working code for making them claimable.
Some stations are not visible on the map, only by sight. So some hidden gates..pirate stations too, but oc if you use the cheat mod they are visible.
How is map readibility? The planets represented on the map help?

Would you please check that the Timelines sector gates are working? I moved some and changed pos/link. I have still not played the dlc

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Download and install latest STARS patch, some planets have been changed so some backgrounds of Timelines
https://www.nexusmods.com/x4foundations/mods/507

[ziplock815]

Planets on the map add immersion, that's for sure and also give a good overview to the star system which is really useful (for example now I can see where to teleport my HQ).
I started a new custom game with Timelines story completed and it seems that Mitsuno's sectors are not connected to the galaxy anymore. There used to be inactive jumpgate in Ianamus Zura that should activate after Boso contacts you and then connect to Mitsuno space. Now it's gone.
Will check with Timelines plot not fully complete, maybe the jumpgate will appear this time

P.S. Seems like some gates are missing. Autopilot can't plot a course to north-east sectors (Ministry of finance, Guiding star and so on). Don't see any jumpgate connection either - it stops at Zyart's Stand on the north and Tharks's sun on the east. Both sectors don't have any other connections so this part of the universe stays isolated. I used the cheat mod to open the map.
P.P.S. Confirmed issue with Mitsuno's sectors - the jumpgate from Ianamus Zura to Mitsuno's Revelation's missing
I have a thought - maybe it's something with sector names - the mission says "Investigate strange signals coming from beyond Ianamus Zura 4", but there's no Ianamus Zura 4 on the new map...

[Realspace]

Names are irrelevant, sectors have id. I will change the names later, maybe the mission looks for sector002 of Ianamus that I have removed. I rewrote the md for the various sectors 002 but may have missed some, had not the time to make a latest check..well this is an alpha as stated
On contrary, connections of northern quadrant should be all working. Those still to link are the southern ones, which are also too far. Guiding star is surely linked, I remember. Will take a look tomorrow.
What abou other Timelines sectors, are they correctly linked?

[ziplock815]

Guiding star is linked, that's right, but the whole quadrant is cut off and linked only with Tharka's sun and Zyart's Stand. I may be wrong, but didn't see one an autopilot's failing to plot a course...
About other Timelines sectors - I remember President's End having no gates too, but I'm not sure, will take a look tonight.

[Realspace]

Ok thanks, I may have missed the connections to teladi space in the center. That's why I need an alpha test, I've redone so many gates that I start to not see.
Let's say that the most important thing to fix as soon as possible are the internal superhighways: direction, overlap and active, because changing them later breaks the save. While adding new or adding/moving the gates is save-compatible.

[ziplock815]

Yeah, Superhighways are definitely the gift and the curse of this game, I'll focus on checking them. Anyway, the work you' ve done is incredible, and so many cool changes - especially those new asteroid bases. I see you used pirate dlc assets to create them?

[Realspace]

Some are made from the pirate model but I made several anew, for Split I have made quite unique models.
My idea is also to make them "special", so as in X3 the Ore mine and Silicon mine have a certain base production that is independent from mining ships. It makes sense that they collect directly from the asteroid.

This has to be balanced but will accomplish one of the gameplay goals which is to keep jobs as I've done, light and less mining/trade ships around. To free the computing space for more fighting ships instead.

So I worked on a script to refill their storage with ore and silicon, will do some for the trade stations. Bringing some of the X3 static economy to lessen the burden of real economy on computation.
These stations can be destroyed so nothing overpowered, just a bit of economy boost to have less ships around.

BTW, here it is the ALPHA 2:
https://www.nexusmods.com/x4foundations/mods/1140

No new game mechanics but a lot of work on map and sectors and connections. The Alpha is almost finished, some Frontier sectors remain to link and redo. I will follow the idea of making them opening after some plot stages. I also had another idea, which is making some part of the map only available with certain starts. This will allow a nice differentiation between different starts. Added sectors are so many in XRGSE that this solution should not make the map feel too small.

I've added my CUSTOM COLORS in the misc Tab. You can download and activate them by placing the file in user/documents/egosoft/X4/.../colorprofile then, in the game, open the accessibility options and load the color profile XRSGE_Defaults. This makes the map look as I intended.
If instead you have your own custom profile, you can simply add this line (or replace if it exists) in your color defaults:

Code: Select all

 <mapping id="holomap_jumpgate_line" ref="azure_dark_alpha_160_glow"/>

It would be nice if some people join this alpha test and report suggestions and ideas before I finalize to the beta..

[ziplock815]

I have a weird bug, don't know if it's a mod or vanilla thing - can't get up from the pilot seat. Only by teleporting somewhere and then back to the ship.

[Realspace]

Do you use an old version of REM Hyperdrive? That happened to me then resolved, but it could also be a vanilla thing. Try removing hyperdrive and or updating. Then let me know, I've no time now to look in that mod's scripts, I want to finish the alpha before.

[ziplock815]

Yes, I was using the latest version of REM Hyperdrive. Removing it fixed the issue. It's going to be a veeery long journey without this mod

Edit: now the east quadrant is cut off (Tharka's Ravine, Ianamus Zura etc), autopilot failed to plot a course. Opened the whole map and saw that jumpgate connection is really missing. Will try to teleport to Ianamus Zura and see if Mitsuno's quadrant will open or not.
Edit 2: nope, there's no jumpgate. Can't proceed with the mission.
Btw, no issues with superhighways found so far.

[Realspace]

Ok fixed all and finished all sectors of the new map, just have to decide how to link the East quadrant and we should be ready for the beta.
Hyperdrive has some issue with the autopilot after latest game update..

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FIXED REM HYPERDRIVE

A stupid little thing, an effect routine I added caused the calculation loop, removed.
For the moment I also removed the changes to autopilot and reverted it to vanilla (so no boost usage), to avoid conflicts.

Mod is very needed otherwise the huge distances are a pain to cross, while this mod makes it feel that also insane high speeds are "natural" thanks to the instant start/stop and visual/sound effects of hyperdrive and the various proximity disrupts/warnings.

https://www.nexusmods.com/x4foundations/mods/1572

I've almost finished the ALPHA of XRSGE 8 aka The Expanse, all connections and sectors are placed but there could be missing ones, so I consider it still an alpha.
Version (alpha) 0.0.3

https://www.nexusmods.com/x4foundations/mods/1140

I've fixed all the missing gate activations and reworked all missions to fit a universe where (sub)sectors do not exist. There remains a single cluster with multiple sub-sectors connected through superhighways: Avarice.
For now I did not touch that because all missions are written with different sectors in mind so I have to take time to either rewrite them or add 2 more sectors to avarice (which I'd avoid if possible).

I've rewritten all the routines and logic about superhighways to let the engine consider them as INTERNAL moving ways, not similar to accelerators that link different sectors. This seems to work very fine and I see ships using the new routines easily, no errors in the log.

This approach is more difficult than it seems: indeed the game is built around a space made of SECTORS, activities, jobs, stations, regions, encounters, blacklists etc. all revolves around sectors. I changed it completely into a Rebirth-like logic where things revolve around ZONES. It is a lot of fine-tuning of small things invisible to the player until a bug happens.

I also had to rewrite the Terran stories because Earth and Moon sectors are now one single sector so tried to assign to Moon zone a "sector" status but, as told, the engine does not recognize certain functions to zones, only to the sector as whole. So testing the Yaki plot, for instance or the Terran restrictions would be useful.

All the post-timelines gates should open correctly now..

[ziplock815]

Light of heart - some trade ships don't use shw
Don't know if it's this this precise shw bug, or not

[Realspace]

It has no bug, that was the old shw having only one-way. It is a 2-way now, try to observe if it happens elsewhere, what kind of ships are (L/XL ?). Check if they have the engines and thrusters. In my game they work fine sofar..

[ziplock815]

That were L/M ships, don't remember if they had engines, will check.
Could it be REM Hyperdrive?
P. S. Don't have enough words to describe how much I love the new concept of the universe. It's so Rebirth now. Especially I like how travel drive disrupts when entering some cloud and you need to slowly make your way through it while being afraid of enemies, especially when you are in a starting S -ship