Anyway, So far I am not convinced by X:Rebirth. I may return to modding for the game if the game is good enough. But right now, i have doubts.
What do we know so far?
1) The modding / scripting engine has changed. That, I really don’t know if it’s a good news or a bad one. If Egosoft want to gradually replace the script editor by the XML thingy they tried to implement in TC, it is definitively a very bad news. The syntax is positively awful and it’s doesn’t give the same liberties as the MSCI does. If it means a decent / external GUI for an expanded MSCI, it’s a very good thing. This said, I am not optimistic. Regarding the scripting and modding community, Egosoft made very poor choices so far, sadly (**Modified** tag).
2) Bigger, more detailed stations. Who fucking cares? Gigantic Terran Stations were a pain to navigate around. Not even talking about pathfinding issues. IMHO smaller, but more useful stations would be better. I do not care how big a station is, especially if it slows down the game for purely cosmetic reasons. The “bigger, prettier” philosophy annoys me a lot tbh, especially when a few lines later they talk about “content over quantity”.
3) New GUI. It was already promised in Reunion, then in TC, with no significant changes. But yeah I am pessimistic here. Hopefully, we’ll get a decent mouse driven menu, with a map that can be used RTS style (and now i am dreaming).
4) “Previously, for example, it was possible to pilot a capital ship from its bridge. No more.” What does that mean ? No more capital ships for the player? Or can they only be piloted remotely? Is it alterable? Because, I am sorry but piloting a carrier with the right scripts was damn fun !
5) Nothing about the AI, combat system and such. Sadly.
6) New OOS combat sim? Well sort of. AFAIK the “new” version in DevNet wasn’t really better than the previous one. Good things have been made by scripters on that matter, though. Not sure if it has been implemented (with credits) meanwhile. Note that I perfectly understand why such system is used, it’s a necessity if you want to keep things barely playable on a standard computer. They just did a very poor job doing so.
What I have not quoted in the latest update are not newsworthy as they either mean “no change” or “cosmetic update”. So, all of this to say that there’s still not much to learn (yeah), and that all those press releases are not necessary as good as they may sound. Don’t get me wrong, however. I love the X-Universe games, i do think that Egosoft did a good job. But i am not blind either, they did a lot of mistakes, especially regarding the modding community, and it’s a very bad habit of them to announce basically anything that would please the audience no matter if it’s included in-game or not (remember the speech about X3 and the “real dynamic uber economic system”? I certainly do).
Cheers,
SK.
It has been a long time since last release, and it will probably take even more before anything new happens. My online presence is kinda limited at the moment and I have temporarily switched my priorities to other projects. I am not abandoning the X-Universe but i need to take a break from the game anyway. At the moment I am writing a roguelike game called Grand Rogue Auto. I am also writing several modifications for Civilization V.
Hopefully, i will be back soon enough with new better releases of my various plugins for X3 Terran Conflict.
]]>General Settings have been added. It allows you to set the default settings for your automated carriers and stations. You can setup the Defense Grid here, and the Ignore Faction setting has been moved to this menu too.
Basic marine training support added. You can now use your Docks and M1 (and M1 only) to train your marines either in theorical or combat training. This option costs money (refer to the manual for additional details). Marines with a high mechanical or Engineering skill will help with ship repairs, granted they are not training on your ship. This feature is not yet balanced, and will probably need some improvement.
The menu system has been altered to be more user friendly, this is especially visible in the General Settings, Attack/Defend wing orders and the Automated Carrier Settings. There’s still a few things to improve.
Now, you can enable the “Automated Mode” on the [playership].
Use this option with caution. Don’t put your docking bay next to an asteroid for example.
Several issues related to the Grid System have been corrected.
Also, docking orders will now take the Transporter Device into account correctly.
Changes:
- [Automated Defense System] General settings added
- [Commands - Carriers and ships] Allows automated mode on the playership
- [Commands - Carriers and ships] Marine Barracks (training and repairs)
- [Commands - Carriers and ships] Docking order not always using the Transporter Device
- [Defense Grid] Defense Grid ships jump to the nearest gate from the threat
- [Defense Grid] A message can be displayed when a sector protected by the grid is under attack
- [Defense Grid] Bad carrier management
- [Defense Grid] Defense Grid unable to use ships who don’t have orders
- [Menu System] Menu Overhaul
- [Menu System] Pressing the manager hotkey several times shouldn’t trigger several menu
- [Menu System] Inaccurate threat level diplayed on the Defense Grid Manager
You will need to toggle off / on the plugin for most changes to take effect.
Changes:
- Fixed : Major bug causing the carriers to idle indefinitely near a Yaki station
- Fixed : Several bugs related the carrier AI and docking
- Fixed : Several issues in the libraries
- Fixed : French translation
It should fix most of the issues with the Teladis, immobile bounty hunters, captured ships from NPC bailing addon, and mob bosses fleeing to far away from homebase. It also fixes an annoying bug that was preventing the Guild from targeting player owned freighters. M7 are a bit cheaper and will turn red on hostile players (no more blue M7 flying around when you’re an enemy).
Changes
- 0000012: [AI - Bounty Hunters] Immobile Bounty Hunters
- 0000037: [AI - Defense Grid] Neutral M7 patrol ships when the player is a foe
- 0000036: [AI - Pirate Bases] Orders should reduce the attack priority on the worst enemy
- 0000032: [AI - Pirate Bases] TS Raid order ignore the “peace with teladis” flag
- 0000031: [AI - Pirate Ships] Mob Bosses may flee to far away from homebase
- 0000029: [General Issues] Library issue : Cargo value wasn’t correctly reported
- 0000035: [General Issues] Library issue : “Retrieve cargo value” not working on player’s ships
- 0000030: [Compatibility with 3rd party plugins] NPC bailing addon – Some undetected captures
The Defense Grid system will monitor every sector the player has a factory in for enemies. ADS compatible stations will still send squadrons to defend their own sectors, but in addition, ships you have linked to the grid will jump to defend endangered sectors.
Ships linked to the defense grid will continue to do their business as usual when there’s no alert. If a sector is under attack, those located in a 6 jump radius will jump in to deal with the threat, jump back and resume previous order/patrol. If you have a M2 patrolling in Argon Prime and an alert is occurring in Ore Belt, it will jump to Ore Belt, kill the enemies, jump back to Argon Prime and resume patrol.
Energy cells will be directly bought from player’s money account and beamed to the ships at increased cost (x2). Any player owned big ship can be linked to the Grid, this includes M6, M7, M2, M1, and TL ships.
Also, “send defensive wing” order has been added to the ADS Manager. You can give order to all ship types using the manager now. Both Attack and Defend wing orders now comes with a menu allowing optional manual selection of fighters.
Automated mode “should” handle carriers that can hold big ships, untested.
]]>Your character is a 31 year old female pirate known as Venus Gunne. You will be starting in the sector LooManckStrat’s Legacy. Your ship is a Pirate Blastclaw with all the equipment needed to be an effecient pirate. Starting credits is setup to be variable, minimum of 9,000 and a maximum or 20,000 credits.
You will start off being enemies with the Argon, Boron, Paranid, Goners and the Terrans. The Terrans don’t dislike you as much as the others, but that is just because they don’t really know you just yet. The Teladi and Split are neutral towards you. And of course, you are allies with the Pirate and the Yaki.
You can grab this small mod and say “thank you” here
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This versions fixes a bug introduced in 1.57 related to my custom “attack and land” library script that was causing several issues with bounty hunters, mob bosses and invasions. Sorry i didn’t catch that one earlier. Mob Bosses’ radar has also been tweaked, it’s now easier for them to find a sector to flee to when they are dealing with dangerous foes. They should now live much longer. Missions accepted by the player are now displayed in your logbook And the reward for ships targeted by the guild has now been capped depending on ship class. The cap is fairly high though, don’t worry. This is mainly to prevent M5 ending up with a 10M reward because of the OOS battle system.
Important Update Note:
The self update mechanism should work fine, but many of the changes will only be effective on ships and missions created after the update. Moreover the bug i sadly put in my attack-and-land script is a tricky one. So if you are still experiencing any weird behaviors like : sector invasions that never end, or bounty hunters and mob bosses that never jump or move away, then, please disable ALL my plugins (Pirate Guild and Yaki Armada) before re-enabling them again.
Changes:
- 0000021: [Mission System] Accepting missions should add a message to the player log
- 0000028: [AI - Pirate Ships] Mob Bosses unable to find a sector to flee to
- 0000026: [Mission System] Bounty for guild’s targets should be capped
- 0000027: [General Issues] Custom attack.all with timeout order is buggy
This release will also include an early version of the Defense Grid system. Energy Cells will magically appear in the freight bay (it’s will cost you money, though), because it’s easier 
and there’s already plenty of things to break in this version. More realistic handling will probably be added at a later stage.