Todo for next version of Playership Drones.

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PM
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A quick reminder of features I need to re-implement for full PSD7:

* Install any primary weapon as a linked-fire weapon: This will probably be placed into stations' Dock Services, and I need to add this before I can add ships with multiple weapon mounts.

* Make all official ships PSD-compatible: Before I can add field repairs, we need to be able to pilot any ship we can find. After all, repairs are useless without PSD-compatible ships to pilot.

* Field repairs: Restore ships from a wreck. Previously, we used shipwrights, but it will be different. Patcher arm or patch spider will be used instead of shipwrights (and they will not be consumed), but field repairs will not be instant. Also, repaired ships will be weakened (to represent insufficient crew) until player can fully repair (or rather hire crew for) the ship at a shipyard.
Download and Play in 1.9 beta 1...
Drake Technologies (Alpha): More hardware for combat in parts 1 and 2!
Star Castle Arcade: Play a classic arcade game adventure, with or without more features (like powerups)!
Playership Drones: Buy or restore exotic ships to command!

Other playable mods from 1.8 and 1.7, waiting to be updated...
Godmode v3 (WIP): Dev/cheat tool compatible with D&O parts 1 or 2.
relanat
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Couple of little bugs.

In the initial settings screen, when toggling ON/OFF for the targeting ROM the display doesn't alter. It just stays OFF. It functions but the display doesn't change.

Not sure if this is intentional but you can access Korolov shipyards before you get Korolov membership.

Thanks for a great mod and can I request the linked-fire weapons please. Nothing like a couple of Charon frigates or EI7000s pouring linked dual turbolaser fire into a Marauder Raid Platform. :twisted:
Stupid code. Do what I want, not what I typed in!
PM
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Thanks for the report. I want linked-fire weapons too! I am not sure how I will implement it. It is not impossible, but I need to think of a way that is not buggy and/or a UI nightmare.

It will probably be months before I resume work on PSD7. It is lower priority than other things I need to deal with.
Download and Play in 1.9 beta 1...
Drake Technologies (Alpha): More hardware for combat in parts 1 and 2!
Star Castle Arcade: Play a classic arcade game adventure, with or without more features (like powerups)!
Playership Drones: Buy or restore exotic ships to command!

Other playable mods from 1.8 and 1.7, waiting to be updated...
Godmode v3 (WIP): Dev/cheat tool compatible with D&O parts 1 or 2.
relanat
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A bit more feedback for you.

Suggestion: Add a "T"ransfer option to the 'Connect'ed dockscreen.

I usually loot or jettison items into a ship just before I transfer to that ship. ATM its a two stage process, communicating and connecting to loot and/or jettison and then having to communicate again to transfer to that ship.

eg: 'C', '1', 'C'. 'L and/or J', 'D'. Then 'C', '1', 'P'.

Much prefer something like 'C', '1', 'L and/or J', 'T'', with the last T transferring you to the other ship.
Anything to make it a simpler process.

Also I'm really grateful that you have got rid of Dock. It was a very frustrating experience a lot of the time. This way seems much better. And I like being able to loot and jettison while moving. And being able to position ships where you want them is great.


==========================
It could be intentional but the initial targeting ROM selected during game settings doesn't cover all ships. I needed to find additional ROMs to get targeting in my other ships. Personally I would much prefer if, like previous versions, all ships were covered by the initial setting.

===========================
Thanks again for a great mod.
Stupid code. Do what I want, not what I typed in!
relanat
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Couple more things.

There is something wrong with the targeting in the drones. A Britannia drone fitted with an omni turbolaser should have been firing on a Raid Platform from all directions. But it wasn't. It just shot straight ahead and only hit the enemy if it happened to be pointing straight at it when it fired. You have to command it to Attack Target before it fires on the enemy, then everything works as you would expect with repeated hits on the enemy using the omnidirectional property.

Here's the image, the omni turbolaser in the Brit drone should be hitting the Raid Platform regardless of whether it's told to or not.

Image

This may not be a PSD related bug as I can recall a post where someone was having the same or similar problems with targeting not working like it should.
EDIT: I knew I'd seen it somewhere. Already ticketed on the Ministry.
http://ministry.kronosaur.com/record.hexm?id=845
and
http://ministry.kronosaur.com/record.hexm?id=31484

It only happens when the drone isn't under orders. 'Break and Attack' without the enemy being targeted with the targeting ROM and 'Attack Target" when it is targeted both give the omni fire.

========================

Also Volkov gets a bit confused about which ship he should be forming up on when you change between ships. Initially he was positioned to the right of the Molotok. After quite a few ship changes he ended up focusing on the Britannia with the result shown. It makes it a bit hard to use the Molotok as your main playership when he gets in the way like this. I can't work out a way to move him back out of the way.

Initially like so:
Image

Ended up like this:
Image

Causing this difficult situation when I changed back to the Molotok:
Image
Stupid code. Do what I want, not what I typed in!
PM
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I missed the recent posts here. Sorry about that, relanat. I will see what I can do on my next pass.

Since George will feature PSD in a few weeks, I may try to restore some old features PSD6 had. I might just port over much of the linked fire code from PSD6 as-is to PSD7. It is not how I want to do it, but I still do not have much time to update PSD.

A preliminary plan for linked-fire weapons is to make that option available only at Shipyards (where you buy ships). This means you will not be able to reconfigure weapons on a whim out in the field. I probably make that service free. Ideally, player should select which slot his weapon should be installed, but I doubt I can implement that system now (due to time constraints).

Once that is implemented, I will try to add support to all ships in Stars of the Pilgrim and maybe Corporate Command. (I probably will not have time to make Eternity Port ships playable).

Rebuilding ships should be straight-forward, just port much of the shipwright code, only change the repair item to patcher arm/patch spider, and reusable (maybe). I probably will not have time to experiment with a "weakened" condition until player can repair it at a shipyard.

Ultimately, any rush job I manage to implement for PSD7 soon might get replaced by a more robust system once I can dedicate more time to the PSD project.
Download and Play in 1.9 beta 1...
Drake Technologies (Alpha): More hardware for combat in parts 1 and 2!
Star Castle Arcade: Play a classic arcade game adventure, with or without more features (like powerups)!
Playership Drones: Buy or restore exotic ships to command!

Other playable mods from 1.8 and 1.7, waiting to be updated...
Godmode v3 (WIP): Dev/cheat tool compatible with D&O parts 1 or 2.
gunship256
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This is great! I'm looking forward to trying it.

My own opinion is that your work is useful and high-quality enough to be worth incorporating into vanilla. UI fixes like Trading Post Menu, the variety of weapons in Drake Technologies, and the ship changing/field repairs add a lot to the game.

There was a bug in PSD6 with linked-fire weapons. I often disabled weapons to save power, and if I changed linked-fire weapons, I'd have to press 'w' to change weapons because my former main weapon was now linked-fire. When I did this, the game would freeze and require a forced exit under Windows 8 and Windows 10 with Transcendence 1.6. It only happened when all of the weapons were disabled and the game had no enabled weapons to choose from when I pressed 'w'.

I had a similar problem in one of my mods and fixed it by automatically enabling all weapons before changing linked-fire characteristics. I should probably also have had the mod automatically switch to a weapon that wasn't linked-fire to prevent the player from having to press 'w'.

You probably knew about this already and had posted that you were waiting to update PSD6 until after Transcendence 1.6 came out, so I didn't say anything about it earlier.

On rebuilding ships: What if the process required undamaged armor segments, but all the segments were reduced to 25% HP in the process of rebuilding the ship? The patcher arm could be installed as part of the rebuilding process and would gradually restore the ship, but the ship would be very vulnerable for a while.
PM
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Currently restoring linked fire support. After trying this as an option for the shipyard, it seems out-of-place there, and I might have it available in ship configuration as in PSD6 (free and easy reconfiguration out in the field). I really do not want to do it this way because it does not work for ships with non-standard ship configuration screens, and it will lead to errors if the item updates during the linking process (e.g., your weapon just got ionized by nearby Ventari), but... I suppose something is better than nothing.

As to other points...

* Targeting ROM
The targeting ROM at game settings was meant for your first ship only, and if you already have it, it was greyed-out with "n/a". New ships that were sufficiently advanced should come with targeting pre-installed, and those that were not, player was expected to track down a ROM and use it on the new ship. I suppose I could expand the settings for "starter only", "all ships", or "none". I do not know if I will get around to that.

* Korolov
Probably should lock out ships for non-members (I think it did for PSD6). That said, shipyard code is very preliminary and unfinished. Probably will not have time to refine it much, if at all.

* Connect and Transfer
Need to think about this. The options in the connect screen are getting a bit crowded (need to test at minimum resolution), and I want ship changing letter to stay consistent. If it is [P] with the ship orders, I want it to be [P] in the Connect menu. If I add support for this, letters will need to get shuffled, due to conflicts with other orders/options.

* Loot/Jettison on the go
I eventually plan to limit this. If your ship drifts too far away, your connection gets cut and player is forced out of the dockscreen. I have not been able to address this, yet. (Bigger fish to fry in the meantime.) Enjoy it while it lasts.

* Ship position
I like to make it easier to assemble ships into a formation. While the current way works, it gets tedious with several ships. It is annoying for the player to do this each time he replaces a loss.
Download and Play in 1.9 beta 1...
Drake Technologies (Alpha): More hardware for combat in parts 1 and 2!
Star Castle Arcade: Play a classic arcade game adventure, with or without more features (like powerups)!
Playership Drones: Buy or restore exotic ships to command!

Other playable mods from 1.8 and 1.7, waiting to be updated...
Godmode v3 (WIP): Dev/cheat tool compatible with D&O parts 1 or 2.
relanat
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PM wrote:Currently restoring linked fire support.
Yippee. Jumps up and bounces around whooping and hollering annoying the neighbours and leaving footprints on furniture, walls, ceilings...
PM wrote:I want ship changing letter to stay consistent. If it is [P] with the ship orders, I want it to be [P] in the Connect menu.
Absolutely. Much better that way. I was just using T as an example because 'P' was already used for Position.

Re: Volkov getting in the way. Not sure if this will help.
Got Volkov back into position sort of. Made him 'W'ait and then I flew to the other side of the system. Changed between the Brit and Molotok there a couple of times, recalled him from the Molotok and he formed up on the Molotok as desired, but is getting in the way of the Brit instead now. I thought I would be out of his range to issue commands but it seems like communication distances may have been increased(?).

Also Volkov will now attack friendlies. He used to whine that "Helena wouldn't like that". But I haven't checked to see if this happens in vanilla 1.7a1a.

And I couldn't possibly agree more with gunship256:
gunship256 wrote:My own opinion is that your work is useful and high-quality enough to be worth incorporating into vanilla.
Stupid code. Do what I want, not what I typed in!
PM
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Minor progress report: Linked fire for primary weapons is in, but unfinished. The interface will be somewhat different than in PSD6 due to the necessity of rewriting more than half of the code used for PSD6. Linked fire code for PSD7 is finished enough that I can attempt to add a capital ship to test. So far, the test subject is the Aquila, and the results seem promising.

As for capital ships, I plan to reference images from the Stars of the Pilgrim HD expansion. Thus, for ships beyond official playerships, PSD7 will eventually require the HD expansion.
Download and Play in 1.9 beta 1...
Drake Technologies (Alpha): More hardware for combat in parts 1 and 2!
Star Castle Arcade: Play a classic arcade game adventure, with or without more features (like powerups)!
Playership Drones: Buy or restore exotic ships to command!

Other playable mods from 1.8 and 1.7, waiting to be updated...
Godmode v3 (WIP): Dev/cheat tool compatible with D&O parts 1 or 2.
PM
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Since last post, not much in the way of new features or ship restoration was done. Time was mostly spent debugging and making linked-fire more robust. In previous versions of PSD, the player could link weapons out in the field. Now, in PSD7, linking weapons can only be done at Dock Services... unless Cheat mode is on, in which case, you can link weapons in the field.

I still need to finish automatic weapon linking for newly spawned ships. Once I finish that, I will consider the first of three tasks to do "Install any primary weapon as a linked-fire weapon" finished, and I can proceed to task two, which is adding support to all official ships (which PSD6 featured).

Other minor things of note:
* Targeting program toggle in game settings is fixed. It now applies to all ships instead of your first, so even if your first ship has it, new ships that do not have targeting will get it.

* 'Pilot' is accessible while connected to a ship. The 'Position' command was renamed to 'Formation position'.
Download and Play in 1.9 beta 1...
Drake Technologies (Alpha): More hardware for combat in parts 1 and 2!
Star Castle Arcade: Play a classic arcade game adventure, with or without more features (like powerups)!
Playership Drones: Buy or restore exotic ships to command!

Other playable mods from 1.8 and 1.7, waiting to be updated...
Godmode v3 (WIP): Dev/cheat tool compatible with D&O parts 1 or 2.
PM
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Today has been a good day for progress on Playership Drones. The weapon linking code is finished. My todo list now:

* Make all official free and Corporate Command ships PSD-compatible: Before I can add field repairs, we need to be able to pilot any ship we can find. After all, repairs are useless without PSD-compatible ships to pilot. Doing this will not be hard per-se, but it will be tedious, thanks to dozens of ships to update. Ships with images upgraded by the HD extension will probably be supported by PSD separately, so that those without the extension can still run PSD7 (with incomplete support).

* Field repairs: Restore ships from a wreck. Previously, we used shipwrights, but it will be different. Patcher arm or patch spider will be used instead of shipwrights (and they will not be consumed), but field repairs will not be instant. Initially, I plan to weaken ships to represent insufficient crew, but that is a feature I probably cannot implement for the Beta in time, so that will be ignored. However, I might restrict items installed to a reactor and armor only.

* Have shipyards sell more limited selection of ships: Currently, shipyards have every ship in stock due to quick and minimally functional implementation adequate for an Alpha release. They should sell ships that make sense. For example, Commonwealth ships at most shipyards, and no enemy ships (e.g., no Sung or Ares ships.) However, having all ships available would make getting new ships easy for George, so this is a lower priority if I run short on time.

* Make all Eternity Port ships PSD-compatible: This will be tedious because I need to create HUD elements from scratch. If I have enough time left to do this, great, if not, I will probably defer for later.
Download and Play in 1.9 beta 1...
Drake Technologies (Alpha): More hardware for combat in parts 1 and 2!
Star Castle Arcade: Play a classic arcade game adventure, with or without more features (like powerups)!
Playership Drones: Buy or restore exotic ships to command!

Other playable mods from 1.8 and 1.7, waiting to be updated...
Godmode v3 (WIP): Dev/cheat tool compatible with D&O parts 1 or 2.
PM
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So far, between updating ship code for PSD7 and updating some images, I have added (read: converted from PSD6 to PSD7) about a dozen ships to PSD7. At my current rate, I estimate it will take me at least a week to implement PSD7 support for all standard ships. At first, I added support for Eternity Port for a few ships, but realized that will mean more work to do if I need to change something later. I plan to have PSD support for both Stars of the Pilgrim and Eternity Port.

A new problem I encountered is my shipyard code does not accept upgrades for multiple weapons, and I will need to deal with that somehow.

This will be a slog. I hope I will be able to get PSD7 Beta ready before April 21.
Download and Play in 1.9 beta 1...
Drake Technologies (Alpha): More hardware for combat in parts 1 and 2!
Star Castle Arcade: Play a classic arcade game adventure, with or without more features (like powerups)!
Playership Drones: Buy or restore exotic ships to command!

Other playable mods from 1.8 and 1.7, waiting to be updated...
Godmode v3 (WIP): Dev/cheat tool compatible with D&O parts 1 or 2.
relanat
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If I could offer a suggestion. George probably doesn't need every SOTP ship compatible for his playthrough. A lot of them (esp the gunships) are the same specs with a different graphic. Maybe make a smaller selection of ships with different characteristics available (eg, a couple of gunships, couple of freighters, couple of cap ships, a few more ships which have something special about them, maybe one from most factions, personal favourites, etc) and spend the 'saved' time getting the code to where you want it. Could be a bit easier for you and give you more time for the EP ships.
Stupid code. Do what I want, not what I typed in!
gunship256
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After watching George's mod testing, I agree that this is a good idea. George tends to pop in and just start trying things, and if there are *only* really cool things for him to try *and* the things are all really different from each other, he'll probably be able to get a lot more done.

EDIT: After thinking about this a bit more, I suggest maybe asking George to start with a really cool starter ship like the Molotok, and he can buy a drone or two to carry cargo and mine (Aguaptera) and explore the system (Wolfen). If he finds a Korolov and does a few missions, he'll get a chance to try the Escort settings on playerships, and when he comes across the Charon frigate with its linked-fire weapons and omni launcher slot, he can try the field repair mechanic.

That would really give him a chance to see some things that can get integrated into vanilla (drone looting, mining, exploring, and escorting) and let him try one of the really cool capital ships too.
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