Korolov / Charon

[giantcabbage]

I’ve been looking at Korolov / Charon to address the issues mentioned here http://forums.kronosaur.com/viewtopic.p ... 982#p63982 The attached mod makes the following changes:

• For cargo values < 100k a Drake missile ship is used instead of a frigate. Above 100k the chance of a frigate increases up to 100% at cargo value of 200k.
• If the player successfully completes a round trip escort (freighter returns to Korolov) the Drake / frigate will return to wandering instead of getting stuck.
• Wander AI is now based on EP NAU mission 3 and will loot the freighters it destroys.
• Gunships are summoned from the nearest Charon base in preference to the gate.

Version 2 update:

• Increased drake cargo space to 500
• Will use stCharonPrimaryStronghold3 at level 3 and above (previously Stronghold2 was used for both level 2 and level 3 & above)
• New shiptables used for raiders for higher value cargos. Effectively increases system level by 1 for cargo > 100k and again at cargo > 500k

Changes to the frigate AI:

• Should actually transfer loot to Charon bases (previously cargo was just deleted)
• Chance to pursue freighter when raiders are destroyed
• Will repair armor when docking at a stronghold
• Will drop loot of at a stronghold if damage > 20%
• Will flee to stronghold if badly damaged (>90 during ambush, >50 when wandering)
• Will loot nearby shipwrecks when wandering

Version 3 update:

• Removed changes which have been merged into vanilla
• Rewrote Korolov station to use Language and MissionType elements
• Guarantee unique assistant director names unless more than 12 Korolov stations
• Grant XP for destroying frigates (there was a function to do this, but it did not work)
• Changes to kill stronghold: adds credit reward, penalty if the squadron leader dies, penalty if the player starts the mission but doesn’t help destroy the stronghold, penalty if the player destroys the squadron leader
• New mission: escort freighter from gate (triggers when there are no freighters for player to escort)
• New mission: escort freighter to station in another system (journeyman or higher level)

[Song]

Looks reasonable in general. I'd be cautious about the Barbary though......although EMP is criminally under-used ingame right now, that's because it's not a very nice mechanic. Barbaries have also never been a charon ship before. Viking-II on the other hand I definitely support...the charon pirates lack a capable gunship in general because of how squishy the corsairs (including the II) are.

Drakes as ambushers makes sense. One thing that might be an issue is the top speed of the freighter....I don't know if an EI100 or 7000 can outrun a drake, but if they can then the ambush should be advanced gunships (corsair-II or Viking-II leaders with some corsair escorts) or a frigate+gunship encounter instead. Drakes would be good against the Antares though.

[JohnBWatson]

If it hasn't been done already, it makes sense to lock Corsair Is to attacking the very lightest two freighters only, given that that's the only time they have a chance. When escorting frigates, they tend to be absolutely useless save for blocking the frigate's fire.

That aside, I like what you've done.

[giantcabbage]

Looks reasonable in general. I'd be cautious about the Barbary though......although EMP is criminally under-used ingame right now, that's because it's not a very nice mechanic. Barbaries have also never been a charon ship before.

Barbaries are used in the EP missions where they escort Charon frigates at higher levels. Admittedly the missions don’t explicitly call them Charon pirates...

Drakes as ambushers makes sense. One thing that might be an issue is the top speed of the freighter....I don't know if an EI100 or 7000 can outrun a drake, but if they can then the ambush should be advanced gunships (corsair-II or Viking-II leaders with some corsair escorts) or a frigate+gunship encounter instead. Drakes would be good against the Antares though.

Only the EI200 can outrun a Drake, but the EI100 and EI7000 have the same top speed. Although with the default AI the frigates almost never chase the freighters (I’ve never seen it happen) so top speed doesn’t really matter. Looking at the original code the only time a frigate will start chasing is if:

• It has one or zero raiders left
• Freighter top speed <= 12
• Cargo value is > 100k
• A random roll based on cargo value is passed

As the frigate will summon a new set of raiders if it has less than 3 the above conditions are quite difficult to meet.

I was considering adding ‘elite’ Viking-II (or just Viking-IIIs) to act as raid leaders for the initial missions.

If it hasn't been done already, it makes sense to lock Corsair Is to attacking the very lightest two freighters only, given that that's the only time they have a chance. When escorting frigates, they tend to be absolutely useless save for blocking the frigate's fire.

I definitely do need to create more ship tables though as the Korolov / Charon missions all occur in the first three levels. Most of the logic is tied to cargo value, so I’ll try using harder shiptables for higher value cargos. That way Corsair-Is will mostly appear in the early apprentice missions

[JohnBWatson]

Sounds reasonable. Did George confirm whether the Frigates not pursuing their targets is a glitch? It seems like it might be, and I don't see a Ministry item on it.

[giantcabbage]

Sounds reasonable. Did George confirm whether the Frigates not pursuing their targets is a glitch? It seems like it might be, and I don't see a Ministry item on it.

I’ve changed the code so it should be possible to trigger the frigate pursuit by destroying enough raiders that the frigate summons reinforcements (previously the threshold for reinforcements was higher than the threshold for pursuit). I have not modified the chance of pursuit occurring - so a 100 k cargo has a 5% chance of pursuit occurring.

[giantcabbage]

I’ve updated the mod for version 1.6 this time focusing on Korolov. Most of the Charon changes are now in vanilla, but this mod still has the expanded frigate AI and ship tables. I have also made changes to the Korolov station code. All the missions are rewritten using MissionType so they show up in the mission journal and I’ve added two new variants for the escort mission. One is escorting a new freighter from gate to station and the other is a first attempt at an inter-system escort mission

[Watch TV, Do Nothing]

Looks interesting; I'll have to give this a try.

I don't know if adding "Viking III"s in lieu of capital ships makes sense for early missions; it's kind of weird for the Charon Pirates to have a gunship that's even better than the Viking-II, and if it's better equipped than the Viking II then the player could potentially loot out-of-depth armor and weapons from it. Even the dual turbolasers off the Viking II would be quite a find for many players beginning the Korolov missions - remember that these Korolov missions are available as early as the beginning system for CC players.

IMO Viking-II raid leaders would be plenty difficult for the first mission or two.

Looking at the XML, I just realized that Vikings get 4 armor segments but Viking-IIs only have 2 segments (and it's even the same armor type, too!)

[NMS]

That seems like a bug. Reported.