[MOD] The Network

[Drako Slyith]

Updated on Xelerus just today. I added three combat system types, on early game, on mid game, and one late game, and have several of each type. In the Korolov story line you now go through no just charon populated space but a battle between some police and fleets of Charon. Mid game is my favorite, having huari vs. Sung. Late game is the one I'm most nervous about balance-wise, it's between ares and Commonwealth. All of them will have huge loot profits if you can survive. Also, they're all optional, so they're branches off the main path.

With this update I really need help with the balancing to make sure that the stations are equal in strength, so they keep each other in check. In my early testing of the Ares vs. Commonwealth, I had the very amusing if terrible result that the Ares routed the Commonwealth in under a minute (live time) and continued to destroy every not-ares station in the game, including a ringer collective. I fixed that by the way, but as I said before I'm worried that the balance of them may not be right. Ideally they would continue to throw ships at each other and neither would gain the upper hand. I think I have that working well in Huari vs. Sung, and Corporate vs. Charon, but I'm not too sure about Ares vs. Commonwealth.

Any advice, tips, ect would be very helpful

[Drako Slyith]

Please, someone respond. I really need another person's thought on the balance.

[Ttech]

I can try it out for you, but I am quite busy and won't be able to for several days. Reason I kept quite for this while, just felt like you needed someone to say something.

[ThePrivateer]

Please, someone respond. I really need another person's thought on the balance.

Sorry Drako! Haven't dowloaded yet, been really busy with RL! >.<

I'll see if I can try it out today for you!

[Drako Slyith]

awesome thanks

[ThePrivateer]

Okay, I haven't had a chance to play this much, but did you say there was supposed to be an early system battle? Because I explored about ten systems prior to Rigel Aurelias and found nothing (unless I missed it but I'm sure I didn't).

Where exactly is the first battle? Do I need to head further North on the Map? And BTW is that where the Korolov missions are?

Also, my only other comment is that most of the systems sound really good and natural -- New New York does not. Please change that, I don't like it all it sounds stupid.

That's it so far! I'll try to play more soon!

[Drako Slyith]

The early battles are in the network in the Korolov story line. I thought it needed a bit more challenge than just flying strait through. The others branch off from Jiang's star and the system that alternates being called Umi, Vori, Meri, or Penati. If you have GOD mod, travel to New LA then go backwards.

I will change the New New York one in my next update

[ThePrivateer]

The early battles are in the network in the Korolov story line. I thought it needed a bit more challenge than just flying strait through. The others branch off from Jiang's star and the system that alternates being called Umi, Vori, Meri, or Penati. If you have GOD mod, travel to New LA then go backwards.

I will change the New New York one in my next update

Okay! I will go look for the Korolov storylines! But I keep getting blown up about three systems off the main path so progress is slow! >.<

Did you deliberately boost the difficulty in the additional branches? Because the difficutly spikes as soon as you get off the main path. It's fun but makes for a bit of slow going every now and again.

Or you know I could just be a really poor player, which is always an option. -_-

[Drako Slyith]

My dead end branch is much harder. I still have some plans buzzing around in my head for what to do with it, I'm thinking a prison (hence New Alcatraz) where you help a prisoner escape and in exchange he becomes a wingman, but I'm still thinking about how to do it. The other branches shouldn't be too much harder, I have the networks increase difficulty a bit also. Actually I think I have the third branch, the one just south of the vanilla, be just a little harder, but not by much.

[ThePrivateer]

Still haven't reached a battle (I'm trying to get to the North Branch).

Encountered my first dead end system (I think). called **[size=0]Scotlander[/size]** (highlight and copy into notepad to read).
I flew round and round like an idiot, my fuel almost gone and then realised there wasn't a gate (I think).

Anyway, still great fun and I can't wait to see more of it!

[Drako Slyith]

New update on Xelerus. I fixed a serious issue where you were trapped in the charon battles. A return of my old enemy [prev] in the stargate nodes. Anyway, I also fixed a balance issue where the Commonwealth was most likely to create ships to patrol, not subdue the Charon, so the Charon killed everything else in the system, then killed me a lot. The Commonwealth station also has a fixed dockscreen so it isn't the same as Korolov.

Also, the Charon battle is in the south branch. I forgot that I had gone south-north when creating the branches. (south is listed first in code)

[ThePrivateer]

New update on Xelerus. I fixed a serious issue where you were trapped in the charon battles. A return of my old enemy [prev] in the stargate nodes. Anyway, I also fixed a balance issue where the Commonwealth was most likely to create ships to patrol, not subdue the Charon, so the Charon killed everything else in the system, then killed me a lot. The Commonwealth station also has a fixed dockscreen so it isn't the same as Korolov.

Also, the Charon battle is in the south branch. I forgot that I had gone south-north when creating the branches. (south is listed first in code)

I'll check it out later on if I can!

[sdw195]

My dead end branch is much harder. I still have some plans buzzing around in my head for what to do with it, I'm thinking a prison (hence New Alcatraz) where you help a prisoner escape and in exchange he becomes a wingman, but I'm still thinking about how to do it. The other branches shouldn't be too much harder, I have the networks increase difficulty a bit also. Actually I think I have the third branch, the one just south of the vanilla, be just a little harder, but not by much.

i saw the system code you were making for that

but if you are wanting to make a wall (like the battle arena) i would recommend using the walls from alterecco's battle zone walls, i found a way to make them really easy to shape into a building, by putting a dot in the center of the of the wall bit and a number relating to the rotation of the segment, copy and paste the wall segments into a image editor (like paint.net or gimp) then all you have to do it find the cords of the red dot (should be 100x100 200x100 200x200 etc) and the number of the image variant


eg

[Yama]

Hi Drako,

I found what appears to be a really minor and easily fixed bug that sometimes causes two systems in the same game to spawn with the same name. This happened to me in two different games. I've attached a screen cap of a section of the Galactic map from my current game where there are two different systems named "Ross 248". In an earlier game the same two systems were named "Ras Alhague".

In a quick search of the Network.xml file (from the latest download) I found that the system name table (or whatever it's called) in this section of code that starts at line #243,

Code: Select all

		<Node ID="C3" x="-400" y="25">
			<System
					level=			"2"
					attributes=		"NewBeyond"
					variant=		"commonwealth"
					>
				<Table>
					<System chance="25" name="Orgos"		UNID="&ssEarthSpaceSplit4;"/>
					<System chance="25" name="Ross 248"	UNID="&ssEarthSpaceSplit3;"/>
					<System chance="25" name="Cairn"		UNID="&ssEarthSpaceSplit2;"/>
					<System chance="25" name="Ras Alhague" UNID="&ssEarthSpaceSplit;"/>
				</Table>
			</System>

			<StarGates>
				<StarGate Name="Inbound" DestID="[prev]" DestGate="Outbound"/>
				<StarGate Name="Outbound" DestID="C3A" DestGate="Inbound"/>
				<StarGate Name="Split" DestID="Z1" DestGate="Split"/>
			</StarGates>
		</Node>

is duplicated in this next section that starts at line#1985.

Code: Select all

		<Node ID="Z6z" x="-400" y="100">
			<System
					level=			"2"
					attributes=		"NewBeyond"
					variant=		"commonwealth"
					>
				<Table>
					<System chance="25" name="Orgos"		UNID="&ssEarthSpaceSplit;"/>
					<System chance="25" name="Ross 248"	UNID="&ssEarthSpaceSplit2;"/>
					<System chance="25" name="Cairn"		UNID="&ssEarthSpaceSplit3;"/>
					<System chance="25" name="Ras Alhague" UNID="&ssEarthSpaceSplit4;"/>
				</Table>
			</System>

			<StarGates>
				<StarGate Name="Inbound" DestID="Z6a" DestGate="Outbound"/>
				<StarGate Name="Outbound" DestID="Z6" DestGate="Inbound"/>
				<StarGate Name="Split" DestID="Sp2" Destgate="Inbound"/>
			</StarGates>
		</Node>

In one of your comments on Xelerus, you remarked that "I'm running out of names" for systems. If it would make things easier, I'll gladly provide you with a list of additional appropriate names that you could use, along with their provenance. I really like this mod, and am eager to do anything I can to help.

[Drako Slyith]

I think I have that fixed in my code already. Thanks for reporting this. I think I also fixed another one later on in the game.