Shield Capacitors

Mon Jul 04, 2016 5:26 pm

Hello all,
I released a new mod: shield capacitors, a new take on shields.

http://xelerus.de/index.php?s=mod&id=1544

the mod removes all HP from shields. Players have to install capacitors to have HP. Shields are also cheaper, because players will spend their money on capacitors too.

Advantages: shields HP are now more fluid. You can have less HP on your shield and use less power. You can install/uninstall capacitors at any time to manage your powerUse.
The mod is fully compatible with any other shields mod, as everything is done on the fly at game start thanks to the new XML functions.
If you have a shield in your mods that uses "inherit", that might be broken, as this mod will add inherit to all the shields.

Disadvantages: AI ships are not balanced. They will install and use capacitors but the game might be harder/easier.

Try it out and let me know what you think

NMS · Thu Jul 07, 2016 9:52 pm

I'm pretty sure this is wildly unbalanced, but I'm looking forward to trying it out.

Also, that (switch) with 20-some options, most of which repeat the same 2 lines several times is painful to look at. You could use a switch (or maybe 2 separate ones with fewer conditions) to set the item type and quantity, then a (for) loop to install them.

Sat Jul 09, 2016 8:49 pm

it is indeed a horrible switch, but hey, it's just a proof of concept to see if a radically different shield system is viable.

Will players be annoyed by buying/installing/uninstalling capacitors ? Or the increased shield fluidity and freedom compensate for that ?

I want to know that, before starting to make any larger mod similar to this.

What if the player can micromanage the poweruse of any device and gain bonuses for shield/weapons/reactors ?

There is also space for a mod that automates these power managements in the form of an advanced ROM. Is the player fighting for the last 20 secs and not getting too much damage ? Decrease shields by 10% and reroute power to weapon !

relanat · Wed Jul 13, 2016 4:15 am

I think this is a great idea and am very much looking forward to giving it a go. Excellent original idea.

relanat · Wed Sep 07, 2016 2:07 am

This could work IMO. If I understand it, the shield retains it resistances but can be built up to whatever HP you like by adding capacitors. This is limited by increasingly heavy power drain to get the extra HP?

The ability to regulate your shield is greatly desirable from a fuel saving point of view. And you don't need full shields all the time, but having them on partway would be an advantage. I prefer to have a shield on all the time even if it is only a Class II. It saves a lot of minor armor fixing if you haven't got an armor repair device.

But at the moment it's a UI nightmare. Using them is clunky. You end up with caps that you can't work quickly. They overload and disable then you cant uninstall them while they are disabled. So it's the B menu and enable, then on pressing 'U' again you can't tell which installed cap has been enabled so you get a not enabled plyMessage. Aaaaargh.

The 'U'se menu isn't the best thing for adjustments as shown with the Jotun shield. I would use that more if it didn't require "U, scroll, enter, U, scroll, enter, U, scroll, enter" to get it to full power. Tedious, and also not what you want to be doing when you really should be firing and thrusting if you come under attack unexpectedly. Other times you can cruise around with it set on 1 and save a lot of fuel, ramping it up if you go in to attack mode. Very nice but not user friendly.

Availability and random ramblings.
Could order them at a Trading Post. Found a Cap 100 at a BM shipyard.
Looted some damaged ones from a Brit wreck and an enemy Ronin wreck. Damaged one available at tinkers.
Possibly need to be available at armor stations. Do Longzhu's fix them?
Possibly superimpose the number (10, 50, 100, 200) over the graphic so you can tell which is which in the B menu when disabled (they get greyed out so they all look the same).

Also
Weirdly, after you quit you get this problem every time (1.7a2c) in XP.
Transcendence has encountered a problem and needs to close.
Please tell Microsoft about this problem,
Send Error Report/Dont Send

Hope that helps.

Wed Sep 07, 2016 3:04 pm

hey relanat,
thank you vm for your playtesting and analysis. This is exactly the kind of feedback that I wanted

This could work IMO. If I understand it, the shield retains it resistances but can be built up to whatever HP you like by adding capacitors. This is limited by increasingly heavy power drain to get the extra HP?

yes, this test mod has no limits to the number of capacitors that you can install. The limit is just the cost and the availability.

But at the moment it's a UI nightmare. Using them is clunky. You end up with caps that you can't work quickly. They overload and disable then you cant uninstall them while they are disabled. So it's the B menu and enable, then on pressing 'U' again you can't tell which installed cap has been enabled so you get a not enabled plyMessage. Aaaaargh.

yes, that's a good point. Mods like this greatly need a good dockscreen for the capacitors management, with also autoinstall options, maybe based on the threat level of the enemies in the radar.

Possibly superimpose the number (10, 50, 100, 200) over the graphic so you can tell which is which in the B menu when disabled (they get greyed out so they all look the same).

good idea, that's easy to do.

Weirdly, after you quit you get this problem every time (1.7a2c) in XP.
Transcendence has encountered a problem and needs to close.

strange, the mod should not cause problems like that.
is there anything more specific in the debug.log ?

In any case, thank you vm for testing this !!!

relanat · Sat Sep 10, 2016 5:18 pm

I don't understand a lot of the debug log so you get the lot.

I tried a few more times just in case the first errors were a glitch.

1.7a2c. XP.
First go.
Shield Capacitors, GalacticOmniDevice-master and DockScreenFramework-master in the Extensions Folder. All selected.

First run crashed in the "Load Game, New Game, Quit" screen. Haven't had this before. I think there was a mule auton on the intro screen at the time.

Second load was fine. Loaded a previous game, then Esc, 2, then Quit. After Trans had closed got the Microsoft error message.

Gave this in the debug.log

09/11/2016 01:04:38 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
09/11/2016 01:04:38 Start logging session
09/11/2016 01:04:38 Direct3D
09/11/2016 01:04:38 Screen: 1280 x 768
09/11/2016 01:04:38 Scale: 1.00
09/11/2016 01:04:38 Background blt: Enabled
09/11/2016 01:04:38 Use Direct X: Enabled
09/11/2016 01:04:38 Use GPU compositing: Enabled
09/11/2016 01:04:38 LogPixelsY: 96
09/11/2016 01:04:38 DeviceType: 0x1
09/11/2016 01:04:38 Caps: 0x00020000
09/11/2016 01:04:38 Caps2: 0x20020000
09/11/2016 01:04:38 Caps3: 0x00000320
09/11/2016 01:04:38 DevCaps: 0x0008ae50
09/11/2016 01:04:38 DevCaps2: 0x00000051
09/11/2016 01:04:38 [DX] Buffer Format: 22
09/11/2016 01:04:39 Transcendence 1.7 Alpha 2c
09/11/2016 01:04:39 Graphics quality maximum: 63 ms; 2 cores.
09/11/2016 01:04:46 Loaded library: Extensions\DockScreenFramework-master\Library.xml
09/11/2016 01:04:46 Loaded extension: Extensions\GalacticOmniDevice-master\Core.xml
09/11/2016 01:04:46 Loaded extension: Extensions\Shields Capacitors.xml
09/11/2016 01:04:46 Loading news.
09/11/2016 01:04:51 gethostbyname failed: 11004.
09/11/2016 01:04:51 Unable to resolve address for multiverse.kronosaur.com.
09/11/2016 01:04:51 gethostbyname failed: 11001.
09/11/2016 01:04:51 Unable to verify connection to the Internet.
09/11/2016 01:04:51 Crash in CAttackOrder::OnBehavior
09/11/2016 01:04:51 Crash in CBaseShipAI::Behavior
09/11/2016 01:04:51 Crash in CShip::Behavior
09/11/2016 01:04:51 Unable to continue due to program error.

program state: OnAnimate
program state: updating object behavior
obj class: CShip
obj name: 330M mule auton
obj pointer: 9e19018
m_pDocked: none
m_pExitGate: none
IOrderModule
Order: 3
m_Objs[0]: a0fc4f0 Oromo-class gunship (CShip)
m_Objs[1]: none
CAttackOrder
m_State: 0
m_iCountdown: -1
m_pNavPath: none
game state: intro

Please contact [email protected] with a copy of Debug.log and your save file. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

09/11/2016 01:04:51 Error from Multiverse: You are not connected to the Internet.
09/11/2016 01:04:52 gethostbyname failed: 11004.
09/11/2016 01:04:52 All resources downloaded.
09/11/2016 01:04:52 Unable to resolve address for multiverse.kronosaur.com.
09/11/2016 01:04:52 gethostbyname failed: 11001.
09/11/2016 01:04:52 Unable to verify connection to the Internet.
09/11/2016 01:04:52 End logging session
09/11/2016 01:05:01 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
09/11/2016 01:05:01 Start logging session
09/11/2016 01:05:01 Direct3D
09/11/2016 01:05:01 Screen: 1280 x 768
09/11/2016 01:05:01 Scale: 1.00
09/11/2016 01:05:01 Background blt: Enabled
09/11/2016 01:05:01 Use Direct X: Enabled
09/11/2016 01:05:01 Use GPU compositing: Enabled
09/11/2016 01:05:01 LogPixelsY: 96
09/11/2016 01:05:01 DeviceType: 0x1
09/11/2016 01:05:01 Caps: 0x00020000
09/11/2016 01:05:01 Caps2: 0x20020000
09/11/2016 01:05:01 Caps3: 0x00000320
09/11/2016 01:05:01 DevCaps: 0x0008ae50
09/11/2016 01:05:01 DevCaps2: 0x00000051
09/11/2016 01:05:01 [DX] Buffer Format: 22
09/11/2016 01:05:01 Transcendence 1.7 Alpha 2c
09/11/2016 01:05:01 Graphics quality maximum: 63 ms; 2 cores.
09/11/2016 01:05:08 Loaded library: Extensions\DockScreenFramework-master\Library.xml
09/11/2016 01:05:08 Loaded extension: Extensions\GalacticOmniDevice-master\Core.xml
09/11/2016 01:05:08 Loaded extension: Extensions\Shields Capacitors.xml
09/11/2016 01:05:08 Loading news.
09/11/2016 01:05:08 gethostbyname failed: 11004.
09/11/2016 01:05:08 Unable to resolve address for multiverse.kronosaur.com.
09/11/2016 01:05:08 gethostbyname failed: 11001.
09/11/2016 01:05:08 Unable to verify connection to the Internet.
09/11/2016 01:05:09 Error from Multiverse: You are not connected to the Internet.
09/11/2016 01:05:09 All resources downloaded.
09/11/2016 01:05:22 Loaded game file version: 1076604
09/11/2016 01:05:29 End logging session
==========================================================================
2nd go.

Deleted the GOD and DockScreenFramework mods. Only Shield Capacitors in the Extensions folder. It was selected.

Loaded, started new game, Esc, 2 then Quit. After Trans had closed got the Microsoft error message.

Gave this in the debug log

09/11/2016 01:08:18 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
09/11/2016 01:08:18 Start logging session
09/11/2016 01:08:18 Direct3D
09/11/2016 01:08:18 Screen: 1280 x 768
09/11/2016 01:08:18 Scale: 1.00
09/11/2016 01:08:18 Background blt: Enabled
09/11/2016 01:08:18 Use Direct X: Enabled
09/11/2016 01:08:18 Use GPU compositing: Enabled
09/11/2016 01:08:18 LogPixelsY: 96
09/11/2016 01:08:18 DeviceType: 0x1
09/11/2016 01:08:18 Caps: 0x00020000
09/11/2016 01:08:18 Caps2: 0x20020000
09/11/2016 01:08:18 Caps3: 0x00000320
09/11/2016 01:08:18 DevCaps: 0x0008ae50
09/11/2016 01:08:18 DevCaps2: 0x00000051
09/11/2016 01:08:18 [DX] Buffer Format: 22
09/11/2016 01:08:18 Transcendence 1.7 Alpha 2c
09/11/2016 01:08:18 Graphics quality maximum: 47 ms; 2 cores.
09/11/2016 01:08:24 Loaded extension: Extensions\Shields Capacitors.xml
09/11/2016 01:08:25 Loading news.
09/11/2016 01:08:25 gethostbyname failed: 11004.
09/11/2016 01:08:25 Unable to resolve address for multiverse.kronosaur.com.
09/11/2016 01:08:25 gethostbyname failed: 11001.
09/11/2016 01:08:25 Unable to verify connection to the Internet.
09/11/2016 01:08:25 Error from Multiverse: You are not connected to the Internet.
09/11/2016 01:08:25 All resources downloaded.
09/11/2016 01:08:49 Initializing adventure: Transcendence.tdb
09/11/2016 01:08:50 Created new game
09/11/2016 01:08:50 Starting new game.
09/11/2016 01:09:08 End logging session

Have attached a screenshot of the Microsoft error message details for this one.

Here's the important bit. I tried a few games with Shield Caps deselected. They ran fine and I didn't get the MS error message.

I haven't had anything like this with any other mods. It happens every time after the Trans screen has gone. About a second and a half later the Microsoft error message shows up.

Tried it on a Windows 7 machine which was online. Fresh extraction of Trans and Shield Caps. Same result; Microsoft Error message. Same debug outout.

I have also attached the debug log of the other games with the Shield Caps mod. They all had GOD and DSF mods in the Extensions folder as well and all three mods were selected for every game.

Sun Sep 11, 2016 4:09 pm

woah.
thank you vm for this

I have to look into it.

relanat · Sat Mar 18, 2017 12:02 am

Still getting the Microsoft error message in 1.7. But you're not alone. I used typCreate in a different mod and it also gives the same Microsoft error message. See https://forums.kronosaur.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=8049 for details. Still XP.

Also with the introduction of the circular default HUDs, Shield Capacitors gets a glitch. Because the circular shield HUD only displays a percentage of shield hit points you only ever see 100% displayed. If you add another capacitor all it does is boost the percentage up to 100% again so there is never any indication of shield HP despite the hit points being boosted. Thinking about it the HP may be displayed in the Ship Configuration screen but I didn't think to check that at the time.