Fractal Softworks Forum

Starsector => Mods => Modding => Topic started by: xenoargh on April 16, 2019, 01:17:46 AM

Title: Domain Drones?
Post by: xenoargh on April 16, 2019, 01:17:46 AM
Is it just me, or are they totally gone from the game now?  Haven't seen any of them at all.

That's a bummer; they were interesting, if underpowered.  I feel like they should return as some sort of locust-like plague of Von Neumann devices that plant themselves in edge systems, build replicators, and eventually become a real problem for the Sector through sheer numbers, if not destroyed; they were an interesting concept that got wasted on providing players with easy Exploration-fodder.  The Remnants should be their arch-foes, as they've been programmed with diametrically opposed "world views", and facing a Mothership should be a rough experience (think Zerg / Tyrannids here).
Title: Re: Domain Drones?
Post by: Hrothgar on April 16, 2019, 01:27:44 AM
Domain drones are common. They're in small quantity in closer parts of know space, more of them is on outskirts of sector.
Title: Re: Domain Drones?
Post by: xenoargh on April 16, 2019, 01:32:17 AM
Hmm, weird.  I haven't seen one my whole run.  Guess it's just bad luck on my part.
Title: Re: Domain Drones?
Post by: goduranus on April 16, 2019, 02:21:03 AM
Yeah, for me they appear in about one out of every two Domain probes and survey ships. For me, Motherships always have them.
Title: Re: Domain Drones?
Post by: SapphireSage on April 16, 2019, 08:07:36 AM
When I played vanilla, I would see domain probes very commonly, especially if I took exploration missions as the majority of them wanted you to go to some.

However, in my current game after installing multiple mods, including Tyrador, DME, Unknown Skies, and Nexerelin which might affect the fringe the most, I have yet to see a single domain probe/ship/mothership even after exploring half the sector. Of course it might also just be bad luck, but I think one of these mods, or any others that affect fringe generation, might have something to do with it.
Title: Re: Domain Drones?
Post by: Kohlenstoff on April 16, 2019, 09:07:11 AM
On my current sector the drones are only on the left half of the sector. On the right side is not a single drone while they are quite numerous on the left side.
Title: Re: Domain Drones?
Post by: xenoargh on April 16, 2019, 11:29:36 AM
Hmm.  I'm not doing anything to generation until after the ProcGen has already finished (via my still-currently-private EZFaction build, which I'm gradually polishing).

So, it's kind of a mystery why I haven't seen any Probes, let alone a Mothership.  I've probably explored ~25% of the uninhabited Systems in the Sector.
Title: Re: Domain Drones?
Post by: Alex on April 16, 2019, 11:37:16 AM
I seem to recall an empty array in some file could cause this (by causing the JSON merge to clear out the core array) but I don't remember what it might've been. Let me move this to modding...
Title: Re: Domain Drones?
Post by: Harmful Mechanic on April 16, 2019, 12:32:41 PM
DME doesn't touch Domain drones in any way, and has a toggle for procgen elements. I did test it, so it's something else. Given the OP's record of naively breaking things, it's likely something he did.
Title: Re: Domain Drones?
Post by: xenoargh on April 16, 2019, 09:23:39 PM
I like that one.  "Naively breaking things since we played MUDs with TELNET"... that's definitely me, lol.

To be utterly serious, though, I don't touch anything in Vanilla's pre-ProcGen, nor ProcGen; all non-mere-data operations that effect the Sector's entities are happening post-ProcGen.  Pinkie swear!

I like the empty-array idea.  That's certainly possible; I can see myself leaving something empty to test something else, deleting one last thing out of some core array and presuming that would mean merge would ignore it, etc.  Anyhow, it's just weird; I liked the Domain critters, harmless though they were.
Title: Re: Domain Drones?
Post by: Hrothgar on April 17, 2019, 02:54:03 AM
Drones are not spread in same quantities on both side of map (left-right). Sometimes there will be more on right, few on left, sometimes both have roughly the same , sometimes small quantity on both sides.

Motherships in each game are only two per sector, with i think one cryogenic vault per game with Guardian defending it.
Title: Re: Domain Drones?
Post by: Harmful Mechanic on April 17, 2019, 08:01:00 AM
There are two Cryosleepers and Motherships per game. I'm probably just beating Alex to the punch, but with devmode on and sensors off, you can see what's in each system:

Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/5RAEu8C.png)
[close]

Green = Cryosleeper
Red = Mothership
Orange = Survey Ship
Yellow = Probes
Dark Orange-brown = Ruins
Teal = Remnants

(While I'm here; how would an enterprising modder with a desire to make what he's doing and not doing with tags, etc. crystal clear, set a custom color like this? Or is it just for internal use and not moddable?)

I think the distinction between light blue and gray is that light blue is systems without planets? That's the only one I'm not sure of.
Title: Re: Domain Drones?
Post by: xenoargh on April 17, 2019, 08:35:52 AM
Hey, that's great, didn't know about that.  I'll take a look over here.
Title: Re: Domain Drones?
Post by: Alex on April 17, 2019, 09:20:44 AM
(While I'm here; how would an enterprising modder with a desire to make what he's doing and not doing with tags, etc. crystal clear, set a custom color like this? Or is it just for internal use and not moddable?)

That's extremely super hardcoded, apologies :)

I think the distinction between light blue and gray is that light blue is systems without planets? That's the only one I'm not sure of.

Light blue is when the system has a Tags.THEME_MISC tag, and gray is "none of the other conditions matched".
Title: Re: Domain Drones?
Post by: Harmful Mechanic on April 17, 2019, 10:12:46 AM
(While I'm here; how would an enterprising modder with a desire to make what he's doing and not doing with tags, etc. crystal clear, set a custom color like this? Or is it just for internal use and not moddable?)

That's extremely super hardcoded, apologies :)

Ah, that's a shame. It would be really nice for testing if I could assign a color to see what's populating correctly and what's not. (not to mention making it easier to say 'just go into dev mode and turn off sensors, the X color systems are affected by my procgen code' when people complain). But I get why; it's extremely marginal.

Light blue is when the system has a Tags.THEME_MISC tag, and gray is "none of the other conditions matched".

Ah, good good, thanks.
Title: Re: Domain Drones?
Post by: Alex on April 17, 2019, 10:41:26 AM
Ah, that's a shame. It would be really nice for testing if I could assign a color to see what's populating correctly and what's not. (not to mention making it easier to say 'just go into dev mode and turn off sensors, the X color systems are affected by my procgen code' when people complain). But I get why; it's extremely marginal.

As a workaround, I'd suggest maybe having a debug toggle to assign highly visible names to systems your procgen affects - say, "------------------1/2/3/4/etc" or some such. Unless I'm missing some reason that wouldn't work.
Title: Re: Domain Drones?
Post by: xenoargh on April 17, 2019, 11:27:18 AM
So, how do I "turn sensors off", exactly?  Went into Dev Mode, viewed the Systems, nothing new there.  I'm really curious as to whether I've just missed Domain probes the entire game or have actually caused a problem, lol.
Title: Re: Domain Drones?
Post by: Alex on April 17, 2019, 11:52:59 AM
Ctrl-z in dev mode.
Title: Re: Domain Drones?
Post by: xenoargh on April 17, 2019, 05:49:02 PM
OK, after some messing about, I've found the Domain probes.  They're in really weird cluster distributions; I figured they'd be spread a lot more evenly throughout the Sector, and apparently just never ended up in the clusters, as they're basically in three Constellations only.
Title: Re: Domain Drones?
Post by: Voiddweller on April 19, 2019, 01:18:32 PM
Not sure if remnant invasions is a Nexelerin feature or OG, but could be nice to have a domain dronefleet invasions too...
Title: Re: Domain Drones?
Post by: SCC on April 22, 2019, 12:42:45 AM
It is a Nexerelin feature. The issue with derelicts is that, besides the Guardian, those ships aren't actually all that good. Remnant and Blade Breaker raids are supposed to be more dangerous than normal enemies and derelict raids would fail at this purpose, unless they used copious numbers of Guardians (which don't seem to be reproducible at all...).
Title: Re: Domain Drones?
Post by: Voiddweller on April 23, 2019, 02:03:26 PM
It is a Nexerelin feature. The issue with derelicts is that, besides the Guardian, those ships aren't actually all that good. Remnant and Blade Breaker raids are supposed to be more dangerous than normal enemies and derelict raids would fail at this purpose, unless they used copious numbers of Guardians (which don't seem to be reproducible at all...).
Guardians can still be a threat if mothership spawn with capital escorts. Also shield mods can be added. Kind of upgraded, Awakened Guardians.