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Mods / Re: [0.96a] Space Truckin' v1.4a
« on: June 14, 2023, 12:38:51 PM »
I've been playing with this mod for several hours now and it's definitely one of my favourites. I love how it gives greater purpose to the early/mid game rather than forcing the player off the deep end. I've been really enjoying trucking around with an ED Shipyards' Dachshund express freighter with a light escort.
Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, the inevitable barrage of feature requests! (This is the second time I've attempted this post due to a browser glitch and the forum refusing to allow the previous session to load, so hopefully this remains as comprehensible as the first time I wrote it...)
Parcel Handling Equipment Reminder
Even though I read the original post in full when I downloaded it, by the time I finally had my mods all set up for 0.96a and I gave this mod a try a couple days later, I had forgotten completely that I needed the parcel-handling hullmod installed in my ships before I could accept parcel delivery contracts. The UI greys out the options to accept parcel contracts if you don't have any parcel-compliant storage, but doesn't make it clear in the GUI. May I suggest a tooltip whenever you hover over a greyed-out Accept button once you've unlocked parcels?
"This mission would exceed your fleet's parcel-compliant storage capacity. To increase your parcel-compliant storage capacity, install the [USL Parcel-Sorting Cargo Holds] hullmod on more ships."
Cargo Size Slider
It would be nice if the config options included a slider that let us configure the size multiple of the "Small", "Medium", and "Large" shipments -- either one slider for all, or preferably one slider for each (edit: this is relative to their current sizes -- so if all are at 100%, 100%, and 100%, it would be identical to current mod default, not all the same size). This would help reduce both the market impact of accepting the runs as well as the expected profit the player can earn per run; while it is certainly possible to tune down the Reward slider, that doesn't make the shipments harder, but rather simply makes the shipments less desirable. By reducing the size of the shipments, the player can still achieve the same overall profit per run, but must take on more shipments simultaneously -- which is the most fun part of the mod, being required to varying degrees to prioritize destinations and plan out itineraries.
For instance, if I could set small shipments to 25%, then what my current screen shows as a delivery for 374 units of domestic goods to Citadel Arcadia worth 8451¢, would become a delivery for 93 units of domestic goods worth 2101¢*. Which is still a pleasant reward for the trouble and is potentially within the capacity of a smaller cargo ship -- but if I wanted to make the same amount of profit on this run as I could with the small slider at 100%, I'd have to take on three such missions, making additional stops and hops, and I'd have to spend more fuel to complete the full journey (although, depending on how strategically the destinations are selected, not nearly as much fuel as the amount that would be needed to take each mission sequentially).
By decoupling the sliders and letting the shipment sizes be individual, the player could (say) set the small shipments to 25%, the medium shipments to 70%, and the large shipments to 100%, naturally making the bigger runs seem that much juicier compared to the current norm. Setting the sliders low would also help mitigate the market impact of dumping those commodities on the market, reducing the need to be heavy-handed with the slider that reduces the market impact of each shipment.
* If it were calculated based on the fractional units it'd be worth 2112¢, because 8451/4 = 2112, but that wouldn't be quite right, since only a whole number of units is being shipped. If calculating based on whatever the whole unit values are in this case, then 374/4 = 93.5, truncated to 93, which times 4 gives a correction factor of 372/374 * 8451/4 = 2101. I am not entirely sure why I did the math, since I hate doing math, but evidently I'm not half bad at it.
Logistics Ticket Gain Rate
I think the gain rate for the logistics tickets is a bit too high, especially since the Sector is supposed to be fairly sparse on resources. I'm currently sitting on 2760 fuel points even after having completed a number of deliveries, guzzling fuel like mad all the while, to the extent that I haven't once had to buy fuel on the open market. I'd love a pair of sliders to affect the rate at which I gain discounted fuel and supplies. I'd personally pin it at something like 50% for supplies and 25% or even 10% for fuel.
Logistics GUI
The logistics panel on the USL page seems like a bit of a wall of text, and kinda blends into the furniture. I think it would be helped immensely if the tickets earned for discounted supplies and fuel were expressed visually, using the supply and fuel cargo icons. If the logistics menu is bumped a little to the left, and the bulk parcel amount buttons are bumped a little further to the left, there's room to show the icons (at 50% scale relative to their default 80x80 pixel size) with the quantity available overlaid.
Here's a mockup:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vyztupmn9ncqqkh/SpaceTruckinMockup.png?dl=0
The alternative would actually be slightly more graphical, showing a ship icon that represents your fleet with the current supply count in the fleet, the corresponding cargo icon with the ticket count for discounted suppllies, and the buttons to provide the transfer. Mousing over would show a tooltip with all of the current text-based information. (In this case, the bump-over of the GUI and the parcel quantity buttons wouldn't need to happen, but it's just a mockup so I just worked with the hacked up screenshot I already had rather than grabbing a fresh one.)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/19k4qxn5br4hooj/SpaceTruckinMockup2.png?dl=0
Hyperjump Mod Compatibility
The Hyperjump mod is by far my favourite mod for Starfarer/Starsector/Starblargher; it's just downright fun -- especially the fact that unlike most player-centric mods, the AI can actually use it too, and does so to ruthless effect. The mod is so fun, in fact, that when the mod was updated to [REDACTED BY COMSEC], I was very disappointed and immediately switched the options generously provided to re-enable it for everyone without any unlocking required. Which, unfortunately, produces a conundrum, because it badly breaks the balance of this mod. With the ability to hyperjump up to 9.5 ly on demand for a typical express cargo runner fleet with a sustained-burn level of 19, any package distances that would ordinarily be on the tight side become trivial.
I'd like to request a checkbox that, when enabled, would prorate all distances within a typical hyperjump as being up to 7.5 ly shorter, using the following pseudocode:
If distance < 2.0 ly then
distance = distance
Else if distance < 12.0 ly then
distance = 2.0f + 0.25f * (distance - 2.0f)
Else
distance = 4.5f + (distance - 12f)
This is based on a lot of the logic of the Hyperjump mod, so isn't very easy to explain if you're not familiar with it, but essentially that mod gives you an ability that -- for a massive cost in fuel -- bypasses the intervening distance by accelerating across a light year to massive speed, skipping the middle instantly, and then spending another light year braking. The whole process takes about a half-day of in-game time to cross the entire distance, naturally requiring about 2.0 ly combined to spin up and spin down at high burn speeds. Thus, any distance less than (more or less) 2.0 ly is unavailable for a hyperjump. But because a hyperjump has an effective ceiling of 9.5 ly unless you're using unreliable tricks (like riding a storm or hyperwave), you can't really exceed that jump distance unless you make two (costly) jumps, and because the drive system is unreliable if other ships are nearby (you can't activate a hyperjump if any other ships are near you), you can't exactly rely on being able to make a hyperjump every time, so rather than assuming that any run within 12 ly is 2.0 ly no matter what, the distance needs a bit of fudging -- about 7.5 out of 9.5, by my estimates as a reasonable fudge factor.
Long story short, adding a checkbox to apply the above fudging factors would allow players who have enabled the Hyperjump mod for all ships to have Space Truckin' treat shipping distances with the expectation that the player can use that ability, for about five to ten minutes of work on the scripting end and maybe about 15 on the GUI end. The player could likewise enable the mod even if they keep the mod at the default [REDACTED BY COMSEC] and check the box later once they unlock the ability, if they find that having the ability breaks things.
[Another Edit]
Mission Time Sliders
One more configuration option that would be nice is the ability to configure a percentage multiplier allowed for each given delivery type -- small, medium, large, parcel, expedited, or priority.
This would help also (but not solve) the Hyperjump-for-everyone mod-related problem, too, but would chiefly be useful for tweaking to suit the player's taste for difficulty.
Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, the inevitable barrage of feature requests! (This is the second time I've attempted this post due to a browser glitch and the forum refusing to allow the previous session to load, so hopefully this remains as comprehensible as the first time I wrote it...)
Parcel Handling Equipment Reminder
Even though I read the original post in full when I downloaded it, by the time I finally had my mods all set up for 0.96a and I gave this mod a try a couple days later, I had forgotten completely that I needed the parcel-handling hullmod installed in my ships before I could accept parcel delivery contracts. The UI greys out the options to accept parcel contracts if you don't have any parcel-compliant storage, but doesn't make it clear in the GUI. May I suggest a tooltip whenever you hover over a greyed-out Accept button once you've unlocked parcels?
"This mission would exceed your fleet's parcel-compliant storage capacity. To increase your parcel-compliant storage capacity, install the [USL Parcel-Sorting Cargo Holds] hullmod on more ships."
Cargo Size Slider
It would be nice if the config options included a slider that let us configure the size multiple of the "Small", "Medium", and "Large" shipments -- either one slider for all, or preferably one slider for each (edit: this is relative to their current sizes -- so if all are at 100%, 100%, and 100%, it would be identical to current mod default, not all the same size). This would help reduce both the market impact of accepting the runs as well as the expected profit the player can earn per run; while it is certainly possible to tune down the Reward slider, that doesn't make the shipments harder, but rather simply makes the shipments less desirable. By reducing the size of the shipments, the player can still achieve the same overall profit per run, but must take on more shipments simultaneously -- which is the most fun part of the mod, being required to varying degrees to prioritize destinations and plan out itineraries.
For instance, if I could set small shipments to 25%, then what my current screen shows as a delivery for 374 units of domestic goods to Citadel Arcadia worth 8451¢, would become a delivery for 93 units of domestic goods worth 2101¢*. Which is still a pleasant reward for the trouble and is potentially within the capacity of a smaller cargo ship -- but if I wanted to make the same amount of profit on this run as I could with the small slider at 100%, I'd have to take on three such missions, making additional stops and hops, and I'd have to spend more fuel to complete the full journey (although, depending on how strategically the destinations are selected, not nearly as much fuel as the amount that would be needed to take each mission sequentially).
By decoupling the sliders and letting the shipment sizes be individual, the player could (say) set the small shipments to 25%, the medium shipments to 70%, and the large shipments to 100%, naturally making the bigger runs seem that much juicier compared to the current norm. Setting the sliders low would also help mitigate the market impact of dumping those commodities on the market, reducing the need to be heavy-handed with the slider that reduces the market impact of each shipment.
* If it were calculated based on the fractional units it'd be worth 2112¢, because 8451/4 = 2112, but that wouldn't be quite right, since only a whole number of units is being shipped. If calculating based on whatever the whole unit values are in this case, then 374/4 = 93.5, truncated to 93, which times 4 gives a correction factor of 372/374 * 8451/4 = 2101. I am not entirely sure why I did the math, since I hate doing math, but evidently I'm not half bad at it.
Logistics Ticket Gain Rate
I think the gain rate for the logistics tickets is a bit too high, especially since the Sector is supposed to be fairly sparse on resources. I'm currently sitting on 2760 fuel points even after having completed a number of deliveries, guzzling fuel like mad all the while, to the extent that I haven't once had to buy fuel on the open market. I'd love a pair of sliders to affect the rate at which I gain discounted fuel and supplies. I'd personally pin it at something like 50% for supplies and 25% or even 10% for fuel.
Logistics GUI
The logistics panel on the USL page seems like a bit of a wall of text, and kinda blends into the furniture. I think it would be helped immensely if the tickets earned for discounted supplies and fuel were expressed visually, using the supply and fuel cargo icons. If the logistics menu is bumped a little to the left, and the bulk parcel amount buttons are bumped a little further to the left, there's room to show the icons (at 50% scale relative to their default 80x80 pixel size) with the quantity available overlaid.
Here's a mockup:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vyztupmn9ncqqkh/SpaceTruckinMockup.png?dl=0
The alternative would actually be slightly more graphical, showing a ship icon that represents your fleet with the current supply count in the fleet, the corresponding cargo icon with the ticket count for discounted suppllies, and the buttons to provide the transfer. Mousing over would show a tooltip with all of the current text-based information. (In this case, the bump-over of the GUI and the parcel quantity buttons wouldn't need to happen, but it's just a mockup so I just worked with the hacked up screenshot I already had rather than grabbing a fresh one.)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/19k4qxn5br4hooj/SpaceTruckinMockup2.png?dl=0
Hyperjump Mod Compatibility
The Hyperjump mod is by far my favourite mod for Starfarer/Starsector/Starblargher; it's just downright fun -- especially the fact that unlike most player-centric mods, the AI can actually use it too, and does so to ruthless effect. The mod is so fun, in fact, that when the mod was updated to [REDACTED BY COMSEC], I was very disappointed and immediately switched the options generously provided to re-enable it for everyone without any unlocking required. Which, unfortunately, produces a conundrum, because it badly breaks the balance of this mod. With the ability to hyperjump up to 9.5 ly on demand for a typical express cargo runner fleet with a sustained-burn level of 19, any package distances that would ordinarily be on the tight side become trivial.
I'd like to request a checkbox that, when enabled, would prorate all distances within a typical hyperjump as being up to 7.5 ly shorter, using the following pseudocode:
If distance < 2.0 ly then
distance = distance
Else if distance < 12.0 ly then
distance = 2.0f + 0.25f * (distance - 2.0f)
Else
distance = 4.5f + (distance - 12f)
This is based on a lot of the logic of the Hyperjump mod, so isn't very easy to explain if you're not familiar with it, but essentially that mod gives you an ability that -- for a massive cost in fuel -- bypasses the intervening distance by accelerating across a light year to massive speed, skipping the middle instantly, and then spending another light year braking. The whole process takes about a half-day of in-game time to cross the entire distance, naturally requiring about 2.0 ly combined to spin up and spin down at high burn speeds. Thus, any distance less than (more or less) 2.0 ly is unavailable for a hyperjump. But because a hyperjump has an effective ceiling of 9.5 ly unless you're using unreliable tricks (like riding a storm or hyperwave), you can't really exceed that jump distance unless you make two (costly) jumps, and because the drive system is unreliable if other ships are nearby (you can't activate a hyperjump if any other ships are near you), you can't exactly rely on being able to make a hyperjump every time, so rather than assuming that any run within 12 ly is 2.0 ly no matter what, the distance needs a bit of fudging -- about 7.5 out of 9.5, by my estimates as a reasonable fudge factor.
Long story short, adding a checkbox to apply the above fudging factors would allow players who have enabled the Hyperjump mod for all ships to have Space Truckin' treat shipping distances with the expectation that the player can use that ability, for about five to ten minutes of work on the scripting end and maybe about 15 on the GUI end. The player could likewise enable the mod even if they keep the mod at the default [REDACTED BY COMSEC] and check the box later once they unlock the ability, if they find that having the ability breaks things.
[Another Edit]
Mission Time Sliders
One more configuration option that would be nice is the ability to configure a percentage multiplier allowed for each given delivery type -- small, medium, large, parcel, expedited, or priority.
This would help also (but not solve) the Hyperjump-for-everyone mod-related problem, too, but would chiefly be useful for tweaking to suit the player's taste for difficulty.
We accept, nay approve, of our own faction trying to abort us as soon as we start the game because only the strong deserve to survive, but enough is enough: