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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Author Topic: [0.9a] Active Gates 0.2.0  (Read 120579 times)

Wispborne

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Re: [0.9a] Active Gates 0.2.0
« Reply #30 on: January 13, 2019, 07:58:48 PM »

Thanks Ballagarraidh for the comment. I agree with a lot of your points.

Looks like the mod index is updated now. Not sure if Toast messaged the mods or they did it on their own, but that one's out of the way.

I don't know anything about changing the AI to use gates, but based on how they don't even avoid deep hyperspace and storms, it seems like that won't be happening any time soon. Easier to just come up with a reason for why nobody else but the player knows the gates are active ;)

Agreed about vanilla-friendliness. I wrote up some ideas for the possible future of the mod on the github page, here: https://github.com/ken-c/Active-Gates/wiki.

tldr of above link:

    Early game: A gate will appear randomly, allowing player to have an exploration staging area
    Mid game: Allow player to jump between a system or two of their choice and the Core
    End game: Player is already god, let them set up some of their own jump gates wherever they want

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MesoTroniK

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Re: [0.9a] Active Gates 0.2.0
« Reply #31 on: January 13, 2019, 09:16:09 PM »

Making AI fleets use the gates isn't really possible. Can only be done using custom fleet AI, which is not really doable except for specific fleets added by and controlled by the same mod. IE impossible for a general use case.

Also I have a request for you Wispborne. Please add a mergeable .csv that can blacklist whatever specific star systems desired to make it so that gates there cannot be jumped to there, and in the future make it impossible to build gates there as well. There will be content later that will requires such a thing, or it would ruin what it is heh :)

If you can do this it would be much appreciated.

Midnight Kitsune

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Re: [0.9a] Active Gates 0.2.0
« Reply #32 on: January 13, 2019, 09:23:08 PM »

Also I have a request for you Wispborne. Please add a mergeable .csv that can blacklist whatever specific star systems desired to make it so that gates there cannot be jumped to there, and in the future make it impossible to build gates there as well. There will be content later that will requires such a thing, or it would ruin what it is heh :)

If you can do this it would be much appreciated.
Yeah, I can see building active, working gates also playing havoc with both the Fleet AI and also possibly creating bugs with certain mods and systems. IE SCY's system for Freeport or Neutrino's hidden system
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Wispborne

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Re: [0.9a] Active Gates 0.2.0
« Reply #33 on: January 13, 2019, 10:31:50 PM »

Quote
Also I have a request for you Wispborne. Please add a mergeable .csv that can blacklist whatever specific star systems desired to make it so that gates there cannot be jumped to there, and in the future make it impossible to build gates there as well. There will be content later that will requires such a thing, or it would ruin what it is heh

Yep, I've made a note to do this in the future.

Basically, have a way for other mods (and vanilla) to leave the gates in a sector untouched by Active Gates.
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Ballagarraidh

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Re: [0.9a] Active Gates 0.2.0
« Reply #34 on: January 14, 2019, 06:34:58 AM »

I've checked your roadmap and plans for the mod and I have a few suggestions and possible answers.

For the midgame event: I suppose it doesn't have to be a trigger and something that the player can take on whenever he feels himself ready, the way I see it, maybe something similar to the already vanilla "shady explorer guy in the bar says something of interest yet dangerous is out there" in one of the already inhabited systems, make it a random "capital" or a particular one, this will deal with those that don't have colonies of their own.

For the lategame event: I suppose when the expeditions to you start to cost 1 million to disrupt, this can be any other cost you deem enough, though this does necessitate colonies still.

Finally, as for a reason why only the player fleet has access, maybe he needs something special to operate the gate haulers, or to actually activate the gates, like a key or ring of power, or in my mind, a special Alpha Core that you can name "Bob" or whatever you feel like. I see opportunities for comedic interactions with "Bob", but also, maybe the other factions' higher ups will hear word of it and they will want it for themselves, so they start placing bounties on your head periodically, the entire faction isn't at open war with you, so the relationship bar is still where it was, this is because the higher ups don't want everyone knowing so they keep it top secret, they wouldn't want every pirate, smuggler and other lower classes trying to compete for it, but they do hire specialists who don't ask questions, thus periodic bounties with no relationship penalty. I read bounties on you is already a vanilla mechanic, but I have no idea how it's implemented, but I think that should work. This can be ideal for some, an okay trade-off for others, and just tedious and troublesome for the rest. Anyway, those are my thoughts, sorry for the long post and good luck!
« Last Edit: January 14, 2019, 08:29:58 AM by Ballagarraidh »
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Wispborne

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Re: [0.9a] Active Gates 0.2.0
« Reply #35 on: January 14, 2019, 10:27:49 AM »

Thanks again for the thoughts.

I'm back and forth on whether to have an artificial trigger on the midgame event. The reason that I'm leaning toward having one is that trekking back and forth is an intentional part of the gameplay, otherwise Alex would have done something like fast travel to avoid it.
If Active Gates is meant to seem like vanilla content, which is what I think we should strive for, then the player should have to feel a little pain from trekking before we give them a gate. This will also make them appreciate the convenience much more.
The other reason to have a trigger is that we can make the event stand out more, seem more urgent, than if it were some ever-present mission. That'll help guarantee that they actually *find* the content instead of ignoring it and trekking forever. And the mission can be easier than if there is no trigger - no need to make the mission itself a progress check.

Experienced players will find a way to trigger the midgame event whenever they want no matter what, so I'm not too worried about them.

I'd like to stay away from assuming that players will always create colonies. What about people doing a bounty hunter playthrough? Having gates will be very helpful to them and let them focus more on the actual combat instead of trekking.

I'm also trying to stay away from scope creep and creating a big mod with conflicts. Already we've started to see concerns raised about mod (vanilla?) conflicts. For example, I'd imaging that changing faction relationships and creating bounties will require special handling to work with Nexerelin. Plus, it starts to get outside the goal of the mod.

It also might be wise to avoid writing too much of my own Starsector lore than could conflict with future official lore. Although that might happen anyway ;)

A way to sidestep the whole issue would be to force secrecy on the player by preventing them from using a gate if there is any other fleet that can detect them on either side (do fleets exist everywhere at once? or just in a radius around the player?). So, the player must go through transponder off and maybe even go dark.

That way, nobody else even knows that the gates are active. And we can give the player the "activation codes" so even if another fleet flew through a gate, nothing would happen. Remember that the games have been silent for 200+ cycles. Nobody is expecting them to activate.

edit: I've implemented many of these ideas in a new mod, Gates Awakened: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16562.0
Changing Active Gates would have been too much, I think; some people like it how it is and wouldn't want the limitations added in Gates Awakened.
« Last Edit: January 22, 2020, 01:52:35 PM by Wispborne »
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Wispborne

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Re: [0.9a] Active Gates 0.2.0
« Reply #36 on: January 14, 2019, 08:12:46 PM »

@MesoTroniK https://github.com/ken-c/Active-Gates/pull/4

I'm still super new to SS modding so it's quite possible I've done something wrong.
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MesoTroniK

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Re: [0.9a] Active Gates 0.2.0
« Reply #37 on: January 15, 2019, 08:52:10 PM »

Looking at the code and the .csv that appears workable :)

Thank you Wispborne, and yea that will allow some secret locations and such things to work as intended in relation to gates there. Also later when you allow building gates as seen on your design document, prevent building them there. But of course, still requires and ideally would get some testing done.
« Last Edit: January 15, 2019, 08:56:14 PM by MesoTroniK »
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runetrantor

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Re: [0.9a] Active Gates 0.2.0
« Reply #38 on: August 04, 2019, 02:01:42 PM »

You mention that a gate activates in the early game? 
Where would that be? Because I started in Sindria and after a while managed to activate theirs, but I have no other to go to yet.

Also, is there any way to see which systems have gates? (That I have found already of course)
Like, I know where some are in the core worlds, but once I enable a couple in the outer areas its gonna be a mess to figure which is which or remember what systems had some I have yet to turn on...

Maybe like how the map marks intel of domain probes and such, we get a 'gate here' intel when we find one?
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lapersonaoval

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Re: [0.9a] Active Gates 0.2.0
« Reply #39 on: August 04, 2019, 03:04:08 PM »

i think gates are an amazing power (!!!) and may requires a very hard work (almost burn our balls) to set them up

pd just learning english so if you focus your attention on wrong gramatics, gross lenguage mistakes or my ugly beerlover face PEASE DON't you are loosing what's really important
 8) 8) 8) :D
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runetrantor

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Re: [0.9a] Active Gates 0.2.0
« Reply #40 on: August 06, 2019, 05:49:55 AM »

Building your own would be swell for reaching your colonies yeah. 
I do wish they had at least a small bit of fuel savings to using them, so repairing them feels more of a priority. Right now its more of a time saving thing.
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Rafs

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Re: [0.9a] Active Gates 0.2.0
« Reply #41 on: August 07, 2019, 07:40:14 PM »

Gona try this mod now, after time and time again of annoying hyperstorm walls and getting slingshoted into wasting fuel with no mod to remove them this is a god send, my opinion and ideas:
Keep the core requirements to Gamma only, it's already a pain to come by Beta and Alpha class cores, like someone suggested make it use less fuel or maybe add another requirement for making a jump, like volatiles or something of the sorts, as someone that likest to explore a lot even late game, exploring some of the outer sectors is a nightmare, and would normally require you to set up an outpost colony just for fueling your exploring needs of fuel, also I think the requirements are a little bit too high taking into account the insane cargo space that you would need to have to even carry all of those materials, also would be good to have a little mark on the map next to systems with active gates, so it's easier to navigate the menu and choose gates.
« Last Edit: August 09, 2019, 03:29:24 PM by Rafs »
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hurrdurrmurrgurr

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Re: [0.9a] Active Gates 0.2.0
« Reply #42 on: August 17, 2019, 03:20:52 AM »

I couldn't find an option in the config so how do I increase the number of gates generated?
As an addendum, I built multiple gates thinking they could get me around the sector quickly for good trading but whenever they're used time passes enough for all the surpluses and deficits to change. Is there an option to remove the passing of time with these, make it a flat teleport?
« Last Edit: August 17, 2019, 05:15:05 AM by hurrdurrmurrgurr »
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Vanjack

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Re: [0.9a] Active Gates 0.2.0
« Reply #43 on: August 23, 2019, 05:21:00 PM »

Why does 1 gate take so much to activate? 2k metal, 500-250 a few other materials like idk how I'm expected to haul this much stuff to every single gate I want to activate. I know I can change the values by manually going into the save files but I hate to do so as not only it feels like cheating myself but it's worse to do so in the middle of a save file as I've done it before and it has badly messed up my saves.
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Philo_sophist

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Re: [0.9a] Active Gates 0.2.0
« Reply #44 on: August 25, 2019, 10:06:08 PM »

Don't know what ppl are complaining about WRT gate reactivation costs, I get a few thousand metal and all the associated other resources just from a 15-20 minute jog around the outer rim. You salvage a few derelicts and domain probes, kill a couple redacted fleets, and maybe a couple survey ships or mining bases with defense drone fleets and you've got hundreds and hundreds of all the necessary resources. One mining base, habitat, or research stations could potentially provide you will everything you need, plus salvage gained from a few fights with drone fleets for the metal.

If anything reactivating a Gate should be an enormous endeavor that should cost way MORE than it currently does.

Also, if you don't always have a couple colossus' or an atlas superfreighter in your fleet to take big bar jobs and haul around tons of cargo, you're doing it wrong. I always aim for a fleet with no less than one atlas and two colossus, if I can't get an atlas quick then I'll build up to 5-6 colossus. With the perks that lower maintenance and fuel costs, plus efficiency overhaul, plus militarized subsystems, it's not expensive to just have them tag along with the main fleet, and you can do long survey runs out on the rim for many systems at a time, picking up so much salvage that you become self-sustainable for a while. I only come back to the core when I'm packing more than 6000 units of cargo.
« Last Edit: August 25, 2019, 10:27:56 PM by Philo_sophist »
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