X3 - Terran Conflict - Questions for Intermediates

[Spikey00]

I've been thinking about:
a) M3 Nova Vanguards (too late, already bought four of them and outfitted; Sentinels don't seem to be any better...),
b) M3 Falcon Haulers (though I missed their shield part apparently?),
c) M4 Solanos (apparently near equiv. of many M3 fighters, and cheap too).

For my carrier--I don't have very much to spend, and I'm leaning towards a few Solanos to be put into the carrier, at least temporarily.  I'm not really one to use missiles (I haven't yet actually), so would they be the best choice for me?  I don't want to be replacing craft too often, and their 75MJ shielding is quite adequate for both survivability and the entertaining aspect.  I'll see them in-game today, and see if that's where I want to go for.  Do they also work well OOS (ie. does the game for some reason take into account that it's an M4, or does it only calculate the ship stats, not class)?  Let's say pirates have been trolling me recently, and I've lost four TS ships at my complex...


For the Kestrals, I heard ships often crash into objects when their speeds are over 500m/s--I'm assuming it's wise to obide by these words of wisdom? 

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Seems that I was freezing very hard in Cloudbase [Southeast?] where there was red "fog/dust" (though may not be the cause of it).  Is there anything that I can do to remedy this (I have all details set to low excluding AA/AF; 2x/8x respectively)?

[Lancefighter]

Fighters -
a) nova v. Good ship, easier to get en mass then the solano, except more expensive (iirc). again, L version has all you need in a fighter. Slower and less maneuverable, but much bigger guns to make up for it. Better missile selection if you need those
b) falcon haulers make excellent cargo ships.. XL cargo and a good deal of it. Not sure why you would use them in combat over the falcon sentinel. Sentinel has 1x 200mj shield...
c) solanos are easy to buy and fit (the L version contains PRGs, otherwise hard to get off the market). They have m4 maneuverability and speed with m3 shields, rather survivable. Pain in the ass to upgrade rudder and engines.

novas and solanos are both good choices, with the main difference being prg vs hept, (although some prg fit novas anyway).. The rear turret makes a small difference if missiles are being thrown around, and of course the lack of proper eq-dock in legends home. This makes sense later when you 'get' to fit 30 solanos with engine/rudder.. one by one..

OOS: Combat takes into account guns and shields, and to a slightly different extent, turrets.. Solanos will do fine.

A codea carrier with a wing of a dozen or so solanos could probably easily take care of minor pirate problems in a single system. Of course, be sure they dont decide to suicide themselves into a galleon or something..

Kestrals are fine OOS (no collisions), and generally as long as they are set in the recon hangar they stay out of the way of things. Its nice to have the extended view range when you are trying to find stations in a system like er.. the teladi one that has 'vault' in it? egh cant remember

Crashing issues I cant particularly help with. All i can say is avoid the system - cloudbase southeast, while being a weapons hub... has no clouds.
Southwest, over by the paranids, i think has clouds.. no real point being in that system imo. 

[Spikey00]

What triggers shipyards to produce M/L ships?  I never figured it out beyond waiting it out; funny how questions like these always slip my mind while posting here...

Actually, what and when do the recon Kestrals do?  I've assigned them to the hanger, and so far they've been in staying there through multiple sectors.  I'm assuming they will pop out when I don't have information in a [new?] sector, but I want to be sure about the circumstances.

I'm also a bit scared about my frigate crashing into my craft--when the ship makes physical contact with one of mine, do they instantly dock/magic itself, or is it destroyed?  Heh, I know that enemy ships don't, since I've developed the blatant tactic of ramming into every other ship that has less shields.


Thanks for all the help again!

[Lancefighter]

m/l ships are purely a random event - just gotta be lucky and check back often. Of note, I've never seen a shipyard switch between sizes available while your in sector..

if you have them setup right, the kestrals should be flying at about 40k away from your carrier, keeping distance n/s/e/w.. you sure they have pilots and are clear for launch?

also, i havent had any problems with the fighters hitting my panther.. CODEA has a combat landing teleport feature of some sort that i /think/ comes into play somewhere on the docking run (basically just teleports the fighter back inside the hangar if you have the right equip)
if it does actually crash, which again, I havent seen on docking runs, then yeah itd blow up (unless CODEA turns off collision detection for docking, again i havent a clue)

where is the panthers docking bays? front? back? i forgot >.<

carriers with rear-docking work best, the carrier can be moving forward and it works a lot better... side- and front-docking work okish just because the carrier is moving tangentially to the fighters.. think about a modern carrier - fighters are deployed and recovered along the same axis of movement.
In x3, I like side-deployment, as it kicks the fighter away from the movement the carrier is doing, but i still like the rear-docking..

[Spikey00]

I'm quite certain that I provided the Kestrals with pilots/equipment (else I couldn't assign them to the hanger), though I'll check again to see if there is anything else that might be the problem.  

I believe the docking bay is at the back, though the craft sometimes emerge from the top/front bays when you launch them.  The situation I had in mind was not during normal docking procedures (though I have provided all the craft with transporter/docking modules) but when I'm using the Panther to ram enemy ships [and/or stations apparently].  I don't think I have had a fighter crash into me yet, but I was hoping for something to prevent it from occurring.

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On capping fighters (since I'm in queue still of training 30+ marines and very later using an M7M for the boarding pods), I was planning on using an Eclipse with Ion Disruptors on station defense missions, but I wish to understand what elements affect what the game spawns at you besides the mission difficulty (ie. your fighting rank, ship you're in, etc.)?

Actually, I understand that depending on the mission difficulty, that the game may or may not consider your owned ships within that sector/distance around you.  If I had the Panther with me, while I was in the Eclipse, would it be of any difference if I was in my Panther instead (ie. will it spam destroyers at me instead of fighters and occasional M6s)?  

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EDIT:

I forgot to ask this:  how do pilots actually gain experience for CODEA?  It indicates here that:

The promotion of a pilot depends on his overall time of duty, his kills and the class of ship he is flying. On ships of class M3, M4, M5 an M8 a pilot can be promoted up to the rank of a Lieutenant. On ships of class TS, TP, TM and M6 up to the rank of a Commander and on ships of class M7 up to Captain.

I've put pilots in my Mithral TS ships, so do they automatically gain experience when they are in there, or how would I have them gaining experience?

Uh... actually, I notice that in the new thread version for CODEA that there's an option to train pilots.  I'll have a look into that.

[Lancefighter]

gah codea requires a good bit of fiddling with really, never could get it to do some things right (my fighters insisted on shooting a bigship i was trying to capture in one instance.. i had it set to ignore them.. egh)

eclipse with iond? are you trying to capture various pirate m6s? (iirc thats all you get from station defense)
Other than that, it depends on the mission difficulty. easy missions only care about fight rank, medium are influenced by your ship, hard by any ship in sector, and very hard are all player owned ships. I think. Gazz... i think.. wrote up an excellent article on how the MD spawns ships. Id find it if i had any clue where to begin looking. (no maybe not gazz, he hasnt it linked on his website..)
anyway, it basically goes over the 'tokens' a mission gets to spawn ships and how they can be affected by the difficulty and player's ships.

I dont think it would make a difference as you say 'spamming destroyers', but it would influence the number of m6s on the field.. (then again, parking a panther in front of a gate is a good way to kill pretty much any m6..)

the pilots and all, yeah i usually just recruit them at recruit.. er whatever the lowest level is.. I've never actually gotten a large enough fleet to move anyone out of fighters.

[eRe4s3r]

To be honest, Codea is like solving 1 leak in the roof with a hammer and a bulldozer - and then wondering why you can't find the building nor the roof you tried to repair in the debris.

If you want to simplify your fleet management CODEA is the wrong script. It does exactly the opposite, makes you manage more, for less gain.

[Lancefighter]

 
 codea solves the issue of giving orders to a fleet to make them patrol. Excellent at saturating the air with fighters that are shooting all the other fighters.

Of course.

Not everyone like fighter saturation at max :p

[Spikey00]

Would any of you know of any mods or scripts that can automate trading significantly (mostly for player-owned factories)?  Precisely, but not necessary (but should include many of these):
- Traders are automatically bought when necessary,
- They auto-assign themselves work,
- Trade efficiently,
- Obtain necessary upgrades by themselves (ie. engine/drones/jump drives) safely,
OR
- Any factory scripts that automagically works with some of the features above.

I'm slightly getting tired of having to buy a whole bunch of new traders and factory peons, equip them all, ensure they have all the necessary equipment, set homebase or MK3, and later receive a message about their timely demise.  I would like it if there was something that could automate most of this, because it's discouraging me from having a large trading fleet (too much macro).


Thanks!

[Lancefighter]

uh well.. someone wrote a 'headquarters' management script that did that stuff.

But er

CAG, commercial agents, will do everything else. EST, economy supply traders might work for your mk3s..

uh actually, I'm not sure if CAGs buy their own JD (universe traders will at level 12)
for the record, this is why I absolutely hate a) stations that require ships to sell stuff, and b)universe traders.

My first station is ALWAYS a self-sufficient one of some sort, if only a SSP loop. A booze/weedplex would be best, as they are fairly easy to make self-sufficient, and make pure profits. just dont build it in a race sector..

[Spikey00]

I'm assuming CAG refers to this script?

I've been taking a look at that for a while, but I'm having trouble in understanding what advantage does it really have over ST/UT vanilla traders, and the homebased "sell/buy wares at best price".  Does it offer more automation, or...

[Lancefighter]

yeah, that one
it ismore automated, it will buy/sell wares depending on what the station needs, and uses jumpdrive.. Its a replacement for best buy/sell commands really.
It should be coming to the bonus pack soon..

[Spikey00]

I'll try both EST and CAG--wasn't exactly sure if they were a *significant change from vanilla traders, though it is bothersome in fitting them with MK3 trade and everything.

Thanks again.

[Spikey00]

Boy, has it been quite a while since my last reply here...  I've been a bit busy here, though still have some time for X3 here and there. 

I have a question about the convenience about building complexes:  at the moment, I'm doing this manually OOS with the assistance of a script by the name of "Complex Cleaner" with a Mammoth, but it's been a hassle because I still have to a) bring up command for jump to, b) scroll the galaxy map, c) dock at shipyard, c) exit menu, d) select shipyard, e) bring up the trade menu, etc etc.  I'm at the desire for something less demanding of the macro--is there such a plugin which will perhaps handle the purpose for easing my fingers? 

Lastly, "Complex Cleaner" unfortunately does not automatically join factories together with construction kits (it consolidates them together into bunches), and from my knowledge you cannot join them OOS to prevent the camera from providing a beautiful revolving viewpoint at your wonderful, new creation.  Would you happen to know of any script that can join factories non-painfully?


Thanks Lancefighter (and I hope you're well)!

[Lancefighter]

hey whats up :p

there was a script in x3r that you could tell it what factories you wanted and it would build them for you, but I've long since forgotten what it was, and i havent played x3tc in forever >.<

your best option, in my opinion, is just to use the freight distribution nodes (FDN). Those wont actually connect your factories with CCKs (its impossible via script), but it will 'fake' that kindaish. It basically just transports wares between all station in the sector. removes a very good deal of micromanagement, but requires slightly more resources to start up it all (because resources arent directly shared, it keeps each factory pretty full)

the problem with the beautiful stationcam is that the station is actually created dring that scene. You need to play that scene for the game engine to link the stations or make a mine.. annoying as hell.