Questions for modding

[sapog662]

Hello What I need to do to increase the many NPC ships in the game?

[walterar]

Ctrl+F12 <img src="'[url]http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//sclerosis.gif[/url] class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':sclerosis:' />

[fluffyfreak]

No that will just spawn, depending on left/right shift keys used, an AI ship trying to kill you, a police ship that's trying to kill you or a missile that will try to kill whatever you have targetted.You probably don't want any of those things.@sapog662Can you explain exactly what you mean?Do you just want their to be more AI/NPC ships in the game?

[sapog662]

My English is not very good, sorry. I would like more ships in space. Good guys and bad. What would the living space.

[fluffyfreak]

You can try to modify the scripts which create the NPC ships but you'll run into the reason there aren't very many and that's simply that the spacestations and landing pads don't have many places for them to dock.This means that when you add more NPC ships they use up all of the docking ports and you can never land anywhere!

[sapog662]

This is beautiful. This means that it will be possible to wait for their turn to land, as in real life. I'm ready. <img src="'[url]http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//spiteful.gif[/url] class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':spiteful:' />

[sapog662]

How I can add in the solar system more planets? Astronomers have since found something beyond Pluto? <img src="'[url]http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//moil.gif[/url] class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':mole:' />

[sapog662]

I would like to hear the answer to this question.

'sapog662' wrote:
This is beautiful. This means that it will be possible to wait for their turn to land, as in real life. I'm ready. <img src="'[url]http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//spiteful.gif[/url] class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':spiteful:' />

[Loki999]

If all docking bays are full, i believe you can just wait and eventually one will be free. Not tried it, when it has happened to me i generally just fly to another system/starport. Best way is to test it yourself and report back.

[sapog662]

Sorry, but I wanted to get an answer on how to increase the number of ships in the game? I am ready for the road traffic jams.

[Brianetta]

The scripts in data/modules control all the missions, and all the ships. You'll need to separately adjust the scripts for each type of ship. I haven't looked of late, but there are at least two types - tradeships and pirates.Always look for the scripts.

[sapog662]

Please tell me where these scripts?

[Loki999]

He told you, in datamodules.So, on my current computer this is located here: D:Gamespioneer-alpha27-win32datamodulesDepends where you installed the game to.Now for example, open TradeShips.lua in a text editor (not notepad, it doesn't handle unix style new lines. Something like NotePad Pro or something else should do fine).Edit the file. If you don't understand LUA or can't figure it out, close the text editor and forget about making this change, you'll not succeed. However, with some perseverance and probably some errors, you may be able to make the required changes.When saving, remember to Save As a regular text file (eg: don't save it as a Word document!!! It won't work then). I'd guess the guys were clever enough so that the game can read text files with windows style CR/LF combos.EDIT: Just had a quick look, you'll be probably wanting to play with the values specified by this bit of the code:num_trade_ships = num_trade_ships + (import_score + export_score) / 2-- reduce based on lawlessnessnum_trade_ships = num_trade_ships * (1 - lawlessness)-- vary by up to twice as many with a bell curve probabilitynum_trade_ships = num_trade_ships * (Engine.rand:Number(0.25, 1) + Engine.rand:Number(0.25, 1))
num_trade_ships = num_trade_ships + (import_score + export_score) / 2-- reduce based on lawlessnessnum_trade_ships = num_trade_ships * (1 - lawlessness)-- vary by up to twice as many with a bell curve probabilitynum_trade_ships = num_trade_ships * (Engine.rand:Number(0.25, 1) + Engine.rand:Number(0.25, 1))

[NeuralKernel]

How crowded can you get an area before you start having performance issues? Totally subjective question, I know... I'm just curious about whether the Pioneer Engine could handle a couple fleets fighting over a Jovian Moon... for example.How close can cities be before you start getting problems?I'll play around a bit, myself... but for a good sampling the more people trying to melt their video cards the better <img src="'[url]http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_biggrin.gif[/url] class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':D' />

[Loki999]

Ok, so was curious and did some playing around. Was on my wife's computer, so graphics and CPU not so hot and turned most graphics settings low.Set the number of ships spawned to 1000... yeah, game really slowed to a crawl. 500, same story.But with 100 it seemed to have no problem. Not that there were not necessarily 100 ships in the system at the same time. Some spawn in hyperspace and appear over time, others spawn docked (as long as there are spaces) and some will hyperspace out when they are done trading.Was testing around Lave/Zaonce as they only have one docking point.Result was ok once i got to the station there were 3+ ships queuing and after some wait got 6 or so lined up.Further playing around and i reduced the wait time on ships finishing and undocking, smaller ships out quickly, larger ones took a few mins (even with a little speed up).Overall, quite fun to see a more lively system.If you'd like to see the result for yourself, back up your TradeShips.lua and replace with this one: [url]http://dl.dropbox.co.../TradeShips.lua[/url]

[Loki999]

PS: If you try this out, docking will be difficult in systems like Lave. In Sol system with its many spaceports though i guess you will have few problems.

[robn]

'NeuralKernel' wrote:
How crowded can you get an area before you start having performance issues? Totally subjective question, I know... I'm just curious about whether the Pioneer Engine could handle a couple fleets fighting over a Jovian Moon... for example.How close can cities be before you start getting problems?I'll play around a bit, myself... but for a good sampling the more people trying to melt their video cards the better <img src="'[url]http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_biggrin.gif[/url] class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':D' />
Melting your video card isn't that much of an issue - we really don't push it very hard <img src="'[url]http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_smile.gif[/url] class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />Its hard to know exactly what the limits are at this point, but they're lower than they could be. For example we recently had a test where about a thousand cargo cannisters were spawned. The physics load hurt performance badly. But they mostly ended up in orbit around the distant star, so we started talking about optimising that particular case - orbits are much easier to calculate rather than physics generally.There's also some stuff where things are suboptimal. For example near planet surfaces we do a lot more collision tests than we probably need to, which slows things down.Please do try weird things out and let us know how it goes! We mostly haven't done much about this sort of thing because our interests are elsewhere right now, but people reporting curiously entertaining issues is kind of fun and motivating <img src="'[url]http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_smile.gif[/url] class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />

[NeuralKernel]

if the engine can handle a lot of semi-stable orbits... Dyson Swarms!!Imagine an extremely advanced Faction that has no planetside territory and actively seeks out Brown Dwarf systems to build huge swarms of Stellar Mining Ships producing exotic matter...or something <img src="'[url]http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_smile.gif[/url] class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />I seem to remember that you could scoop hydrogen from stars in one of the original Elite games...

[Marcel]

Quote:
How close can cities be before you start getting problems?
If you download my hometowns mod [url]http://spacesimcentr...alpha27-modzip/[/url] you can test it and see what your video card can handle. I experienced a performance hit when about five cities were visible at one time. When all the spaceports were enabled Europe became unplayable.

[robn]

'Marcel' wrote:
If you download my hometowns mod [url]http://spacesimcentr...alpha27-modzip/[/url] you can test it and see what your video card can handle. I experienced a performance hit when about five cities were visible at one time. When all the spaceports were enabled Europe became unplayable.
Yep, that's the kind of thing I'm talking about it. Doing crazy things <img src="'[url]http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_smile.gif[/url] class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />From memory that particular one is a collision thing. Lots of cities -> lots of collisions to test for. There might have been some LOD stuff in there too, can't remember. Look at how helpful I'm being!