Personal Rebalance Suggestion for Duffers (Not for 1.3)

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dhague@cfo
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Personal Rebalance Suggestion for Duffers (Not for 1.3)

Post by dhague@cfo »

Being an old duffer myself (slower reactions), I have been trying various changes to the game that will give a duffer a better chance in the "swarm-missions" without decreasing the number of enemies and without too much violence to the spirit of the game. I found two simple changes (given that you can use a CVS editor) that gave me a 'reasonable chance". Thought that I would post them for other duffers.

Change #1: In the UNITS.CVS file, edit the Afterburner_Speed_Governor values for 50% afterburner rather than the 100+% standard value. This greatly reduces the "lottery ping-pong ball box feeling" for the swarm missions. Also this change does seem to make 'good' missile use more important.

Change #2: In the UNITS.CVS file, copy the whole row for 'Shield_4_Level8_Upgrades' and paste it at the bottom of file. In the new row, edit 'Level8" to 'Level8X' in the first three columns. In the new row, go to the Shield_Recharge column and change the value to '2.0' (for example, or maybe more if you need it, 5 is overkill). Now go to the "Upgrades" cell for only the "drayman" row and change it to 'Shield_4_Level8X'. For the drayman escort missions, the drayman will no longer die 10 seconds after you get to the "spawn location'.

Based on my testing experience, you can make these changes after any game save that does not have an 'active pending mission' in it and not lose your campaign status (I could be wrong on this).

Just a suggestion for frustrated duffers, and Cheery Bye :wink:
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Post by Dilloh »

I think those changes are legitim due to the hardness of many missions. If you ever played the original Privateer and compared it with PR, you will have noticed that some PR missions are really heavy.

Changing some missions is a good thing. I think of something like giving Hunter Toth a tuned drayman unit. So you could create a new unit and edit the mission parameters, finally offering the changes for simply downloading.

Sorry if I'm trying to recruit you again :wink: , but I think PR (and VegaStrike) are perfect for modding and individualizing - so why not doing it?
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Post by HeyYou »

Where would one go to edit mission parameters? I have looked around, and searched on various terms, but, they seem to be hiding from me. (quite effectively at that....)
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Post by Dilloh »

I meant to alter the mission parameters by changing the units parameters, not by changing the mission itself. Sorry, my fault.
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Post by HeyYou »

Damn. Anyone got a clue on this?

Where are mission parameters stored at?
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Post by dhague@cfo »

HeyYou wrote:Where would one go to edit mission parameters? I have looked around, and searched on various terms, but, they seem to be hiding from me. (quite effectively at that....)
Look in the modules directory for the "campaigns.py" file. It helps if you download and use the 'open-free' Python Idle editor. The first section in the file lists the 'fixer text' for each mission. It is followed by a second section for each mission that lists the mission parameters (spawn inputs, etc). I have been guessing at some of the structure. Make sure you have a complete backup before you try any changes, I suspect that making certain errors could wipe the game not to mention your campaign progress. It looks like you could change enemies ship/count for a mission without too much risk. Don't mess with the mission linkages.

Either way good luck and Cheery Bye
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Post by HeyYou »

AH HA!!! Thank you, dhague@cfo, I had looked in there, but, it would seem, not far enough. Found the info, gonna have a go at it.
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Re: Personal Rebalance Suggestion for Duffers (Not for 1.3)

Post by dhague@cfo »

dhague@cfo wrote:Being an old duffer myself (slower reactions), I have been trying various changes to the game that will give a duffer a better chance in the "swarm-missions" without decreasing the number of enemies and without too much violence to the spirit of the game. I found two simple changes (given that you can use a CVS editor) that gave me a 'reasonable chance". Thought that I would post them for other duffers.

Change #1: In the UNITS.CVS file, edit the Afterburner_Speed_Governor values for 50% afterburner rather than the 100+% standard value. This greatly reduces the "lottery ping-pong ball box feeling" for the swarm missions. Also this change does seem to make 'good' missile use more important.

Change #2: In the UNITS.CVS file, copy the whole row for 'Shield_4_Level8_Upgrades' and paste it at the bottom of file. In the new row, edit 'Level8" to 'Level8X' in the first three columns. In the new row, go to the Shield_Recharge column and change the value to '2.0' (for example, or maybe more if you need it, 5 is overkill). Now go to the "Upgrades" cell for only the "drayman" row and change it to 'Shield_4_Level8X'. For the drayman escort missions, the drayman will no longer die 10 seconds after you get to the "spawn location'.

Based on my testing experience, you can make these changes after any game save that does not have an 'active pending mission' in it and not lose your campaign status (I could be wrong on this).

Just a suggestion for frustrated duffers, and Cheery Bye :wink:

Just an update/suggestion with regard to the Palan missions. IMO, it meets the spirit of the game if a 'corporate war' between mercenaries does NOT ruin your reputation with the mercenary guild if you win (just if you lose!). The following mod suggestion will correct the default game situation. Just modify the file \modules\campaigns.py to replace the standard "murphy-finish" module with:

MurphyFinish.Init(priv,
[InSystemCondition("Gemini/Palan","Basra")],
murphyfinish,
MURPHY_SPRITE,
GoToSubnode(0,ChangeSystemOwner("Gemini/Palan","merchant",AddCredits(15000,ClearFactionRecord('hunter',1.0,ClearFactionRecord('merchant',1.0))))),
None,
[MonkhouseMission1])


With this change, if you finish the Palan missions, your 'hunter/merchant relationship' will be set to +100%(the merchant relationship also goes down if you kill a bunch of hunters but not by as much) The confed relationship will still take about a 1% hit for each hunter that you killed, but the Kilrathi targets that show up when you pick up Monkhouse will be enough to take confed relationship back to 100%. I have tested this and it works just fine.

Cheery Bye to the rest of you duffers. :wink:
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Post by Dilloh »

Still I think that hunters MUST hate you after you ran the blockade. You killed several dozens of them! Even if you include the illegality of their actions, I don't think that the guild should be your personal fanclub after that slaughter.

With the merchants, it's okay, because they should be happy to have open trading routes again.
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Post by HeyYou »

I was under the impression that there were TWO different factions of hunters involved in this dispute, is that Not the case?
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Counterpoint

Post by dhague@cfo »

Dilloh wrote:Still I think that hunters MUST hate you after you ran the blockade. You killed several dozens of them! Even if you include the illegality of their actions, I don't think that the guild should be your personal fanclub after that slaughter.

With the merchants, it's okay, because they should be happy to have open trading routes again.
Dilloh, I concede that this is a crude 'fix' but I would argue that the real problem is with the 'relationship mechanism'. The default hunter relationship appears to be 'one=red anywhere than all=red everywhere'. Using Lynch-#2 as an example, you are ambushed by Kroiz and hunters (automatically set to red). Even if you afterburn around them without firing a shot (ie. no kills by you), all hunters in other systems are now 'red' until you kill 6-10 pirates/retros/kilrathi. IMO, this seems equally unreasonable. Remember that the full title of hunters is 'bounty hunters' (not confed marshalls!). IMO, the best fix would be if 'hunter-red' was localized to the adjacent systems to where the 'hunter-sin' occured with a time-decay factor (equivalent to 'Get Out of Dodge' for a while) but I don't know how to do that.

The RF Mensch mission uses the 'unknown' faction as the ambush enemy. Perhaps, an alternative 'better' fix would be to use 'unknown' as the faction declaration for all 'hired-hunter/assassin' enemies in the ambush missions. Just a different opinion.

Cheery Bye
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Post by dhague@cfo »

HeyYou wrote:I was under the impression that there were TWO different factions of hunters involved in this dispute, is that Not the case?
It is not the case, your faction remains 'privateer' with the default enemy faction being 'hunter'. Note that your two wingmen in Palan-3 are actually faction 'militia'.

Cheery Bye
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Post by Dilloh »

Agreed. I also noticed that campaign hunters hate you just for appearing. But several "guild offices" would cause confusion - I favor the "unknown faction" concept.
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Post by HeyYou »

dhague@cfo wrote:
HeyYou wrote:I was under the impression that there were TWO different factions of hunters involved in this dispute, is that Not the case?
It is not the case, your faction remains 'privateer' with the default enemy faction being 'hunter'. Note that your two wingmen in Palan-3 are actually faction 'militia'.

Cheery Bye
I see. I found the Wingmen somewhat useless though. They were quickly dispatched by the kilrathi that spawed as soon as I undocked. There were NO other ships around to help, so, they got killed. On another occasion, there were a couple hunters in the area, same result. After the third? reload, trying to actually get to the mission area with my wingmen, they simply did not show up. Hhhmmm.
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Post by Dilloh »

Again, this is a bug. While foes are generated when you launch, this special mission might generate your wingmen when you take the mission. Saving and loading means clearing the are again, so they're gone.

Btw, I remember that the militia talons were quite useful in the original Privateer, cus all foes ignored them and they didn't appear anywhere else than the battlefield.
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Post by dhague@cfo »

Dilloh wrote:Agreed. I also noticed that campaign hunters hate you just for appearing. But several "guild offices" would cause confusion - I favor the "unknown faction" concept.
Dilloh, I just ran the basic campaign with the file campaigns.py modded to make the "hunter-enemies" into faction "unknown" on the appropriate missions. I did include a 'FactionRelation" command on each mission in case that particular status did not carry over between missions. Looks like it worked perfectly. I was even able to avoid killing the innocent hunters randomly spawned at the battle sites. One footnote on the original campaigns.py, it appears that the final Masterson 'talk' sets your hunter relationship to lousy (evidently to set you up for the Palan missions).

Cheery Bye :)
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Post by Dilloh »

Great, now you have done what you tried to avoid. You modded. So if you post your packed py-files here, in the PU thread or into the MOD-Download-threat, you could share your work with others and it would be an act of about two minutes. Agreed?
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reply retry

Post by dhague@cfo »

Dilloh wrote:Agreed. I also noticed that campaign hunters hate you just for appearing. But several "guild offices" would cause confusion - I favor the "unknown faction" concept.
Dilloh, I went ahead and modded the campaigns.py file to substitute 'unknown' faction for all 'hunter' faction ambushes. I included a "AdjustRelation('unknown','privateer',-2)" command in the script line for that mission just in case the relationship parameters did not carry over between missions. I have run the complete basic campaign with this mod and it appear to work fine. I was even able to wipe out the "Palan ambush hunters" without taking out one of the randomly-generated innocent hunters that was close by.

Cheery Bye :)
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Post by micheal_andreas_stahl »

Cool, can you send me the 'thing' that i may use it? Oh Thilo, i have the 1.0 master parts list now.
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Post by Dilloh »

Better post it here before everyone comes around and asks for it. I'd like to take a look at it too :wink: .

Your idea is as simple as it sounds. I've tried to get the clue with the py files for myself and I'm glad that I understood how most things work. I was able to wipe out a bug concerning in the PU file by doing so (at least I think so). Thanks for the beta, I think your file is now ready to be posted as a stand-alone patch, please add a description what exactly it does.

If anybody else made changes like those, please share them with others. Adds a lot of variety to Privateer Remake :D

Andy, could you send the file in an E-Mail? Thx!
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Post by dhague@cfo »

Dilloh wrote:Better post it here before everyone comes around and asks for it. I'd like to take a look at it too :wink: .

Your idea is as simple as it sounds. I've tried to get the clue with the py files for myself and I'm glad that I understood how most things work. I was able to wipe out a bug concerning in the PU file by doing so (at least I think so). Thanks for the beta, I think your file is now ready to be posted as a stand-alone patch, please add a description what exactly it does.

If anybody else made changes like those, please share them with others. Adds a lot of variety to Privateer Remake :D

Andy, could you send the file in an E-Mail? Thx!


OK Dilloh, here you are. A sample of the change is given below:

MakeMission(priv, # Creates any type of mission
None, # Campaign, sprite
[InSystemCondition("Gemini/Oxford","Oxford")], # Where fixer meets you to start the mission
[InSystemCondition("Gemini/Oxford","oxford")], # Where the mission ends.
AddCredits(10000,AdjustRelation('unknown','privateer',-2)), # Script to add your credits
None, # Script to be run to start the mission (usually None if you don't have a script. Do NOT load an ambush mission here.)
'escort_local',('unknown',0,3,1,3000,0,True,'merchant',(),priv.name+"_mission",'','demon','','drayman',[("Those books go in my hold or up in flames",False,"campaign/BooksM.wav")]), # Mission arguments.
priv.name+"_mission", # Script to be set on completion. -1=Failure, 0=Not Accepted, 1=Succeed, 2=In progress
masterson3, # Dictionary containing what the fixer says.
None, # If you reject the mission twice. "None" means that he continues asking you forever until you accept
CampaignEndNode(priv), # If you lose the mission
MastersonMission4, # If you win the mission. Usually points to the next mission
MastersonMission3) # The current mission node.

This is an extract of the modded mission statement for Oxford #3. If compared to the original, you can spot the two changed locations.

The complete modded campaign.py file is attached. Please note that I have used it through the basic campaign but not the Righteous Fire or Bonus campaigns(there could be a typo on them). It has three other changes that I have not mentioned previously. You may or may not like them but I think that they are fair. Since Lynch is a 'reputation fixer', he should owe you for saving his cousin (besides it sets you up for trusting him prior to the Miggs ambush). With successfull completion of Lynch #3,Lynch will fix your Confed rep in his talk for Lynch #4. The second change is in the final Masterson talk where I removed the command that set your hunter relation to 'bad' (no longer needed). The third change is in the RF Mensch mission. IMO, he should not have 4ea BoostedStelteks and I changed him to 4ea MassStelteks.

Cheery Bye
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Post by Dilloh »

Okay, if anybody tried this variant with RF and bonus campaign, please post your experiences. Thx to dhague!
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Post by dhague@cfo »

Dilloh wrote:Okay, if anybody tried this variant with RF and bonus campaign, please post your experiences. Thx to dhague!
OK Dilloh, I finished off the RF campaign portion of my mod and it worked ok. I did not mod the bonus campaigns so they should be OK.

Cheery Bye for a while (Medieval 2 Total War should be showing up in the mail for me shortly)
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Post by micheal_andreas_stahl »

dhague@cfo wrote:Cheery Bye for a while (Medieval 2 Total War should be showing up in the mail for me shortly)
Image

Medieval Total War 2. What's it like? Think i have heard of it. Played the first one and loved it.
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Post by Dilloh »

The bonus campaign shouldn't contain any hunters, as far as I can say from the branches I played yet. Still, sticking to the AWACS faction heavily damaged my reputation with the authorities, but that was in 1.1, I don't know if it is still like that. But this is definitively okay, because you become a traitor when you hook up with them.

Your worked very fast and accurate on this thing. Your skills might be of further help. If you like, take a look at the Parallel Universe MOD thread, we are currently encountering problems with new implemented ships there.

Thanks for your work!
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