[Mod] "Simoom's Lantern" - Ultimate Cheat Menu

[Nikola515]

Thanks for info again Would building multiple shipyards solve this problem? Also i think Meilstrom (whatever is called) would be perfect to change speed of shipyards becuse it have no economy and it wouldn't game at all.

[Simoom]

Thanks for info again Would building multiple shipyards solve this problem? Also i think Meilstrom (whatever is called) would be perfect to change speed of shipyards becuse it have no economy and it wouldn't game at all.

Multiple shipyards will create more sinks regardless (all shipyards, large and small, continuously pump out small ships, and in so doing actually use up a lot of end products). Building capital ships just creates an additional sink on top of that.

A shipyard in Maelstrom would be on a 10 to 20 minute countdown, since it's not specified otherwise under the shipyard manager script. But yeah, in the next release of this mod you could technically create new NPC sinks anywhere, such as Maelstrom and Toride.

[pref]

I think this should be decided by stock alone - lets say if the SY has 3x the resources for a randomly chosen ship, it starts the build.
Maybe add a small timer so even with extremely high stocks, the SY wont continuously build - but this counter chould be more like the time it takes to build a ship (few to 10 or so mins with enough cURVs), as then the SY will be available at least half the time even while fully stocked.
Though this could possibly also need some changes in manager AI to alter trade offer amounts.

Imo this should be a separate mod, not part of the cheat one.
It's topic is more economy balance or gameplay changes, hasn't much to do with the functionality of cheat mods.

Decreasing the build timer without the rest changes might make the shipyards even more unaccessible for the player, which is worse then the missing sinks imo.

[Simoom]

I think this should be decided by stock alone - lets say if the SY has 3x the resources for a randomly chosen ship, it starts the build.
Maybe add a small timer so even with extremely high stocks, the SY wont continuously build - but this counter chould be more like the time it takes to build a ship (few to 10 or so mins with enough cURVs), as then the SY will be available at least half the time even while fully stocked.
Though this could possibly also need some changes in manager AI to alter trade offer amounts.

Imo this should be a separate mod, not part of the cheat one.
It's topic is more economy balance or gameplay changes, hasn't much to do with the functionality of cheat mods.

Decreasing the build timer without the rest changes might make the shipyards even more unaccessible for the player, which is worse then the missing sinks imo.

I haven't looked much into altering aiscripts yet, but I'll take a look at how to implement your suggestion once I iron out all the kinks in my main mod.

And yeah you have a point about offering AI tweaks separately. I would prefer to keep modifying game scripts and assets to the minimum for the main cheat mod.

Possibly offer it as an optional supplement when I upload this to Nexus, or yeah as a separate mod altogether. Thanks for the suggestion.

[pref]

Hope you manage to do it sometime, this definitely hurts gameplay since release.

I think its not as complex as it sounds, in trade.shipyard only a check is needed for what wares are on stock before starting the build, and if no build is available, then post/update offers using create_trade_offer instead of building anything.

On second thought the manager should not even be altered at all, only the shiptrader script - and the tradeoffer posting code is already there just the amounts need to be multiplied, and the conditions sorted out for building and posting those offers.

[Simoom]

MAJOR UPDATE 5/1/16:

• [New feature] "Canteran Plot Stations": Detects and spawns any missing Canteran stations that are supposed to be built as a part of the campaign.
  • Only spawns missing stations, if any. Event monitor message if all stations are accounted for.
  • All stations are spawned in a fully-extended state (all modules built). Includes fully-working shipyard with the correct manager script (will auto-build capships).
  • Works on non-campaign game starts. You can effectively make DeVries the same as a campaign start with the press of a single button.
  • Includes integrated fix for the shipyard manager script issue if you are on a campaign save and the shipyard has already been built (the game assigns the incorrect aiscript to this manager because the station is in an incomplete state when 'station init' is signaled. The lack of capship cradles meant the game mistakes the shipyard for a small shipyard, and assigns that aiscript to the manager. Therefore even if you completed the station manually at a later time, it still won't auto-build capships).
• [Improvement] "Summon Stations": Major improvement to script logic. Shipyards are now functional, with working ship dealers. If you turn over a spawned shipyard to an NPC faction, it will effectively create additional economy sink.
• [Improvement] "Change Faction": Major improvement to handling of player-owned station being transfered to NPC faction.
  • Auto add and assign police units, if station is capable of launching drones.
  • If station is a shipyard, order station manager to run the NPC shipyard script (and if it's a capital shipyard, periodically build L/XL ships). Also turn over ownership of any ship dealers on the station.
  • If station is a warehouse-type (HoL Warehouse, Escape Velocity, Plutarch Exchange, or Terracorp HQ), order station manager to run NPC trade station script.
  • Order station manager to run standard NPC station script otherwise (instead of the player station script).
• [Improvement] "Claim Target": If an NPC-owned station is turned over to player control, the script will now assign the proper player-specific script to the manager and defense officer.
• [Improvement] "Upgrade Crew": Major improvement to script logic. If the target is a station capable of ware production, this feature now properly detects any missing production specialists and spawns/assigns them. Event monitor feedback to show you exactly what specialists were deployed. This feature now effectively allows you to maximize the productivity of an NPC station with one click.

[Nikola515]

Nice update I have another request Im not sure if it is possible but anyway.... To add option to summon trading fleet. For example if i have station full of Silicon Wafers or Refined Metals and nobody don't want them. Those ships would buy off everything and sell it (or just jump in Sun like in X3 ). Also is it possible to add comand (restock ship). That fixes ship and adds drones & fuel cells at same time. I noticed you want to add drones opinion so with this it would be easy to use. For example if i board ship i can just fix it and add drones at same time.

[Simoom]

Nice update I have another request Im not sure if it is possible but anyway.... To add option to summon trading fleet. For example if i have station full of Silicon Wafers or Refined Metals and nobody don't want them. Those ships would buy off everything and sell it (or just jump in Sun like in X3 ).

It's possible to do but it's a somewhat long-winded way of going about it (it's probably easier to add a script that simply empties the targeted station of wares and add money into your pocket).

I do feel that may be beyond the scope of this mod, though - if your factories are being overstocked, you are not balancing the economy right, and it's up to you to balance it (at least with this mod you can easily adjust supply and demand if you don't want to bother actually building stations the normal way). You may want to look at the XR Builder 2.0 tool linked in my sig to help you better plan out supply and demand. TIP: You will always have to build some stations manually if you want a perfectly-balanced economy, because the mod currently only offers fully-extended stations, which will always overproduce certain things.

Emptying your factory of wares and then adding money to yourself via a cheat (either by the method I mentioned or by making a fake trade fleet) is essentially just a money cheat, which you can already do with this mod ("Grant Wealth").

Also is it possible to add comand (restock ship). That fixes ship and adds drones & fuel cells at same time. I noticed you want to add drones opinion so with this it would be easy to use. For example if i board ship i can just fix it and add drones at same time.

Safe Word already repairs ship and add drones (only combat drones, Intrepid URV Mk2). The reason it adds only combat drones is because that tends to be the only kind that gets lost (repair and cargo drones are typically not destroyed by combat at all), and if I were to account for the other drone types, the script would get significantly more complex (it needs to evaluate the target's primary purpose - fight, trade, mine, etc. - then evaluate the drone storage, then figure out how much of each drone to add - and even then the script may still add the wrong types, for example if you are using a mining ship to trade, or a trade ship as a miner).

Adding fuel cell is very simple to do, so I'll look into adding that for the next release. I may split off the "Restock ship" function from the "Safe Word" function, since it's grown somewhat beyond Safe Word's intended purpose of being a simple invulnerability toggle.

[Nikola515]

Thanks ill check that out Actually to empty NPC warhouse to create sink for low tech items should work perfectly (for wat im intending)..... Perhaps when it comes to drones you could add something like Heavy Armaments ( MK2 drones and Overrun drones ) ,Light Armaments (MK1 against fighters),Balanced Armaments ( little of everything), Minig and Trading Armaments (or something like that). This way people can choose what their ship is going to be used for..... Im personally just happy that i can add working NPC shipyards in uneverse

Edit: My plan was to add warehouse to DV when i start game and give to NPC. With this i can sell Ore,Gas,Silicon Wafers or Refined Metals. Also i added x4 Energy Matrix in DV for gas sink i noticed uneversal trader ships ( free traders ships ) are buying them(plasma,ion and antimatter cells).Also i added x2 Crystal Supply that im going to need in future and i give them all to RoC NPC .When i make enough money selling low level items i wanted to start building economy. Thats when i want to start adding shipyards for that extra sink. Increase sink baced on my economy Only thing that i want to cheat is extra stations for NPC'S. Add drones after boarding ( i hate doing that) and level up my crew. Everything else i do hard way I just wanted to use this to rebuild DV economy and now i get chance to do it

[Nikola515]

Just got fresh install and i noticed some bugs . After I summon new station (I self destruct CV because NPC dodnt need them) and give it to NPC (RoC) after I leave that sector and come back i cant reclaim them back. I noticed NPC ships managers trading with stations so managers script is working.... Also how do you bring those NPC (plot stations ) ?

[Simoom]

Just got fresh install and i noticed some bugs . After I summon new station (I self destruct CV because NPC dodnt need them) and give it to NPC (RoC) after I leave that sector and come back i cant reclaim them back. I noticed NPC ships managers trading with stations so managers script is working.... Also how do you bring those NPC (plot stations ) ?

Can you describe what you did step by step so I can see if I can reproduce the issue?

You placed a station, blew up the CV, turned over owner (of the station) to NPC faction, then later tried to turn the station back to your control? But it's not handing the station back to you, it's staying under NPC control? Did the event monitor give you any error messages (did it say "Invalid Selection: Station or Ship only")?

For spawning DV plot stations, go to: "Simoom's Magic Tricks" (6) -> "Universe Manipulation" (6) -> "Canteran Plot Stations" (4)

[Nikola515]

Sure.... I used summon station and summoned Cell Fab Matrix (or any station). Than use Manipulate Object and self destruct CV that is attached to it. Change Ownership to RoC (or any other race). Leave sector and come back (jumpdrive will work too). Come back and try claim that same station back to player. Betty wont let me claim station back for some reason.(ill do it again to see what error it is showing).

Edit: Here is pic
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.c ... B0AA4E364/


http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.c ... 429180893/


Also I just discovered another bug. When upgrading crew without anyone in station you will get free crew with 5 starts(I know that is part of mod).....But I noticed that manager didn't have minimum budget on its menu. So I added new manager with add crew cheat and replaced the old one. Now all of new managers keep disappearing after short amount of time ???? I can send you save file if you like

Eidt 2:

Also when I was testing Warehouse and giving it to NPC. It started spawning items out of thin air on its own. But that is probably something Egosoft did

[Simoom]

Sure.... I used summon station and summoned Cell Fab Matrix (or any station). Than use Manipulate Object and self destruct CV that is attached to it. Change Ownership to RoC (or any other race). Leave sector and come back (jumpdrive will work too). Come back and try claim that same station back to player. Betty wont let me claim station back for some reason.(ill do it again to see what error it is showing).

Edit: Here is pic
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.c ... B0AA4E364/


http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.c ... 429180893/

I am not seeing anything wrong in the codes that would imply this particular behavior, but I'll try to reproduce this. Will report back in a minute.

Also I just discovered another bug. When upgrading crew without anyone in station you will get free crew with 5 starts(I know that is part of mod).....But I noticed that manager didn't have minimum budget on its menu. So I added new manager with add crew cheat and replaced the old one. Now all of new managers keep disappearing after short amount of time ???? I can send you save file if you like

I'll try to reproduce this, but the "Upgrade Crew" function should NOT spawn new crews for ships and stations. The only exception are missing production specialists; they are the only ones this feature can potentially spawn.

The purpose of the "Upgrade Crew" function is mainly to upgrade the crew on NPC ships and stations (in case anyone wants to make selected NPC stations and ships more powerful/productive). This saves the player the hassle of having to: Change property ownership to player -> Dismiss old crew -> Hire/Spawn better crew -> Assign new crew to ship/station -> Change property ownership back to NPC. It is not meant to generate new crews on empty ships and stations because:

• For player stations and ships, the player can easily spawn crew with the "Summon Personnel" function.
• For NPC stations and ships... under no circumstances should they be without crew anyway. So the mod is operating under the assumption that all NPC stations have a Manager, a DO, and an Engineer.
• The only exception to the above rule are ownerless ships you can salvage/claim, which is meant to be handled by the "Claim Target" feature of this mod (which does spawn new crew if the target is a ship, but NOT for stations because NPC stations are never ownerless, and always have crew).

You are welcome to post your save game if you like, but it may also be helpful if you can let me know:

1. If this is an old save game that may contain modifications from other mods.
2. What other mods you are running.

Also when I was testing Warehouse and giving it to NPC. It started spawning items out of thin air on its own. But that is probably something Egosoft did

This is normal behavior specified by Egosoft's NPC manager script, "trade.station.tradingstation.xml", for warehouse-type stations.

Edit: Okay, I tested the mod to try and reproduce the issues you described, and was unable to reproduce the symptoms. If I turn over a station to NPC control, I can turn it back to my ownership without a problem (regardless of if it has a CV attached, but that shouldn't have had an effect on it either way).

The "Upgrade Crew" function does not generate any crew for my station either (I created some empty stations by telling all the crew to "Come Back On Board", then issued "Upgrade Crew" on the station), though I did find a small bug in the process of testing this: The mod doesn't spawn any missing specialists for player-owned stations, because the player faction is not a valid expression for actor macro selection under the CharacterDB. I have written a small change to disallow the spawning of specialists by "Upgrade Crew" for player-owned stations entirely, since this is somewhat redundant anyway (players can spawn and assign specialists using "Summon Personnel").

But yeah... there's either something wrong with your save game itself, or there's a conflict with some other mods you have installed. Can you may be try to start a new game and see if the issues persist?

[Nikola515]

I will send you save when i get home. Only mod im using is Player Shipyard from Black Rain..... Also your mod and sidebar that you recommend. Station in question was URV plot station. When you replaced manager did he/she have missing minimum account option station ? Also when i did that i left that zone (transfer some mone to that manager) and after 5m i got message that i need to add new manager. Also this was fresh game that i started last night when i download your mod. Ill try new game too and let you know how it goes.

Edit: It looks like I might have find what was problem when reclaiming. It work only when I click I (info) point on station. Also station was on 0% scanned (if that have something to do with it). Last time I was doing it I let Skunk auto select station. So now when I clicked on I point manually station it actually worked..... Also I sent you PM with save and manager disappearing issue. I hope it helps

[icanfly]

Hi Simoom,

really love your mod. I can feel that you have put much effort into your mod, like yisha talking and the red zone before building a station. Also i really like how you made the structure of your mod, it is all logical and usefull.

The only thing i don't like is your discription here, i don't like your explanation of the functions combining phantasy and scifi. But this is only my opinion and a question of taste and it has nothing to do with the functionality of the great mod in game.

Now to some testing and some maybe bugreports:

1. Taking over an NPC station to yourself makes a bug where all the personal has a ?????????????? and you can not change any options like manager acount and so on. By reloading the game it works fine. I have to say thought that also used other station mods like StationEngineer and populate player stations, so i am not sure if the mentioned mods have a compatibility issue (sorry i did want to look into the dubug log, but its was over 380 MB big, so i gave up, most ot the errors where caused by CES).

2.When you take over a station the police is also changed to owner player but you cannot see them in your property, don't know if this is a feature or a bug.

3. Building a station works fine, and the architect of the construction vessel is responding like he should but the CV does not open up on the sides like it would by building vanilla. Don't know if it is a bug or will cause a bug when repairing.

All of the other stuff seems to be working fine, but i will have to do some more testing. Btw. it's great that your mod is savegame compatible, i am sure many people appreciate that.

Certainly a musthave mod for me, but one has to be cautios not to use it every time, it could take all the fun of the game.

Keep up the good work and if i notice further bugs i will report you

greeting icanfly

[Simoom]

I will send you save when i get home. Only mod im using is Player Shipyard from Black Rain..... Also your mod and sidebar that you recommend. Station in question was URV plot station. When you replaced manager did he/she have missing minimum account option station ? Also when i did that i left that zone (transfer some mone to that manager) and after 5m i got message that i need to add new manager. Also this was fresh game that i started last night when i download your mod. Ill try new game too and let you know how it goes.

Edit: It looks like I might have find what was problem when reclaiming. It work only when I click I (info) point on station. Also station was on 0% scanned (if that have something to do with it). Last time I was doing it I let Skunk auto select station. So now when I clicked on I point manually station it actually worked..... Also I sent you PM with save and manager disappearing issue. I hope it helps

I'll take a look at your save. By the sound of it, it sounds like the game is for some reason treating the manager you assign to it as a temporary NPC, instead of a permanent crew. I am guessing something got messed up when you transferred the station to the NPC faction, and then back again.

About the reclaiming issue, I don't know what you targeted but it might not have been the station (how did you "autotarget" the station with the Skunk? By default, the game does NOT let you target the station itself). The only way you can actually target the station is if you set it as a waypoint, in which case you could click it. But I've tested the claim/change faction feature by selecting the station itself (when waypoint is displayed), an info point, or a surface component (such as a dock or trade dock).

As for player shipyard - I haven't looked at that mod myself, so I can't say if there are any potential conflicts. If it has any sort of built-in routine to auto-generate crew for stations, it can potentially conflict with my mod.

Hi Simoom,

really love your mod. I can feel that you have put much effort into your mod, like yisha talking and the red zone before building a station. Also i really like how you made the structure of your mod, it is all logical and usefull.

The only thing i don't like is your discription here, i don't like your explanation of the functions combining phantasy and scifi. But this is only my opinion and a question of taste and it has nothing to do with the functionality of the great mod in game.

Hey there icanfly, thanks for helping me test the mod. The features have grown too expansive for me to test everything by myself.

Regarding the fantasy-esque backstory, it's meant to be silly. I mean you are running a cheat menu and spawning ships and stations out of the vacuum of space... I could have done it the "boring" way (without any of the dramatic flares), but I feel like XR is already a bit sterile as it is.

Could have gone the route of "You found some strange alien artifact that gave you demi-god-like powers", but that's.... heh, that's already very over-used.

1. Taking over an NPC station to yourself makes a bug where all the personal has a ?????????????? and you can not change any options like manager acount and so on. By reloading the game it works fine. I have to say thought that also used other station mods like StationEngineer and populate player stations, so i am not sure if the mentioned mods have a compatibility issue (sorry i did want to look into the dubug log, but its was over 380 MB big, so i gave up, most ot the errors where caused by CES).

Regarding the NPC station displaying ??? even after being turned over to player control, I noticed this issue and I think it may actually be a simple display bug in the game's menu system (I noticed it was doing this if I spawn a station for myself, then turn the station over to NPC control, then it it back to my control).

Thing is properties you own by default will display full detail (as if the property is already "known" to you, even though if you look inside the save game, there's no "known" flag set). When you turn the property over to the NPC, however, due to the lack of the "known" flag, the game will mask all the details of the station and crew, since suddenly it's an "unknown" station to you.

When the station is then handed back to your control, this is when the game's menu gets confused - it doesn't seem to reset that "unknown" status.

Reloading the game seems to work to force the game to reset the known/unknown status; another workaround I found was to run the "Reveal Stations" command in my mod (which fully unlocks all NPC stations' info) before turning an NPC station over to you. Since the game is already set to fully display all info regardless of ownership, this won't cause the display glitch if ownership is changed to you.

BTW although the display glitch disables the ability to view/comm the station crew under the Detail display, because the Details button is greyed out, the station crew ARE actually working normally as they should. You can confirm this by comming the station normally - pressing "C" when you have it highlighted on the map. You will be given the option to comm any of the station crew and issue orders there. So yeah the script re-assignment is working, just the Details menu glitches out.

I can tinker with it... may be set the station's status to "known" and fully revealed when the script detects a station is turned over to player control, see if this prevents the glitch from happening.

2.When you take over a station the police is also changed to owner player but you cannot see them in your property, don't know if this is a feature or a bug.

This is normal. Police units counts as a valid unit type for stations, but they do not show up under "Units" in the detail menu (it's not displayed for NPC stations either, but ALL NPC stations have them, as part of 'init station' script that's run when an NPC station is created)

3. Building a station works fine, and the architect of the construction vessel is responding like he should but the CV does not open up on the sides like it would by building vanilla. Don't know if it is a bug or will cause a bug when repairing.

This is a simple animation glitch, and I suspect it's because the opening animation only plays when it detects <construct_station> (which never happens). However, if you leave the zone and then return, the CV should open up properly (I noticed that all the CV's spawned by the "Canteran Plot Stations" feature open up properly - but they ONLY play the deploy animation when the player enters the zone. If the player is in-zone at the time the stations are spawned, they are shown as closed).

All of the other stuff seems to be working fine, but i will have to do some more testing. Btw. it's great that your mod is savegame compatible, i am sure many people appreciate that.

Certainly a musthave mod for me, but one has to be cautios not to use it every time, it could take all the fun of the game.

Keep up the good work and if i notice further bugs i will report you

greeting icanfly

Thank you! Look forward to hearing your further thoughts (and bug finds)

[Nikola515]

That station was never switched to NPC. I summoned station to me and i left it as it is. After some time i noticed that manager don't have minimum amount opinion (for money) when checking status of manager. So me being extremely picky i place new manager. After that they start disappearing.

When you come close to station skunk will automatically show its status on monitor/radar. You can see on first image that station was selected and second that there is error. Only when pressing on info point it will change.

Also would you ever considerer to add hot keys for your mod ? For example jump,fix/restock ship,self destroy or summon your own squad to your location would be awesome

Edit: Station crew ??????? bug is actually vanilla bug. I noticed this too but it is not related to this mod. Reloading save will fix this problem as well as leaving zone and coming back ( leaving zone and coming back won't work sometimes).

Edit2: It looks like ???? crew bug wont fix it self after reloading game when turned to NPC. It will only when it is player station.... It seems it is not effecting station function at all (well in my game anyway).

[Simoom]

That station was never switched to NPC. I summoned station to me and i left it as it is. After some time i noticed that manager don't have minimum amount opinion (for money) when checking status of manager. So me being extremely picky i place new manager. After that they start disappearing.

I'll try and reproduce the issue. So this is what you did?

1. Spawned station (Integrative URV Forge). Manager is working fine at this point.
2. Assigned a new manager to it (using "Summon Personnel")
3. Manager started disappearing when you leave zone

Also would you ever considerer to add hot keys for your mod ? For example jump,fix/restock ship,self destroy or summon your own squad to your location would be awesome

I am not that knowledgeable about UI modding, but I think adding hotkeys may be difficult (I haven't seen any other mod add actual hotkey functionality).

But it should be possible to place sidebar shortcuts for certain frequently-used functions.

[Nikola515]

Yep that is what I did..... Also I give it around 5min after leaving area. This happened two times so far. That save that provided is right before second manager disappeared

Actually that wouldn't be bad idea. Add new bar with most used cheats..... Sometime when in battle you just want to call fleet as soon as possible and that would do the trick

[Simoom]

Yep that is what I did..... Also I give it around 5min after leaving area. This happened two times so far. That save that provided is right before second manager disappeared

Actually that wouldn't be bad idea. Add new bar with most used cheats..... Sometime when in battle you just want to call fleet as soon as possible and that would do the trick

Hey there Nikola515,

I just tested it and can confirm that the following issue is indeed present and reproduceable:

• If a station is spawned, the manager that's spawned with the station works fine. However, if a new manager is assigned, he/she will disappear when the player leaves the zone.

I'll look into this. I've encountered a similar issue before (engineers assigned to stations by "Station Engineer" mod kept disappearing). I think the issue is caused by the dynamic non-player NPC spawning system incorrectly targeting crew assigned to stations.