MCT v0.12

31.Jul.2015 - MICT_supp4 updated to v0.04

Bugfix.*

* Found a cause of drones being orphaned: seems like some drones glitch out and aren't assigned a script. They're just launched, but no orders are given. Also seems to happen when drones are launched with conservative timings, such as in vanilla, but problem is more pronounced here since station-based drones are launched much more aggressively. Added a routine to check for those drones, and give them orders to dock.

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30.Jul.2015 - MICT_supp2 updated to v0.20

MICT Squadrons should be more responsive when attack/patrol order is given to their squadron commander.
MICT Squadrons should recover all drones when they transit/are transited from IZ to OOZ.

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30.Jul.2015 - MICT_supp4 updated to v0.03

- Launch interval tightened:

• A station-based Defence Officer rated at 5 stars will take only 1 second to acquire a new target and launch drones.
  
• An officer rated at 0 stars will take around 2 minutes to do the same.

- Station-based Defence Officers will try to launch at least:

• 3 drones against fighters,
  
• 7 drones against L-class capital ships,
  
• 19 drones against XL-class capital ships

if their station has enough combat drones.

- Station-based Defence Officers will launch drones only if their stations are equipped with at least 5 combat drones.

- OOZ Drone recovery code slightly optimized.

- Added additional conditions when drones should break off attack and head home. Drones will head home if:

• they do not have a target,
  
• their target is destroyed,
  
• their target is no longer in their superior's zone,
  
• they are ship-based drones, and they are more than 10km from their superior,
  
• they are station-based drones, and they are more than 50km away from their superior.

These precautions shouldn't be necessary, but best be sure.

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29.Jul.2015 - MICT_supp4 is up!

All stations now launch combat drones.

Number of drones launched depends on:

• How many combat drones you have on a station,
  
• the class of the target,
  
• and the skill of the station's defence officer.

A less-experienced defence officer will tend to panic and launch all drones against a target, no matter what the target is. The reflexes of such an officer also won't be very good, and the defence officer can take a long time to acquire and engage targets.

An experienced defence officer will be able to engage multiple targets within the station's radar range, and will calibrate the number of drones sent depending on the severity of the threat, and drone availability in the station.

Only defence officers set to attack enemies will be authorized to launch drones.

More information on the mechanics of station-based drone launching as done in MICT_supp4 available here[forum.egosoft.com].


TIP: I would strongly advise that you stock up on drones. At least 100 combat drones in a station are needed to present a credible deterrent.

note: tested in this supplement is new code that recovers all drones when you move OOZ. This is because the vanilla game does not use any combat drones OOZ, and using them OOZ would throw the balance off. Any reports on any station-based drones that are not recovered after you move OOZ, or any game slow downs aside from what ought to be caused by having possibly hundreds of drones flying at the same time would be greatly appreciated.

If this new code proves to be reliable and not too resource intensive, this will eventually replace the present solution that is accelerated drone docking.

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MCT v0.11:

26.Jul.2015 - MICT_supp2 updated to v0.19

Carrier-based MICT fighters based on Marvin Martian's carriers weren't going on patrol. - FIXED*
Trimmed off some redundant gristle. That goes in the stew pot.

* Screwed up a single do_if condition. Sorry about that. Fixed now. They should also fly in more stable formation around those carriers, and should switch more fluidly between flying in formation around carriers to closing formation to move in patrol, or in attacking.

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26.Jul.2015 - MiscellaneousIZCombatTweaks updated to v0.18

- some drones were still getting orphaned when mother ship makes a large move (jump or warp) while drones are on final approach to dock. - FIXED*
- When using with Marvin Martian's Carrier mod, fighter docking sometimes unreliable when mother ship moves while on approach to dock. - FIXED

* <move_target_points ... /> in move.dockat.drone was getting invalidated by capital ships moving such that the ship's dock is no longer where the game expects it to be, resulting in drones that think that they're safely docked, but actually aren't. This bypasses the whole procedure other than the very first approach to dock. Drones approach their mother ship, then are teleported in. Not nearly as pretty as the vanilla docking procedure, but haven't found any orphaned drones since.

This will not fix drones that are already orphaned.

Fighters docking with carriers were sometimes having the same problem, and the same fix was applied. A serendipitous side-effect is that carriers now recover fighters much faster.

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26.Jul.2015 - Miscellaneous OOZ Combat Tweaks updated to v0.11

Rather drastic rebalancing of OOZ combat:

Turret damage reduced to 0.1 from 1.0

Drone primary damage reduced to 0.035 from 0.35
Drone secondary damage reduced to 0.02 from 0.2

Maneouverability factor (effect that relative speed has on defence) increased to 0.84 from 0.42

Rebalancing is always tricky, and extremely subjective. In this case, fighter survivability OOZ is increased, but they still don't do a whole lot of damage. OOZ combat in general also takes longer since capship-to-capship, capship-to-station, and station-to-capship damage is reduced. Not much is one-shotted anymore, and there should be more time for automated (if/when it comes) and manual response.

Feedback welcome.

MCT v0.10:

25.Jul.2015 - MiscellaneousIZCombatTweaks updated to v0.17

- drones were getting orphaned when parent ship moves while drones are on final approach to dock. - FIXED*

* Working theory is that <move_docking ... /> relies on actual contact with a particular functional area on the dock (or relative to the dock) for the docking maneouver to work. Problem is that MICT ships move a lot so there's a very high likelihood that the ship's dock has moved between the time when a drone initiates docking maneouver, and the time when it finishes said maneouver.

Options to fix are:

have the ship wait until all drones are docked (this has thus far been consistently Egosoft's solution to such problems)
or make the docking procedure faster (a bit hacky, especially when drones are directly observed while docking, but works without impeding capship mobility, particularly important when under fire)


Opted for the second solution. Hurts immersion a bit, but decided that mobility is more important. Besides, if it's good enough for Lucike, it's most certainly good enough for me.

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MICT_supp2 updated to v0.18

- All MICT Squadron subordinates, except for MICT Fighters squadded directly under MICT Capital Ships, now move in formation except when breaking off to attack.*
- Warp to keep up with MICT Squadron restricted to this.zone, and warp threshold increased to 10km from 5km.

* Problem with vanilla squadron movement is that squadron escorts plot a point relative to the lead ship, then move there. If the lead ship is constantly moving (for example, when the lead ship is on patrol), the lead ship would have already moved further by the time that squadron subordinates get to their points, hence they always lag behind. Having them move in formation should improve this. Still doesn't work 100% because capital ships are huge, lumbering things that don't move nor turn on a dime. Fighters escorting capships are excluded to allow for Marvin's carrier-based fighters going on patrol.

Capships use the inverted point guard formation, and maintain the vanilla offset distance of 400 meters.
Fighter squadrons use the x shape forward formation, and tighten their formations to 100 meters.

MCT v0.09:

23.Jul.2015 - MiscellaneousIZCombatTweaks updated to v0.16

In the initial jump/boost/move to targets, ships were pointing toward targets rather than orienting optimal firing vector. - FIXED
Ships were sometimes becoming temporarily unresponsive when their present target gets blown to smithereens while the ship is undergoing a boost maneouver. - FIXED

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23.Jul.2015 - MiscellaneousIZCombatTweaks updated to v0.15

All MICT Ships are now much better at orienting their most damaging side toward targets.
When running Marvin Martian's Carriers mod, and a carrier with deployed fighters is ordered to attack a target in a different zone, carriers will now wait until all fighters dock before jumping/boosting/heading to a jump gate. (Marvin's script. This just calls it now, if the mod is present.)

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22.Jul.2015 - MiscellaneousIZCombatTweaks updated to v0.14

Bugfix: Was jumping facing towards the target regardless of optimal firing angle. - FIXED

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MICT_supp2 updated to v0.17

MICT Fighter Squadrons* now move in very tight formation unless breaking off to engage targets.
Bugfix: Short-ranged squad followers were acquiring targets far beyond radar range. - FIXED (although harmless because they weren't actually engaging those targets until they get within radar range.)

* A MICT Fighter Squadron is a squadron of fighters (m- or s-class) with at least 4-star ratings in all primary skills led by another fighter with a 4+ star pilot.

MCT v0.08

21.Jul.2015 - MICT_supp2 updated to v0.16

MICT Fighters assigned under other MICT fighters were sent to move.die by patrolling individually. - FIXED
Sorry about that.

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MCT v0.07

21.Jul.2015 - MiscellaneousIZCombatTweaks updated to v0.13
MICT_supp2 updated to v0.15

Now compatible with Marvin Martian's Carrier Mod.

Thanks to Marvin for helping make the two mods compatible.

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20.Jul.2015 - MICT_supp2 updated to v0.14

Quick Bugfix - The new squad conditions were not correctly disallowing drones. - FIXED
No evidence that drones were running the script, but this makes sure.

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19.Jul.2015 - MICT_supp2 updated to v0.13

Lucky 13!

non-MICT captains now recognize the effectiveness of their MICT brethren.

• Ships with MICT crews who are escorting ships with non-MICT crews (for example, MICT ships escorting non-MICT traders) now operate according to MICT doctrine.
  
• Fighters (size s, or size m) with pilots rated at at least 4 stars in all primary skills under the command of MICT Captains now operate according to MICT squadron doctrine.
  
• MICT Fighters will acquire and engage their own targets as they come within radar range if their squadron commander has an attack command (active or passive). (Tip: Assign a ship/fighter with long radar range as squadron commander to acquire targets at range, and bring the rest of the swarm within range.)
  
• When separated by more than 5km from the ships that they're escorting, MICT fighters will warp and keep close together.
  
• MICT Ships and Fighters should now face in the same direction that their Squadron Commander is facing after jump/warp/move.

Note that these changes apply to ALL MICT ships! Xenon, pirate, and other NPC fighters will be somewhat more dangerous.

I've been working with BlackRain over the weekend, trying to better integrate MICT_supp2 with WWX, and I picked up a couple of new tricks from that experience that have been incorporated into this update. Thanks to BlackRain and YorrickVander from team World War X for that, and to BlackRain for graciously granting permission to use what I have learned.

MCT v0.06:

MOCT v0.10

Drone usage is taken into account in OOZ combat involving ships and/or stations.

MCT v0.05:

MICT_supp2 v0.12

In celebration of combining MICT and MOCT into the MCT, MICT Squadrons now rock OOZ!

If:

• a MICT Squadron Commander acquires a target and attacks (whether actively via attack command, or passively via attack all enemies or patrol command), or
  
• MICT ships are escorting a civilian ship, and that ship's shields get reduced by a single Joule,

MICT Squadrons will actively seek out enemies and engage according to MICT doctrine.

MICT ships in squadrons will only engage ships detected within their radar range, and will stay within radar range of their Squadron Commander.
MICT Squadrons warping or moving to stay close to their commander tightened and made more reliable. When not engaging, they should try to stay within a kilometer of their Squadron Commander.

Enhanced target acquisition is now also active for MICT Squadrons OOZ:

• Long-ranged MICT ships will only acquire hostile capital ships, and will fight from, and stay at, long range. They will prefer the most dangerous ships that they detect.
  
• Short-ranged MICT ships will close to engage acquired hostile capital ships and fighters. They will prefer ships or fighters that are closer to their Squadron Commander.
  
• MICT squadron ships will individually engage one ship at a time, and will stick with an acquired target until it's destroyed.

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14.Jul.2015 - MICT_supp2 updated to v0.11

• When in-zone, MICT ships escorting non-combat ships will always act aggressively towards hostile targets in the vicinity of the ship that they're escorting.
  
• If separated from their squadron commander by at least 5km, in-zone, and when not engaged in combat, MICT ships will jump to within 1km of their squadron commander.
  
• If separated from their squadron commander by at least 5km, out-of-zone, and when not engaged in combat, MICT ships will warp to within 1km of their squadron commander.
  (NB: If they are multiple sectors away from each other, ships will jump from sector-to-sector and use jump gates as normal.)

MCT v0.04:

13.Jul.2015 - MICT_supp2 updated to v0.10

A slightly better solution to the drone problem:

Drones found running MICT will head home and dock rather than be instantly annihilated.

Affected drones and their mother ship have to be OOZ for this to work. Orphaned drones caused by vanilla or other mods will not be affected by this fix.

NB: This particular drone problem is a rare bug characterized by drones flying in formation with their parent capital ship. (Itself not a bad thing, but I decided to try to fix it before trying to figure out a way to use it.) If you have not observed this behavior, then you were probably not affected by the bug in the first place.

MCT v0.03:

MICT_supp2 v0.09

Found small ships and drones running MICT. Made sure that this does not happen by:

Adding a check to make sure that only capital ships (size l and xl) can run MICT,
Small ships escorting MICT ships found running MICT have their scripts reset to move.escort
Drones escorting MICT ships found running MICT are destroyed OOZ. (Will not work IZ.)

Sorry about this. The added checks should prevent this from happening in the future.