Seagulls are little goofballs!!

weewoo

Does this mod still work ingame ?

@Aggelus
Thanks for the heads up, I'll investigate when I get a chance

Unfortunately it stopped working, the script seems to work without errors, but it doesn't track any grid whatsoever.

Really? That sucks.I wasn't aware of how thin Pertam's atmosphere is. Thank you.

@Grevious_Blaze
From what I understand, the atmosphere is too thin on Pertam. It's difficult or impossible for the Modular Encounters Spawner to find appropriate places to spawn atmo cargo ships

I have noticed a distinct lack of scout ships on Pertam. I've been playing for a few hours now and not one scout ship ever appeared. Haven't tried Triton but it's possible they don't spawn there either

Ok thanks.

@Random Penguin
Pretty sure they're SPRT

Hey, what's the prefix for this faction? (IE IGAT, SEMS, Etc.)

Does the mod still work with the current game version?

@althor
Have you tried making a world with only this mod in it? Does it still crash in the same way?

Hi Lemmiwinks, thanks for this mod. Used it quite some time.

But now it crashes my game nearly each time when the scout spawn and/or drones deploys and/or after the drones had been destroyed.

Unfortunatly unplayable now...

Ahh. My decoys are on the ends of pistons extending from the grid that is being considered a threat. So i guess thats whats happening.

@taukarrie
If the decoy sticks are a separate grid then they likely won't consider them a dangerous target (unless they are reactor powered). The turrets on the attack ships should prioritise targeting the decoys as they fly past. They'll only fly around/shoot direct fire weapons at a grid they've deemed to be a threat so if the threatening grid they're targeting isn't near the your decoy poles, then they'll fly straight past them.

Are these drones too smart for Decoys? Maybe its just me but it seems like they fly right past the decoy sticks Ive got hanging around and aim straight for targets that matter.

Thanks for the answer, I was in doubt about it.

@Aggelus
Hello :). The script running on the main ship will only send attackers against grids. A lone player will not trigger an attacker. I think attack ships that spawn may target both, but I can't quite remember.

Hello friend, a question if the player is alone without any type of vehicle or construction will your mod send an attacker?

@Rover075
Actually you could make the large grid ship spawn just by editing PirateAntennas.sbc and SpawnGroups.sbc in this mod. Reasonably simple changes. It'd just sit there after spawning initially though. There's a few ways you could add aggressive behaviour to it, some pretty simple. If you want to give it a go I can elaborate.

so then i would presume you just cant add the same script (and change a few things) to large grid then and have them spawn along with drones?

ok thanks

@Juan Lopez @Rover 075
I started on a mod with persistent AI factions who deploy cargo ships between factory/mining bases etc. That was going to have heaps more ship/grid types. It became too difficult within the confines of Space Engineers though. A lot of the basic things you need just don't work.

I just can't get into ships/bases magically appearing with no purpose either so it's unlikely I'll be adding anything further to this mod. You're welcome to take the script running on the programmable blocks and apply it to other grids though. You'd just have to rename a couple of things.

can you add large grid ships like destroyers or battleships

please expand this mod to spawn large grid ships like destroyers if possible

@RJ
That's probably a question for Lucas (the author of MES). I recall him mentioning that it would be difficult to spawn planetary cargo ships on planets with a thin atmosphere.

Do you know how to make your mod to work on custom small planets. Keep saying cannot create safe flight path

@FlukeSniper

Interesting, Lucas' Modular Encounters Spawner should only spawn enemy grids/ships within x km of a player (not a player owned grid). The scout has a pretty long broadcast range so if it spawns in then it should have a visible antennae signature.

Did you perhaps have other planetary cargo ship mods installed when you rarely saw it spawn? That can reduce the spawn rate.

I didn't actually know you could be neutral with SPRT. That would quite likely mean that the controlling script would no longer consider you an enemy and would ignore you.

No worries, glad you're getting some benefits out of it :)

@Braul
It should be compatible. Any mods you add with planetary cargo ships will reduce the spawn rate of all other planetary cargo ships. There are more ships for the random spawner to choose from.

@Lemmiwinks
I went into the file location and replaced the frequency amount to lower and higher amounts.

Now let me ask another question which could just scrap this whole conversation....Does the scout spawn at different distances from the characters and im just possibly not seeing it fly over due to distance? For example does it spawn randomly around the planet or within X amount of meters from the characters or stations. This question came to mind when i started multiple games. A few games i was being slaughtered by Magpies for forgetting i completed reactor construction....idiot...and i few games i rarely saw the scout.

Also does your relationship/reputation with the space pirates change any aspects? For example, if im neutral with them does the mod still call in drones to attack or does it just see me and do nothing?

Sorry for the amount of questions.....this mod has just changed the game for us and does it well too.
Thanks

Is this mod compatible with the surface occupation mod? after i installed surface occupation mod I have not seen any scouts, where earlier I would get one maybe every 5 minutes

@FlukeSniper
Glad to hear it's a bit better :)

To clarify, do you mean the spawn rate of the "Wedge Tail Scout"? I'm pretty sure it should just be a matter of reducing the <Frequency>7.0</Frequency> in "PvE Threat\Data\SpawnGroups.sbc" for the SpawnGroup with "<SubtypeId>[PvE Threat] Wedge Tailed Scout</SubtypeId>". Is that what you tried?

If so, did you create a copy of the mod, edit it in that, then add that local mod to your world?

It seems to be working a bit better after the last update. Thank you for the info.
Would you be able to explain the config settings for more or less frequent fly overs? I have tried changing each setting for frequency of the ships. If that is the correct setting to be changing....
But i have changed it to lower and higher and it almost seems to not do anything or the ship never appears. It has been a great edition to my Co-op games and single player games just looking to tweak those flyover times a bit. Thanks.

@FlukeSniper
There also appears to be a problem with far too many drones spawning. Seems there's been a change in how pirate antennae work. Shall look into that.

@FlukeSniper
Thanks :)

The requirement that a grid be powered was broken for a while. Should be working again. This might have impacted the behaviour you were seeing.

So what the script does is:

1. Check if the grid is powered
2. If powered, check if it has any reactors or decoys
2a. If reactors are present, dispatch a strong response to pursue the player
2b. If no reactors/decoys, check if the centre of the offending grid is visible from a camera on the scout

I was unable to check if the reactor itself is powered. This means that even if a disabled reactor is on a powered grid, this will trigger a strong response even if your grid is underground. This doesn't quite line up with the insignificant response you're seeing though. Perhaps it's seeing some other grid near the surface which is still powered? Check the entity list maybe.

@Aggelus
Thanks :)

The issue is that the spawned drones will hone in on the player currently. It would be weird if the presence of a large NPC grid nowhere near the player's base caused the drones to spawn and attack the player. Ideally, they'd shoot at the middle of the actual grid they're targeting but I haven't worked that in yet.

The attack behaviour of the drones (circling etc) is all Sunoko's work. He did very well with it :)

Game changing mod.
But there is something wrong with the Scout's detection abilities. I have tested many bases and such against it and no matter what or where I have built.....he always detects me. I have tried even voxel hands to dig and then completely cover my base back up to cover my tracks up to 5km deep. He always displays the insignificant threat detected or something along those lines. Even if I have thousands of blocks with missle pods.....im always insignificant. I have had seaguls and magpies circle the top of a mountain for hours. I have zero grids within 4km of the surface and I'm literally earthed in. No reactors....no decoys or anything. I have even tested turning off the power completely with no batteries built but still detected. And he flys over like ever 20 mins. Please let me know if there is something I can do on my end. If nothing on my end can be done then I shall hope and wait in my deep drawf mountain fortress for AI tweaks. Thanks

I enjoyed your work.
The more your drones attacking factions besides the players would be more realistic.
The Reaver Script does that, plus the ship's movement, and in my view quite simple.
The script of your drones make a circle around the player which is more realistic, if the Reaver script did something like that would be much more realistic.

@Aggelus

The Wedge Tail will only spawn drones against player grids. It uses a list of common NPC factions from other mods to disregard when it detects an enemy grid.

The drones it spawns will chase the player. It just uses the player location from the RC block (not actually MES). I copied most of the code for this from Sunoko.

I got most of the way through an AI fleet command script but have been distracted of late. The attack movement in combat is still a bit of an issue. There's nothing that works too well for planets thus far.

I am always looking for new Scripts that control the ships more realistically, looking for one that attacks any other faction and that can be adapted to fighters, combat ships or freighters.
Faction wars and what you would like to see in this game.
I use Meridius_IX Script to achieve this effect, but it doesn't allow much attack movement on the ships.

Hello, I tested your MOD and found it interesting how the ships attack the movement and good.
But I have a doubt the script that the drone "[PvEThreat] Ibis" uses only attacks the player or also attacks the ships and bases you find, whether the player or another faction?

Right, so making them disengage/retreat at some point should alleviate some of those issues. I'll see if I swap this mod over to the generic AI fleet script I've been working on which already does that.

That sounds like a fun server :)

#1 Could be tied to the voxel thing aswell

Wow quick response! And your welcome. We love the mod, tho some of those problems are annoying =)

I think 2# wouldnt be an issue if they despawn after a while, But thats where the issue is i think.
If they can see through voxels, then they wouldnt lose intrest in you either unless they have a specific Despawn timer.

We play with limited depth you can dig ( Hollow planet mod. cant recall exact name), so in our case being safe underground aint a problem as you cant expand so far. As we have to go outside our bases to get resources.

We play faction wars with eachother and the main threat of this is while scavanging resources or fighting eachother =)

Thanks for the feedback :)

1# Seems odd, I'll see if I can reproduce that.

2# That is an issue with Space Engineers where projectiles can go through voxels if the hit detection for them happens to occur before they enter the voxel and then not again until they are inside your grid. Possibly solvable by stopping the drones attacking things they can't see but then you're totally safe if you're underground. Unsure if that's the way to go.

3# Yeah, I definitely need to fix this one.

4# Agreed, I'll try integrating the threat score offered by Lucas' MES/NPCPE. That way the response will be limited by the threat the player owned grids pose.

I love the mod and a few of my friends and I have tested this for a while and following *issues* with it.

1# The Scout can sometimes see Through Voxels.
( I dunno exactly what it discovers as we didnt have reactors or Decoys )
Possability that it discovers Following - Battery or Wind turbine? Or perhaps the suits antenna?

2# The spawns like Seagul etc sometimes shoot through voxels, We had our underground base semi destroyed and even sometimes killed us.

3# Spawns dont Despawn or linger to long.

4# Spawn to hard responses in beginning. Often spawn 3-4 ships even if u dont really have anything. This could be solved if A) They either run out of ammo or uranium, or B) Despawn after a while

Yep, it doesn't add anything that spawns in space

This mod adds a scout corvette to planets

So it is pointless for SPACE based stations?

Cool beans, they will run out of power. I didn't give them much uranium and the other with only batteries shouldn't last too long.