KM 2015/Multiplayer Madness

[Tethys]

Most of the dev work is being done on the FB group, and I have not really thought about where we will be posting the updates. I suppose we will cross that bridge commander when we get to it ;)

Right now I have a number of alpha testers who are helping test the newly balanced ships, and one guy working on adding new ships and replacing others. 90% sure I will be posting the releases to this forum, but you are more than welcome to join the group if you want alpha access to the content, rather than beta.

If Defiant would like to chime in, perhaps when KM 2015 is completed (by then it could be 2016 though lol) he could host it on his site. It shouldnt take too terribly long to rebalance what ships we are going to keep (while adding the new ones)

[Tethys]

Quick update. I am 75% finished with the ship rebalance. All that remains is small auxiliary craft, minor ships, and adjusting any ship stats that may still be unbalanced. By rebalance, of course I mean balanced using as much canon material as possible. Heavily influenced by sites like Memory-Alpha and Ex Astris, and some of the ship stats also came from DITL a non-canon site, but it is a "best guess" site in all honesty, and still additional stats from sites like Eaves Dropping, Drex Files, and Memory-Beta (which is similar to Memory-Alpha but also contains quasi-canon licensed ST works, such as games, books, tech manuals, and etc). I tried to use as much canon as I could in the amount of time I could, so please forgive me if I have missed anything, please bring that to my attention if/when you play the mod and/or find the misbalances. Im going to be giving the closed alpha a thorough testing over multiplayer with a few of my guys in the coming days, so hopefully I can have a public alpha download available for everyone early next week. After that comes the fun part, importing the newly added ships into Multiplayer, and adding Retro patch to KM that adds a lot of ships for QB and Multiplayer from ENT, TOS, and TMP eras. So far I have not encountered many bugs, mostly inherent BC instability that requires someone with more knowledge to fix than I possess, but alas possible legal issues arise toward that route as I have been told.

In addition to this, Defiant has said he will host KM 2015 on the bckobayashimaru website. However, I would like it to be a finished project, so anything alpha or beta will be found here, on the BC Modding Facebook and BC Modding forum webpage (found below)

Also, if anyone is interested, a friend of mine created a BC Modding forum as part of his web hosting, -=USF=- also has an Embassy located on BC Modding as a temporary form of political contact with other fleets out there. http://bcmodding.clanwebsite.com/

Thanks,
Tethys

[Defiant]

Is there an action that let you reproduce a crash?

[Tethys]

There is one that I can reproduce. When I host a multiplayer game, if I press Escape and try to disconnect without exiting the game (as if I were going to the BC client server list and search for a game) the game will hang up and say "STBC.exe has stopped working" in a popup dialog box. The other happened in game when I fired on a cloaked Defiant class after scanning with a Galaxy class and finding the "blip" but could not reproduce that one, which is why I am thinking its something that cannot be fixed.

[Tethys]

It's been far too long without some updates. May make another video in a day or so, I added some more things today that needed to be added.

[FekLeyr Targ]

This looks very promising.

[Tethys]

So, I have been working diligently for the last week and a half building a Shield Inversion button in the Science menu that will eventually be for use on Warbirds only (ah, another Armada tribute...) and after many unsuccessful tests I an happy to announce that I have successfully altered a NPC target shields percentage with a menu button in MP.

This button uses many different pieces of code from many different mods, and due to that fact I cannot simply paste the code here for people to cut and paste into a py file. I took some code from Transporter.py by Defiant/Banbury and BoostShields.py by the BCS team, and maybe a line or 2 from the Marines.py mod so far.

What I have left to do is insert the checks for Warbird scripts (which I will need to take from Sneakers CoreEject.py) but I am having trouble figuring out where to put said checks. My end goal is to have a Special Options menu in Science that will allow many different ship specific abilities to be triggered with the push of a button (with cooldown times and battery drains of course, as with everything, balance is being considered). Setting these Special Options buttons to pButtonName.SetNotVisible() if not (Warbird)...etc, so when you choose the Warbird, only Warbird allowable abilities are SetVisible() in the menu, and abilities for other ships remain SetNotVisible(). Do I need to build a new Def for the Warbird check to call at the end of the button generation (init) Def, and just set all special buttons to SetNotVisible() in the button init?

[Defiant]

Just make sure you test all features on a separate multiplayer client and not the server itself. There are some features that are not allowed on player ships.

[Tethys]

I am unsure how to do that sir, since I only have the one PC and I don't think the master server is configured properly any longer for clients to join at the moment. Did you have a list of features that do not work on the multiplayer client/player ships I could look at?

[Defiant]

I do not have a complete list. But its mostly everything a cheater would do, like changing weapons/shields/engine stats.

I recommend you get a second computer. An old laptop could do the job.

[Tethys]

I do have a second computer but I always have difficulty connecting when on the same network. I might have to use cell 4g LTE on the other machine to connect, however, I do believe there is a problem with 333Networks master server for BC, so I will have to contact them and inquire soon. The only way I could see it working at the moment would be direct connect via LAN but I am not well versed in the procedures to get that working. But there may be a last resort option with something like Tunngle, Hamachi, or Game Ranger. This is all I have for now, all help is appreciated and thank you Defiant

[JB2005]

So, I have been working diligently for the last week and a half building a Shield Inversion button in the Science menu that will eventually be for use on Warbirds only (ah, another Armada tribute...) and after many unsuccessful tests I an happy to announce that I have successfully altered a NPC target shields percentage with a menu button in MP.

This button uses many different pieces of code from many different mods, and due to that fact I cannot simply paste the code here for people to cut and paste into a py file. I took some code from Transporter.py by Defiant/Banbury and BoostShields.py by the BCS team, and maybe a line or 2 from the Marines.py mod so far.

What I have left to do is insert the checks for Warbird scripts (which I will need to take from Sneakers CoreEject.py) but I am having trouble figuring out where to put said checks. My end goal is to have a Special Options menu in Science that will allow many different ship specific abilities to be triggered with the push of a button (with cooldown times and battery drains of course, as with everything, balance is being considered). Setting these Special Options buttons to pButtonName.SetNotVisible() if not (Warbird)...etc, so when you choose the Warbird, only Warbird allowable abilities are SetVisible() in the menu, and abilities for other ships remain SetNotVisible(). Do I need to build a new Def for the Warbird check to call at the end of the button generation (init) Def, and just set all special buttons to SetNotVisible() in the button init?

Put this in the init part of the script:

Code: [Select]

App.g_kEventManager.AddBroadcastPythonFuncHandler(App.ET_SET_PLAYER, pMission, __name__ + ".CheckShip")
This means that when the ship changes (essentially) it will run the function in the script called "checkship"

So create that function, add some 'if ship class is warbird then do something else don't do that something' code - and you're away!

If you have a look in the Add Cloaking Device script I put up elsewhere on the board, you'll find that bit of code - in that instance it checks to see if the player ship has a cloaking device on it!

[Tethys]

Yes, I downloaded your scripts this morning and just got around to peeking at them in notepad++. It looks pretty straightforward, though I think I will eventually build upon it (extensively) and create a complete set of subsystems scripts, as you already have Cloaking Device, I would attempt to create one for every single subsystem, unique with target ship subsystem values (say you want to steal cloak from Klingons, but also from Romulans, each will have its own script/values, option as to which you would prefer to install/use). I have already added a Fabrications button to the Engineering menu of KM which, I hope, to have some kind of library system for these unique subsystems, and checks for these particular subsystems within a master script (probably will use Cloaking.py and rename it SubsystemInstall.py, creating defs for each subsystem install within). After which, if you have completed your Away Mission script by then, I would then be able to see if I can get Away Mission to become the master script to control the Fabrications menu, or at least the stolen subsystems appearing/disappearing from that menu when mission is completed. I also thank you for your advice, I will be giving it a try when I get back around to that experimental stuff.

[Tethys]

[Tethys]

I have in the works 2 new game modes. One was recommended by a buddy of mine, the other is my own idea based off his.

One mode will be called Wave Survival. What this means is there will be only one team, and enemy AI will spawn in waves. You will have x minutes to defeat the wave before another wave comes. Each wave will feature stronger ships than the last wave, and time between waves will decrease as you progress. This game mode will be time limited, since there is no real objective here but to survive.

The second game mode will be called Borg Invasion. Similar to Wave Survival, everyone is on one team, but there is a transwarp conduit (starbase, Construct mod) open and Borg ships are pouring out of (being built from) it. Your team must destroy the conduit and prevent an invasion of the Alpha Quadrant. This mode will not be time based, but will have some checks for number of players against AI ships on the server (ratio). If a certain ratio of Borg ships are in the set, the game will end with your/teams defeat, as you will have become overrun with no chance of winning. I may put a time limit on the event if you destroy the transwarp conduit but do not eliminate all enemies within 5-10 minutes, another conduit will "spawn" and more Borg will enter the set.

Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions?

[King Class Scout]

in other words, port over what was done in Legacy?  only if the scripts call stockers in the waves.  some of us did a lot of power tweaking to our ships, or have old "god ships" installed.  also, are you intending to automatically escalating the strength with each wave?

[Tethys]

I never played Legacy so I wouldn't know   These will be multiplayer game modes, so the game mode will use any ships available. Yes, the waves will get stronger and each wave will have an additional ship of a higher strength than the previous. It's not really porting since the game modes are based off BC scripts, no code from Legacy is used.

[Tethys]

Chris Larkin has recommended a DS9 style game mode where players must defend DS9 and the wormhole from Dominion invaders; this should be simple due to the fact we already have a defend the starbase MP mode. I can see this working well with the DS9FX in KM, I have had some success porting some of that into multiplayer already. I will see if I can give Cardassian ships the ability to switch sides during the fight, maybe Romulan ships as well. DS9FX HistoricMission1 may also give us some fun with a minefield scenario, and I plan to see if I can get the wormhole to "build" ships, but stop building them when the minefield is active. I have yet to look very closely at the scripts; but soon ;)

[King Class Scout]

I didn't mean LITERALLY port it over   although technically, Legacy and modded BC are related distantly via Rick Knox, who apparently did some of legacy's models.  it's also just as buggy as BC

Some legacy ships have already been brought over to BC, anyway.  I know of at least four.

I like where this idea is going.  an "era" version might be a viable option for those of us who collect TOS or TMP grade.

[Tethys]

I have the underlaying foundation of the new game modes working. Now, the hard part..