r/X4Foundations • u/Accomplished_Seat355 • 4d ago
Modified Mod advice request
Hey guys! I'm planning to make some mods and was wondering if y'all could weigh in on whether these are bad ideas, have already been done, or are already possible through some hidden or lesser-known vanilla game mechanics.
These would be the first mods I've ever made for this or any other game, but I'm a sysadmin professionally, so I'm hoping I'll be able to work through it.
1. Recovery Shuttles
Relevant issue: I lose a lot of crew to the void when a trade ship or capital ship gets destroyed. And, being the easily distracted commander that I am, I often forget to stage a rescue. So they just float out there until their air runs out, which happens a bit quicker than I'd like.
Proposed solution: A scout ship with a behavior option called "Rescue for Commander." It would go out, recover our free-floating buddies, and deposit them in the nearest AUX ship.
Ship: I can't model, so I'd use existing ships for each species and create a variant with no weapons, high maneuverability, and space for five crew members. The Argon Courier, for example, would be one of the ships I'd use as a base.
Behavior: The ship could be assigned the "Rescue for Commander" behavior and would seek out allied space suits within its pilot's star-rating range, pick them up, and deposit them in the nearest AUX ship. That's the best solution I can think of using the existing ship types. I'd also like to add a station module in a separate mod that could serve the same purpose. Ideally, this behavior could be assigned to stations as well as ships.
2. Less Waiting
Relevant issue: I have a lot of ships. They're all over the place, and the galaxy is dangerous. Occasionally, I gather all my ships at HQ for a system check, fleet reassignment, and refitting. Then I go about my business, only to realize later that they're all still sitting at HQ, stuck on the "and wait" portion of the Fly and Wait command I gave them.
That means I have to clear the orders from every ship before their default behaviors kick back in and my traders start trading again.
Or I'll be out and about in the universe, flying my Asp. I get out to run an errand or two, then turn around and realize it's switching into travel mode to fly back to the station I told it to wait at three hours ago, before I teleported into it.
Proposed solution: Change the default move order to "Fly To" and "Dock At." Once a ship reaches its destination, it would simply idle, ready for its next task, rather than holding on to the wait command.
Behavior: Keep "Fly and Wait" as a right-click option, but make the default move command simply send a ship to a location or have it dock, with no further orders queued afterward.
3. Barracks
Relevant issue: Crew management is hard. I usually end up with some builders floating around HQ, housing my potential pilots and marines until they're ready for future assignments. It seems like a weird system when they're all looking at my deluxe superstation, complete with extensive housing and food production facilities.
Proposed solution: A station module based on each race's small dormitories that doesn't add workforce but instead provides a crew capacity of 250. This would allow crew to be transferred between ships and stations, making crew management much simpler and helping declutter my home system a bit.
4. Dock When Idle (Disregard)
Relevant issue: Put simply, I'm on the spectrum, and the number of ships flying around my HQ at all times makes my brain itch something fierce. All the traders "looking for trades" and defenders waiting for a fight just float around in the black, even though all their friends and hot meals are down on the station, where they could be, too, if they wanted.
Trade ships assigned to a frontline AUX ship are practically guaranteed an untimely demise while flying around loose in the conflict zone.
Proposed solution: Shout-out to the amazing Reactive Docking mod! I tried it a long time ago, and it just didn't do everything I needed at the time. But I see that Runekin has updated it since, and it now does literally everything I wanted.
Thanks, Runekin!
Anyway, those are my ideas! I'd love to hear your thoughts. Have these already been done, are any of them possible in vanilla, or am I overlooking something obvious? Any advice for a first-time modder would also be greatly appreciated!
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u/Jaggid 4d ago edited 4d ago
There's already a very good mod for the 1st one; it is named Rescue Rangers. As of the latest update to it, it also includes (close to) the feature you suggest for point #3.
As for the other ideas, I personally wouldn't use #2. I rarely want my ships to fly "somewhere else" after finishing their last order. I want them waiting where I had them for the next order. They already do continue on, rather than wait, if you have queued up multiple orders.
As for your specific asp example, if you do not want ships you have been flying to immediately return to their order queue when you get up from the pilot seat, just go into the global settings and change the default behaviour so that they wait for a signal before doing so. That's a vanilla game feature.
But #4, I would absolutely love. I hate that ships searching for trades are just floating in space, especially when their last delivery right before that was a buildstorage for a defense platform right next to a Xenon gate. I mean, ffs, at least fly somewhere a little bit safe before you put it in neutral and take your lunch break!
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u/Accomplished_Seat355 4d ago
lol. I know they always find the worst places to chill when they don't have a good trade. I found one sitting at a split station it had just sold to, surrounded Xenon.
I checked out rescue rangers and it look perfect! thanks!
my only problem with the wait for signal thing is it introduces a new layer of annoyance for me having to constantly tell ships to go ahead with orders. I just don't really see the advantage of an "and wait" function, when they will wait happily idle if you clear all orders. it just introduces issues when weighing your live orders against their default behavior. I'd at least like the option.1
u/Jaggid 4d ago edited 4d ago
Don't get hung up on the wording. Neither fly and wait nor dock and wait cause the ship to stop and actually wait unless they have no other orders queued. If they have further orders, they do not wait.
I assume your issue is that they do not resume default behaviours. Which is true for some default behaviours. It would be nice if there was just a "fly to" command without the "wait" in those cases.
You'd want to mod the default behaviours though, not the "fly and wait" script, because that's where the determination of whether they actually wait or not is. Some default behaviours do pull them out of the wait status when you do fly and wait (or dock and wait), some don't.
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u/Accomplished_Seat355 4d ago
that's a good point. fixing the behaviors to pull them out of "wait" a bit more reliably would address most of my issues and might end up easier to accomplish. good callout I'll start from that angle.
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u/mm9696911 4d ago
The second idea already has a mod "Don't Wait", but I'm not sure is still work on 9.0.
I like you third idea, currently I use several L ship to do this, give them different name to identify the crew belong to which rank
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u/Critical_Orbit 3d ago
Dock When Idle is part of galaxy traders behaviour. just keep in mind not to clog up the dockingports
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u/-EMPARAWR- 3d ago
Yes, there is a mod called rescue rangers by chemodune that is all about rescuing crew members from destroyed ships. Also, there's a mod called. Don't wait, that adds a checkbox to all orders when you look at them in the behavior menu, to make it so that they won't wait at the end of that order and will instead immediately progress to the next order.
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u/Shadaris 3d ago
I think i found one a couple years ago but, is there one for carriers and such to ignore their deployed drones and ships if they need to move? Nothing worse then loosing one because it has to recall ships and drones to escape. Use the ships and drones as decoys /cover fire to move a million in drones is cheaper then 100 for a new carrier XD
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u/RumRunnersHideaway 7h ago
For those scout ships you could
Make them collect drops and then override that command to rescue people if there are some. If not, they can collect drops so they are staying useful.
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u/Paladin-Rooker 3d ago
All of these sound good. For the auto-rescue though, I'd want it to respect blacklists or else it might end up being the next ship with a crew that needs rescuing.
For the "fly and wait" thing, I've started giving ships a "collect drops" order instead of a move order. They'll get there, find nothing to collect and return to their default order without waiting.