Ship Escape & Surrender Chance/Min/Max/Timer Values

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ApexMods
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Ship Escape & Surrender Chance/Min/Max/Timer Values

Postby ApexMods » Tue Oct 08, 2013 6:47 am

Couldn't find an answer to this anywhere, so here it goes. How exactly do those values for a ship's escape and surrender chances and timing work, what is their precise meaning and mechanism?

Here's an example of what I'm referring to:

Code: Select all

<ship name="FOO_SHIP" auto_blueprint="FOO_SHIPS">
   ...
   <escape chance="0.5" min="2" max="4" timer="60" load="FOO_ESCAPE"/>
   ...
   <surrender chance="0.5" min="3" max="4" timer="80" load="FOO_SURRENDER"/>
   ...
</ship>


Any information would be very much appreciated. Thank you.
dalolorn
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Re: Ship Escape & Surrender Chance/Min/Max/Timer Values

Postby dalolorn » Tue Oct 08, 2013 9:14 am

I am by no means an expert, but I think I have a good idea as to what they might be:

Chance, obviously refers to the probability that they will do either. Probably can't be bigger than 1 (100%).

Min is probably the minimum health of the ship in question - if under that health, I'm guessing they won't try to surrender/escape. If so, all such events that I've seen so far have a min value of 1.

If Min is what I think it is, then Max is the maximum health at which it will consider surrendering/escaping.

Timer is a tricky one, as I'm not sure why does the surrender event have one, but for the escape one, I'm fairly certain it's the amount of time the FTL drive has to be operational and manned (pilot station manned, both pilot and engines must have at least 1 power) before it escapes.

Edit: I originally meant to say "in vanilla FTL", as I don't have any event mods outside of Captain's Edition, which, to my knowledge, has never deviated from the game's standard when coding escape or surrender events. And no, the fact that auto-satellites and certain stations deal damage to you if they escape doesn't count. :P
Last edited by dalolorn on Tue Oct 08, 2013 12:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
ApexMods
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Re: Ship Escape & Surrender Chance/Min/Max/Timer Values

Postby ApexMods » Tue Oct 08, 2013 11:39 am

Thanks a lot for the speedy and great reply!

All your explanations make perfect sense, and the surrender timer was my mistake, due to a rushed copy and paste job on my end. Mea culpa!

I'll try to confirm your findings when I get home from work, but I got a feeling that you're spot-on. :thumbsup:
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5thHorseman
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Re: Ship Escape & Surrender Chance/Min/Max/Timer Values

Postby 5thHorseman » Tue Oct 08, 2013 1:12 pm

It should be pretty easy to confirm if you can find the mantis ship that runs away in like 5 seconds, spurning a quest to get some pretty good loot. Compare it's timers to normal ships' timers.
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dalolorn
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Re: Ship Escape & Surrender Chance/Min/Max/Timer Values

Postby dalolorn » Tue Oct 08, 2013 1:23 pm

5thHorseman wrote:It should be pretty easy to confirm if you can find the mantis ship that runs away in like 5 seconds, spurning a quest to get some pretty good loot. Compare it's timers to normal ships' timers.


Uhhhh... which mod is that in? :P
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Sleeper Service
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Re: Ship Escape & Surrender Chance/Min/Max/Timer Values

Postby Sleeper Service » Tue Oct 08, 2013 1:46 pm

Strangely enough, I didn't get surrenders or escapes with a chance of 1.0 to work in CE.

But removing the "chance" part entirely produces a surrender that is always called.

The timer is used to have ships escape within a certain time (still needs piloting and engines working and piloting manned). If there is no timer, the ship escape time depends on it's engines (crew?) and augments, just like it does for the player.
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5thHorseman
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Re: Ship Escape & Surrender Chance/Min/Max/Timer Values

Postby 5thHorseman » Tue Oct 08, 2013 8:28 pm

dalolorn wrote:
5thHorseman wrote:It should be pretty easy to confirm if you can find the mantis ship that runs away in like 5 seconds, spurning a quest to get some pretty good loot. Compare it's timers to normal ships' timers.


Uhhhh... which mod is that in? :P


This really popular mod called "the base game" :)

Events.xml:

Code: Select all

<event name="DONOR_MANTIS_CHASE" unique="true">
   <text>You are immediately hailed by an impressive looking Mantis ship, "Your ship would make a mighty fine prize. Prepare for battle!"</text>
   <ship load="DONOR_MANTIS_CHASE1" hostile="true"/>
</event>
<ship name="DONOR_MANTIS_CHASE1" auto_blueprint="MANTIS_FIGHTER">
   <escape timer="5" min="5" max="5">
      <text>You pick up more chatter from the enemy ship, "You know what... Forget this. Prepare for retreat!" Looks like they're preparing to make a hasty get away!</text>
   </escape>
   <gotaway>
      <text>The ship made an emergency FTL jump, but it looks like they didn't mask their signatures. You could easily follow them if you want.</text>
      <choice hidden="true">
         <text>After them!</text>
         <event>
            <text>You input their coordinates into your map and prepare to follow.</text>
            <quest event="DONOR_MANTIS_CHASE2"/>
         </event>
      </choice>
      <choice hidden="true">
         <text>Forget it.</text>
         <event>
            <text>They're not worth the trouble. You prepare to leave.</text>
         </event>
      </choice>
   </gotaway>
   <destroyed>
      <text>Their ship breaks apart and you move in to scrap the remains.</text>
      <autoReward level="MED">standard</autoReward>
   </destroyed>
   <deadCrew>
      <text>With no more crew on board you are free to salvage what you can from the remains.</text>
      <autoReward level="HIGH">standard</autoReward>
   </deadCrew>
</ship>


And seeing as it is "5" for the timer, that solves that.
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dalolorn
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Re: Ship Escape & Surrender Chance/Min/Max/Timer Values

Postby dalolorn » Tue Oct 08, 2013 8:41 pm

5thHorseman wrote:
dalolorn wrote:
5thHorseman wrote:It should be pretty easy to confirm if you can find the mantis ship that runs away in like 5 seconds, spurning a quest to get some pretty good loot. Compare it's timers to normal ships' timers.


Uhhhh... which mod is that in? :P


This really popular mod called "the base game" :)

Events.xml:

Code: Select all

<event name="DONOR_MANTIS_CHASE" unique="true">
   <text>You are immediately hailed by an impressive looking Mantis ship, "Your ship would make a mighty fine prize. Prepare for battle!"</text>
   <ship load="DONOR_MANTIS_CHASE1" hostile="true"/>
</event>
<ship name="DONOR_MANTIS_CHASE1" auto_blueprint="MANTIS_FIGHTER">
   <escape timer="5" min="5" max="5">
      <text>You pick up more chatter from the enemy ship, "You know what... Forget this. Prepare for retreat!" Looks like they're preparing to make a hasty get away!</text>
   </escape>
   <gotaway>
      <text>The ship made an emergency FTL jump, but it looks like they didn't mask their signatures. You could easily follow them if you want.</text>
      <choice hidden="true">
         <text>After them!</text>
         <event>
            <text>You input their coordinates into your map and prepare to follow.</text>
            <quest event="DONOR_MANTIS_CHASE2"/>
         </event>
      </choice>
      <choice hidden="true">
         <text>Forget it.</text>
         <event>
            <text>They're not worth the trouble. You prepare to leave.</text>
         </event>
      </choice>
   </gotaway>
   <destroyed>
      <text>Their ship breaks apart and you move in to scrap the remains.</text>
      <autoReward level="MED">standard</autoReward>
   </destroyed>
   <deadCrew>
      <text>With no more crew on board you are free to salvage what you can from the remains.</text>
      <autoReward level="HIGH">standard</autoReward>
   </deadCrew>
</ship>


And seeing as it is "5" for the timer, that solves that.


I stand corrected... :o