TekagisBot has a new trick thats been quietly running on the server for a few days now, a /garage command, allowing you to store ships! Owning multiple ships per character is now a option (i have 3 characters and 10 ships atm). Your garage, much like your bank, is shared across all characters in a account, so you can swap their ships around easy. All equipment and cargo on the ship are included.

At the moment, ship storage charges are a flat rate of 10 credits per second (864,000 per day, or around 26m per month), any owed fee's will be deducted from your bank when you goto use the ship.

Ships are also stored at what ever base you left it at, if you wish to move them to another base, the storage fee and a aditional 10m will be deducted from your bank.

Note any time you store or swap ships you will be kicked from the server

usage:

/garage

/garage list                                  - If used with no arguments, shows the list of ships at your current base

/garage list all                             - Shows a list of all bases you have ships at

/garage list <base>                     - Shows a list of ships at that base, the ship's ID, and the owing storage fee

these commands can only be used docked:

/garage store                              - stores your current ship, character is left with no ship and can buy a new one

/garage swap <ship id>               - stores your current ship, and gets in the ship with the specified ID number (use /garage list to find the ID)

/garage move <base> <ship id>  - moves the given base and ship id to the place where the character is currently docked.

*** PLEASE NOTE THIS IS A EXPERIMENTAL FEATURE ***

Ideally later I'll have the storage fee based on ship size and base rep, with the move cost based on shipsize and distance. I'll add the features so you can sell/transfer ships to other players, or abandon them completely.

IMO this plugin opens up alot of possible options, from equipping new clan members, giving players special ships to participate in 'ship restricted events', blackmarket ships (when rep becomes more important), even pvp matches for pinkslips!

As some of you may have noticed, TekagisBot has a new feature, The Wheel of Fate.

The Wheel gives players a chance to win prizes, or suffer negative effects. Current outcomes include cash (win or lose, up to 100 mil), vacations to far away exotic planets (random beam commands), reputation changes (red, green or white rep, with 1 to 5 factions), or gear (including the much asked for Magnums and Ultrahull VIII's!)

Please be aware the rep changes may mess up your carefully collected bribes (or save you the hassle of having to collect bribes!).

Current requirements to play The Wheel are must have at least 100m cash (since you can lose that much on a bad outcome), and no more then 1.5bil (to prevent winning results from pushing your character past the 2.1bil worth limit)

More unique outcomes will be added soon (like bounty hunts and missions to get to specified bases before a timer runs out)

This is a in game feature, activated with the command /fate

So I've compiled a new patch, this is not the massive long awaited update, but some minor fixes that have been long overdue, and includes a auto updater so we can roll out future fixes and changes easier.

Please note this is NOT a full version, and should be activated over top of v5.48.3.
The reason this is numbered 5.49.0 instead of 5.48.4 is to insure all connecting players have upgraded.

A auto-updater is included in the EXE folder (TekagisUpdater.exe), and from now on this should be run instead of Freelancer.exe.  It will launch FL automatically after  checking for updates.

By editting TekagisUpdater.conf you can set it to launch FL in windowed or fullscreen mode, or to not start FL at all.

We'll try to restrict future patches til the daily server reset at 11:00pm pst (7:00am GMT) so as long as you run the updater at least once after that time you should be good for the day.

The updater works by checking update server for a file list, and compares the checksums of all files in that list. For the 5427 files it currently checks, this takes about 20 seconds on my dualcore win7 laptop, so not too long but i'll try and squeeze some faster speeds out of it for older machines

Please DO NOT run the updater from your FLMM directory, its ment to be run from your Freelancer/EXE directory.

However, if you merge 5.48.3 and the 5.49 patch into 1 folder in FLMM, it should be ok to run from there.

Other changes include:

Fixed depot undocking bug occassionally placing players in center of system (usually in the sun)
Upgraded custom solar sur files (fixes base collision detection)
Enabled ship steering in turret view
Contact list now shows players faction affiliation
Readded some missing music files
 

http://tekagis.de/in...h&attach_id=164

and spoil your fun of personally leading the apoc invasion of sirius?

Seeing as its been a while i should probably give a status update....

A auto updater has been coded and will be implemented when the update gets rolled out.

Internal structuring of the data inside many of the files has been sorted, making it MUCH easier to work with.

The system nicknames (not the player friendly system names) have been restructured to make more sense.

NPC's have also been restructured to a more dynamic system, allowing for easier dynamic replacing of factions if needed. This includes the clan factions..currently 13 clans are in place, with room for 10 more, again these can be dynamically updated or replaced with little difficulty now. Many existing factions were removed to make room though.

The navmap mess has been sorted, grouping related systems closer together so it all makes sense, no changes to actual layout inside has been made, or to any of the actual jumps.

Faction borders and territory is more defined with the map changes, and the major factions/houses consist of Liberty, Bretonia, Rheinland, Kusari, Macedonia, Francia, Tekagis Samurai, The Coalition, Gauri, Centauri, Ven and the Borg

The name/infocard dll files organizing and restructuring is almost complete.

The junk (older unused) files have all been removed.

NPC fighter AI has been vastly improved providing much more of a challange.

Some of the equipment rebalancing and performace testing has been done, but this was put on pause until the file restructing was completed.

Goals have slightly shifted, the update will occur mid-way between a war. The Coalition centered around Sol has launched a full scale invasion, and the Samurai have gained mass amounts of territory becoming the major threat to Sirius. The Liberty, Bretonia, Rheinland, Kusari, Macedonia and Francia Houses allied in repelling this double threat. Expect to see capship battles and travel through hostile space will be much more difficult. Cloaks will become a MUCH more useful item for travelling instead of the novelty they were before.

As well as having all bases turned destructable, the goal is to have custom hook missions (based on your affiliated faction) to assault and capture enemy positions. After capturing a base, the mod files will be automatically modified to reflect the new situation, and updates will be pushed out after the daily server reset (with the auto-updater). Ideally players and clans can shape the direction tekagis takes giving the mod a life of its own. The code framework for rewritting the mod files in place automatically is essentially done, but still needs to be rolled into a hook plugin.

As well as the military based custom missions, new trade based transport and courier missions will also be included.

Still tons left to do but figured i'd let people know where were at.

The last few days I've been working on a new creation to assist in helping maintain smooth operation of the server, and to help players get in contact with us in a timely manor. The bot bridges the gap between the forum shoutbox, the game server, and our skype chats (both the admin and public chats).

* Chat entered into the shoutbox is now posted to the public skype chat (with a short delay)

* In game chat that is sent to the 'console' (instead of system or another player) is also posted to the public channel, allowing communication with people not on the server.

* using the command '/admin <text>' while in game, is now posted to the admin skype chat. Please reserve its use for help requests, reporting bugs or abuse, or its use will be restricted.

* Things like checking on server status, and who's online can be done from the public skype chat.

* Logins, disconnects, and deaths are displayed in the public chat. Swapping characters is not posted, only the initial login, and all IP addresses are obviously filtered from the messages.

* The bot is partially aware of the content of the mod files, and we can use it to run server commands, allowing us to diagnose and solve many problems faster.

Its designed specifically to allow adding of new features to it without difficulty or forcing a update/restart of the bot, and shortly I'll be adding a in game command to auto-add people to the public skype chat.

TekagisBot is expected to go live on the server later tonight

full version of 5.48.3 can also be found here http://www.mediafire...asure 5.48.3.7z

Now that I've had some time to get my feet back on the ground, sift through the files in detail and
collect my thoughts, heres some spoilers on what to expect with the next major update:


    Weapons and Hardpoints:
Currently 95% of our equipment is useless. Most ships have class 10 weapon hardpoints, and weapons
of a lower class are rarely used, except when starting out. The weapon classes will be completely
redone. Instead of using vanillas 'class = weapon level' concept, classes will be redefined to a
system where 'class = weapon size and internal/external mount'. For example:

Class 1 Gun: Small emergency energy weapon, internal (think of the machine guns in the nose of a modern day jet fighter)
Class 2 Gun: Medium sized energy weapon, internal (approx the size of our current fighter guns)
Class 3 Gun: Large, internal
Class 4 Gun: Medium sized, external mount (this is our current common fighters guns)
Class 5 Gun: Fighter Missile Pod, External (our current fighter missiles)
Class 6 Gun: Fighter Missile Bay, Internal (our current missiles, but internally stored)
Class 7 Gun: Capship Missile Bay, Internal (same as above, but larger payloads and warheads)
Class 8 Gun: Gunboat/Destroyer Class Gun, Internal
Class 9 Gun: Cruiser Class Gun, Internal
Class 10 Gun: Battleship Main Guns

Currently Torpedos fill a role that is designed for missiles. These will be converted back into their original role,
a anti-capship/anti-base weapon instead of anti-fighters. Missile behavior will be revamped.

Ship hardpoints will be restricted, instead of the current 'class 10 lets you mount class 1 to 10', class 10 means 10 only.
The number of hardpoints per ship will be averaged out by ship type. For example a Heavy Fighter would have on avg:
one Class 1 Gun,
two Class 2 Guns,
four Class 4 Guns,
2-4 Class 5 or 6 Missiles,
one Cruise Distruptor,
1-2 Class 5 Turrets,
and one (optional) Class 2 Repair Turret

External Hardpoints will be the most numerous, but each item mounted will cause drag. It may no longer be ideal to mount all
the guns possible as each one will reduce your manuverability slightly.

Internal mount weapons will be much harder to destroy and cause less drag on the ship, but will come with cost. There maybe
limits on which weapons fit in which ships, and will have a smaller firing arc then external weapons.

This, and a rebalance of the weapon stats in general, will help ensure that 95% of junk we have actually has a use again.

    Ships:
Some hardpoints in the models need to be changed, all sur files rebuilt using modern methods for more realistic collisions.
Most of our models were built ages ago (some up to 13 years ago!), and the surface files are just resized vanilla ones that
dont fit the ships giving very poor collision detection, shots that pass through the ships, or hit when it was really a close
miss. Between this and redoing many of the hardpoints, this part is a massive job.
Choices in equipment will have a greater effect on ship performance, in a way that allows for personal preferences. Thanks to
adoxa's awesome FL modifications, equipment choices will cause drag and increase mass of the ship, mounting the strongest UH
may no longer be the ideal option for some players, as it will reduce ship manuverability more then a lighter UH would.
Expect npc pilots to be far more of a challange, AI will be tweaked to make better use of things like engine kill and straffing,
and their equipment will be more in line with what players use....space will get alot deadlier.

    Factions:
Currently we have 98 factions in teks, some with very little or no actual use or function in game. There is a shift in the
balance of power for several factions planned, and some will be removed outright to make room for Clan npcs (there is a RP
background story in the works for the changes, but no spoilers on that yet).

    Systems:
Our current system layout is horrible and without any sense of order or reason. Some routes from system to system take more
then the safe limit of 10 jumps (waypoints can cause server crashes). Systems in general will be resorted while attempting to
keep clusters together. Some jumpgates and holes will be relocated or removed, and some systems will have their position on
the navmap moved to make more sense and reduce clutter.
Some bases will be destroyed and left in ruins, new ones may pop up...many will shift factions due to the new balance of power
(part of the RP story). Eventually bases will be made destructable as well.

    File Clutter:

One part of my new modding toolkit generates a list of files in the mod that arent actually used...theres quite a lot of old junk that

was removed from game but still exists in the files. Now that I can actually see what these files are, they can be properly removed

or repurposed.

    Now that we're running FLHook instead of Flac, adding functionality is much easier, and we can actually add features
that were formally impossible but long time planned...like the wolf spiders or automated capture the flag games


    I know alot of this moves in a different direction then the v6 that was in the works, and alot of work had gone into
that (not only the technical mod work, but RP story), but having missed all of that with my absense, playing catchup and
figuring out v6's state is near a impossible task. We do have the v6 files (thanks rags!), but i'm afraid it will have to be
sorted through and anything from it added on a case-by-case basis.

    This will all be a major effort, and will take time before its done (no ETA), but the current version will stay up and running

til then and receive bugfixes as needed.

mainly the HpMount hardpoint was too low, it put the crosshairs too far below when targetting it.

for those curious most of the changes are listed below:

fixed several numerous misc shiparch errors
Ported hardpoint mounting restrictions from old Flac settings to FLHook
Ported cloaks from old Flac settings to FLHook
Started porting dockable battleships from old Flac settings to FLHook
universe.ini strid_name errors (Pirates Guild Home)
updated Mantis cmp and sur files
House name displays when entering systems (adoxa's Territory.dll)
Zone name now displays when enterinng zones (adoxa's Zone.dll)
Navmap political zones and patrol paths now display (adoxa's MPRep.dll)
Affiliated Faction now shows beside names in chat window player list (adoxa's ChatRep.dll)
Turret Zoom now works (adoxa's TurretZoom.dll)

Also removed some excess Flac leftovers that were causing a nasty perfomance hit, and added flhooks update features, but not turned on yet as i still have to test

you may be wondering whats in store for tekagis..well the goals thus far are:

FLHook Intergration

TT has always been designed to run on Flac server software instead of FLHook. This has always been a drawback in my eyes, limiting our options on adding new features. Since running Flac is no longer a option, FLHook it is. Many parts of the mod need to be redesigned to reflect this, Cloaks, Dockable capital ships and repair guns to name a few. Parts that have formally relied on Flac need to be switched over.

Current Bugs and issues

These need to be hunted down and fixed before any major changes.

Auto Updater

This needs to be implemented, also before any major changes.

Content addition freeze
Systems, equipment, and ships that are currently in game will stay, and no new ones will be added (at least for now). However, expect a rebalancing expecially in the ships and equipment.

Rebalancing
Gear will be rebalanced so most items will be useful again, bringing back greater variety in ship loadouts, while making a attempt to retain the traditional feel of TT's combat.

Economy scaled down
Currently its too easy to break the 2bil cash limit. Some gear is extremely expensive and doesnt help with that problem. All prices will be scaled down by a % value, and the rebalance will help level out the equipment cost.

NPCs
The historic clans of TT will be turned into npc factions, and dominate their respective clan systems. Joining a clan (or any npc faction) will automatically set the tag in front of the players name, as well as setting their rep with other npc factions.
Pirates and killers will have a much harder time in places populated by police and military units, and hunters will have a similarly difficult time in systems that should be hostile. This also allows for much finer control over where players can land, and what gear/commodities they have access to.

Npc gear and ships will be modernized offering more of a challange.

Wingmen

One of the long term goals will be to implement FoxUnit's npc wingmen concepts from the flak88 mod. This is a major job and a longterm goal.

Normally this would be a fair amount of work, the expecially rebalancing and economy fixing for a mod this size, however I should be able to script most of it. I need to recreate some more modern tools for the job though, I still have much of my old code for manipulating freelancers files, but adding new features or customizing it will probably take more time then starting from scratch.

The main goal is too keep the traditional feel of teks, while implenting some of the things that were ment to be done ages ago, but never were.

suggestions and opinions welcome

You may have noticed there has been some changes in forum status to 'retired', please understand this was not ment to offend, or cause any bad feelings, my apoligies if it has. You know I have the highest respect for all of you. As was pointed out, this probably should have been communcated first. Again, my apologies.

If any of  you are interested in being active again helping us keep teks alive, PLEASE do let me know, either on here or skype.