Free Trade Zone OXP

[Disembodied]

Hi all. With some assistance -- both from people here on the bb, and elsewhere, for which much thanks -- I've put together a small flavour OXP for Multi-Government systems. It's available for download here.

The FTZ OXP adds a "Free Trade Zone" to Multi-Government systems. These are mined-out rock-hermits, dragged beyond the witchpoint beacon, where various morally dyslexic ship captains can trade outside the official, GalCop-protected, network. There are some bargains to be found -- as you might expect, given how most of the goods are acquired -- but quantities are often low and there are often unscrupulous individuals in the area. It's really a buyer's market, unless you really find it awkward to go near main stations. Fuel and basic equipment are available, at a premium.

Free Trade Zones exist because of the highly complex legal nature of Multi-Government systems. Although it's not strictly illegal to trade there, GalCop will mark any visitors to an FTZ for attention.

Comments, bug reports, suggestions for improvement all welcome!

Edit: I should have mentioned that, because the FTZs are often hard to see from the Witchpoint beacon, they're marked as a "Z" on the Advanced Space Compass...

Edit: link changed to v0.13
Edit: new link after original went bad...

[TGHC]

Nice one sir! Thankyou.

[Cmdr Wyvern]

Excellent!

Somewhere to *ahem* quietly dispose of those salvaged illegal weapons and drugs, instead of ordering the autoscam droid to toss them out the aft airlock.

[Commander McLane]

Well, why should you want to quietly dispose of your goods? Keep your head up and sell them at a main station with a decent price-level (after all sometimes even legitimate buyers need firearms, narcotics or slaves!). You are penalized only if you take things like these out of the station.

******

By the way: I can't download it! I always get a "Safari can't open „http://download337.mediafire.com/gmxxbd ... Z+v0.1.zip“. Error: „connection interrupted“ (NSURLErrorDomain:-1005)"

EDIT: Never mind. I've got it now. Seems my server was too busy for some time.

[Cmdr Wyvern]

Well, why should you want to quietly dispose of your goods? Keep your head up and sell them at a main station with a decent price-level (after all sometimes even legitimate buyers need firearms, narcotics or slaves!). You are penalized only if you take things like these out of the station.

a) My Dragon can only hold 15tc of salvage, and I tend to keep only high value canisters and escape pods.
b) Even the Elite know when getting out of Dodge is a good plan, and I don't need the Vipers (or fellow armed to the teeth bounty killers) giving me a hard time if I happen to jump into a corporate state with contraband aboard.
c) Legit traders would need slaves?! Please. Commander, that's VERY unlikely. Some shifty, not-so legit factory boss, maybe. I've gotten into the habit of opening the container, clawing the poor individual within, and tossing the remains to the void. I'd sooner show the shifty factory bosses the same swift end.

[Cmdr. Maegil]

c) Legit traders would need slaves?! Please. Commander, that's VERY unlikely. Some shifty, not-so legit factory boss, maybe. I've gotten into the habit of opening the container, clawing the poor individual within, and tossing the remains to the void. I'd sooner show the shifty factory bosses the same swift end.

Don't! If the Spartans get wind of it, you're in a biiiig dodo! As for the slavers themselves, when the SB catches them.
I think the Amnisty Intergalactic is a great idea, and then there is that about returning slaves to their systems, I say go!

A bit of an update on the Spartans.OXP: there are no news about it. It's temporarily shelved while I sort out RL(TM) stuff such as making my boat less of a deathtrap.

[Cmdr Wyvern]

c) Legit traders would need slaves?! Please. Commander, that's VERY unlikely. Some shifty, not-so legit factory boss, maybe. I've gotten into the habit of opening the container, clawing the poor individual within, and tossing the remains to the void. I'd sooner show the shifty factory bosses the same swift end.

Don't! If the Spartans get wind of it, you're in a biiiig dodo! As for the slavers themselves, when the SB catches them.
I think the Amnisty Intergalactic is a great idea, and then there is that about returning slaves to their systems, I say go!

I appreciate the thinly veiled threat warning, but the resources of your comrades are best spent trying to shut down slaver operations, rather than chasing a heavily armed, seasoned, and wary bounty hunter.

On that note, I took the opportunity to visit one of these trading outposts.
It's no mere trading station! It's a pirate fencing station, smuggling hub, and slaver's den of the worse kind. Vagabonds and contraband runners of all colors visit it - a good locale for a bounty hunter to lurk and make a killing, :chuckle:.
Within, chaos abounds. Don't unship without your sidearm.
And be prepared for unspeakable horrors, such as human/alien hybrid sex slaves, possibly the results of forced gene splicing or outlawed grafting.

I'll have a drink just to clear that perversion from my memory. And another to the success of Amnisty.

[Captain Hesperus]

On that note, I took the opportunity to visit one of these trading outposts.
It's no mere trading station! It's a pirate fencing station, smuggling hub, and slaver's den of the worse kind. Vagabonds and contraband runners of all colors visit it - a good locale for a bounty hunter to lurk and make a killing, :chuckle:.
Within, chaos abounds. Don't unship without your sidearm.
And be prepared for unspeakable horrors, such as human/alien hybrid sex slaves, possibly the results of forced gene splicing or outlawed grafting.

I'll have a drink just to clear that perversion from my memory. And another to the success of Amnisty.

Oh! I thought I recognised your ship in the docking bay, decided not to come over and say hi. Especially since that 'misunderstanding' with the magistrates at Xeesle about 'introducing dangerous replicating alien lifeforms into the local fauna'. Apparently the bounty was quite substantial.....

Captain Hesperus

[Cmdr Wyvern]

Aww, Hesperus, you know I have no quarrel with you. The worse you can expect from me is a little light ribbing...
...And possibly watching one of those pests you're fond of get eaten alive before your eyes if you annoy me too much. :fangy grin:

uumm... Considering that Lady Tiomat bears no distinguishing marks on her hull, just the standard factory paint, how can you tell her from any stock Dragon?

[Disembodied]

I took the opportunity to visit one of these trading outposts.
It's no mere trading station! It's a pirate fencing station, smuggling hub, and slaver's den of the worse kind. Vagabonds and contraband runners of all colors visit it - a good locale for a bounty hunter to lurk and make a killing, :chuckle:.
Within, chaos abounds. Don't unship without your sidearm.
And be prepared for unspeakable horrors, such as human/alien hybrid sex slaves, possibly the results of forced gene splicing or outlawed grafting.

I'll have a drink just to clear that perversion from my memory. And another to the success of Amnisty.

Look, these stations are legally-established independent nations, with their own governments, law codes and constitutions. Okay, so the Chief Justice can often be found lending a helping hand mucking out the docking bay, and the Secretary of State may be a bartender in his spare time, but when your government and your population are the same thing, you get these little peculiarities. Indentured labour is an integral part of of their proud culture, stretching back whole weeks into the past, so there are always a few slaves for sale. Many slaves wear what look like tattered and scorched pilots' outfits, true, but look at the large amounts of cheap hull metal for sale! Appreciate the other bargains to be found -- often in goods that are being imported into the system -- resulting from the FTZs' uniquely efficient economic systems! All that tedious red tape that adds unnecessary expense to a busy pilot's life has been done away with.

So some FTZ clients have had brushes with the law in the past. Mere technicalities, mostly, I'm sure. Visit an FTZ today! Just don't go jumping straight from there into a Corporate State: the politically-correct namby-pamby do-gooders who have taken over the once-proud institution of GalCop can be excessively prissy with regard to where you, a free agent, choose to do your legitimate business. It's a sad state of affairs where the simple act of making an honest cred attracts nothing but petty bureaucratic meddling and laser-fire from these so-called guardians of society.

[Commander McLane]

Although it's not strictly illegal to trade there, GalCop will mark any visitors to an FTZ for attention.

I noticed that's not strictly true. Only formerly clean visitors will be "marked for attention" by your script, putting a bounty of 5 Cr on their head.

Code: Select all

        {
            conditions = (
                "status_string equal STATUS_DOCKED",
                "dockedStationName_string equal Free Trade Zone",
                "legalStatus_number equal 0"
            );
            do = ( "setLegalStatus: 5");
    },

May I suggest that also pilots who are already criminals are fined by increasing their bounty by 5 Cr for each visit?

Just modify the above condition like this:

Code: Select all

        {
            conditions = (
                "status_string equal STATUS_DOCKED",
                "dockedStationName_string equal Free Trade Zone",
                "local_freetradezone_marked undefined"
            );
            do = (
				"set: mission_freetradezone_fine [legalStatus_number]",
				"add: mission_freetradezone_fine 5",
				"setLegalStatus: [mission_freetradezone_fine]",
				"set: local_freetradezone_marked YES",
				"reset: mission_freetradezone_fine"
			);
    },

What does it do? Whenever you are docked with a Free Trade Zone it checks whether you already have been fined. If not, it stores your current legal store in a mission_variable, adds 5 to its value and restores the result into your legal status. Finally it sets a local_variable that you already have been fined. This is necessary, because scripts are executed every ten seconds (and even more often when you are docked and switch to one of a couple of screens), but we want the fine to be given only once. And it resets the storage variable, because you don't need it anymore. And it doesn't need to be saved in your save-file, which all mission_variables are. In principle you could take a local_variable for storage as well. These are not saved in your save-file. However, local_variables with numeric values are broken in 1.69.1 (at least in 1.69.1.1), so that doesn't currently work.

In order to make the whole thing work you need one more change: When you leave the Free Trade Zone the marker has to be reset, so that on your next visit you can be fined again. You can do this by adding a "reset: local_freetradezone_marked", in front of the "checkForShips: " in the first STATUS_LAUNCHING-condition, then you don't need another condition-clause. But of course also that would be possible.

[Captain Hesperus]

uumm... Considering that Lady Tiomat bears no distinguishing marks on her hull, just the standard factory paint, how can you tell her from any stock Dragon?

I'm a feline.
We have a tendency to scent-mark things we may feel will be important at a later date.
Your landing gear was the most easily accessable place to.......mark.

Captain Hesperus

[TGHC]

It' predominantly the males that mark their territory, our back garden is currently the subject of a turf war between at least four toms! I'm going to buy a rubber alsation!

[Disembodied]

Although it's not strictly illegal to trade there, GalCop will mark any visitors to an FTZ for attention.

I noticed that's not strictly true. Only formerly clean visitors will be "marked for attention" by your script, putting a bounty of 5 Cr on their head.

Code: Select all

        {
            conditions = (
                "status_string equal STATUS_DOCKED",
                "dockedStationName_string equal Free Trade Zone",
                "legalStatus_number equal 0"
            );
            do = ( "setLegalStatus: 5");
    },

May I suggest that also pilots who are already criminals are fined by increasing their bounty by 5 Cr for each visit?

Just modify the above condition like this:

Code: Select all

        {
            conditions = (
                "status_string equal STATUS_DOCKED",
                "dockedStationName_string equal Free Trade Zone",
                "local_freetradezone_marked undefined"
            );
            do = (
				"set: mission_freetradezone_fine [legalStatus_number]",
				"add: mission_freetradezone_fine 5",
				"setLegalStatus: [mission_freetradezone_fine]",
				"set: local_freetradezone_marked YES",
				"reset: mission_freetradezone_fine"
			);
    },

What does it do? Whenever you are docked with a Free Trade Zone it checks whether you already have been fined. If not, it stores your current legal store in a mission_variable, adds 5 to its value and restores the result into your legal status. Finally it sets a local_variable that you already have been fined. This is necessary, because scripts are executed every ten seconds (and even more often when you are docked and switch to one of a couple of screens), but we want the fine to be given only once. And it resets the storage variable, because you don't need it anymore. And it doesn't need to be saved in your save-file, which all mission_variables are. In principle you could take a local_variable for storage as well. These are not saved in your save-file. However, local_variables with numeric values are broken in 1.69.1 (at least in 1.69.1.1), so that doesn't currently work.

In order to make the whole thing work you need one more change: When you leave the Free Trade Zone the marker has to be reset, so that on your next visit you can be fined again. You can do this by adding a "reset: local_freetradezone_marked", in front of the "checkForShips: " in the first STATUS_LAUNCHING-condition, then you don't need another condition-clause. But of course also that would be possible.

Thanks, Commander! I'll add this in and reissue the OXP. The current setup is a fudge because I couldn't work out how to make someone's legal status worse: all I could do was slap a black mark on someone who was Clean. I knew it must be possible to define unique variables, but couldn't figure it out... Still: onwards an upwards, up the learning curve!

Hmmm... it occurs to me that a similar script could be used to reward "good works", say for liberating slaves in the proposed Amnsty Interstellar station: but you'd have to key it in to tonnage of slaves "sold" (i.e. released), rather than just docking. Is this possible? Can the game detect what types of goods have been sold? I suppose, if the only financial transaction possible in an Amnesty Station was "selling" slaves (nothing else for sale, no Equipment or Shipyard either), and they always had the same set price (say 1Cr), the script could work out how many you had liberated from how much your bank balance had increased, and deduct an amount based on that number from your criminal record. You'd need to set a variable of Credits when docking, subtract it from Credits when launching, and deduct e.g. 25% of the result from the player's criminal record -- assuming you weren't Clean to begin with. Or might there be problems with this?

[Disembodied]

I've changed the link in the first post, but just in case: the revised FTZ OXP (v0.13) can be downloaded from here.

Edit: changed link to v0.13
Edit: link changed after original went bad