Mods:Carrier Power Link System Scripts

During the Kha'ak war with the Commonwealth and following the discovery of Earth a period of unprecedented co-operation occured between all the races. The Argon and Paranid and the Boron and Split temporarily and briefly pushed their differences aside in order to produce new technologies that would help in ending the Kha'ak war once and for all...

A number of research programmes and operational concepts were persued during this time but the governments of each race never truely trusted each other and each held back with some of their developments. This level of mutual distrust did eventually result in the disbanding of the collaborative teams with the sole exception of the operational concept of Operation Final Fury which was continued primarily by the Argon and Split.

One of the research teams that got together during the period of collaboration decided to continue their research using funding from elsewhere. The team sought funding for the operation from a privately owned small but well connected Terran organisation known as Spirit Industries.

With the funding renewed and the research continuing out of the Spirit Industries' research facility located on the Orbital Defence Station in Asteroid Belt, the Carrier Power Link System (CPLS) was completed and Spirit Industries agreed to pass on a percentage of the profits to each member of the team as well as their respective governments (so as to avoid any political ramifications from the retail of the system in the private sector).

The final version of the CPLS utilises the previously untapped power from the shield generators of docked ships to provide a secondary feed into the weapon capacitors and the protective shield matrix of the carrier. The system requires the carrier to be modified in such a way that it becomes an integral part of the carrier and thus is not identifyable as a separate system nor is it transferable.

Spirit Industries has been in negotiations with most of the major Commonwealth Corporations but to date only the Strong Arms Corporation has finalised an agreement with them.

The nature of the current agreement is that Strong Arms would lease Spirit Industries a facility at the Strong Arms HQ in Thyn's Excavation but that the Strong Arms corporation will not promote the existence of the technology and will give Spirit Industries full autonomy with regards to the sale of the system.

The other corporations are still negotiating the terms of the agreement.

The basic system is only offered for ships that are confirmed as capable of docking other ships and is sold for 12,500,000 Cr. There are a number of upgrades available which may be required depending on which class of ship has the system installed and in some cases how many docking bays.




The CPLS includes 4 Links that can be selected during system startup and each link provides slightly different functionality

• Primary Weapon - Weapons are given priority, then Carrier Shields (if drops <50% will take precedence over weapons), then the connected ship's own shields (if drops <50% will take precedence over all)
  
• Primary Shield - Carrier Shields are given priority, then Weapons, then the connected ship's own shields (if drops <50% will take precedence over all)
  
• Secondary Shield - The connected ship's own shields are given priority, then Carrier Shields, then Weapons
  
• Secondary Weapon - The connected ship's own shields are given priority, then Weapons, then Carrier Shields (if drops <50% will take precedence over Weapons)
  

During operation the CPLS system uses the ship's own shield power supply exclusivly to the current priority destination batteries/capacitors with the following efficiency

• 100% to Carrier Shields
  
• 100% to Own Shields
  
• 10-33% to Carrier Weapons
  
  • 10% nominal
    
  • 20% if the CPLS Link Guard is installed when optional and the CPLS Power Coupling is either required or not installed
    
  • 20% if the CPLS Power Coupling is installed when optional and the CPLS Link Guard is either required or not installed
    
  • 33% if both the CPLS Link Guard and the CPLS Power Coupling are installed when both are optional
    
  
  

In addition 1% of the excess shield damage sustained by a carrier is passed on to EACH ship engaged in providing power to the Carrier's Weapons/Shields. This damage can be reduced to 0.5% if the CPLS Surge Protector is installed when it is optional.

Also, after initial connection a connected ship will ensure it has 100% shields before providing power to the carrier, thus making an Emergency Shutdown one of the worst penalties to get hit with as it can take alot of seconds to recharge a fighter's shields to full strength (tested on an Odin with 30 Cutlasses and 10 Spitfyres).

As described above there are a number of upgrade options available for the CPLS (none of which are required for TM class vessels)

• CPLS Surge Protector - Available for 50,000,000 Cr, this upgrade is required for M1, M2, M7 and TL class ships. If this upgrade is not installed on a ship that needs it then when the ship takes shield damage the CPLS may have to perform an emergency shutdown.
  
• CPLS Power Coupling - Available for 25,000,000 Cr, this upgrade is required for M1, M2, M6 and M8 class ships. If this upgrade is not installed on a ship that needs it then when one of the ships used by the CPLS disengages from the CPLS to recharge it's own shields the CPLS may have to perform an emergency shutdown.
  
• CPLS Link Guard - Available for 25,000,000 Cr, this upgrade is required for M1, M2, M7 and TL class ships that are capable of carrying more than 15 ships. If this upgrade is not installed on a ship that needs it then during CPLS startup the CPLS may have to perform a partial/full emergency shutdown
  

The Emergency Shutdown mentioned above is a safety mechanism designed to avoid damage to the ship, but typically results in damage to the CPLS itself (which will need to be repaired at a price while the ship is docked at a station).

CPLS Console - This command is available from the additional commands menu of any ship with the Carrier Command Software installed. However, it will only be operational if the associated ship actually has had the CPLS modification applied to it.

CPLS: CPLS Console - This Hot Key allows in-flight access to the CPLS Console providing the ship that the player is in has been suitably modified
CPLS: Emergency Shield Boost - This Hot Key allows in-flight access to the CPLS Console providing the ship that the player is in has been suitably modified, the CPLS is ACTIVE, and the CPLS has at least 1% health remaining.

The Command Console provides the following commands

• Operation Commands (System Off)
  
  • Start System - Turn the System On using the ships currently docked to the Carrier
    
  
  
• Operation Commands (System On)
  
  • Stop System - Safely turn the System Off
    
  • Emergency Shield Boost - Drain the Shield Matrix of docked ships to recharge the Carrier's shields
    
  
  
• Maintenance Commands (Always Available)
  
  • System Status - View the current status of the Carrier, CPLS, and Docked Ships
    
  
  
• Maintenance Commands (Docked At A Station)
  
  • Upgrade System - Purchase Recommended/Optional Upgrades
    
  • Repair System - Pay to have the CPLS Repaired
    
  
  

The following information is intended for mod/script compatability diagnostics and may contain spoilers.

This script was the first script/mod for the X series ever publicly released by Roger L.S. Griffiths and employs an unconventional approach to adding a new ship upgrade to the game. The CPLS upgrade is not implemented as a regular ware but is instead implemented as a set of local variables that are associated with any given ship that has been upgraded.

The script should be compatible with at least 90% of mods/scripts as this script only requires the COMMAND_TYPE_SHIP_50 (1250) command and the 17:250000-250099 text (included in 2500 text file) for the upgrade to function as designed. This script does however expect the vanilla ware Carrier Command Software to be available, so any mods/scripts that remove/alter this ware could have compatability issues.


Due to the unique way the script implements the upgrade it is unable to sell the upgrade through the normal retail mechanism. As a result this script is expecting either:-

1. A station of the type Strong Arms HQ to exist in the Universe
   
2. A station of the type Orbital Defence Station (any of the versions) to exist in the Universe in sector location 11:3 (Asteroid Belt)
   

Providing one or both of these conditions is met then this script will operate without modification.
CPLS v0.12 is anticipated to be the last independent release of this script and as of v0.9 is now integrated with the AWRM mod using a THINK mission instead of the script based seller. This page will retain the v0.12 details and any further modifications will form part of AWRM (Mods) and will be described there.