Combat Tricks OBS Enhancement
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DrBullwinkle


Description
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Improves the Opponent Balancing System (OBS) by:
 - Increasing combat challenge.
 - Decreasing lag caused by too many fighters generated at higher fight ranks.
 - Allowing you to adjust the limits by changing values in the language (t) file.
 - Giving M8's to Xenon and Kha'ak, and M7M's to Xenons.


Background
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My very first post on the Egosoft forums was in search of better combat "competition". Gazz was one of the few to respond, and he gave me the tip about OBS, the Opponent Balancing System. It is the tool that missions use to scale enemies to the player's fight rank. My very first mod to my game was a simple hack to OBS.

Since then, I have learned a lot about the game, and OBS continues to be the single most important thing that a player can change when looking for stronger enemies. By working with Eldyran on one of the missions for the Shady Business plot, I learned enough about the Mission Director (MD) to be able to refine my adjustements to OBS. Ketraar's video tutorials about MD helped, as well.

Dillpickle pointed me in the right direction for the finishing touches that make the Combat Tricks OBS finally ready for release to the public -- after more than a year and a half of working on it.


Install
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Install with Plugin Manager or copy the contents of the scripts folder to your games scripts folder (addonscripts for AP).

If this is your first time installing a script, then see Installation Tips for more information: http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=4049919#4049919



How to Use
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Just play the game. Anything that uses OBS will become more challenging, depending on your fight rank and the settings in the language (t) file: t8563-L0xx.xml.



History
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v4 (2014-12-01)
  * Better (quadratic) equation creates much gentler starting multipliers and smoother curve. A spreadsheet is included to assist in tuning for your game preferences.

v3 (2014-03-21)
  * Further reduced generation of fighters above BigShipsOnlyThreshold (default is Fight Rank 7). (Tom5Cat)
  * Lowered the default MaxMultiplier, to make things a bit easier for some players.
  * Allow generation of M7M's.

v2 (2013-06-18)
 - Bug fix: Removed debug message. (nap_rz)

v1 (2013-06-13)
 - Initial Release


Thanks to
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Eldyran, Gazz, Dillpickle, and Ketraar for their help and guidance.



Discussion Thread: http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=315776
Bullwinkle's List: http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=322735