Vertu Air Units (VAUs) [CPack] v2.8.10.2

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Hello! If you have been here for a while you may notice that the entire front page is gone here!
That is because everything was migrated over to the Kuckle Cracker Wiki!
I was unable to modify my posts here for some time so I migrated everything to the wiki earlier than I wished but it was still for the better.
See the link below to visit the wiki page for CPACK information and see what the VAU CPACK is about!
CPACK Information page: http://knucklecracker.com/wiki/doku.php?id=cw4:cpack:docs:7f65b557-95b9-47d0-807a-5d05b1b426db

The download will remain in this forum post (as it is the only means of public download posting I am aware of).
But please go to the Wiki for the information about this very large, developed, and complex CPACK, it is neater and will be maintained consistently unlike here where I was unable to maintain this page in the past!

Hope you enjoy the CPACK, it is my most iconic CPACK ever made.
I am always open for feedback and suggestions, you can message me directly to this forum account (until I say otherwise here) or comment here. If enough gossip happens here I will create another post just for suggestions, feedback, and talk of the CPACK. I very much enjoy constructive criticism and feedback and would always be happy to hear the opinions of others and the ideas created by them.
I am a very experienced 4RPL coder, there is little I can not do.

Note: I am not on discord (thanks to introvert nature rabbit hole) so this forum page and forum account are the only ways to contact me in any way.
Current download version: 2.8.10.2

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V2.1.2 Basic Update:

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• [PLAYER REPORTED] Fixed the HCPPCAS's ability to fire because I forgot the RefreshUnitLosCache method in the unit... My bad.... Thought it was a worse problem...
• HCPPCAS's AI will now disarm itself when out of ammo to allow itself to cross into Creeper while moving to the RESTOCK beacon. [UNTESTED]
• Added ATMOSPHERE DYNAMICS. The higher up a unit goes, the less air resistance it encounters, therefor will have increased movement capabilities based on altitude. There are also atmosphere variables located in the "Governer" script. (Darn bad spelling!)
• Added damage effects. The more damaged a VAU, the more effects it creates. Current effects are: Smoking and Sparks.
• Heavily modified VAU HP stats to be more accurate/finalized now that they are important.
• Summoner should be fully reliable now when it comes to not exploding when you didn't do the thing.
• V-Tesla integrated into the VAUs, being the bane of skimmers for us to enjoy using.
• MBF now has a stat buff to all Fighters including the R-Fighter, doubling their Rate of Fire for their main weapon (now shoots green by default, pink when buffed).
• MBF now has AI.
• R-Fighter now has a "DIRECT" charge speed identical to the Tesla's OVERCHARGE. This is also it's default charge speed now being double "MAX" charge speed.
• All VAUs now can move vertically and horizontally at the same time. (Couldn't before due to legacy code and my inexperience at the time).
• VAUs planned to have interactions with a Creeper Building I have made known as the TCML (TCM) in their scripts.
• Made the V-Battlestation's shot fancy and now spawns at the end of the barrel.
• Auto Station now costs 150 Lithic to summon.
• MBF now costs 1,250 Lithic to summon.
• R-Fighter now costs 1,800 Lithic to summon.
• Summoner can now store 2,000 Lithic.
• Altered projectile velocities of the Fighter and R-Fighter.
• R-Fighter Laser Missiles now pick a random area to launch to around the target, so all the missiles don't just bunch into a single map Cell, allowing the R-Fighter to deal damage more efficiently.
• Altered Fighter sounds.
• Fighter AI now has a deviation between updates, creating desync from other fighters.

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V2.1.6 PAC Compatibility expansion.

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Within the CPack on the "Global Control" tab is the "Governor" script. Click into that and enable PAC mode by changing the Boolean-like variable to 1 (1=true, 0=false) then simply go into Units and click on the Summoner, move along to "Settings" and into interface, then remove the "Summoner" name in "Player Menu Name". This will remove the Summoner from the player build list for your PAC map. Do the same for the RESTOCKv beacon. Then you are all done!

• Summoner has an AI to swap it's summon types as certain VAUs reach their unit cap.
  This is in order from: Fighter -> Mobile Battle Front -> HCPPCAS -> R-Fighter.
• All VAUs will manually disable their ability to be selected by the player when PAC is enabled. Hold CTRL and press "Insert" to force select a non-selectable unit while in the editor.
• All the units the Summoner AI can summon in PAC mode as of now will automatically enable their AI mode to Rouge (except the HCPPCAS which is hunter). All other VAUs are just stationary on placement like the Battlestation.
• VAUs will retain their UI widgets except for AI mode and Auto Restock (auto enabled/defined) after saving and reloading from the editor. Meaning if you enable the Battlestation's shield, it will be on when playing the map.
• Upon mission completion while PAC Enabled, ALL VAUs will retreat. Not just the Fighter.
• Performance improvements. You can have more VAUs without lagging the game as much.

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V2.3.3: CPack refinement and fully PAC compatable.

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• Fixed HCPPCAS's ability to realize when to restock. Legacy code wasn't updated long ago, having it only restock when less than 10 ammo which could result in a soft lock.
• Health changes and all VAUs have 5x the default healing rate by default.
• I am confidant the VAUs will work perfectly in their current state for PAC maps.
• Battlestation and AutoStation have a working retreat call now once "destroyed".
• **Reactor Fighter now has it's long awaited shield. It's a shield dependent Fighter so the lack of a shield made it very vulnerable but with new technology, this "shield" works against Creeper damage now. Making it a beefy tank of 80 HP, 55 HP in shields that regen 100x 10x faster than the new VAU heal rate but only when health is greater than or equal to 25. This means the shield has 500x 50x faster heal rate than the default heal rate, making it nearly unstoppable against non-shield countering weaponry (which don't exist yet for the Creeper).
• Fighters now pick a location near the RESTOCKv beacon to fly to when restocking. They will always be in range of a Pylon under the beacon placed at a height of at least 15.
• Fighters have a larger range in picking their location to fly to when targeting an enemy.
• Fixed some MBF related bugs.
• All VAUs besides the stations have been scaled down to more "accurate" sizes.
• Fighters are optimized enough to have 10 of them without extreme performance impact.
• The Reactor Fighter can now damage PAC LUREs. My version of PAC has this balance change in consideration.
• Buffed the damage of the Battlestation a bit.
• Lowered the firing sounds of Fighters and the Alarm sound of Stations.
• Removed most of the trails created by VAUs and increased their thruster bloom due to scale change.
• Shaved a few hundred lines of code in many VAUs.
• Fighters now successfully apply their damage to the damageMap. They will no longer be zealous in overkilling Creeper though the Reactor Fighter's Laser Missiles don't reliably apply to this.
• VAUs remove their specified target path line when in PAC mode. This only triggers on :Awake so recompiling after changing to PAC_MODE won't visually change this.
• Also casually added R-Fighter lore.

V2.4.1. Bug fixes and misc refinement.

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• Battlestation and Auto Station no longer spam RefreshLOSCashe creating massive lag.
• Various bugs related to pro-longed use in a single mission fixed.
• New Auto Station model and some rebalancing to it.
• Some additional PAC stuff (don't look for the changes, they are very very small and minor).
• Reverted settings of scripts to defaults. Not the script user variables, but the unit settings.
• Nerfed shield regen to make the R-Fighter not literally invincible unless something instantly deals over 55 damage to remove it's shield.
• Some other minor changes and fixes.

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V2.7.3 Major rebalancing, refining, and improvement update. The holy wall of text has been summoned!

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• Performance enhancement for all VAUs to call RefreshLOSCashe a lot less.
• RESTOCKv now requests ammo as a method to check if it's connected to an energy source. It will use the ammo and if it reaches 0, will tell the VAUs to restock at the RiftLab.
• VAUs will now always restock at the RiftLab if a RESTOCKv beacon is unavailable or offline.
• The RESTOCKv beacon auto-sets it's build limit to 1 if undefined (less than 0) though only after the first ran frame or on Gameload. Leaving a small window for you to place multiple for any miscellaneous reasons and no worries if you forgot in the past to set it's build limit to 1 as it's now automated.
• It has became clear to me that there is nothing wrong with having more than one RESTOCKv beacon. They all simply fight to define the same variable only once being done in :Buildcomplete, :Gameload, and :Destroyed (which sets those variables to -1, -1) along with a special case of if the beacon runs out of ammo. Having multiple RESTOCKv beacons does not break anything at all but for all desire for simplicity and convenience, do not try to stop the CPack from setting the build limit to 1 for the RESTOCKv beacon. Multiple RESTOCKv beacons may even be supported in the future.
• Some slight changes to the MBF, Fighter (VGPSF), and R-Fighter (EXP-VRF) models (besides the return of originally intended textures)).
• I got the originally intended textures of the Fighter and R-Fighter (not the R-Fighter, was a bit too excited and gave it textures it didn't have) to work out!! I am very pleased to say that they both finally possess their originally intended appearance.
• COMPLETE OVERHAUL TO THE VAU'S BALANCE! Only the Battlestation and HCPPCAS are unchanged. Ever since I made the technological advancement of converting from using potatoes for CPU to a beefy apparatus, it became VERY clear that the VAUs where COMPLETLY AND UTTERLY OVER POWERED. Now that I can see everything unfold faster than 20/30 FPS at the best of times I was able to actually witness the shear Creeper killing power of the VAUs. In response, their damage has been COMPLETLY REDONE. They also tend to use less ammo per shot now too.
  Details:
  Damage per shot reduced. (Typically halved).
  Damage radius per shot heavily reduced (where way too big now having a better idea of how important damage radius is when it comes to kill-power).
  Fire cost typically reduced (normally proportionate to damage reduction).
  Minor changes to fire rate for some weapons.
• Added formation AI to the Fighter AI in an external global script. Fighters also include new AI modes of which being LEADER (fighters with AI enabled will enter a formation around the leader fighter while that leader fighter has the targeting AI of Hunter, Rouge, or none as chosen) and INDEPENDENT (the fighter won't enter formations even though the AI is in control of it and possessing the Hunter or Rouge targeting AI as chosen).
  Formations are:
  
• • Square: 3x3 square with the leader in the middle.
  • Circle: Same a square but in the shape of a circle.
  • Cross: An "X" shaped formation with the leader in the center.
  • Converge: All fighters within the "formation" will remain around the Leader in no particular formation, simply being around the general location of the leader.
• Redone the VRF's health system. It now has a casual 225 HP. 25 in hull, 200 in shields which regen at a rate that's not impossible to overcome.
• Default caps redone. There can now be a max of 4 Autostations and 9 Fighters by default.
• Summoner UI text now updates to changes in caps. Much of it's text is now defined within the Summoner script so no more need to manually change it.
• Some general rebalancing of health.
• V-Battlestation now stuns units next to it's cannon shots on impact. This includes both enemies and friendlies but is a minor inconvenience. The Battlestation will vaporize enough Creeper in a single shot for the units to recover from being stunned before Creeper runs into them unless it was Crimson or A LOT of Creeper. Just something to consider.
• Increased health threshold for when a VAU starts to retreat when in AI mode.
• Altered damage effects a little to be more cumbersome.
• Some alterations to the retreat sounds and effects of some VAUs.
• Various script optimizations to have less lines of code run per frame. Usually using "if(GetGameUpdateCount % [NUMBER] eq0)". This should help a good amount for slower computers that start to lag behind from the amount of code ran per frame. This also means the VAUs are further noticeably optimized when a strong computer runs the mission.
• A potential bug has been found to make the VRF shoot laser missile volleys twice. This however was discovered during some tinkering with that very weapon in the VRF's code and has been seemingly only from that experimental code.
• Added a special PAC_MODE disable variable in the Governer global script. Only utilize if you are semi-experienced in 4rpl and or coding in general.
• VAUs are now 100%/100% PAC compatible, including the V-Tesla. Once you set PAC_ENABLED_FOR_VAUS to 1 (aka "true"), the VAUs (including the V-Tesla in theory) are perfectly PAC ready and the CPack will even remove the Summoner and RESTOCKv from the build menu (only when the mission is loaded outside of the editor).
• Heavily updated the forum-post's information.
• The VAU CPack has reached over 10,000 unique lines of code!
• The UnitSpecifiedTarget marker (that gray line that appears for the Thor and Bertha) will now disappear upon the VAU being deselected (only when deselected) or the VAU is in PAC_MODE because a bunch of gray lines going everywhere through terrain and is fully opaque is just a horrific eye sore when there are 9 Fighters buzzing around. The paths will only show again when the VAU is selected.
• Potential plans for adding another VAU; The Vertu Fighter Frigate (VFF) which will play a support role for other VAUs and be an extra important unit in PAC maps that use the VAUs in PAC_MODE.

V2.7.4
-Corrected texture of the R-Fighter (whoops).
-Altered colors a bit to be more accurate. From now on, the greens will be replaced by their correct shade rather than lime green.

V2.7.6
-Fixed the VAU Social AI global script to work in PAC_MODE again. It was a simple fix that I only noticed after they where being used in a 2nd VPAC in the making ever since V2.7.3.
-Many minor changes not worth mentioning (V2.7.5).

Performance note: [Rant Warning]

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I view laptops as... *sigh...* in a brutally honest way.... Utter trash compared to the capabilities of a tower.

So please understand that a laptop will have a very difficult time running maps with dynamic CPacks like the VAUs CPack.

I have done my best to optimize the VAU CPack more but if you are using a laptop then you need to understand that it's not my CPacks that make the mission laggy. It's actually mostly the scale of my maps such as something so simple as how much Creeper in on the map, not the fact there are 10,000 lines of unique code when only say.. 3,000 run per frame at a high estimate. A laptop lacks the performance efficiency to benefit from my efforts of optimization so at the end of the day please consider what you are using to run not only this CPack, but any other CPack from any other map maker.

I don't care how "good of a laptop" you have. I am not budging on my perspective of (Computer Tower >>>>> Laptop). I have experience in this perspective.

I have done my best but there is only so much I can do, for A) Laptops have massive hardware limitations requiring possibly far unmeetable levels of optimization. And B) I am only a modder of a game that heavily supports and integrates modding. I can't go and try to optimize the deeper code of CW4, that would be called hacking and the game is already very optimized while making it's modding compatibility very user friendly, efficient, and useable/yielding. Plus, KnuckleKracker has levels of experience that would drown any levels of experience I possess so it is rather safe to say that the game is already very well optimized.

I have seen what an unoptimized game looks like and what a performance heavy game looks like. And CW4 is not anywhere close to either besides being potentially performance heavy from a massive map on a scale like PAC Prospector Fortress which will crush any laptops' hopes and dreams of not exploding. In fact, I even got called out for how performance heavy PAC Prospector Fortress was when a person's laptop experienced performance overload mean while my 8-year old computer from the age of the dinosaurs was the computer I used to create, finalize, and publish that map.

Performance note summary: Don't expect laptops to be mobile mini super computers. They have no hope of being anything close so I can't make my maps and CPacks laptop friendly when I need to optimize everything to unreasonable levels.

VAU Forum-post updating process insight:

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This forum-post including the CPack download will not be updated (unless some nasty bug(s) need patching or some hole(s) need filling are found after an update to the CPack is placed onto this forum-post) until the CPack has went through enough changes to be in any sense, meaningfully different to the current forum version.

Every time I complete a coding session on further developing the CPack in some way, I increase the version by 0.0.1 depending on how significant the mini update was. Typically a very, very, minor bug patch or change in code/behavior will result in +0.0.1
A rather lengthy mini patch that adds a good 20 or so lines and/or a semi-significant behavioral change will result in an increase > 0.0.1.

When an large change in code or behavior is finished. The version changes by +0.1 and resets the minor version to 0.
This typically is from a coding session that lasted for over an hour or two and/or added a new behavior/change to the CPack that makes it's contents be noticeably different than in previous versions. An example of this is the addition of formations in the VAU CPack that only applied to PAC_MODE. This was found to be too minor because it only applied to PAC_MODE, was new, and not fully developed to the planned end result. Only when the addition of formations included non-PAC_MODE and was refined, furnished, and given finishing touches would the addition of formations be significant enough to warrant an update to the forum-post.

A change in the major version (X.0.0) means that version 1.0.0 is basically unrecognizable to version 2.0.0 in development. This is very rarely incremented past V2 as V1 would be the most unstable, being new and fresh. It wouldn't take much for some revolutionary change to occur and increase the version to V2. Changing into V3 however is substantially harder as V2 tends to have the most potential work to be done much like for the VAUs, now V2.7.3. V2 very easily just grows and grows with no massive revolution. A VAU V3.0.0 would be on the scale that space combat would be a fully functioning, stable, optimized, and applicable thing where VAUs could fight enemies up in space and the planet's atmosphere/ground (where they currently mostly reside and fight).

And finally, the forum-post will be updated if the latest version isn't changed for a good while and is stable. This is proportionate to the difference in version number. The more different, the less amount of time needed for this to happen. The less different, the more amount of time.

STILL have no idea how to do images.

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ATTENTION TO ANY VIEWING THIS!
The CPACK information of this forum post is now REDUNDANT AND NO LONGER MAINTAINED due to the inability to modify messages after 30 minutes. Because of this, everything besides Update Notes have been moved to the KnuckleKracker Wiki at this location:
http://knucklecracker.com/wiki/doku.php?id=cw4:cpack:docs:7f65b557-95b9-47d0-807a-5d05b1b426db

Latest version downloads will be constantly placed here as replies. But please ignore the main text now and refer to the Wiki CPACK page instead.

V2.7.12 - Multi-minor patch version

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V2.8.0

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• Fixed damage mapping. HUZAH! (Also made a clarification on the API that 1 depth = 1,000,000 value).
• [MAIN UPDATE] Fixed lethal error of update procedure of the VAU. Hopefully this was only in my personal V2.7.13 and not V2.7.12.
• Various small changes.
• Summoner now has correct default values set within its script settings (within the Scripts tab of the unit editor).

[The Apocalyptic]

Yay!

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v2.8.10.2 - Complexity update

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• Did I add the extension of the HCPPCAS post V2.8.0? Either way I don't see it mentioned so... quick update on that:
  Added extension to the HCPPCAS model, changed its movement behavior, and added an effect for when it first fires after firing once in acknowledgement of the unintended but canonized bug of preserving its damage value and using it for 1 frame before resetting all after firing again.
• Added Auto Restock AI to AutoStation and V-Battlestation.
• Added conservative retreat AI to the AutoStation and Battlestation, they will now retreat to the Rift Lab when "low on health".
• I have now learned that the AutoStation may be overpowered and might need a nerf in the future.
• Auto Restock AI now factors in the height the destination is at now that I have replaced my main uses of MoveTowards APIs with MoveTowardsAndAvoid APIs, a bit of legacy code from long... long... LONG ago that has now been updated.
• Updated legacy code using MoveTowards API with MoveTowardsAndAvoid API.
• Fighters now have an adaptive hover height which is just a bit higher than the terrain, allowing them to go up and down the terrain. This is a new thing as I don't think it is compatible with the AI modes fully as they will be too busy trying to be above Creep that many times above the terrain.
• Fighters now have a chance to commentate after being around for long enough.
• EXP-VRF now understands its retreat threshold was increased and now will attempt to retreat before that threshold is reached, being when it loses shields.
• VAUs no longer have a footprint size. I may revert this for aesthetic reasons as it was only done in an attempt to fix a bug of another CPACK.
• Tweaked the HCPPCAS movement a bit so it doesn't go running off the moment it shows up and slam into terrain, casually phasing through it like dark matter. Although the Vertu Empire would love to say it was intentional it was marly a quantum dynamics error of going from one dimension to another that was unsolved. This would of lead to many problems and had to be pathed though sneaky HCPPCAS's got a chuckle from us.
• Changed the default UI status of "prioritize shield" to off.
• Fixed AutoStation LOS refreshing which apparently was never solved in V2.8.0, goes to show how little I use the AutoStation but when I did, I noticed it, and fixed it. This is why I want feedback yet the community around me is small.
• Fixed Fighter and R-Fighter projectiles to be impervious and other related settings they shouldn't of had.
• Various small changes and bug fixes as usual. The VAUs are in their most stable state yet. Possibly even finalized to some degree but of course not as there are still plans. I just think it is 100% stable in all forms of PAC and normal gameplay.