PP MAMS - Pilot Personnel Merit Assignment Management System

Version 3.51 - An unfinished but functional X4: Foundations mod for automatic pilot replacement. Development discontinued for ethical reasons.

Development Status: This mod works but has known issues. Development was halted due to ethical concerns with Steam's data practices. The code is released as-is for anyone who wants to fork and improve it.

What It Does

PP MAMS (Pilot Personnel Merit Assignment Management System) automatically assigns the best available pilot from your fleet when you fire a pilot from any ship. No more manual searching through dozens of ships to find your best pilot - PP MAMS handles it automatically based on skill level.

Core Features

• Automatic Pilot Replacement: When you fire a pilot, PP MAMS instantly finds and assigns your best available pilot
• Merit-Based Selection: Pilots are ranked by their skill level (potentialskill.{controlpost.aipilot})
• Smart Filtering: Protects important crew:
  • Never touches station managers
  • Excludes large ships (L/XL class)
  • Excludes combat ships (purpose.fight)
  • Preserves your capital ship and combat vessel crews

The Journey

This mod represents 51 iterations of blood, sweat, and "son of a chip" moments. From v3.26 to v3.51, we battled:

• X4's undocumented MDScript API
• Event timing nightmares (event_conversation_next_section fires BEFORE pilot removal!)
• Property lookup failures galore
• Null reference exceptions that made grown developers cry
• The discovery that boardingmarines.count returns 0 for ships WITHOUT the capability

Key Milestones

• v3.26-v3.34: Failed attempts at accessing crew properties
• v3.35-v3.40: API discovery phase (TEST 1-10)
• v3.41: First successful pilot detection
• v3.42-v3.47: Wrestling with async event timing
• v3.48: FIRST SUCCESSFUL PILOT TRANSFER! 🎉
• v3.49-v3.51: Protection mechanisms for special ships

How It Works

Technical Architecture

1. Detection: Listens for event_conversation_next_section with g_pilotleave parameter
2. Signaling: Top-level cue signals a handler with the ship reference
3. Waiting: Child cue waits for event_control_entity_removed on that specific ship
4. Search: Scans all player ships for eligible pilots
5. Selection: Chooses highest skill pilot from eligible candidates
6. Assignment: Uses assign_control_entity with transfer="true"

Filters Applied (v3.51)

1. Ship must be different from target
2. Ship class must be S or M (small/medium)
3. Ship purpose must NOT be combat (purpose.fight)
4. NPC must NOT be a station manager
5. NPC must have pilot skill > 0

Installation

1. Download the mod files from this repository
2. Extract to your X4 extensions folder:

   X4 Foundations/extensions/pp_mams/
   

3. The mod structure should be:

   pp_mams/
   ├── content.xml
   ├── ext_01.cat
   └── ext_01.dat
   

4. Launch X4 and load your save
5. Fire a pilot to test!

Building from Source

The repository includes the source MDScript files and a packing script:

python3 pack_mod.py

This will create the CAT/DAT files in pp_mams_packed/.

Known Issues & Future Work

What's Left to Fix

1. Exclusion Mechanisms

   • The current filter may not catch all special-purpose ships
   • Manticore protection needs refinement (currently relies on purpose filtering)
   • Consider adding a configurable exclusion list

2. Secondary Vacancy Chain

   • When PP MAMS pulls a pilot from Ship A to fill Ship B, Ship A is left without a pilot
   • Should trigger another search to fill the newly created vacancy
   • Risk of cascade effects needs management

3. Edge Cases

   • Property lookup failures still occur with destroyed/invalid ships
   • Yoshiko tracker has null reference issues (Easter egg debug feature)
   • Some modded ships may not be properly filtered

Debug Features

The mod includes comprehensive debug output in v3.50+ showing:

• Source ship details (name, class, macro, purpose)
• Pilot information (name, skill, role)
• Target ship information
• This helps diagnose any unexpected pilot transfers

Technical Discoveries

The Event Problem

X4's MDScript has NO direct pilot/crew events. After extracting and analyzing the entire game codebase:

• No event_pilot_fired or event_crew_changed exists
• event_conversation_next_section was our salvation
• But it fires BEFORE the pilot is removed (async signal issue)
• Solution: Wait for event_control_entity_removed after detection

The API Mystery

Accessing crew properties was a nightmare:

• ship.people.list exists but items have no accessible properties
• find_object_component with class.npc was the key
• potentialskill.{controlpost.aipilot} gives pilot skill
• But only after 10+ test iterations to discover the syntax

Why Development Stopped

This mod is released on GitHub rather than Steam Workshop due to privacy concerns with Steam's data collection practices. Development was discontinued because I can no longer ethically participate in Steam games or their ecosystem. The code is open source and free for anyone to use, modify, and distribute.

Credits

• Developer: Meldrey
• AI Assistant: Claude (Anthropic)
• Special Recognition: The 51 iterations that died so this mod could live
• Inspired By: Every X4 player who ever thought "Why can't the game just pick the best pilot?"

License

This mod is released into the public domain. Do whatever you want with it. May your pilots always fly true.

Final Words

"We did it. Yeah, I said we. Definitely we." - Meldrey, upon first successful pilot transfer

"Claude, you son of a chip. We did it." - Meldrey, after v3.48

The struggle was real. The victory was earned. Fire a pilot, get your best replacement. That's PP MAMS.