Appearing, Then Disappearing Rock Hermits

[mandoman]

Has anyone run into this? What I mean is that when I've been nailed in a certain system (usually Anarchy), while in a firefight with several pirates around an outlaw Rock Hermit, when I come back to the same system from my last saving point, the Pirate Cove Rock Hermit is no longer there. It's a little aggravating to die of one's own stupidity, and not have a second chance at correcting the stupidity. Also, I just played a session where I had cleaned up the pirates from an Outlaw Rock Hermit, and was about to finish off the Rock Hermit itself, when one of those disappearing, reappearing Tharhoid ships showed up. I delayed my attack on the Rock Hermit, chased, and destroyed the Thargoid, but when I turned back to retarget the Rock Hermit, it had disappeared. There were two Rock Hermits in the system. One a legit trading post, and the Pirate Cove Rock Hermit. The legit Rock Hermit was still there, but the Pirate Cove had disappeared completely from the system. I know the Thargoid didn't destroy it, as it was too busy playing with me, so what's the deal with that? It was weird.

On the side. I was playing Oolite last night, when all of a sudden everything went into superfast motion. EVERYTHING! The targeting hair would move so fast, I had to try several times just to lock onto a target. When a ship came at me from what must have been thousands of miles away, with me moving at about .175 LS, it came at me so fast that I had to jerk up, and away to avoid collision. Docking at the Space Station was especially fun, and tricky, because even though I had to come to a dead stop just to orient my ship to the entrance, I literally shot forward toward the station at a pace that should have been a crawl in normal playing conditions. I've had the jerky, slowed reaction phenomenon happen many times, usually due to an excess of space craft in the system, but I've NEVER before experienced that super acceleration before. There wasn't even that many things going on in that particular system. I'm interested to see if it will happen again.

[Eldon]

Has anyone run into this? What I mean is that when I've been nailed in a certain system (usually Anarchy), while in a firefight with several pirates around an outlaw Rock Hermit, when I come back to the same system from my last saving point, the Pirate Cove Rock Hermit is no longer there.

As DaddyHoggy says the system is regenerated each time you appear in it, and what it looks like isn't saved in your savegame.

Also, I just played a session where I had cleaned up the pirates from an Outlaw Rock Hermit, and was about to finish off the Rock Hermit itself, when one of those disappearing, reappearing Tharhoid ships showed up. I delayed my attack on the Rock Hermit, chased, and destroyed the Thargoid, but when I turned back to retarget the Rock Hermit, it had disappeared. There were two Rock Hermits in the system. One a legit trading post, and the Pirate Cove Rock Hermit. The legit Rock Hermit was still there, but the Pirate Cove had disappeared completely from the system. I know the Thargoid didn't destroy it, as it was too busy playing with me, so what's the deal with that? It was weird.

I don't have pirate coves in my ooniverse, but I believe they have a bounty. Any chance some passing police or bounty hunters killed it?

On the side. I was playing Oolite last night, when all of a sudden everything went into superfast motion. EVERYTHING! The targeting hair would move so fast, I had to try several times just to lock onto a target. When a ship came at me from what must have been thousands of miles away, with me moving at about .175 LS, it came at me so fast that I had to jerk up, and away to avoid collision. Docking at the Space Station was especially fun, and tricky, because even though I had to come to a dead stop just to orient my ship to the entrance, I literally shot forward toward the station at a pace that should have been a crawl in normal playing conditions. I've had the jerky, slowed reaction phenomenon happen many times, usually due to an excess of space craft in the system, but I've NEVER before experienced that super acceleration before. There wasn't even that many things going on in that particular system. I'm interested to see if it will happen again.

Sound like you've accidentally found the time acceleration controls. Did you pause the game, then press the right arrow key just before this happened? When paused the right arrow key speeds time up, the left slows it down. To check how fast time is flowing press shift-f, it's the number after "TAF".

[mandoman]

OK. I guess you pretty much covered it. Thanks.

[DaddyHoggy]

Has anyone run into this? What I mean is that when I've been nailed in a certain system (usually Anarchy), while in a firefight with several pirates around an outlaw Rock Hermit, when I come back to the same system from my last saving point, the Pirate Cove Rock Hermit is no longer there.

As DaddyHoggy says the system is regenerated each time you appear in it, and what it looks like isn't saved in your savegame.

Also, I just played a session where I had cleaned up the pirates from an Outlaw Rock Hermit, and was about to finish off the Rock Hermit itself, when one of those disappearing, reappearing Tharhoid ships showed up. I delayed my attack on the Rock Hermit, chased, and destroyed the Thargoid, but when I turned back to retarget the Rock Hermit, it had disappeared. There were two Rock Hermits in the system. One a legit trading post, and the Pirate Cove Rock Hermit. The legit Rock Hermit was still there, but the Pirate Cove had disappeared completely from the system. I know the Thargoid didn't destroy it, as it was too busy playing with me, so what's the deal with that? It was weird.

I don't have pirate coves in my ooniverse, but I believe they have a bounty. Any chance some passing police or bounty hunters killed it?

On the side. I was playing Oolite last night, when all of a sudden everything went into superfast motion. EVERYTHING! The targeting hair would move so fast, I had to try several times just to lock onto a target. When a ship came at me from what must have been thousands of miles away, with me moving at about .175 LS, it came at me so fast that I had to jerk up, and away to avoid collision. Docking at the Space Station was especially fun, and tricky, because even though I had to come to a dead stop just to orient my ship to the entrance, I literally shot forward toward the station at a pace that should have been a crawl in normal playing conditions. I've had the jerky, slowed reaction phenomenon happen many times, usually due to an excess of space craft in the system, but I've NEVER before experienced that super acceleration before. There wasn't even that many things going on in that particular system. I'm interested to see if it will happen again.

Sound like you've accidentally found the time acceleration controls. Did you pause the game, then press the right arrow key just before this happened? When paused the right arrow key speeds time up, the left slows it down. To check how fast time is flowing press shift-f, it's the number after "TAF".

Well done Eldon - I had second thoughts and deleted that post! You must have seen it and remembered it before I managed to delete it!

[Eric Walch]

I don't have pirate coves in my ooniverse, but I believe they have a bounty. Any chance some passing police or bounty hunters killed it?

Possible I think. But not in anarchies. The scanning for bounty, that is used by police and bounty hunters, does not work in anarchies by design. In those systems, it needs a cry for help to make them react.
Maybe that is the reason those systems could become anarchies in the past?

[mandoman]

It was definitely an Anarchy, and a Tech Level 3 at at that. I didn't notice any cries for help. It's still puzzling, but I suppose it isn't impossible that some other bounty hunter, or GalCop snuck in behind my back, and destroyed the Pirate Cove Rock Hermit. That speeding up time is a rush. Good to know that. Thanks again, Eldon.

[Switeck]

"when I come back to the same system from my last saving point, the Pirate Cove Rock Hermit is no longer there."

Unless you're using Save Anywhere OXP...and saving pretty much from the Pirate Cove itself, after a reload that particular Pirate Cove is gone.

[SandJ]

Thank you for this. So, restoring a saved game re-creates the rock hermits. Damn.


Yesterday I found a system with a rock hermit between the witchpoint and the space station, and two others between the space station and the sun. I recorded the prices and quantities of everything at each of them in a spreadsheet and worked out what to buy where and sell where. Loadsamoney! Then went to bed.

Today I loaded the spreadsheet, restored the game, launched, and quickly found another rock hermit! With different prices again, of course.

After 2 hours of flying around in this system, I cannot find the first 3 rock hermits.

They don't exist any more, do they? When I shut down the game, they died. And when I loaded the save game, they were replaced by this doppelgänger. I'm gonna go and blow him up.


Try and convince me this isn't a bug. I could abuse this by repeatedly re-starting Oolite every time I dock until there were 4 rock hermits, just to make loadsamoney by in-system trading and never jump anywhere else.

[Cody]

Somewhat ephemeral, are rock hermits.

[Commander McLane]

Try and convince me this isn't a bug. I could abuse this by repeatedly re-starting Oolite every time I dock until there were 4 rock hermits, just to make loadsamoney by in-system trading and never jump anywhere else.

If you want to spend most of your time loading and quitting the game...

Rock hermits are pretty rare. I've never come across more than three in a system, and most systems have none. They are also spawned completely randomly. If you visit the same system twice, you won't have the same configuration of rock hermits. The same is true for re-loading. Thus you'll indeed get "fresh" rock hermits all the time, but most of the time you'll get no rock hermits at all.

[SandJ]

If you want to spend most of your time loading and quitting the game...

After 50 starts, and using the Rock_Hermit_Locate, load, launch, count and quit:

2 launches with 2 hermits = 4%
28 launches with 1 hermit = 56%
20 launches with 0 hermits = 40%

I wonder what the formula is. 40% chance of 1, if so 1 in 10 of those have another and so on? So 1 in 400 will have 3?

Rock hermits are pretty rare. They are also spawned completely randomly. If you visit the same system twice, you won't have the same configuration of rock hermits. The same is true for re-loading. Thus you'll indeed get "fresh" rock hermits all the time, but most of the time you'll get no rock hermits at all.

I shall have to spend an hour or so re-loading the same system and see how long it takes to completely fill the space station with minerals, gold and platinum from freshly-restocked Rock Hermits.

[Switeck]

Rock hermits are pretty rare. I've never come across more than three in a system, and most systems have none. They are also spawned completely randomly. If you visit the same system twice, you won't have the same configuration of rock hermits. The same is true for re-loading. Thus you'll indeed get "fresh" rock hermits all the time, but most of the time you'll get no rock hermits at all.

Certain OXPs (such as Pirate Coves, Deep Space Pirates, and no doubt others) add additional Rock Hermits (or at least Pirate Coves which LOOK like Rock Hermits till you get close). I've seen as many as 12 Rock Hermits in 1 system because of a combination of OXPs.

[Cody]

I've seen five rock hermits in a system a couple times (with no OXPs adding them... unless RHL adds them?).

[Eric Walch]

I've seen five rock hermits in a system a couple times (with no OXPs adding them... unless RHL adds them?).

Possible. The populator could add up to 20 rock hermits in one system. Although that seems very unlikely. Normally it has a maximum of 6 but when there are less that 10 traders, police, hunters and pirates in total added, it adds extra asteroid groups instead. Although the change of that happening looks close to zero to me.
In normal game with more than 10 normal shops, it adds up to 2 asteroid groups at the space lane and up to 4 asteroid groups at the planet-sun lane. The asteroid groups have a chance to contain a hermit station. It looks like the random generator is reset to the system seed just before adding the asteroid groups. So, the system should add the asteroid groups always at the same position and in the same size. Only if they are added is random for a given system.

[Commander McLane]

It looks like the random generator is reset to the system seed just before adding the asteroid groups. So, the system should add the asteroid groups always at the same position and in the same size. Only if they are added is random for a given system.

If that's the intended behaviour, then it clearly doesn't work as intended:

Starting Oolite:

Code: Select all

> S.shipsWithRole("rockhermit")
[[Station "Rock Hermit" "Rock Hermit" position: (13019.6, 9819.2, 88881.1) scanClass: CLASS_ROCK status: STATUS_IN_FLIGHT]]

Quitting and restarting:

Code: Select all

> S.shipsWithRole("rockhermit")
[]

Jumping out and back in again:

Code: Select all

> S.shipsWithRole("rockhermit")
[]

Quitting and restarting again:

Code: Select all

> S.shipsWithRole("rockhermit")
[[Station "Rock Hermit" "Rock Hermit" position: (-57010, 198605, 282384) scanClass: CLASS_ROCK status: STATUS_IN_FLIGHT]]

Definitely totally random. Neither the number of rock hermits nor their position is in any way stable.