auto_eject OXP v1.1 now available

[Commander McLane]

Must have had good insurance, because was not only my new ship exactly outfitted as the previous one, but all the cargo (and passengers) were on board too!

Can you specify which cargo you had at the point?

I just tested with vanilla Oolite (no OXPs installed). After ejection all contracts are still there. You still have to deliver.

Your new ship is outfitted like the one you've lost (minus the escape pod, of course). That's what you're paying your insurance for.

Also, your passenger is still there. This is a little harder to explain. But it can be assumed that the passenger berth functions as an escape pod as well (it is self-contained, after all), and is injected synchronously with your pod.

Most of your cargo (to be precise: all commodities that are measured in tons) is gone. It still resides inside the floating hull of your old ship. If you had a cargo contract (which is still running after using your escape pod), you need to buy the appropriate amount of cargo at your own cost, if you don't want to fail your contract. Here's where using an escape pod can become rather expensive, depending on which cargo you have to deliver.

The precious commodities, however, are still there (that's Gold, Platinum, and Gem-Stones). This seems counter-intuitive at first, but is easily explained, if you know the standard ship architecture. You see, the precious commodities are not stored in your cargo bay, but in your ship's safe, which is located in the cockpit. And, your cockpit is your escape pod. If you hit the "escape" button, your whole cockpit is ejected wholesale. That is much faster, and therefore much more reliable, than installing an escape pod somewhere else in your ship. You save the time that you would need for getting into your escape pod in the first place, because you're inside your escape pod right from the beginning.

Thus, everything is working as expected and intended. Only if one of the bulk commodities would be magically transferred from your old ship to the replacement ship, that would be a bug.

[DeathKnyte]

Did you hit the ESC key twice rapidly or as fast as you can?

Obviously not.

I have since been able to do so. It requires very rapid successive hits.
No wonder I never managed to escape in the past.
So, it is a good thing that I have invested in the Foole's system.

Asking the obvious question first: have you bought another escape pod after using the last one?

haha!
Asking the obvious is the smart thing to do, concerning me, it seems.
Ja, I did. It is the my lack luster performance at hitting the ESC key with enough rapidity that caused that failure.
Pilot error - not system failure.

Must have had good insurance, because was not only my new ship exactly outfitted as the previous one, but all the cargo (and passengers) were on board too!

Can you specify which cargo you had at the point?

I just tested with vanilla Oolite (no OXPs installed). After ejection all contracts are still there. You still have to deliver.

Your new ship is outfitted like the one you've lost (minus the escape pod, of course). That's what you're paying your insurance for.

Also, your passenger is still there. This is a little harder to explain. But it can be assumed that the passenger berth functions as an escape pod as well (it is self-contained, after all), and is injected synchronously with your pod.

Most of your cargo (to be precise: all commodities that are measured in tons) is gone. It still resides inside the floating hull of your old ship. If you had a cargo contract (which is still running after using your escape pod), you need to buy the appropriate amount of cargo at your own cost, if you don't want to fail your contract. Here's where using an escape pod can become rather expensive, depending on which cargo you have to deliver.

The precious commodities, however, are still there (that's Gold, Platinum, and Gem-Stones). This seems counter-intuitive at first, but is easily explained, if you know the standard ship architecture. You see, the precious commodities are not stored in your cargo bay, but in your ship's safe, which is located in the cockpit. And, your cockpit is your escape pod. If you hit the "escape" button, your whole cockpit is ejected wholesale. That is much faster, and therefore much more reliable, than installing an escape pod somewhere else in your ship. You save the time that you would need for getting into your escape pod in the first place, because you're inside your escape pod right from the beginning.

Thus, everything is working as expected and intended. Only if one of the bulk commodities would be magically transferred from your old ship to the replacement ship, that would be a bug.

Ah man - you beat me to the punch.
I tested all this last night, 24 times and made varying notes to post here.
You have covered everything essential in all that I wanted to say.
You also offered some explanations as to why these things make sense - or not.
Good job.


(Edit: My test ship was a Boa Class Cruiser.)

[CommonSenseOTB]

Did you hit the ESC key twice rapidly or as fast as you can?

Obviously not.

I have since been able to do so. It requires very rapid successive hits.
No wonder I never managed to escape in the past.
So, it is a good thing that I have invested in the Foole's system.

Your welcome.

[vsfc]

Hi Everyone!

I made a little modification to the auto_eject.oxp adding ability to sell this equipment.
I know you may think who would want to sell this valuable life saving equipment?
In my experience I got ejected several times and then simply was watching my abandoned ship still intact until got to the station screen. In the other hands I believe any buyable equipment should be allowable to sell.

If you interested in this change I can send someone the code for publishing in the new version.

Cheers, Commanders!

[Diziet Sma]

In my experience I got ejected several times and then simply was watching my abandoned ship still intact until got to the station screen.

That was why I uninstalled mine a long time ago.. on the other hand, you could try reducing the energy threshold trigger down from the standard 22 to something like 5 or 10..

[vsfc]

Yes, it is a good idea to adjust the threshold, but I just wanted to have my money back, not simply uninstall.

[Commander McLane]

Wow! I'm flattered that anyone is actually using this OXP.

To be honest, it's a hack more than anything else. Somebody asked for an auto eject functionality a couple of years ago, and I threw it together in very short time. Thus it's a rather crude mechanism.

Regarding removing and reselling the equipment: conceptually, the auto eject module isn't meant to be re-sellable. After all, it's basically a modification to your existing escape pod. Undoing the modification—while it may be technically possible—shouldn't get you any money back, because you'd have to pay a technician to undo the modification, just like you had to pay them for modifying the pod in the first place. Thus it doesn't feel right to me to give a refund for reselling.

However, I am currently looking into making one or two refinements to the OXP and removing one bug from it. The bug: currently it isn't accounted for what happens to your auto eject module when you sell your escape pod (as opposed to using it). That's an oversight on my part.

The refinements: First, I'd like to make the equipment toggle-able, so you can switch it on or off. After all, you may want to only have the added security in some selected situations as a last resort, given that it comes with the added risk of being ejected prematurely.

Second, given that there are some feedbacks regarding that the device triggers too early, I'm thinking about giving you a choice of selecting between various thresholds for firing the device. This way you can choose a lower or higher setting according to your liking.

So, expect a new version to be around perhaps after the weekend. This is also a good time to post any other suggestions regarding the device.

[Cody]

Such a finely-tuned modification might be prone to more frequent damage - or very occasionly it might even fire unnecessarily.

[Commander McLane]

Such a finely-tuned modification might be prone to more frequent damage - or very occasionly it might even fire unnecessarily.

This is going to be the natural result of the modification. The higher the threshold is set, the more likely it becomes to fire unnecessarily. The lower the threshold is set, the more likely it becomes to not fire at all—resulting in a "Press Space Commander" moment.

[Norby]

I am using this OXP also and can recommend to all player.

In the spirit of the fair play my [wiki]Detectors[/wiki] OXP and [wiki]Towbar[/wiki] OXP try to eject NPCs in the last moment if there are undamaged Escape Pod on borad.

I choosed to trigger under 23 energy due to the next Military Laser hit can be fatal. I think lower values are not good especially if facing into a non-overheated beam laser where the next hit coming in 0.1 second.

[vsfc]

Hi Everyone!

I got a question. When you run out of energy banks is this the end for a ship? Why should auto-eject fire when energy banks are low? I had it on LOW setting. I got attacked by 5 pirates so I hit injectors to gain some distance from them and managed to shoot down two of them with my front and aft military lasers. The remaining three pirates started to shoot missiles and my auto-ecm system went crazy, which drained energy banks pretty quickly. I hit injectors and the next thing I saw is I being auto-ejected leaving the ship with almost 90% full front shield and 100% full aft shield. I did not have any cargo so I left it as it is as I ended up at the station where I was heading to. I only bought back the escape pod and did not need to buy again the auto-eject module. (BUG) This saved me 500 credits.

Cheers,
V-SFC

[Norby]

I being auto-ejected leaving the ship with almost 90% full front shield and 100% full aft shield.

You are right, energy shoud be checked with shields. I suggest to change the 52. line in auto_eject.oxp/Config/scripts.js to this:

Code: Select all

if( Math.min(player.ship.forwardShield, player.ship.aftShield) + player.ship.energy < 23)

I changed mine and tested successfully: ECM problem gone, eject when needed only.

[Commander McLane]

I got a question. When you run out of energy banks is this the end for a ship?

Yes. A ship is destroyed when it has no energy left.

Usually, at this point there are no shields left as well, because laser (or missile) hits only begin to drain your energy when your shields are down.

However, you're right that other things (like using your ECM or cloaking device, firing your own lasers; and last but not least rebuilding your shields) also drain energy. Thus it's possible to become low on energy while still having some shields. Still, if your last energy bank runs out, your ship dies, regardless whether you still have some shields left or not.

Thus, most energy-draining equipment has a safety feature: it stops working below a certain threshold of remaining energy. You don't want to push the ECM button, and as a result accidentally blow yourself up, because the ECM pulse has brought your own energy to 0. I am not certain how the auto ECM works in this regard. If it is sitting on top of the normal ECM, it should have this safety feature, too.

Bottom line: if you ever run low on energy (last energy bank down to a fraction), you are in serious danger, because whatever uses the next bit of energy will kill you, even if you still have full shields. Thus, the Auto Eject Module doesn't monitor your shield status, but only your remaining energy.

Also, a single direct hit from a missile can take out all of your shields at once, and then some. The "then some" part of the sentence means that whatever fraction of the missile's impact is above your shield capacity, will bring down your energy. So again, when very low on energy, the next incoming missile can kill you instantly, even if your shields are still full or almost full. This is a situation where you should either run away fast, or, if not possible, eject.

Foole's Systems™ want to keep you alive, thus they went for the safe route, rather than the risky one of trusting that your shields can always save you.

(EDIT: vsfc is play-testing a preliminary version of auto eject 1.1, with the changes outlined in my post above. I expect a bug-fixed version of that to go online after this weekend.)

[Cody]

... if your last energy bank runs out, your ship dies, regardless whether you still have some shields left or not.

You can survive with zero energy - you just gotta be very careful for a few seconds.

[cim]

... if your last energy bank runs out, your ship dies, regardless whether you still have some shields left or not.

You can survive with zero energy - you just gotta be very careful for a few seconds.

Well, sort of. Any event which causes damage which reduces your energy to zero or lower will destroy your ship. However, if your energy is reduced to zero or lower by means other than taking damage (which should only be possible with OXPs), your ship will survive this.

(Energy is a floating-point value, so you can survive being reduced to 0.00000001 energy, and this will look like empty energy banks)