[UPDATED RELEASE]-Police IFF Scanner 1.3.1 (18/12/11)

[Capt. Murphy]

Morning,

A simple equipment upgrade which highlights offender and fugitive ships on the scanner in custom colours for rapid identification.

It's coded to be compatible with Thargoid's Target Autolock Plus OXP which also uses scripted scanner colours. I'm not aware of any other OXP this could potentially conflict with but if you do know of one please shout.

From the read-me.

Police IFF Scanner Upgrade 1.3.1 (18/12/11)
By Capt Murphy 2011
Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 : Please visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ for more info.
Requires Oolite 1.75.2

Overview:

Upgrade to the IFF (lollipop) scanner system which highlights ships with an offender or fugitive legal status with custom ‘lollipop’ colours to allow rapid visual identification of criminals via the scanner.

Description:

In a bid to raise funds to replace their ageing Viper fleet, and in recognition of the lack of control they are exhibiting over many of the space lanes, Galcop have licensed a civilian version of the IFF scanner unit used in Police ships to quickly identify criminals in flight.

Welcomed by both Bounty Hunters wanting that extra few seconds advantage in identifying targets and nervous traders wanting an extra few seconds to avoid potentially hostile pirates the unit is available from Tech Level 12 or above planets for the princely sum of 2500 credits. It can also be resold for 60% refund of normal sale price at Tech level 12 or above. There is a 10 credit admin fee to sell the equipment.

The unit complements the Bounty Scanner equipment and has also been designed to work well with the Target Autolock Plus equipment. It is particularly useful when players run into an ongoing furball to quickly work out who the ‘bad’ guys are.

Once installed ships (excluding Thargoids) with an offender status are displayed on the scanner as flashing yellow/orange ‘lollipops’, whilst fugitives are displayed as flashing orange/magenta ‘lollipops’, instead of the default yellow. If targeting and hostile to the player both offender and fugitive ships turn deep red on the scanner.

Change Log:

Version 1: 19/6/11 – Initial release.

Version 1.1: 21/6/11 – Bug fix to the timer mechanism that updates the scanner to avoid log warning messages.

Version 1.2: 25/6/11 - Fixed a 'silent' bug in timer mechanism. Added code to stop Timer on ship death.

Version 1.3: 24/9/11 – Added code to script so that scanner colours are always reset properly if the Police Scanner is damaged in combat.

Version 1.3.1 18/12/11 – Minor update. Code is now compliant with JavaScript strict mode. Fugitives now have orange/magenta lollipop colours to differentiate them slightly from hired guns.

Download from the box: http://www.box.com/s/5fvaub2b9b07hgluou4n

[Dragonfire]

YOU READ MY MIND! THANK YOU! Installing right now.

[Wildeblood]

Allow me to be your first official downloader - sounds handy.

[Dragonfire]

Lol, I beat you by a minute, Wildeblood.

[Capt. Murphy]

You are welcome gents. I'm surprised this hasn't been done before - I'm pretty sure it's been possible via script since 1.74.....

[CommonSenseOTB]

Good idea Capt. Murphy. Anything that allows people to display the information they want in the way they want it is a good idea.

[Wildeblood]

It works well, I'd highly recommend it to anyone who likes to go looking for trouble. And yet, I didn't really enjoy it; it felt like a bit of a cheat. I'm interested to read an explanation of this technology in-game? How would this thing work? I can't imagine criminals fitting a special "I'm a crim, come and get me" transponder to their ships. So I'd score this 5 stars for lazy commanders who like to make things easier for themselves (the sort of people who edit shipdata files to allow 12 missiles and ask for tractor beams to automatically scoop spilled cargo ). But sorry, Capt. Murphy, only two stars for adding to immersive gameplay.

[Capt. Murphy]

@Wildeblood - no worries - the beauty of OXP's is they are take it or leave it. Personally from a Bounty Hunting point of view I think it's great. No need to target individual ships to see if they are clean or not, and you can quickly wade in to a big firefight confident you are shooting the right people.

As far as the explanation goes it is simply as the read me says - Police Ships have always used an advanced IFF scanner that matches ships idents to a database of offenders (which is perhaps updated at every station dock) to highlight criminals in flight. They have simply made this technology available to the Civilian market at a fairly hefty price compared to similar scanner/targetting type equipment.

The core game equipment Scanner Targeting Enhancement already gives you a ships legal status when you target it whilst the OXP Bounty Scanner adds the exact bounty presumably by a similar mechanism - the STE/Bounty Scanner holds a database of the ship idents of currently known criminals.

[Wildeblood]

It's not so different from Frame's Bounty Scanner - with that you have to target a ship, but then are told the exact bounty presumably by a similar mechanism - the Bounty Scanner holds a database of the ship idents of currently known criminals.

No, the bounty scanner has no database, it contacts the nearest station for information in real time. That's why there is that frustrating 2 second wait after you target someone before the bounty information appears. Similarly the wormhole scanner will tell you if a wormhole is going where you want to go, but makes you wait a few seconds for that knowledge. Overall, it makes the game easier, but it adds a moment of frustration first. That makes for good gameplay.

I'm not suggesting your scanner would benefit from a delay, that wouldn't fit in with what it is. I was just saying that it makes life easier without adding any complexity to the gameplay, and that might not appeal to everyone. If you're a bounty hunter, Capt. Murphy, wait until you see my Super-Duper Sniper Gunsight - coming soon.

[Wildeblood]

The core game equipment Scanner Targeting Enhancement already gives you a ships legal status when you target it whilst the OXP Bounty Scanner adds the exact bounty presumably by a similar mechanism - the STE/Bounty Scanner holds a database of the ship idents of currently known criminals.

Hey look, you edited your remark while I wrote my reply. You know, I completely forgot the legal status of every ship was already available. I've previously wondered why the scanner didn't work as yours does, so I take back everything I wrote. It was just a reaction to things suddenly getting easier.

Although... if the information is public, not police only, then it isn't a "Police IFF Scanner Upgrade", is it? I'm changing the name to IFF Scanner Display Upgrade.

[Capt. Murphy]

Hey look, you edited your remark while I wrote my reply.

Sorry!

I was going to point out that the Bounty Scanner works in Interstellar Space......but it doesn't matter...

[Wildeblood]

I was going to point out that the Bounty Scanner works in Interstellar Space......but it doesn't matter...

It does!? Well that's just wrong. How does it update the bounty information every three seconds then, if it isn't in contact with a station?

[Zireael]

It does!? Well that's just wrong. How does it update the bounty information every three seconds then, if it isn't in contact with a station?

Never mind. Handwavium.

On topic, I just downloaded the OXP, I love the idea. Saves the hassle of turning and targeting every yellow lollipop to find out their status.

[Mauiby de Fug]

Hmm... interesting! It definitely sounds useful, and it sounds like something that's been requested before. I'd be worried it would take away the thrill, but I can't say anything about that until I've actually tried it. My instinctive reaction would be to try and make a compromise, where things are normal until you've targeted the ship with the scanner targeting enhancement to find out what it is, but then change the lollipop colour. Your ship can store multiple targets in its memory (possibly with some equipment, I can't remember); it would make sense that it could store the information about it. I may have a look and see what's possible.

Nonetheless, well done on what I'm sure will be a popular oxp!

[SandJ]

Some thoughts:

- a re-sale value of just 10 Credits? Ouch!

- should it be like the in-car GPS in that you must buy the kit and subscribe to regular database updates? So owning it costs you money either for every in-system jump or every month? Or each database access costs x credits?

- Should it work in anarchies? If there's no GalCop presence, where does the data come from?

- Every electronic device results in a counter measure. Will some über-pirates be fitted with IFF jammers?

- (Which prompts the idea for ... scanner jammers! What a nasty piece of kit one of those would be.)

- I do not feel entirely happy about completely losing the element of surprise. Will I still get attacked by clean ships occasionally without warning? I do hope so. Every pirate has to start somewhere.

- Should it still work after a galactic jump? Or is that a different GalCop regional department's database?

@Wildeblood - no worries - the beauty of OXP's is they are take it or leave it.

Having just tried it for a couple of hours, I think this may become a "Leave it" for me. I might even dump the Bounty Scanner now. There's something about not knowing what that other ship is going to do that makes Elite what it is.

I have just been mass-locked by 4 ships who became orange as soon as I was aware of them. I came to a stop and killed all 4 before any could fire at me. That just doesn't feel right - even the GalCops can't do that.

But I do like Mauiby de Fug's "now I've scanned it, the ship should remember what it is" feature. That strikes me as something that should exist.