Test Pilots Wanted

[Thargoid]

Playing the station ambient sound happens if a player reloads a savedgame. SoundSources are not stopped via engine (unlike other things) and a script does not know if a player loads a savedgame. And after that the script can't stop anything anymore. This affects all oxps which are using SoundSources. And the ambient stuff in BGS is looped, so it will continue forever. Funny, eh?

At the risk of digressing my own thread...

Could you not check for and stop the sound sources during this.startUp? Or are their script-readable values not persistent across script reloading?

For the Vortex I think I will need to drop some of the BGS keys into it just to be sure. I've PM'd you a link to the test OXP as I'd appreciate your inputs as to what's needed.

[Svengali]

Could you not check for and stop the sound sources during this.startUp? Or are their script-readable values not persistent across script reloading?

For a script the old SoundSources are not existing anymore as a new instance of the script is created. And by using the same filename Oolite uses the next available soundchannel, so the script can't do anything. Stopping things on GUI_SCREEN_LOAD will work in BGS, but it needs a running timer with a short interval (because guiScreenChanged does not fire). So it's not for all oxps possible without implementing a timer.

For the Vortex I think I will need to drop some of the BGS keys into it just to be sure. I've PM'd you a link to the test OXP as I'd appreciate your inputs as to what's needed.

Sure. I'll give it a whirl .-)

[Thargoid]

And for those who may want to see the thing...









The forward view "face" is unintentional, but as with all true military ships it's got the pulling power of an ox, and the looks of one as well

Oh and I've just found a minor bug in the script for the self-repair of the ships own systems (in case anyone else finds it too).

[Gnudoll]

Oh and I've just found a minor bug in the script for the self-repair of the ships own systems (in case anyone else finds it too).

You mean the fact that if Vortex Ship systems gets shot up, it will not repair itself? Or was that intended? I can find no stations able to repair them either. . .

[Thargoid]

Yes, they should be self-repairing (two lines in the script are backwards). You won't find a station that can repair them, although repair bots will have a slight chance to do so.

But in any case it'll be corrected for the proper release.

[Gnudoll]

Cool! OK, I tried it out after changing the drive spinup to 15 like all the other ships I have seen, and dropped in BGS 1.2. All is well in my Ooniverse! this ship is awesome for headhunters but less so for traders. filling the multiple holds and then unloading them takes a lot of game time. However, Pirates and smugglers will love this ship. Fill the visible hold with ordinary safe cargo, and then fill the other 4 with contraband. Keep your clean status, and make credits hand over fist. . . I just need a better joystick and I'll have no issues at all with diving into the most active furball fight. I have a new favorite ship thanks to you!!

[Gnudoll]

. . .
*sigh*
What is it with this ship that when I fly it, the sun (IRL) either rises or sets without me noticing it? I'm starting to be wary of flying this ship late, as it turns out to be the next day when I finally leave the game. . . I mean most ships I can put down after a bit, but this one. . . . *sigh*

[Thargoid]

. . .
*sigh*
What is it with this ship that when I fly it, the sun (IRL) either rises or sets without me noticing it? I'm starting to be wary of flying this ship late, as it turns out to be the next day when I finally leave the game. . . I mean most ships I can put down after a bit, but this one. . . . *sigh*

Sorry, I can only tweak the TAF in-game. The TAF for real-life is unfortunately read-only at the moment

[Thargoid]

I would like to issue this OXP over the weekend, so if any of you have any more test reports can you please post them here or PM them to me as soon as you can?

[Smivs]

Hi Thargoid,
I have only had time for a couple of test-flights, but she's a beauty! No problems to report as far as the OXP goes, but I did die on both occassions. The first time was trying to manually dock (never a strong point of mine ) and as reported before the ship can be a bit twitchy and fine-control can be challenging.
The second time I got missiled by a Blackdog Python. I got distracted when the plasma cannon kicked in (I've never flown a ship with these before) and was so busy watching their effect on the Python I failed to spot the missile ( again). It is a very capable combat craft.
The rechargeing fuel is weird...it's odd to be blasting along on injectors and seeing the fuel gauge go up! I'm afraid I haven't yet tried the virtual cargo holds.
The extra views? Well to be honest I couldn't really see the point in the gun and cargo cameras...perhaps I need to fly her more to see where they may be useful. The scoop view can be useful, but still seems a bit gimmicky, and is probably not necessary. Personally I'd prefer the regular external views. As ships go, the Vortex is not exactly a thing of beauty, but it would be nice to see it from the outside from time to time.
Overall impressions are positive. This ship certainly has lots of features, some very inventive, and is an impressive piece of work. It is truthfully a bit over-the-top, but at that price it should be. There doesn't seem to be a NPC version which is a shame...I'd like to meet one one day, but they should be very rare if an NPC was included.

[Thargoid]

There will be an NPC version (there is on my machine here), but I hadn't got around to it when I sent out the test version.

I'll tone-down the controls a little as that seems to be a general comment.

As for the views, some people prefer looking down the gun to snipe at long range (feedback from the Caduceus thread), hence the gun cam. Similarly the scoop cam is from previous comments on other ships. The cargo-cam is just cos a cargo ship shaped like that would have something there - it's not for any real use over the rear view.

And ironically the "best news" is that you can still die in one, which means it's not too invincible

[maik]

I would like to issue this OXP over the weekend, so if any of you have any more test reports can you please post them here or PM them to me as soon as you can?

I did a few test runs with it. It's a lot of fun in combat situations, I especially like that you can fight two ships at the same time, one with the plasma cannon and the other with the laser.

I still have to adjust my fighting pattern to that, in my Cobra I mostly snipe from a distance before I get into the midst of it. As others have already commented, your ship is a little too twitchy to work well as a sniper. At least with keyboard controls. However, I didn't find it too hard to dock.

I have not played around with the cargo and missile opportunities, am not much of a bulk trader nor a missile guy--I prefer lasers (and now plasma cannons).

In order to suit my taste I would do away with the cargo systems, the extra missile slots don't hurt much. Maybe I'll take the time one day to experiment with pylon-based fuel tanks...

In close combat I like the ship a lot. I fitted an ECM system but am torn between liking and disliking the fact that the ship's system takes over ECM. One the one hand it takes one more task off your back, on the other hand you still have to watch out for hard heads, so you end up watching what happens to all missiles anyways. What I would propose instead is for the plasma cannons to automatically target hard heads (or actually all missiles) when they are aiming for you. And after destroying them they could return to their previous target. That would be fantastic!

The fuel thing eluded me. I jumped to another system, used witch fuel injectors, and still ran out of witch fuel. But I didn't really do proper testing...

All in all I like it a lot! Good work

[Thargoid]

The ECM will only trigger if the missile is really close to the ship (within 2.5km), before then it just tries the microwave cannon. Both fire once per second.

For the fuel injection, yes you will still run out of fuel, but not as quickly. Basically for every 8 seconds you spend continually at injection speed, your system will be able to extract 0.1ly of fuel from the ships exhausts. But during the same period you will burn around 0.2-0.3ly of fuel. It's deliberately not designed to give you infinite fuel injection

The use of the plasma turrets to target missiles automatically is an interesting idea. You can already do it manually (press shift-T when you have an incoming missile and the target lock will switch to it, and so the turrets aim at it), but I hadn't considered doing it automatically. I may have a play with that idea...

[Thargoid]

In fact I like that idea so much - it's in.

I've updated the test package download to the current version. Changes include:

• NPC version now included (role of "vortex_NPC" if you want to test-spawn them). Populator-spawned versions have individual names.
• Pitch/roll/yaw softened.
• New ship purchase screen layout.
• Turrets will target incoming missiles within 5km of the ship, and ship will auto lock back onto previous target once no more missiles are present (if it still exists and the target hasn't been changed in the meantime).
• Emergency micro-jump capability added if energy levels become critical. Deliberately not fool-proof, energy levels need to be really low (<33) before it triggers to save annoying undesired trips out of combat.So it's not a guaranteed life-saver (deliberately so).
• Slight restructuring of the OXP set-up, including demo-ships.
• Correction of bugs and errors found already.

I've given the missile locking some test, but that in particular needs more checks to ensure there are no script/log errors reported or weird situations.

Same URL as the previous download...
[/color]

[maik]

In fact I like that idea so much - it's in.

Wish I would have time to test before the weekend though...