Escape pod control change

[Kaks]

<handwavium> Looks like the vault is never more than 5 inches away from the Captain, and I suppose all passengers would come to the cabin "I won't touch anything, I promise!" at the first sign of trouble...</handwavium>

[Smivs]

Upon your EC reaching the safety of a friendly station, you are given a clunky old ship and a message that your replacement ship can be picked up at another location. Location could be picked at random, or depend on the tech level of the ship you're replacing. Or my preferred way: A select # of worlds where insurance companies keep an inventory of replacement ships.
As this method gives you back your ship eventually, it is less likely to trigger the reload reflex, since the 'insurance penalty' incurred is one of time and convenience, not monetary.
Of course this runs in to the same problem as the parking-garage: How to get the game to give you a specific ship at a specific location.

Perhaps a more sensible/logical solution is to lose game-time. You get your ship replaced wherever you are, but it has to be fitted out to your spec and then delivered to you. This could take some time, say six weeks which would impact upon any passenger/cargo contracts you might have, and might also affect missions such as Hits. While you're waiting you would have to pay for room and board, so maybe a slice should be taken from your cash as well, unless your insurance covers this.

[Commander McLane]

If we are going to have 'realism' perhaps when you die your save-game is wiped and you have to start from scratch, unless you've bought one of the new 'AutoEscapePods'.

A few games do that, AV Nova was one IIRC. You had to keep alternating save games just in case.

Not quite correct. The EV games have an option named "Strict Play" when you create a new pilot. It is de-selected by default. And the text next to the box warns you that "If you check this box, when you're dead, you're dead. No reincarnation allowed." Usually I haven't checked it with my pilots.

[Ganelon]

I don't think a double keypress is going to help with any sense of risk or excitement from a player point of view. Even a .2 second delay can be deadly when you actually reach for the escape pod key. So far as multiple keypress keys (like shift-e), I usually edit key config files on any game where it's possible to eliminate those.. Especially for things like the ejection key. LOL

It is *not* similar to failsafes like an arming switch or a pin that needs pulled before the eject handle can be pulled.

If one needs a reminder that it's a "Do not press this key" key, print out a yellow and black striped square in the corner of a page of paper, cut it out, cut out a square big enough for the key in the middle and glue it to the keyboard around the escape key. To be honest, I'd map it to a key that's easier to hit in a panic moment, like the space key, but since Oolite seems to like to use the space key to confirm things (most of the time), I've figured that's not a good choice. LOL

Eject is an emergency measure. So using it should be as simple and fast as possible. If you just want to kill more players, maybe consider a "windows style" box popping up with "Are you sure you want to eject? (OK)".. and maybe even "Really REALLY sure you want to eject? (OK)". You know.. So the player can be madly scrambling for the mouse as they watch the ship explode. "Press space commander".

I personally have mostly used the escape pod by accident. I usually have one on my ships since it sounds like a good idea, but in that last split second, I'm more trying to turn the fight around and win it than reach for the escape pod key. I have most often hit it when what I meant to do was p-F2. But that's my bad, and if an addle-brained moment costs me 1,000 CR for a new pod or whatever, I cuss a bit and try not to do that again. LOL

Or more likely I go back to my last save game, since as a player I have a deep-rooted pathological hatred of wasting CR that I spent time and effort to acquire. I don't believe in "useful sinks for all the excess money". Always better to have a few expensive ships or other nifty items one needs to save a bit to be able to afford than just wasting game money. "A millicred saved is a millicred earned" and all that.

If ships couldn't move when they were out of fuel or if engines could be damaged enough that the ship was dead in space, then the escape pod might make more sense. As it is, you can always limp back to the station. It just takes more time and caution after a bad fight or after using up all your fuel.

Having a toggle key somewhere for auto-eject enabled/disabled? Ok, maybe. I've never used auto-eject and so I can't say if that sounds like a good idea or not.

But I would think the matter of making the escape pod key require a multiple keypress or a "double click key" would perhaps be better addressed as OXP options rather than changing the core code.

[Killer Wolf]

We haven't got too many options if we want to make escape capsules more 'realistic' and still retain the feel of the original game. However, we could have escape pods prices dependent on the basic ship cost.

Cobra3's escape pods will then still cost exactly the same as now, but will cost more for more expensive ships.

Likewise, a less expensive ship will require cheaper 'comprehensive insurance'.


Shall I?

yeah. 15% of the ship price for an escape capsule, perhaps?

[Disembodied]

yeah. 15% of the ship price for an escape capsule, perhaps?

If you're going to make it consistent with the Cobra III, it should be 0.67% (Escape Pod: 1,000Cr; Cobra III: 150,000Cr). But maybe there could be a sliding scale that adjusts the percentage upward as the cost of the ship goes up? And/or maybe the insurance should just cover the purchase of a basic model of whatever ship you were flying, without the added extras? And/or maybe there could be a surcharge added to the maintenance costs to represent the premium? How many insurance policies work on a "you only have to pay us once" basis?

[Cody]

Using trunk v3810 on Win XP… the double tap for the escape capsule is no problem, I’ll get used to that in time.
Keeping ‘Esc’ pressed down does not activate the eject.

Dumb off-topic question: what are the ‘Prime Equipment’ and ‘Activate Equipment’ toggles for?

Also, I get this message at start: Target Autolock 1.10 is incompatible with Oolite 1.75… I presume Thargoid is aware of that.
And using my normal oxps, I get a whole bunch of these 'old friends' in the log:

Code: Select all

[shader.uniform.unpermittedMethod]: Did not bind uniform "alertlevel" to property -[ShipEntity alertCondition] - unpermitted method.

I suppose I'll have to add the oxps one by one to see which one causes them... I'll do that later.
(It's probably Griff's ships again).

[Ganelon]

Maybe insurance (other than perhaps a nominal amount) shouldn't be included in the price of an escape pod.

When you bring in escape pods, the reward from the insurance company for the rescue varies. Presumably that would be because different people go for different options on the amount of their insurance?

But ship insurance could be something ranging from enough to replace the basic ship to a "full coverage policy" that costs more and will also replace the equipment. Cargo insurance could be a separate option.

"Station refuses to upload docking coordinates because your ship lacks basic liability insurance." could be an interesting complication for players to have to cope with in some systems.

[another_commander]

Dumb off-topic question: what are the ‘Prime Equipment’ and ‘Activate Equipment’ toggles for?

This is one of v1.75's milestones, courtesy of Kaks. This is what enables OXP equipment to be activated by keypress, so no more pylon equipment will be necessary, unless really meant for pylons.

Also, I get this message at start: Target Autolock 1.10 is incompatible with Oolite 1.75… I presume Thargoid is aware of that.

This is due to requires.plist of Target Autolock having a maximum version setting lower than 1.75. It is 99.9% deliberate.

And using my normal oxps, I get a whole bunch of these 'old friends' in the log:

Code: Select all

[shader.uniform.unpermittedMethod]: Did not bind uniform "alertlevel" to property -[ShipEntity alertCondition] - unpermitted method.

I suppose I'll have to add the oxps one by one to see which one causes them... I'll do that later.
(It's probably Griff's ships again).

I think you are right there. Haven't searched the forum, but I'm sure I've seen a solution for it published by Griff somewhere.

Also, for those who didn't like the escape pod double tap thingy, be aware that setting "escape-pod-activation-immediate" = YES; inside the .GNUstepDefaults file will now revert to old behaviour. The same old behaviour will be the default in strict mode.

[Cody]

I think you are right there. Haven't searched the forum, but I'm sure I've seen a solution for it published by Griff somewhere.

Yeah, it was something Svengali suggested, to do with the start-up spinning Cobra. Thing is, I just copied my oxps into trunk, so it should have worked there, but doesn’t… am I making sense?

Oh and thanks a_c for the explanations.

Just checked... the fix works in 1.74, but not in 1.75... I think I'd better have a coffee.

[Griff]

I keep forgetting to add Svengali's fix into the oxp for that alert level unpermitted method into the oxp,

Code: Select all

alertlevel = {type = "int"; value="alertCondition";};

is it definately a proper fix though? i thought the error was something to do with moments when the players ship is no longer the players ship eg, when you're sat outside it watching it spin on the game load screen or floating off after you've ejected, eg, you are your ship, your ship is you, yet there it is off in the distance twirling and Oolite is trying to apply 'player ship only' shader bindings to it

[Eric Walch]

is it definately a proper fix though? i thought the error was something to do with moments when the players ship is no longer the players ship eg, ...

It removed the warning for me permanently. Without it, it was always there in trunk for some of your ships. The messages are generated on system startup when Oolite loads all ships. They don't appear during game.

[Eric Walch]

Also, for those who didn't like the escape pod double tap thingy, be aware that setting "escape-pod-activation-immediate" = YES; inside the .GNUstepDefaults file will now revert to old behaviour. The same old behaviour will be the default in strict mode.

For mac that will be in the file: ~/Library/preferences/org.aegidian.oolite.plist

This plist is not in ascii or XML but in binary format. You'll need the plist editor to edit it. Add a "escape-pod-activation-immediate" key and make it a boolean.

[Thargoid]

Also, I get this message at start: Target Autolock 1.10 is incompatible with Oolite 1.75… I presume Thargoid is aware of that.

This is due to requires.plist of Target Autolock having a maximum version setting lower than 1.75. It is 99.9% deliberate.

Or in my OXP cases, 100% deliberate. They should all do it (except bigShips, as I only co-wrote that). As there tends to be a requirement for OXP changes with each major version update (for new features and/or depreciation) I only guarantee my OXPs will work with the current version.

Hence to get any of my OXPs to work with trunk you need to modify the required.plist as A_C mentioned. And by knowing how to do so it kinda shows that you know what you're doing, or at least you take some responsibility if something breaks.

[Cody]

Hence to get any of my OXPs to work with trunk you need to modify the required.plist as A_C mentioned. And by knowing how to do so it kinda shows that you know what you're doing, or at least you take some responsibility if something breaks.

Cool... I've modified it, so apparently I know what I'm doing.[hollow laughter]

The messages are generated on system startup when Oolite loads all ships. They don't appear during game.

Yeah, at least they don't affect gameplay... they're just annoying in the log.
Something tells me I'll have to go through all 35 Griff oxps and add the fix to all of them... hey-ho!