Caduceus

[Gimi]

Thank you for a very quick reply.

I suspect there will be more of these questions, as well as questions regarding dependencies, as I continue to endeavour with my reinstall.

[ClymAngus]

Ok that's back on the signature now for the wiki....
Wiki done.
Yay I don't get a beating!

[Gimi]

Yay I don't get a beating!

Beating, no, praise is due.
Beatings are only for those who don't assume responsibility for their erroneous ways.

[sdrubble]

Hi all...

after searching and reading the forum for unending hours, I think I'll call it quits (but mostly sure I've read up on most of the relevant stuff for the Caddy).

The first issue I had seems to be solved, sort of - next time I'll board a fuel station from planet side and see what happens. No more bouncing back, I hope.

Now the second issue, I must admit, seems to be a very ridiculous one, at least for this rookie Jameson. Everybody seems to be having fun with the Caddy's turrets, while I'm flying it using only the fore and aft lasers.

I'm surely missing something here... what in the Ooniverse is required to have the turrets fire ? Do they automatically acquire targets and fire at'em ? Or should I actually be firing from F3 or F4 views (and in that case should I remove the port & starboard lasers) ?

Oh, and what about the top & bottom turrets also ? how can they be made to aim and fire ?

Bear with me pls... I must have missed the class on turret operations back on flight school...

Thx a lot and cheers

[Fatleaf]

The turrets fire automatically at targets if...
______________________________________1)You are locked on to them
_______________________________________AND
______________________________________2)Are aggressive toward you (That show up as red on your scanner).

So if your target switches his target to another ship your turrets will not fire at him. Next time you are engaging a target pull along side it and look at either your Port or starboard views (F2 or F3) and you will see them fire. White for the top and bottom turrets and green for the side turrets. While in combat if you keep your target close to the middle of the edge of the screen you should see the green plasma heading their way.

A good tactic to use against a strong target is to come to a halt swivel to give him a broadside, once your side turrets start firing (About 6km) and are hitting him give him a full dose of military laser. Not many survive that. [wiki]Target_Autolock_OXP[/wiki] is a great thing to have in conjunction with the turrets at close range as some aggressors are targeted and destroyed before you have even seen them.

Alliteratively as a test launch, pull along side the station look through the side gun missile lock the station and fire at it. External views will also show the turrets working

I am not sure as to the Fuel Station issue as I don't have it installed, as I use the fuel collector. But If you have found a way to make it work, great.

[Thargoid]

Turrets are also short-range defensive weapons (about 6km by default, as noted above, but that can be changed) and also have a limited angle of fire (about 107 degrees iirc). If your target is hostile and within that kill-zone, then your turrets should open up if you're locked onto it.

The fuel station bounce was due to an issue with the sub-entities set-up for the most part, and as you already have the details of the work-around for the small remaining part of that problem then you should be good to go.

[Makara]

You're lucky just to get a bounce off fuel stations - they always make my Caduceus go pop

Thargoid originally arranged it so you could set there to only be fuel satellites (the fuel stations aren't the only Caddy-killers out there, but they are the most common) through OXPConfig. If you don't have OXPConfig or the Fuel Station OXP doesn't show up in its list (no idea why that happens with my setup...) you can edit the fuelStation_stationSetup.js script from the Scripts folder of the Fuel Station OXP folder. Just change the boolean on line 9 from true to false.

Regarding the turrets, silly question but they haven't been shot off have they? You may want to open up your save and check under <key>subentities_status</key> - you should have a nice string of "1"s there (13 for the Caduceus Omega, fewer for the Alpha). Change any zeroes you see back to one. I haven't got my head around exactly how Oolite handles subentities on player ships but I understand it still has a few quirks being ironed out.

Important, if probably unnecessary, note: DO NOT use Microsoft's Notepad for any editty fun. Its habit of sneaking in extra characters leaves files unreadable by Oolite. Bad with an OXP (you can always download a fresh version) disastrous for save files.

[sdrubble]

Hi mateys... cheers and many thks.

@Fatleaf:

The turrets fire automatically at targets if...

Great tip. It's also quite obvious (now that I know it, of course).

A good tactic to use against a strong target is to come to a halt swivel to give him a broadside, once your side turrets start firing (About 6km) and are hitting him give him a full dose of military laser.

Mmmm... well, first of all then I should fit mil lasers to port and starboard, instead of the toys that are currently there. However the real challenge for this all-thumbs keyboard pilot here will be keeping a moving target centered under the SIDE reticle... that would require a bit of practice I guess.

Target_Autolock_OXP is a great thing to have in conjunction with the turrets at close range as some aggressors are targeted and destroyed before you have even seen them.

I DO have that, and most likely the turrets have been doing their thing silently behind my back sir.

BTW, are there any sound effects available for the plasma guns in the turrets ? Some audible feedback from the auto-firing would be nice amidst the heat of battle, as the pilot would most likely be looking elsewhere...

External views will also show the turrets working

Matter of factly, there was one situation where I switched to an external view in the midst of battle (certainly not on purpose, and most likely due to a discoordinated finger) and saw something which SHOULD have been the turret fire. However at the time I mistook it as being fuel leakage, mind you - - since the previous action from another runaway finger had been to mistakenly launch a fuel tank instead of a missile...

@Thargoid,

Turrets ... have a limited angle of fire (about 107 degrees iirc).

Well if I got my hi-school math right, then there would never be a situation where both top and bottom turrets would fire simultaneously at same target (non-overlapping firing radiuses), but nothing prevents simultaneous firing from the side turrets together with EITHER the top OR bottom ones. Did I get that right sir ?

The fuel station bounce was due to an issue with the sub-entities set-up for the most part, and as you already have the details of the work-around for the small remaining part of that problem then you should be good to go.

At least in theory, yes... flight test yet to be done. I do recall, however, that after the first explosion at the fuel station gates, I DID manage to go thru perfectly on a 2nd attempt, while also not caring which side of the FS was which. This mysterious feat never became reproducible afterwards. I know better now... flight test will be done soon.

@Makara

You're lucky just to get a bounce off fuel stations - they always make my Caduceus go pop

Actually, I don't think that mere LUCK is what determines if the Caddy pops instead of bouncing.

On my first attempt ever to drive thru a FS, not aware of the issue, and flying the standard Caddy a bit leisurely, I DID explode (well, my Caddy did, that is ). Starting from the 2nd successful attempt (see above @Thargoid), and further into all the failed ones, the factory-smelly Caddy (or maybe I should say 'the nest-smelly Caddy'... ) had already transmogrified into a respectable Iron Ass, including Iron Hide, Equalizers, Capacitors, Boosters and whatever shield-enhancing tech I could find - what, IMHO, should've made it a bit more resistant to collisions. Besides, all bounced approaches were made at centimeters-per-second speeds - notches #1 or #2 on throttle. I believe that either, or both, of these factors can be accounted for not exploding (a sizeable number of repairs was required after each bounce, of course).

Thargoid originally arranged it so you could set there to only be fuel satellites (the fuel stations aren't the only Caddy-killers out there, but they are the most common) through OXPConfig. If you don't have OXPConfig or the Fuel Station OXP doesn't show up in its list (no idea why that happens with my setup...) you can edit the fuelStation_stationSetup.js script from the Scripts folder of the Fuel Station OXP folder. Just change the boolean on line 9 from true to false.

Yessir, I recall having read about this satellite-only tip somewhere... that will be Plan B if the workaround doesn't succeed.

BTW this workaround would be more aptly called a 'fly-around', ain't it ??

Regarding the turrets, silly question but they haven't been shot off have they? You may want to open up your save and check under <key>subentities_status</key> - you should have a nice string of "1"s there (13 for the Caduceus Omega, fewer for the Alpha). Change any zeroes you see back to one.

Nice tip. Just checked and they're all still aboard.

Which brings up another interesting question - I can clearly see each of the 'trembling' turrets on the Caddy's external views. Am I correct in assuming that a destroyed turret would also be missing from the external views ?

DO NOT use Microsoft's Notepad for any editty fun.

Indeed, sir - and I gladly find this advice in every other thread that I read in this forum - everybody here, BTW, seems to get out of their way to help noobies. In my case, while everybody else recommends Notepad++, I use PFE, which I'm seemingly one of only 2 people on planet Earth who care about it. Very nice, fast and powerful 620Kb editor from 1999, which auto-learns macros, duplicates windows, remembers positions and opens multiple files simultaneously.

@all,

That's all for now, folks - multiple and heartily thks to everybody. If I don't post soon in this thread again, it will be either due to RealLife issues or, betterly yet, all game plays and test plans proceeding as expected.

Warmest cheers !

[Svengali]

If you don't have OXPConfig or the Fuel Station OXP doesn't show up in its list (no idea why that happens with my setup...) <snip>

Since OXPConfig has moved with 2.x to a object oriented (and a lot more flexible and faster) way in late 2010 none of the 1.x compatible OXPs will show up until updated.

[Norby]

I applied two fixes mentioned above (cadg_shady.png and equipment speedup) into Neocaduceus.oxz in the wiki so new downloads contain these.
The manifest owner could increase the version both in manifest.plist and oxz admin page to flag the availability of a new version for those who already downloaded it.

[ClymAngus]

Yes oxz a small matter that given the hectic nature of life I had been studiously ignoring (not the best way of handling things)
I will copy da pasty to the crimsonforge site (whilst keeping the older versions around for archiving purposes)

Thank you for that

C

[Rustem]

After update last version repair system do not reactivated when launch from station with damaged eduipment. Testing with old version of oxp, it worked. Version oolite 1.82.

[Norby]

After update last version repair system do not reactivated when launch from station with damaged eduipment.

Self repair is not changed between oxp and oxz, but there is a random chance at launch to repair itself and if it failed then will retry in every few minutes. So imho sometimes can fail in oxp also and often can fix it immediately at launch in oxz, just this time you was out of luck.

[Cholmondely]

I'm a tad confused about the relationship between these ships and their oxp's. We have Neo-Caduceus on the Expansions Manager but Caduceus Alpha and Caduceus Omega on a "Caduceus" wiki page.

What is a Neo-Caduceus?

[Cmdr Wyvern]

I'm a tad confused about the relationship between these ships and their oxp's. We have Neo-Caduceus on the Expansions Manager but Caduceus Alpha and Caduceus Omega on a "Caduceus" wiki page.

What is a Neo-Caduceus?

I'll try to field this one. Bear with me, it's been a long while and my memory's gotten a bit fuzzy.

The Caduceus is the original Shulth cruiser from ClymAngus.
The Neo-Caddy is an update, released after the Neolite shipset was; so the Neo-Caddy would be the latest version. NeoCaddy came with two variant ships, Alpha model, and the stronger Omega model.

And for even more mayhem, there was a fork of the Neo-Caddy called the Dark Rainbow.