Cascade mine Glitch?

[Commander McLane]

... especially knowing which way to go and when to stop. Judging it on the scanner isn't as nice as on the whole screen.

Yeah. I find it best to bring the explosion directly behind me. Then the scale on the scanner helps to judge whether I'm at a safe distance. Otherwise it's indeed impossible to know.

[Cody]

You don’t need to know which way to go, do you? The QCM always deploys behind you… just deploy, hold your course and hit the injectors.
A question that’s often puzzled me: why is such an exotic weapon as the QCM available at a TL7 and above, while a hardhead is only available at a TL10 or above?

[Griff]

If it's still the original scripting and shipdata.plist entries that we worked on so many moons ago...

Yeah, it's the same js script code but cut down to just generate a small puff of double-sided quad polygons with your 'pick a random direction and fly off in it' AI applied to them.

Thanks everyone for the help, I changed their scan_class to Rock and it seems to be working great, you only get awarded the kill for the ship now, i decided not to set them to Alloys as i didn't want players scooping them up by flying through the cloud, when the next version of Oolite comes out i'll put in the "counts_as_kill" setting, hopefully keeping Ahruman's blood pressure in the green zone
i'll sort out a re-upload of the bundle oxp tomorrow on works speedier internet connection but if you want to edit the shipdata.plist yoursef just change lines 7744, 7870, 7969 in the oxp's shipdata.plist from scan_class = "CLASS_CARGO"; to scan_class = "CLASS_ROCK";

[Cody]

but if you want to edit the shipdata.plist yoursef just change lines 7744, 7870, 7969 in the oxp's shipdata.plist from scan_class = "CLASS_CARGO"; to scan_class = "CLASS_ROCK";

Thanks Griff... done!

[Thargoid]

You don’t need to know which way to go, do you? The QCM always deploys behind you… just deploy, hold your course and hit the injectors.
A question that’s often puzzled me: why is such an exotic weapon as the QCM available at a TL7 and above, while a hardhead is only available at a TL10 or above?

You presume that it was you that launched it

[Cody]

You presume that it was you that launched it

Good point... question: is there an npc in the core game that can deploy a QCM?

[Thargoid]

I don't think so, but I'm also not playing Vanilla.

[Eric Walch]

You presume that it was you that launched it

Good point... question: is there an npc in the core game that can deploy a QCM?

No. To let npc deploy q-mines they need the key has_energy_bomb being set. The key was introduced in 1.65 but none of the internal ships has it set.

[Cody]

Thanks for the answers, guys... any answer to my other question, re QCMs and TLs?

[JensAyton]

A question that’s often puzzled me: why is such an exotic weapon as the QCM available at a TL7 and above, while a hardhead is only available at a TL10 or above?

Because hardheads are easier to use effectively and must therefore be harder to get hold of by elementary game-balancing logic.

What, you expect in-universe explanations for stuff?

[Cody]

<ceases coughing and spluttering>
As a certain well-known ‘science officer’ would say… ‘fascinating’… thank you, Admiral.

[Cmdr James]

Because a Q mine is a simple fuel based explosive, whereas as hard head is a complex piece of military electronics.

The fact you get a bigger bang from something does not mean it is more technologically advanced.

[Cody]

Because a Q mine is a simple fuel based explosive

A weapon that emits a 'gravitic shockwave' is a 'simple fuel-based explosive'? Crikey!

[Commander McLane]

Because a Q mine is a simple fuel based explosive

A weapon that emits a 'gravitic shockwave' is a 'simple fuel-based explosive'? Crikey!

Yes, because emitting 'gravitic shockwaves' is what the fuel does anyway. The q-mine only turns it into an uncontrollable chain reaction.