Coming Clean!

[Eric Walch]

Does this mean that even hunters don't receive it? What do they react upon? Only distress calls?

Distress calls and scanForOffenders (returns TARGET_FOUND).
That AI is just a bit complex because it is used for both police, bounty hunters and carriers and it should work for all. Some commands/messages only do things for one of the three.

[Commander McLane]

Ah! So OFFENCE_COMMITTED isn't related to scanForOffenders at all?

I always thought scanForOffenders would return OFFENCE_COMMITTED instead of TARGET_FOUND. Now I realize I was wrong. (I think the Wiki was long wrong about that. Now I noticed that this has been clarified, probably by yourself.)

[Commander McLane]

Time for another progress report:

I am thinking along the lines of:

• GalCop offers an amnesty for all pilots willing to enlist for a special mission (something Thargoid-related, I guess). All is needed is an announcement randomly popping up at a main station (or perhaps not at main stations, but rather at the less tidy places: Salvage Gangs, Hacker Outposts, Free Trade Zones, and the like). DONE; suggestions for places to get the offer are welcome
• The script picks a system where to report at random, calculates the travel time it takes to get there, and adds between 12 and 72 hours to that in order to establish a dead line. I think that should be doable with the current JS methods. All of this is stored in mission variables. Until the deadline has passed, no other offer pops up. DONE
• In the destination system, a special station is created where you have to report (this is mainly to avoid that you have to dock at the main station and get informed on your report screen that you just licked the hangar clean or have been sent for correction, and now you're clean). DONE
• If the player arrives in the system during a certain time window before the deadline (let's say 12 or 24 hours), he will find other offenders and fugitives heading for the special station. He may decide to have a blood-fest with them instead of going for the station. DONE
• If he docks with the special station before the deadline, he gets a mission offer. DONE On docking again after finishing the mission he becomes clean.
• When the deadline arrives, regardless whether the player went for it or not, the mission variables are cleared and another offer can randomly be made.

I've always wanted to do something where the game time plays a role as a factor in the setup. This seems like an ideal opportunity.

To elaborate a little: There is a Behemoth as a mobile HQ for a Navy operation waiting in your target system. Starting from 24 hours before the deadline, a continuous stream of criminals is arriving in the system (becoming bigger as the deadline closes in), heading for the Behemoth, and docking with it. I can tell you, it's a sight to behold, all these fugitives entering the carrier! And if I kill one of them right there, the Behemoth and its escorts don't care; one fugitive more or less doesn't count. For reason of random (I guess), but quite fittingly, the majority of amnesty seekers were actually fugitive, not just offenders. The script spawns them through the pirate role, so it must be the random generator. But I may also raise their bounties by script anyway.

What remains to be scripted is some details to stuff the system out (special bounty hunters, perhaps some more military, amnesty seekers launching from the Behemoth and jumping out towards the mission; oh yeah, and a means to locate the Behemoth), the mission itself (but that's fairly minor; it's the Navy, so it's about Thargoid killing), and the return and award.

[Eric Walch]

Starting from 24 hours before the deadline, a continuous stream of criminals is arriving in the system (becoming bigger as the deadline closes in), heading for the Behemoth, and docking with it. I can tell you, it's a sight to behold, all these fugitives entering the carrier! And if I kill one of them right there, the Behemoth and its escorts don't care; one fugitive more or less doesn't count.

That probably means I have to kill them all before I can dock . I always play with 'Docking Clearance' enabled and I don't want to wait that long in a queue of fugitives. Skipping the line would give me a 5000 credits penalty.

[TGHC]

Just make sure you don't hit the Behemoth by mistake then!!!!

[Commander McLane]

Starting from 24 hours before the deadline, a continuous stream of criminals is arriving in the system (becoming bigger as the deadline closes in), heading for the Behemoth, and docking with it. I can tell you, it's a sight to behold, all these fugitives entering the carrier! And if I kill one of them right there, the Behemoth and its escorts don't care; one fugitive more or less doesn't count.

That probably means I have to kill them all before I can dock . I always play with 'Docking Clearance' enabled and I don't want to wait that long in a queue of fugitives. Skipping the line would give me a 5000 credits penalty.

A small price to pay for coming clean, don't you think.

But you won't find that many at the carrier. Depending on how long before the expiry of the deadline you arrive in the system, there will be anything between 5 and 20 amnesty seekers in the line between witchpoint and Behemoth, and half that much bounty hunters. Amnesty seekers will continue to arrive at the witchpoint at random intervals. The Behemoth is parked in the vicinity of the planet (opposite side of the station), so it'll take some time until all amnesty seekers reach the Behemoth. And they only request docking from inside its scanner range (15000 m, to be precise).

So I don't think that you'll usually find a queue of more than two or three ships (well, some more if they're Pythons with escorts).


Another question: where is the explanation of how to amend ship scripts on the fly again? I think it's buried deep in either the scripting requests or the progress thread, or somewhere else entirely.

[Eric Walch]

Another question: where is the explanation of how to amend ship scripts on the fly again? I think it's buried deep in either the scripting requests or the progress thread, or somewhere else entirely.

You mean setScript()?

[Commander McLane]

Another question: where is the explanation of how to amend ship scripts on the fly again? I think it's buried deep in either the scripting requests or the progress thread, or somewhere else entirely.

You mean setScript()?

Yes, that's the one. But I am looking for the instructions on how to use it. Specifically: not replacing the existing shipDied (or any other) handler, but preserving its content and mainly adding some more code.

[CheeseRedux]

I'm looking forward to seeing this in a playable state.

Question: Will you be doing anything with the bounties during the mission? It would be a tad strange if you could earn bounties by engaging in some unfriendly friendly fire in the middle of a life and death struggle with a møøse horde of Thargoids.

[Disembodied]

What remains to be scripted is some details to stuff the system out (special bounty hunters, perhaps some more military, amnesty seekers launching from the Behemoth and jumping out towards the mission; oh yeah, and a means to locate the Behemoth), the mission itself (but that's fairly minor; it's the Navy, so it's about Thargoid killing), and the return and award.

Looking good! It might be sensible to make the NPC bounty hunters break off any attack on incoming amnesty-seekers within range of the Behemoth – for safety's sake as much as anything else. It would be all too easy for a stray shot to hit the carrier, or one of the Navy escort ships that are presumably hovering around the place. For a player bounty hunter, of course, it would just be a matter for their own judgement ...

[Kaks]

Another question: where is the explanation of how to amend ship scripts on the fly again? I think it's buried deep in either the scripting requests or the progress thread, or somewhere else entirely.

You mean setScript()?

Yes, that's the one. But I am looking for the instructions on how to use it. Specifically: not replacing the existing shipDied (or any other) handler, but preserving its content and mainly adding some more code.

You mean something like this?

Code: Select all

// move the old shipDied to a safe place
ship.script.$CMCLoldShipDied= ship.script.shipDied;

ship.script.shipDied= function() {

// do stuff....

// and now call the old shipDied()...
ship.script.$CMCLoldShipDied();
}

[Commander McLane]

Yes, perfect. Thanks, Kaks!

(That's what I call board magic.)

[Commander McLane]

Without quoting the list of features again, let me just sum up the important things, which can be done in one word: DONE.

The amnesty offer is now a part of  Anarchies.oxp in its version 2.5.

If you want to fully enjoy the amnesty mission you need the current trunk. The OXP is fully playable in Oolite 1.75, but the parts where you jump between systems together with a horde of NPCs, making use of each other's wormholes on the way, won't work in 1.75. Which only means that you have to get to your destination on your own.

If you feel like trying out the new stuff, please download from its  Wiki page.

[Gimi]

Congrats and thank you. [Gimi bows politely behind his PC to his wife's surprise and amazement]
Looking forward to seeing this one. I have been following your questions and discussions concerning this with interest.

[Commander McLane]

@ Gimi and the other guy who downloaded it: please re-download from the same link. There was a small bug I forgot about in the first version. I have now re-uploaded a fixed version. Sorry!