Switeck's Shipping v0.5 OXP - Ai, Economy, and Ship changes

[Switeck]

(another thing I was wondering had been : is it this oxp or Oolite itself that has the WP->sun->main station spacelanes so void of NPCs ? I found out it is Oolite itself. )

My OXP could add more sun-skimmers (route2sunskimAI.plist using traders to be exact) and have more Police Vipers patrol the planet <-> sun route or even the witchpoint <-> sun route, but I don't like how the game engine handles sun-skimmers. In the past, they were almost guaranteed to die trying. The automatic populator does spawn sun-skimming traders at the witchpoint that immediately head toward the sun, so that direction shouldn't be totally void of ships...just very close to it. Earlier versions of my mod did add more sun-skimming traders spawning in at the witchpoint as well, but only at the price of fewer regular traders. I didn't add more because I want that to be the job of OXPs. It's nicer to add wanted ships than remove unwanted ships -- removal can cause graphical glitches or in remote cases for me outright game crashes. (presumed to be due to graphics driver bugs)

I personally use hacked versions of Deep Space Pirates, Pirate Coves, and various station-adding OXPs to "stock" more systems with more NPC ships...typically of the pirate kind along the less-traveled sun <-> planet route. That route is a great place for Rock Hermits and Pirate Coves, especially since I figured out how to make them appear considerably off-center of the direct line between sun<->planet. And there's typically fewer greedy traders around to swipe a poor rock miner's asteroid shards.

Part of the reason Oolite doesn't have big convoys is game balance and playability. 100-ship convoys would be a HUGE fps drag.

Are you sure ? Oolite has become much better in handling #of entities vs. framerate, at least for me.
I am using last-century hardware (windows) and number of entities for me does not have such huge impact as it used to in 1.73 or 1.74 or so.

Sure, 100-ship convoys slowly tooling to the main station would be relatively minor fps hit while nothing is happening, but if any credible force attacks them it's going to drag the fps down. The debris field/s after such battles could be huge.

Another is how long it'd take to launch them from a station...

Or DOCK at a station! I saw that in testing this mod in the past when I had Oolite rapidly force-spawning traders at the witchpoint to see what roles they'd take. They'd pile up at the station and only dock about 1 every 15 seconds at best. I had to use the occasional q-bomb to keep fps up for testing -- and I saw that chain-detonate for up to 3 minutes straight.

Practically all stations in Oolite seem unsuited for mass-launch, mass-recovery, or mass-storage of ships, with the exception of SuperHub. That alone prevents giant 100-ship convoys except under extreme conditions where they form up from multiple nearby systems and share wormholes en-route. Timing a simultaneous arrival at the final system would be hard. Once again, that would be better suited for an OXP.

[Commander McLane]

(another thing I was wondering had been : is it this oxp or Oolite itself that has the WP->sun->main station spacelanes so void of NPCs ? I found out it is Oolite itself. )

My OXP could add more sun-skimmers (route2sunskimAI.plist using traders to be exact) and have more Police Vipers patrol the planet <-> sun route or even the witchpoint <-> sun route

Sunskimmers.oxp and  Total_patrol.oxp can do that for you already.

but I don't like how the game engine handles sun-skimmers. In the past, they were almost guaranteed to die trying.

Which is no longer an issue, however.

[Switeck]

but I don't like how the game engine handles sun-skimmers. In the past, they were almost guaranteed to die trying.

Which is no longer an issue, however.

I still don't like sunskimmers to be more than ~1/10th of all the trader ships which is what they work out to be if I just let the system populator make them and don't add any extras. The route to the sun is a LONG one with the torus drive, so even if there's a lot of sun-skimmers coming from the planet and witchspace beacon...if they're spread out, most of the route would still feel completely empty. It'll take sun-skimmers probably >30 minutes to sun-skim and jump out...or they could have spent 10 minutes refueling at the main station for less than 30 credits and lower risk.

Better for most new arrival npc traders to travel the main route and keep it interesting.
If more sun-skimmers are wanted, a simple OXP can add more. (For ideas to how, look at how Deep Space Pirates adds ships.)

[MEGALODON]

hi everyone I would appreciate some advice re getting latest version of this oxp

I love these game mechanic mods and like the idea of how the economy always changes ie consuming commodities and fluctuations in pricing based on surpluses and shortages.

Which I believe is so important for giving a game like this life.

One issue I have is whenever I click on mediafire download link it downloads but when i try to extract it.

I get a warning that the file is damaged and it will not extract.

Is it possible for someone to check out this link and or add am alternate one or if since its not even 100kb, please email directly as an attachment without a zip?

I would humbly appreciate this

[email protected]

Also I've tried to find and test or try out different planet retexturing oxps that people have created.
Deep Horizons seems to have gone off the grid as ALL their download links are NO GO.
if anyone could please share some light on that is appreciate it a great deal.

Sorry to cross topics, I just want to make my ooniverse run smooth based on my hardware.
I have Vista premium, would 1.76 run better in an xp compatibility mode ?

I'll leave this here for now and wait for a reply.

Thank you for anyone who helps and have an awesome flight

[Cody]

One issue I have is whenever I click on mediafire download link it downloads but when i try to extract it. I get a warning that the file is damaged and it will not extract.
Deep Horizons seems to have gone off the grid as ALL their download links are NO GO.

Both seem to d/l and extract with no problems here.

[Greyth]

Hi MEGALODON, I have sometimes a similar problem downloading certain files. It turned out to be my router at fault. When I took that out of the loop downloads worked perfectly. They don't have a very long service life these days, it seems.

If sequential downloads of the same file produce varying errors (bad CRC counts are not identical over several operations) then probably your router is at fault.

Do you have another router/modem that you can try?

[Switeck]

I emailed MEGALODON the .zip file from http://www.mediafire.com/?21lh999yo46baa0 ?

I wouldn't mind in the least if someone hosted Switeck's Shipping v0.5 OXP .zip file at somewhere else besides http://www.mediafire.com -- I only put it there as a temporary storage not a permanent link!
...Ok, Switeck's Shipping v0.5 OXP .zip file is now hosted at Box.net as well! See first post for details.

...In other news, it seems like I'll need to edit the AI.plist files in Switeck's Shipping in light of information here:
https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.ph ... 30#p166151

[Fatleaf]

I wouldn't mind in the least if someone hosted Switeck's Shipping v0.5 OXP .zip

I could do that for you if you wish. Since I have a shiny new upgrade thanks to this forum it is only fair that I put it to use for the forum. PM me with the details.

[MEGALODON]

Hi everyone awesome oxp. Every so often I get a sound that sort of goes ding dong? Not sure if this is a indication that something has changed.

A thought I recently had that I'm guessing will not be too difficult to implement.

Is there a simple way that if your on the commodity screen, and something changes either by quantity or price could the number value change red if it decreases or green if it increases?

Another element of economy that I don't know if I have seen this suggested or not. Is stocks and everyday banking and even perhaps loans and credit.

For example all the constore companies Mall-Wart, Pi-42, Oodles, Taxi Galactica, Oo-haul
various other companies star bugs, booger king, poopsi, western oonion, trumble foods, texacoo, FedOox, omiga computers, snoopers broadcasting, hoopy casinos ltd

Those players who are involved with stock markets could provide insight to how markets might work.
Perhaps skins could be made as decals to put on for various companies and if pirates destroy them then the market value drops for that company and increases something else?

Perhaps as a future addition to capt murphys escort contracts that there may be company specific contracts

The market opens and closes at certain times and you must be at a main station to participate.
One of the ultimate challenges of Oolite has been the strategies of trading.

Oh an interstellar bank that would allow you to gain interest only if you banked it. Fluctuations in interest rates both plus and minus would make things truly interesting. And offer a new challenge.

I seem to be a major idea person but this is largely due to playtesting.
Oh and I am going to soon propose suggestions for updates to various oxps and hope by playtesting and suggestions helping to make them more amazing. I hope some or all of you like some of these ideas.

Balance is important as well as offering unique play opportunity
Thank you everyone for your time

[Switeck]

Hi everyone awesome oxp. Every so often I get a sound that sort of goes ding dong? Not sure if this is a indication that something has changed.

Thanks...but that ding dong sound/s is almost certainly unrelated to my OXP -- it doesn't even include any sounds!

"Is there a simple way that if your on the commodity screen, and something changes either by quantity or price could the number value change red if it decreases or green if it increases?"

Not as far as I know. Your commodity screen is only yours, there isn't really "outside forces" to influence it.

"Another element of economy that I don't know if I have seen this suggested or not. Is stocks and everyday banking and even perhaps loans and credit."

Black Monk Monastery OXP...offers a very dubious short-term loan.

"Those players who are involved with stock markets could provide insight to how markets might work."

That would be someone other than me...I only know about the commodities.plist file, which is somewhat limited in what can be done to it.

[Greyth]

Supply and demand, that's how the markets are supposed to work. So, if there is increasing demand prices hike and if there is falling demand prices fall. It's difficult to imagine that happening in Oolite as there is only the player buying and selling. Like... you've just docked after an Anaconda has left the station or wherever the market is then there would be nothing left to buy. Prices would be high so only selling would be good. In Oolite stations don't really carry much stock. So one or two traders would empty the market and prices would be going thru the roof at every station.

[MEGALODON]

Ok no worries I am wondering if perhaps plans may be in effect to perhaps reflect that.

To avoid complications and calculations, I believe something possibly be implemented maybe in future.

I either misread this or hoped there was this feature for this oxp but your comments are helpful .

Do the market values basically become randomized Ill say for lack of a better term then change when you jump in ?

I remember reading somewhere that this oxp was in a way going to reflect what a system would produce.

Not much of a coder yet but if I flow charted a process perhaps someone might figure out a way to best initialize it.

I'm guessing a calculation related to the income of a planet straight from the data on system screen.?

So it might work something like every hour or some pre determined time interval 1 unit of goods could be produced or some kind of percentage of workforce would allocate to a formula that would increase the available quantity.

Traders are docking and leaving the station constantly so maybe say every 5 minutes someone might unload theor cargo where it would affect the players choices I think it would be somewhat behind the scenes and so many traders that based on this facet that an anaconda has 750, tons of cargo if they unloaded a bunch of food maxing out the market then the price could drop so many random points and possibly offering the player an incredible break on a particular goods item. Say a ton of food will feed x number of population so at a breakfast time let's say 07:30 the population eats that in tons 1200 for lunch then 1700 for supper. If they have no food well they're going to starve I don't know.

Factoring this into a simple basic calculations would reflect the constantly changing market. It could be interpreted that with all the trading going on what we see as players could be the over or underflow. And some kind of random value could work where a similar script could randomly determine cargo type and then a random # from 1-10 plus or minus could update on the screen. If 0 is picked it doesn't change but some burecrat might say were going to raise/lower price by 0.1-9.9 and then whatever the maximum quantity cap is it has a possibility of either going another 0.1-09.9 the second change reflects supply and demand.
Ultimately this would get us players really thinking fast on what to buy or sell.
This then would change a random commodity selection from sorry -10 to + 10 and this could update every five to ten minutes so that's my simple yet interesting suggestion on how the market would fluctuate.

I read several posts of coding for ai of ships and its pretty involved but I can also see the simplicity of it also and I believe if there's a way of doing a random calculation to simulate a changing economy and to give a sense things are happening when you're at a station because in a small way it doesn't really feel like there is. But I believe we are all very smart and clever designing things but my advantage is concepts but I don't know how to speak the code.
It's super hard to do all these posts from my phone I have no high speed internet but I wonder if someone has put a guide for downloading I'm willing to read it and start working on my creations to enhance your ooniverses as you all have made mine so much exciting.

Through playtesting I've noticed a feature that needs updating because there have been several brilliant additions that older oxps could benefit from slight updates.

Thanks for putting up with me I love being able to share ideas with everyone. They might not always work but of it inspires anybody to come up with an amazing addon to the Oolite universe

[CommonSenseOTB]

Thanks for putting up with me I love being able to share ideas with everyone. They might not always work but of it inspires anybody to come up with an amazing addon to the Oolite universe

My signature.

[Rese249er]

...prevents giant 100-ship convoys except under extreme conditions where they form up from multiple nearby systems and share wormholes en-route. Timing a simultaneous arrival at the final system would be hard. Once again, that would be better suited for an OXP.

Would it be possible to have something like this centered around the player? Any other convoys wouldn't really matter for timing; those would come and go almost completely unobserved and unaffected by the player, but one centered around the player would seem to work, speaking from a pilot's point of view.

It could even just be thrown out there through normal gameplay, by either a random broadcast when the player is in range of the witchpoint or nav buoy, possibly an OXP buoy as well, simulating a kind of pilot's radio network with repeaters set up through buoys. This would remove the lightspeed lag comms problem by providing for a faster-than-light link on regularly-established stationary objects and mean the player's theoretical radio could be in fact a simple electromagnetic radio.

But I digress with the physics. My idea of how it would work; mission start player receives message about trader convoy, decides whether to join. Player takes convoy wormhole, mission continues in next system with the ships originally added, flies in and does business, x chance of y ships joining, repeat with next convoy wormhole till galaxy's crossed or something. Perhaps even have a galactic jump convoy wormhole that requires the player have crossed G1 with the convoy. Plenty of scripted attacks or rough systems visited to provide challenge, player's patience in crossing one galaxy is rewarded with 'free' gal-jump.

Could even provide a bit of character exposition of convoy members at the station stops. I could write the text for that... Heck, Trans-Galactic Convoy sounds like a fic.

Well, there's the OXP idea. I got a fic idea. I'm off to write.

[Switeck]

There are other OXPs that already do some of what you ask:
Escort Contracts, Hired Guns, Oo-Haul, and Resistance Commander.

I have absolutely no plans to release any OXPs that create really large convoys. I don't see the Oolite universe as suited for that. At best, a believable large convoy might have ~20 ships. And even that would take quite some time to all launch from the station given that it would be delayed by arriving traffic as well as unrelated launching traffic such as Vipers. How many ships can a station hold anyway?

Any convoy larger than about 10 ships is likely a rare and special event.

Coding the logic to coordinate it all is non-trivial. And I've only done a little work in related areas to tackle those hard parts. Groups only maintain cohesion if they restrict themselves to the speed of the slowest members AND they must be headed to the same point. I've found out the hard way with convoys heading to near the planet, those ships head to different points AROUND the planet rather than to the same point.