Vortex OXP (plus the Maelstrom)

[Albee]

I've just started flying the Vortex. I like it a lot, but something strange seems to be happening when I scoop cargo pods.

Here's the contents of Bay1 after my first pirate encounter: 30 t total -- 28 t of 'assorted cargo' + 1 t each of Gold (7 kg) and Platinum (11 kg). No problem there.



However, these are the reported contents of Bays 2 - 5...



As you can see, the Gold and Platinum appear in every bay. And it gets more complicated. Since Bay 1 was full, I switched to Bay 2 and carried on scooping, picking up 1 pod of Radioactives, 1 pod of Minerals and 1 pod of Gold (14 kg). Bay2 now looked like this...



5 t total -- 2 t 'assorted'; 2 t Gold (7 kg + 14 kg); 1 t Platinum (11 kg). Re-checking Bay1 shows an apparent anomaly, however...



The Gold and Platinum are still shown here (as in all the Bays) but now the amount of Gold has increased by 1 t. To 'make room for it', I seem to have lost 1 t of Alien Items.

I've repeated this test several times and it appears to function consistently in this fashion -- Gold, Platinum & Gem-Stones appear in all the bays, and scooping further 'precious' cargo displaces 'non-precious' pods from full bays.

I've searched to see if this situation is known about, but can't find anything. Apologies if it's been discussed previously.

[Thargoid]

The non-ton cargo items (gold, platinum, gems) aren't stored in the multi-bays, but in the main bay (ie the ships safe). So they aren't part of the count, and will appear across bays. This is by design.

[Albee]

So they aren't part of the count...

I'm confused now, Thargoid, as that's not what my Ship's Manifest screenshots are showing, is it? Counting up the pods in pic1 gives 28 t of 'ton' cargo, plus the gold and platinum, filling the 30 t hold. I have to conclude, therefore, that the non-ton cargo is being treated as part of the count -- and across all 5 bays into the bargain.

I have a theory that, were I fortunate enough to scoop 30 pods of gold/platinum/gem-stones, there'd be no room in the holds for anything else. I'm about to set off on an extended voyage to prove it one way or the other.

[Wildeblood]

I have a theory that, were I fortunate enough to scoop 30 pods of gold/platinum/gem-stones, there'd be no room in the holds for anything else. I'm about to set off on an extended voyage to prove it one way or the other.

Your theory is correct. When you scoop a pod with sub-tonne cargo, the cargo is transferred to the ship's safe, but the empty pod remains in the hold until the next time you dock. This is allegedly a feature of Oolite to add realism, not a bug.

[Diziet Sma]

I have a theory that, were I fortunate enough to scoop 30 pods of gold/platinum/gem-stones, there'd be no room in the holds for anything else. I'm about to set off on an extended voyage to prove it one way or the other.

Your theory is correct. When you scoop a pod with sub-tonne cargo, the cargo is transferred to the ship's safe, but the empty pod remains in the hold until the next time you dock. This is allegedly a feature of Oolite to add realism, not a bug.

In that case, in theory it should be possible to eject the empty pods. Can that be done?

[SandJ]

In that case, in theory it should be possible to eject the empty pods. Can that be done?

(We were discussing this in another thread at length just the other day, but I can't find it.) No. When you next dock all the 'bits of 1 tonne' get sorted out.

(There was an unresolved mix of views: "This is stupid" v "This makes sense".)

[Albee]

I finished my experiment. I filled the first 4 bays as normal, but with the 5th, I ejected any pod that wasn't gold/platinum/gem-stones. Eventually bay5 declared itself full: 30 t comprised of 'non-ton' cargo only -- 129 kg gold; 60 kg platinum; 177 g gem-stones. (I do have a screenshot, but unfortunately Imjur is down for maintenance right now).

The significant fact is, all 5 bays show just this cargo. Everything else I scooped previously had disappeared, displaced by the non-ton stuff. Upon docking, sure enough, all I had for sale was gold, platinum & gem-stones.

I don't object to the fact that empty non-ton pods are retained in the hold till docking -- I understand the logic and am happy with it. The fact that these empty pods are stored simultaneously in all 5 bays is puzzling, however. The fact that 'full' pods are being displaced as further empty pods are collected is very frustrating! What makes it worse is that, with bays 1-4 full, scooping just 1 extra non-ton pod for bay 5 loses me 4 full pods.

[Wildeblood]

The fact that these empty pods are stored simultaneously in all 5 bays is puzzling, however. The fact that 'full' pods are being displaced as further empty pods are collected is very frustrating! What makes it worse is that, with bays 1-4 full, scooping just 1 extra non-ton pod for bay 5 loses me 4 full pods.

Are you sure they are really lost? If my understanding is correct, they are in the same state as Schrodinger's cat: you can't be sure they are lost until you look. If you don't look until after you dock and the empty pods are discarded, they might not be lost.

[Capt. Murphy]

It looks like it's a side effect of cycling through the bays in flight with non-ton scooped commodities. The MultiBay script effectively ignores non-ton commodities, leaving them in the regular manifest on the assumption they aren't taking up any space. But they are after scooping. The current Bay is the regular manifest, so when you switch and the script tries to unload the new Bay into the manifest it is losing cargo because the non-ton scooped pods are taking up the space.

Until Thargoid issues a fix (the script probably just needs to temporarily remove non-ton commodities at the point of switching bays and re-instate them afterwards, assuming that clears the phantom pods) avoid cycling through the Bays after scooping non-ton commodities until you have docked and you should be OK.

[Albee]

The fact that these empty pods are stored simultaneously in all 5 bays is puzzling, however. The fact that 'full' pods are being displaced as further empty pods are collected is very frustrating! What makes it worse is that, with bays 1-4 full, scooping just 1 extra non-ton pod for bay 5 loses me 4 full pods.

Are you sure they are really lost? If my understanding is correct, they are in the same state as Schrodinger's cat: you can't be sure they are lost until you look. If you don't look until after you dock and the empty pods are discarded, they might not be lost.

Not sure what you mean. The cargo manifest screens for each bay, whilst in-flight, show the full pods there one minute, and increasingly 'not there' as more and more non-ton cargo is scooped. Upon docking, the full pods that have been lost don't reappear.
EDIT: Sorry, yes -- you're saying the same thing Capt. Murphy is. It's the fact I'm looking that's causing the problem!

It looks like it's a side effect of cycling through the bays in flight with non-ton scooped commodities. The MultiBay script effectively ignores non-ton commodities, leaving them in the regular manifest on the assumption they aren't taking up any space. But they are after scooping. The current Bay is the regular manifest, so when you switch and the script tries to unload the new Bay into the manifest it is losing cargo because the non-ton scooped pods are taking up the space.

Until Thargoid issues a fix (the script probably just needs to temporarily remove non-ton commodities at the point of switching bays and re-instate them afterwards, assuming that clears the phantom pods) avoid cycling through the Bays after scooping non-ton commodities until you have docked and you should be OK.

Okay, thanks. I'll give that a try.

[Wildeblood]

The script probably just needs to temporarily remove non-ton commodities at the point of switching bays and re-instate them afterwards, assuming that clears the phantom pods.

No.

At the point of switching bays, the script just needs to temporarily copy sub-tonne commodities, use removeAllCargo() to clear the empty pods, and then re-instate the sub-tonne cargo.

[Albee]

If you don't look until after you dock and the empty pods are discarded, they might not be lost.

...avoid cycling through the Bays after scooping non-ton commodities until you have docked and you should be OK.

You're quite right, gents -- I've just finished a flight where I filled bays 1-5 without cycling, and all the pods were there when I docked.

I still believe there's a problem with 'empty' pods occupying cargo space across all 5 bays, however. I sold my cargo in reverse order of filling, i.e. bay 5 down to bay 1, and this is the amount of 'ton' stuff I had:-

bay 5: 17 t
bay 4: 21 t
bay 3: 26 t
bay 2: 27 t
bay 1: 28 t

This looks cumulative to me. Whether it would be solved by the suggested fix, I'm not qualified to judge, being a non-programmer.

[Wildeblood]

I still believe there's a problem with 'empty' pods occupying cargo space across all 5 bays, however. I sold my cargo in reverse order of filling, i.e. bay 5 down to bay 1, and this is the amount of 'ton' stuff I had:-

bay 5: 17 t
bay 4: 21 t
bay 3: 26 t
bay 2: 27 t
bay 1: 28 t

This looks cumulative to me. Whether it would be solved by the suggested fix, I'm not qualified to judge, being a non-programmer.

Yes, it is. Empty cargo pods continue to accumulate until the cargo bay is re-initialised by docking. And no it won't, I just tried it:-

***** JavaScript exception (Cargopod Incinerator 0.1): Error: PlayerShip.removeAllCargo only works when docked.

[Capt. Murphy]

No.

Yes.

According to the wiki anyway...

Cargo marshalling

When a player launches, all cargo from the manifest is loaded in cargo pods with the role “1t-cargopod”. This has some consequences for handling g and kg commodities when in flight:

Every full t of such an article that the player has is put in a barrel on launch and consumes 1 t cargo space.
Every barrel that the player scoops takes one t of cargo space even when the content is far less in weight.
Every time cargo is added by script, the added amount is added to the hold in one or more 1 t cargo pods.
Every time the cargo is reduced, it is removed from one of the barrels. When the barrel becomes empty in the process, the barrel is removed.

So should be no problem - var gold = manifest.gold;manifest.gold = 0; etc. etc. They are all read/write.

[Thargoid]

I'm going to look into it either tonight or tomorrow.

There are one or two other items I want to tweak in this OXP anyway.

I'm confused now, Thargoid, as that's not what my Ship's Manifest screenshots are showing, is it? Counting up the pods in pic1 gives 28 t of 'ton' cargo, plus the gold and platinum, filling the 30 t hold. I have to conclude, therefore, that the non-ton cargo is being treated as part of the count -- and across all 5 bays into the bargain.

Jus to be clear, my meaning was that the gold/platinum/gems aren't stored in the multibay, hence they don't (or shouldn't) come and go when you switch bays. Your manifest is the whole cargo selection you currently have available, basically equal to your current multibay (for ton cargo's) and your safe (for the gems/gold/platinum).

But as you've already noted there is an oolite feature/bug about scooped safe items and their cargo pods. This being what the tests are now highlighting and I'm working around in the script soon.