UPS-Courier

[Diziet Sma]

Using 1.8 on Oolite 1.77 I don't seem to be able to deliver UPS documents. I accepted 7 documents at Tianve to go to a nearby Democratic station, but neither Alaza or Velete would take delivery. I'm guessing that somehow it's not triggering when I dock.

[Eric Walch]

Strange. I see nothing wrong in the code. The document missions are triggered by the "mission_ups_docs" variable. What is the content in your saved game? It should be "SMALL_DELIVERY" with this type of mission being active.

Version 1.8 does has massive internal changes, with the risk of adding new bugs. In the code I replaced the most used mission variables by the much faster processed JS variables. Also I removed all the mission variables from the missiontext.plist. But, that was all done almost a year back and specially a bug in this frequent mission should have been noticed by now.

[Diziet Sma]

Strange. I see nothing wrong in the code. The document missions are triggered by the "mission_ups_docs" variable. What is the content in your saved game? It should be "SMALL_DELIVERY" with this type of mission being active.

Here you go.. everything in the relevant section:

Code: Select all

	<key>mission_upsVersionUpdated</key>
	<string>1</string>
	<key>mission_ups_container</key>
	<string>BOA</string>
	<key>mission_ups_docs</key>
	<string>SMALL_DELIVERY</string>
	<key>mission_ups_docs_appearance</key>
	<string>seven hand-written Tianveian</string>
	<key>mission_ups_dplanet</key>
	<string>246</string>
	<key>mission_ups_ecount</key>
	<string>0</string>
	<key>mission_ups_galaxy</key>
	<string>0</string>
	<key>mission_ups_galcop_punishment</key>
	<string>0</string>
	<key>mission_ups_parcel</key>
	<string>YES</string>

[Koshed]

Hi Eric,

I'm new to UPS Courier and I have 1.8 on 1.77 oolite.

Have been given a delivery which states "Deliver three shiney Tionislaian documents to near by democratic station". So I when to Diso being the closest Democracy planet and nothing happens? I have been back and forth serveral times there and nothing? Am I missing something?

If you need me to provide anything, you will need to tell me how as I have only recently got back into oolite after a long time away!

Thanks.

[Eric Walch]

That is basically the same problem as the previous message. I could not see a bug in the code nor experienced this myself. Please open your saved game with a texteditor en look for the part with the strings containing "mission_ups", like above. Copy the whole part, preferably a few lines extra before and after to be sure, and paste them into a private message to me. (or send your whole saved file).

At the moment I have no clue.

[Eric Walch]

At the moment I have no clue.

Thanks for the PM with the saved file. Now I have a clue. Since this version 1.8 I try to reduce the number of mission variables to a minimum. I do it with something like:

Code: Select all

if (var) then save missionVariable

But if the value of var is zero, it returns also false. The number of delivered documents is initialised to zero. But if you save the game, the variable is not saved. So on reloading there is no content, but to deliver the first document it must be zero. That is why I did not experience it as I only did the mission with the counter being already > 0.

Anyhow, being sorted out now, I know I can't rely on that variable always existing even I originally initialised them to zero.

But as this will also affect other zero variables, I have to go through the code and fix all similar problems.

EDIT:
Okay, I now added a check on every load that these variables exist. A fixed version can be loaded here. If this works, I upload it proper as version 1.8.1
And it should work as I tested it now with the save file from Koshed.

EDIT2: Removed link. Update is now available as 1.8.1 at the wiki page.

[Koshed]

Hi Eric,

Yep works now...thx

[Eric Walch]

I just updated UPS to version 1.8.2. It seems that it contains a bug that was already present in version 1.0 of this oxp. For a special equipment is was never defined that the equipment was not available to all.

Bad enough, this is the equipment I use to swap with the cloak in the mission were you have to destroy the pirate rock. Result will be that you loose the cloak when docking of leaving the system before killing the base. So, don't enter the target system for that mission when using Oolite 1.77 with any old version of the oxp.

The bug is fixed in version 1.8.2, but while uploading it, I noticed that my used bandwidth is at 100%. I noticed that the last download from my account was at: "Today on 3:51 PM", meaning I just now ran out of bandwidth. That was just a few minutes back. That means you have to wait until next month (= next friday) before you can download anything from my account.

[GGShinobi]

That means you have to wait until next month (= next friday) before you can download anything from my account.

[spara]

Hello. Oolite 1.77 and UPS-courier 1.8.2.

[Eric Walch]

Thanks for the hint. This string has probably also changed in 1.77. The Methods page on the wiki still mentions this string.
I will see what replacements there are.

EDIT: no replacements. And on checking all "_number" & "_string" endings, I also noticed that "dockedStationName_string" was still in my "missiontext.plist". That will be fixed also in a next release.

[CmdrLUke]

Running UPS Courier v1.8.2 and Oolite 1.77, I just did the capture pirate mission, and "failed," even though I definitely scooped at least one of the pirates.

1) killed a pirate python (fugitive), scooped at least one escape pod, whereupon I got the message "captured pirate 1" or something like that
2) made sure not to dock with station in the system because the system was an anarchy and they don't have ups departments, and I was concerned about losing the captured pirate to a "regular" escape pod transaction (is this a concern with this mission?)
3) jumped to next (democratc) system, docked at station, and got 3 "escape pod" transactions (because i scooped other pirates not knowing which were which ahead of time), and then got a UPS "failed mission / consolation" message that it was a shame that I had not been able to capture any of the pirates (though it recognized that I had destroyed the ship), even though I definitely 100% captured at least one....

[Eric Walch]

Thanks for the clear report that pinpointed the bug. The bug is a result of the 1.8 change and would also have happened when delivering the scooped pilots in the current system.

Actually, the pilots are only variables after scooping. That avoids the auto unloading in the current system when you dock somewere, allowing to deliver them in a neighbour system. I will upload a fixed version after a testrun.

[CmdrLUke]

Thanks for the clear report that pinpointed the bug. The bug is a result of the 1.8 change and would also have happened when delivering the scooped pilots in the current system.

Actually, the pilots are only variables after scooping. That avoids the auto unloading in the current system when you dock somewere, allowing to deliver them in a neighbour system. I will upload a fixed version after a testrun.

Doing another ups pirate capture mission -- they seem to like choosing anarchies, which are chock full o' pirates already, making detection difficult. I've been back and forth across the space lanes about 6 times, taking out and scooping all pirates, including a planet-sun-witchpoint run just in case, and I still haven't found the ups pirates.....finding these guys can be hard enough with the 25m spacelane, I can't imagine how long it would take with a 50m spacelane like apparently some are proposing....25m is enough I think!

edit: well, wouldn't you know it, about 1 minute after posting this message on my very next run out from the station to the witchpoint beacon I encountered the ups pirates! And scooped them all, but my counter reads as zero still according to the station. Is there a setting in the save file where I can correct this? I got all 5 so I want credit!

[Disembodied]

finding these guys can be hard enough with the 25m spacelane, I can't imagine how long it would take with a 50m spacelane like apparently some are proposing....25m is enough I think!

I think if that was the case, any such OXPs would need to change to accommodate changes to the core game - e.g. providing more information on where specific targets could be found, or giving scripted targets ASC beacons, or placing them near something more easily locatable such as a large asteroid, or similar.