Strange escape and cargo pod behaviour

[gizmo]

I'm not sure if this is a bug or a feature...

Today I came across an escape pod. "Lets scoop it" I thought but to my surprise it was faster that my rusty old Cobra Mk.III.
The same happend with cargo pods I ran across a while later.

[Walbrigg]

I've found that with cargo pods quite often, never with escape pods.

I think sometimes it happens when a pod "shakes loose" from my tractor beam while I'm scooping it, possibly if I'm maneuvering sharply at the time. But I'm not sure. There's a kind of logic to that.

I think they ought to gradually slow down if they're going very fast. That's not physically accurate, but then, neither is the fact I can't just keep accelerating until I'm going faster than them. In a universe where I need to keep my rockets on full to keep going full speed, inanimate objects should not go faster than that effortlessly.

[Diziet Sma]

I think I've seen some discussion on this before. It can happen that a ship is destroyed whilst moving at maximum speed. If cargo or a pod is ejected when that happens, the initial velocity can sometimes be added to that imparted to the pod/canister by the explosion (and, in the case of a pod, the pod's engine as well), resulting in a very fast-moving object.

It's relatively rare, but I have had canisters and pods I could only catch on injectors.

[Cody]

It's relatively rare, but I have had canisters and pods I could only catch on injectors.

<nods> Scooping an escape pod on injectors can be dodgy for the occupant!

[Walbrigg]

Is it possible to write my "slow down towards some sane speed" thing into the dumbAI? Something like

Code: Select all

if speed > max_sane_speed, speed = speed * 0.8 + max_sane_speed * 0.2; sleep 30s

I can't see how, without using the scriptedAI, which looks like overkill for pods and asteroids and stuff. But I haven't done any AI scripting

[cim]

Is it possible to write my "slow down towards some sane speed" thing into the dumbAI?

The AI already likely has a desired speed of zero. The problem is that without any engines, it has no way to cancel the inertial velocity [1] imparted by the explosion, so it can't slow down. Set thrust=1 in the pod's shipdata.plist entry and it will (extremely gradually) decelerate.

[Eric Walch]

Escape pods do reduce their speed at the end. They just decelerate very slow. I remember an ups mission were I spawned 20 escape pods around a station and than blew up the station. About 15 got a reasonable impuls but there were always a few that blew away far beyond injector speed.
Therefor I gave them beacons and after scooping up the large bulk, you had to travel quite far the scoop the last few. However, by that time their speed was already reduced to normal.

I think it is not possible for a single ship to explode and shoot away his cargo at injector speed. Unless of cause the ship was already at injector speed. I think, but never witnessed it happening, that it results when two ships crash into each other and than blow away the cargo of the other while exploding. I think that the fast escape pods were previous scooped and thus also part of the cargo.

[Smivs]

Ha, you can also 'slingshot' them (escape capsules and cargopods) if you try to scoop them at high speed and don't quite get it right

[GGShinobi]

I have the  Escape Pod Locator and the [wiki]Updating TSC[/wiki] that tells the distance to the selected compass target. On some rare occasions, I've seen escape pods on my compass which's distance changed so ridiculously fast that they must have incredible speeds. About 100km / second and probably much more. I think even with activated jumpdrive I would have been unable to catch them!

[Walbrigg]

Ha, you can also 'slingshot' them (escape capsules and cargopods) if you try to scoop them at high speed and don't quite get it right

That's what I thought I'd seen happen, but wasn't quite sure. I think it's a great feature: part of the messiness of real life that you don't often see in games.

[Eric Walch]

...they must have incredible speeds. About 100km / second and probably much more.

The do have a thrust setting of 5 m/s. meaning that in 100km/5 = 100,000/5 = 20,000 seconds = 5.5 hours their speed will return to normal.

Just be patience.

[GGShinobi]

...they must have incredible speeds. About 100km / second and probably much more.

The do have a thrust setting of 5 m/s. meaning that in 100km/5 = 100,000/5 = 20,000 seconds = 5.5 hours their speed will return to normal.

Just be patience.

Yeah, probably, but I think before that happens, they leave the system or at least the range of the Escape Capsule Locator! At least once I witnessed in awe how an escape capsule vanished from the Advanced Space Compass after having covered insane distances within no time! - and I highly doubt it was because someone was able to scoop it

Or... perhaps  something even faster, even worse scooped them... and now the "rescued" passengers experience the ultimate nightmare!

[Disembodied]

Yeah, probably, but I think before that happens, they leave the system or at least the range of the Escape Capsule Locator!

Yeh, well, these things happen ...

[GGShinobi]

Yeah, probably, but I think before that happens, they leave the system or at least the range of the Escape Capsule Locator!

Yeh, well, these things happen ...

LOL LOL

What a great story! Macabre and insanely funny!!! Thanks for the link! ROFL

EDIT: Hey, now I see from your picture that it's you, Disembodied, that the story is about! Ahem... of course I didn't mean "funny"... I meant... how tragic. Not funny at all! No! Erm... my deepest sympathy... Oh, I forgot, I have to go!!! I've got a pressing appointment... see you later! *rushes away*