Interactive assist key?

[milinks]

Having just spent the last few hours playing Oolite 1.80 on the Open Pandora console, and finding it amazing! One of the really cool things that has developed so much is the "interaction" between the NPC's and even your own ship, dropping into an anarchy system straight into a huge convoy of offenders thinking my time's up, but being poiltely told to get my butt out of there as it wasn't my time yet, was so cool . A BIG thumbs up to all those who have made this new update possible. One thought, although most probably mentioned.... and discounted many times, would be the idea of linking a button to an AI action, for example, if you're being attacked by a small group of pirates, with maybe a seperate convoy of "clean" traders or whatever within scanner range. So that you could shout out for help by pressing the button, and if the traders were minded to, they would help out, maybe link it in so that it could work the other way, with asking any offenders nearby to help you take out a convoy etc. Appreciate its most definately mentioned elsewhere, but thought rather mention it 5 times than miss one
Anyway, brilliant work!

[Cody]

... for example, if you're being attacked by a small group of pirates, with maybe a seperate convoy of "clean" traders or whatever within scanner range.

Draw the bandits' fire onto the convoy - they'll probably help then.

[Neelix]

I have to admit, one of the things I've most wanted to do was respond to some of the messages. It would be nice to have a categorised list of customisable messages and I could send a random message of a selected type with a couple of button presses. In some cases it would be good if it could choose one keyed to the last message received (type and keyword)

ie - press (whatever) to trigger a message to be followed with a message type selector - eg: Request Assistance, Reject, Acknowledge, Thank, Apologise.

Some examples:

Request Assistance
[*] I could use some help here guys
[*] Some help would be nice... Anyone?

Reject (plea/surrender) - keyword credits
[*] You didn't honestly think this was just about the credits did you?
[*] Credits? You tried to kill me! This is about revenge.

Reject (plea/surrender) - keyword Surrender
[*] It's too late for that buddy boy, prepare to die!

That sort of thing... I'm sure you get the idea.

- Neelix

[mossfoot]

That would be pretty awesome. It might even be possible for a response to affect the outcome in some rare circumstances (either angering someone into fighting who wouldn't have otherwise, or convincing someone not to fight any further).

For a criminal angle, I could even see a "hidden" option unlocked. Imagine getting a rep as a pirate and learning a passphrase that will make certain pirates turn non-hostile due to being "one of them"

For good guys with a high enough rep, if you were to accidentally gets Offender status by attacking someone Clean, they might have a passphrase that makes them stand down (though not remove your status which you need to clean up the normal way).

Lots of possibilities. The question is, how complex can it be (or should be)?

[Neelix]

Oooh! That reminds me...

Reject (plea/surrender) - keyword Surrender
[*] It's too late for that buddy boy, prepare to die!

[*] Why don't you just eject? I'll scoop you up and sell you somewhere nice. After I trash your ship of course.


That definitely needs to go in that group of responses.

- Neelix

[milinks]

I don't know how flexible the AI is, or how it can be influenced externally via an OXP. But my initial thoughts were along the lines of the primable equipment options, where "n" was an option, with [shift]+n another etc.
Could this "trigger" be used in the way you've described, with options being chosen from using that kinda idea, or won't the scripting allow that choice?

Love the ideas by way

[cim]

Certainly all possible: 'n' to activate the comms system, 'b' to cycle through comms options (and in 1.80, an MFD to show what you're cycling through?), then 'n' again to send the selected message.

There are various ways you can send messages to ship AIs, more so with the new 1.80 AIs - though whether or not it reacts usefully to the message will depend on the AI. Ones which are reasonably straightforward:
- general distress call
- request my ally attacks my current target
- request current target drops X barrels of cargo
- acknowledge surrender (this one doesn't need to actually do anything: ceasing to target/shoot them will do that)
- demand surrender (again, probably doesn't do anything)