[RELEASE] Torus To Sun OXP v1.7

[Diziet Sma]

BBD Handling special effects for the group Disaster Area

<chuckles> there's never a paranoid android around when you need one.

[Bangbangduck]

BBD Handling special effects for the group Disaster Area

<chuckles> there's never a paranoid android around when you need one.

Oh there is. He's over there ----------------> \_/
with his head in a bucket of water...

BBD

[Norby]

Actually I ended up finding the x4 limit to be just right for my gameplay

There is no real need to get more without modified Sun distances. If you have Realistic Stars or other Sun-mover OXP then the weapons key now working like a command to reroute all power from the weapons to the engines.

The speedup is strong so you should keep your finger on the weapons key to slow immediately if needed. I recommend to watch the altitude meter before the Sun and press decrease speed ("s") to stop the torus drive if the masslock is not happen enough soon to prevent the meltdown.

I got mass locked, by another ship, when close to the sun and when clear I hit torus drive and my ship just went 'Whoooooooooosh'

This should not happen from now, just make sure that your weapons are online near the Sun.

[Bangbangduck]

Thanks for the tip!

BBD

[mossfoot]

Actually I ended up finding the x4 limit to be just right for my gameplay

There is no real need to get more without modified Sun distances. If you have Realistic Stars or other Sun-mover OXP then the weapons key now working like a command to reroute all power from the weapons to the engines.

The speedup is strong so you should keep your finger on the weapons key to slow immediately if needed. I recommend to watch the altitude meter before the Sun and press decrease speed ("s") to stop the torus drive if the masslock is not happen enough soon to prevent the meltdown.

I got mass locked, by another ship, when close to the sun and when clear I hit torus drive and my ship just went 'Whoooooooooosh'

This should not happen from now, just make sure that your weapons are online near the Sun.

Even going to the sun with Realistic Stars I didn't mind the x4 limit or going planet to planet. It's just about right for me (since I like it to feel I'm actually travelling a distance rather than teleporting). However, if I was in a rush I could see myself switching to x8 to get on with things

So it's a great solution in that it provides new options

[Bangbangduck]

I to have the suns and stars OXZ's. It all makes for a very satisfying experience IMHO.

BBD

[Switeck]

The Torus Bullet Drive, which makes your ship unable to maneuver while using the torus drive, might make sense when moving extremely fast from using this OXP. It's probably using every thruster/impulsor, even directional ones, to maximize speed.

[mossfoot]

The Torus Bullet Drive, which makes your ship unable to maneuver while using the torus drive, might make sense when moving extremely fast from using this OXP. It's probably using every thruster/impulsor, even directional ones, to maximize speed.

That might be cute for when you go off the x4 limiter by deactivating weapons and go to x8. Really feel like it's rocket-sled time

[Switeck]

For double-fun, add in Deep Space Pirates OXP which likes to toss not only pirates in your way...but also asteroids directly in front of you!

[Obsidian]

Norby, I checked out [wiki]TorusToSun[/wiki] per your suggestion in another thread. While useful for reaching distant targets, TorusToSun is interfering with the normal operation of the Torus Drive and there is no way for me to control when the extra speed kicks in. Found myself doing a lot of overshoots of distant Rock Hermits and unable to side-scan the trade cooridor at hyperspeed for potential action. Is it possible for TorusToSun drive to be separate, primable equipment?

On a related side-note (related for me because I would use either one or the other and not both, ), an OXP that acts as sleep-timer/alarm would be interesting, basically [wiki]TimeControl[/wiki] handled in-game as the pilot away from the controls for sleep, ship-cleaning, or whatever. Key would be automatic breaking of the time acceleration at the proper triggers and an appropriate warning. (Still using 1.80, so if [wiki]TimeControl[/wiki] already does this, please accept my apology.) I suppose it's the crashing into asteroids, buoys, etc. that would be the problem... I get the impression their is no way to trigger for their presence.

[Norby]

Torus To Sun v1.5 is out as an answer to the last request.

Found myself doing a lot of overshoots of distant Rock Hermits

Now a proximity detector will slow to 1x torus speed when anything is arrive into scanner range. Moreover I reduced the speed multiplier to 2x when weapons are online, I think this is enough. If not then you can reduce it further in torustosun.js. I keep this equipment non-primeable due to there are too many already and the real turn key of this speedup is the weapon toggle.

From now when weapons are offline a 2x time forwarding is applied at Torus speed due to I was unsatisfied with the slow start from planets but I do not want to give free speedup near planetary masses.

In exchange the max. time forward is reduced to 4x so the travel to a far sun still need about 2 minutes with [wiki]Realistic Stars[/wiki].

[wiki]TimeControl[/wiki] made additional speedup in development releases where TAF is enabled. Surely too much if used together with this so now in TimeControl v1.1 I changed the TAF to 1 when TorusToSun is installed to keep a 2x TAF at Injector speeds only.

I suppose it's the crashing into asteroids, buoys, etc. that would be the problem...

[wiki]VariableMasslock[/wiki] contain an asteroid detector which turn off torus in safe distance when you are in collision course. Buoys and cargo boxes still cause surprises but you can make a request in the other topic.

[Obsidian]

Thanks Norby. I use [wiki]VariableMasslock[/wiki], but didn't notice it turning off Torus for asteroids in [wiki]TorusToSun[/wiki] 1.4 (also the Rock Hermits themselves). I will give TorusToSun 1.5 a try in the unlikely event I reload [wiki]RealisticStars[/wiki], which I uninstalled to "cure the darkness" rather than extracting that oxz and messing with it so close to 1.82 release.

[Norby]

"cure the darkness"

My fix for 1.80 is LightsUp OXP. Extract this into your AddOns folder by hand and you can safely install Realistic Stars within the manager due to the manually installed packages override the managed ones and the darkness is gone.

[avder]

Hello, new board member here, have been lurking for a few weeks as I only recently discovered Oolite and have been enjoying it quite a bit and this board has helped a lot.

I'm having a problem with this addon, which I downloaded because I also have realistic stars installed, and I didn't want a 10+ minute flight every time I decide to sunskim for fuel.

The problem is that the longer I play, the speedup effect increases with every jump or dock/undock. I did a little test to gather some data.

Firstly, I went into the .js file and set the max speed with weapons online to 1, as well as setting both time variables to 1 to eliminate time compression.

Next, I loaded up my current pilot, docked in the Inlain in the NW corner of Galaxy 3. I would undock, online my weapons, fly to the witchpoint and just behind it. Then using my port and starboard views, I would center the beacon against the planet. I would then center it in my aft view and fly 1,000km away from the witchpoint and then center the sun in my forward crosshairs after making sure I was at the same distance from the sun. I would then offline my weapons and activate my torus drive and measure the time until the sun masslocked me. I would then return to the station, re-dock, and repeat the process. These are the results:

Trip 1: 9450km, 1:40
Trip 2: 9450km, 0:58
Trip 3: 9450km, 0:42

The ship I was flying was a Cobra III, so Torus x8 was displayed as about 89km/s.

I would guess that for some reason, every time I either jump or dock, the add-on creates and runs another instance of the drive. In the 2nd test I would then be traveling torus x16, in the 3rd test x24, and so on.

As my play sessions go on, I have to start pulsing the drive by on-lining and off-lining it in order to control speed. Eventually the drive gets so fast that it's suicidal to use it while aimed at something. I found that out not long after I installed it by activating it a couple hours into that session while never having sunskimmed. Slammed into the sun so fast I literally hit the button and then "press space to continue".

Are there any other add-ons that interfere with the drives operation in any way that could explain this?

Anyway, any help with this would be appreciated. It's annoying having to re-start the game every so often just to make sure my torus drive doesn't kill me when I decide to sun skim

[Cody]

Welcome aboard, Commander! I'm sure Norby will be along shortly.