Cloaking Device

[AncientMariner]

Hello Again, Having sorted my last problem I am now back with another question.

To solve the problem I had, I have upgraded to the latest version of Oolite (please don't ask what the previous version I had was, I haven't a clue). Most of the upgrades (legal status of goods, laser colours, and Galactic Chart display) I really like. However I am not sure if the one thing I don't like is a problem with my version of if it is designed that way. It is to do with my Cloaking Device which either doesn't work at all or only on certain ships. I'm not sure which as I am too busy in the ensuing battle. It is showing as activated/deactivated OK when button pressed.

So can you please let me know is it working as it should be now or do I have a problem?

Thanks

AM

[Layne]

It is an ancient Mariner, / And he stoppeth 'lil ol' me.

According to this thread, they've spongy-nerf'd the cloaking device in 1.82 a bit. Perhaps it's the new behavior that you're seeing?

https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?f= ... 37#p238303

[another_commander]

Apart from making NPCs react to cloaked ships in a more realistic way, in one of the recent versions (I think it was 1.80), we switched the cloak to passive mode. This means, if you are cloaked and fire any weapon, the cloak will de-activate. This was done in order to avoid the easy-peasy (-kind-of-sleazy) practice of spreading death free of charge while cloaked, injecting away when energy was low and coming back when it was up again to continue. The cloak now is a more tactical device rather than a mega-uber weapon.

Having said that, you can reset it to previous functionality by editing shipdata.plist and adding

Code: Select all

cloak_passive = NO;

to the entry of the ship you are piloting. The NPC AI improvements still remain.

[AncientMariner]

Thanks for the reply.

Does this mean that once I get a bunch of red on the screen I cant just use cloak to sneak past them? The cloak doesn't seem to work at all now for me. This is too different for me if that's the case. Am I able to go back to a previous version to get the cloak I like? I am looking to play the game as much like the original as possible until I get to Elite (something I never did on Spectrum or Atari ST) and then go to see all the bells and whistles that have been developed. Thanks

[AncientMariner]

Thank you Another_Commander, I think it must have been the 1.80 version I had which I liked. I like the fact that if you fire while cloaked you get spotted. Its the fact I don't seem to be able to cloak at all when the enemy have turned red. Sometimes i am just trading and want to sneak past to the station, I don't seem to have that option. I do not want to remain cloaked when I attack so passive cloaking isn't the option I want. Thanks.

[another_commander]

The cloak works, but it's not a complete cloaking that you get. Think of it like when you did the Cloaking Device mission. Remember how the Asp carrying the cloak looked? It was "flashing" in and out of existence, kind of. That's what happens to you with the cloak in 1,82. If you have it active and just cruise happily ahead, enemies can still predict your course and fire at you successfully. If you apply a little bit of swing and unpredictability to the manoeuevers, you will find that they don't hit that well.

[Cody]

If you apply a little bit of swing and unpredictability to the manoeuevers, you will find that they don't hit that well.

<nods> An irregular barrel-roll works rather well.

[AncientMariner]

OK so it would appear what I really need is to get v1.80 back on my computer. Can you tell me if there is a download I can get fro that. Sorry to be a pain but I really liked that version. AM

[another_commander]

Sure, here: https://github.com/OoliteProject/oolite/releases. Look for the 1.80 binary in that page for 32 or 64 bit Windows.

Funny thing is, we did the changes to the cloak because people were (rightly) complaining that it looked dumb when you activated cloak and immediately all enemies seemed to forget what they were doing, who you are and why they were there. Oh well, can never always keep everyone happy I guess.

Oh, very important: If you have made any savegames in 1.82, be advised, they are NOT backwards compatible. We guarantee that a game from 1.80 will work in 1.82 but not the other way round and, in this case, we guarantee that it will not load.

[AncientMariner]

Thanks, Managed to get back to the version I liked, I did like the scrolling galactic chart but I just wanted to continue playing the game as I have been for many months. To be able to just trade avoiding fighting with the cloak was important to me as I am getting the money together for my new ship. As you said you cant please all of the people all of the time but you have done a great job with this already. Once I've got to my Elite rating on the 1.80 I will come back for the latest version and add all the new ships etc. until then I want to play as I am at the moment. Cheers

[ffutures]

I suspect that before long someone will have a super cloaking device OXP - possibly with some features that push it back towards its previous usefulness, but with a down-side such as higher power consumption or an unusually high failure rate.

[UK_Eliter]

I suspect that before long someone will have a super cloaking device OXP - possibly with some features that push it back towards its previous usefulness, but with a down-side such as higher power consumption or an unusually high failure rate.

Yes, I imagine that too, now that you've pointed it out. (Not that I am developing such an OXP. Are you? It sounds a bit like it!)

[cim]

The only thing needed to do to restore something like the old behaviour is to modify the equipment script so that on activation it does a search for nearby ships with the player targeted, and forces them to lose target. (Could be selective, of course) So the OXP should be fairly easy.

[Duggan]

Hello cim, you may have to help me out here a little.

In the cloaking device equipment script ;

/*

oolite-cloaking-device-equipment.js

Equipment script for cloaking device.


Oolite
Copyright © 2004-2013 Giles C Williams and contributors

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston,
MA 02110-1301, USA.

*/


/*jslint white: true, undef: true, eqeqeq: true, bitwise: true, regexp: true, newcap: true, immed: true */
/*global worldScripts*/


"use strict";

this.name = "Cloaking Device";
this.author = "cim";
this.copyright = "© 2008-2013 the Oolite team.";


this.activated = function()
{
player.ship.isCloaked = !player.ship.isCloaked;
}

Which of the values. should be changed to false , in order to restore the cloak to something like it's former glory

[cim]

Roughly what you'd need (untested) for 1.80-like behaviour is

Code: Select all

this.activated = function()
{
	player.ship.isCloaked = !player.ship.isCloaked;
	if (player.ship.isCloaked) { // if just activated the cloak
		var ships = system.filteredEntities(this, function(s) { return (s.target == player.ship); }, player.ship, 25600); // find nearby ships targeting the player
		for (var i=0;i<ships.length;i++) {
			ships[i].target = null; // and clear their targets
		}
	}
}