{UPDATED RELEASE}-Illegal Goods Tweak v1.7.3(30/5/12)

[Damocles Edge]

There are two questions that come out of this: (1) how did the escape pod get created with no insurance or bounty,

I can confirm that all 3 of the escape pods which I was carrying at the time were the result of offender / fugitive pilots bailing out of their failing ships (which seems odd that no bounty was applied).

[Milo]

I think this is only an issue if you are using Illegal Goods Tweak with New Cargoes, but the this._cargoType array in illegal_goods_tweak.js needs to be updated for Oolite 1.82+ (change aliases liquorWines, gemStones, alienItems to liquor_wines, gem_stones and alien_items respectively).

[phkb]

Thanks for the heads-up. I'll get a new version out shortly.

[phkb]

New version is out which fixes all the out-of-date commodity names.

[Cholmondely]

cim said that New Cargoes needed updating:

There are a few oxp's which I haven't maintained recently and probably don't work particularly well with the core changes since I wrote them. New Cargoes especially needs a ground-up rewrite to use the new commodity features (in the new Trade-goods.plist) properly (from https://cim.sotl.org.uk/games/).

If I understood correctly, he was most concerned about the legality of his various new cargoes.

[phkb]

If I understood correctly, he was most concerned about the legality of his various new cargoes.

That is my understanding as well. New Cargoes attempts to rework all the legal/illegal configuration by turning everything legal at base, and then applying legal penalties via code, essentially bypassing the core game code. But I don't know that the method used to nullify the illegal goods actually works, which means you could be double-pinged for any infringement.

And this is also one of the main reasons New Cargoes is incompatible with my Smugglers OXP, which is making goods illegal left, right and centre.

[Cholmondely]

If I understood correctly, he was most concerned about the legality of his various new cargoes.

That is my understanding as well. New Cargoes attempts to rework all the legal/illegal configuration by turning everything legal at base, and then applying legal penalties via code, essentially bypassing the core game code. But I don't know that the method used to nullify the illegal goods actually works, which means you could be double-pinged for any infringement.

And this is also one of the main reasons New Cargoes is incompatible with my Smugglers OXP, which is making goods illegal left, right and centre.

Thanks. I'll stick that on the New Cargoes page for easy reference.

[Cholmondely]

At the moment, you are approached on docking by Amnesty Intergalactic asking if you would like to free your slaves.

I'd much prefer to see an earlier ethical stage in the process.

It would be nice to first have the option of doing so myself, being proactive and either just freeing them on arrival (ensuing pandemonium... who are all these people? Where did they come from...) or contacting AI myself and handing the slaves over to them.



And how do the customs actually work?

Vanilla Oolite has it that there is neither a customs check on arrival - nor on off-loading illegal goods.

Could it not be an option to have no customs check (unless say arriving at a totalitarian systems station - a SLAPU or an Imperial AstroFactory, where one expects to lose several hours whilst one's ship is systematically searched from top to bottom for anti-Xi "propaganda") on arrival, but to have the check instead on offloading the goods to sell in the station market? Say, on leaving the F8 screen (I often press the wrong button by mistake, hence my removing the Commodity Markets OXP which makes much more sense to me).



Montana's Slaves container

[Cholmondely]

At the moment, you are approached on docking by Amnesty Intergalactic asking if you would like to free your slaves.

I'd much prefer to see an earlier ethical stage in the process.

It would be nice to first have the option of doing so myself, being proactive and either just freeing them on arrival (ensuing pandemonium... who are all these people? Where did they come from...) or contacting AI myself and handing the slaves over to them.



And how do the customs actually work?

Vanilla Oolite has it that there is neither a customs check on arrival - nor on off-loading illegal goods.

Could it not be an option to have no customs check (unless say arriving at a totalitarian systems station - a SLAPU or an Imperial AstroFactory, where one expects to lose several hours whilst one's ship is systematically searched from top to bottom for anti-Xi "propaganda") on arrival, but to have the check instead on selling the goods in the station market? Say, on leaving the F8 screen (I often press the wrong button by mistake, thus selling and then having to rebuy - hence my removing the Commodity Markets OXP which introduces a buy-sell margin and which makes much more sense to me, but I end up losing money due to my mistaken button presses).

[Nite Owl]

Not sure if this idea would fit in with Captain Murphy's original concept of this OXZ but here goes my thoughts anyway.

Slaves are a definite no-no. They should be freed or confiscated under any circumstance. Firearms and Narcotics on the other hand are a bit of a gray area that needs some momentary consideration on the part of a Commander. Oft times many tons of Firearms or Narcotics come my way through no fault of my own and these could be sold for some major profit as they are not illegal to import. Unfortunately if my hold also contains some Slaves then there is no choice but to free the Slaves and loose the profit on the other two. There is no other OXZ that handles Slaves in this manner so the choice of not using this OXZ is not an option.

My proposal is as follows. Add options to the Library Configuration of this OXZ so that choices can be made as to what goods are detected upon arrival at a GalCop affiliated station. Having looked at the JavaScript code this could be accomplished on my part with some major TWEAKS such as commenting out the large number of lines that reference the detection of Firearms and Narcotics. A possible solution but not an elegant one. Other players may want a variety of choices and such a TWEAKED version would not fit their needs nor be releasable. Adding said Library Configuration options is beyond my limited comment out and cut and paste coding abilities.

What do the rest of you Forumites think? phkb - would adding such options be something that you as the maintainer of this OXZ would be willing to undertake? Curious minds need to know. If all of this proves to be a bunch of hooey and bunk my attempts at commenting out the parts of the code not to my liking will commence forthwith. Well... after a bit of time has passed at least.

[phkb]

My proposal is as follows.

You pretty much get what you're after by installing  Smugglers. It essentially removes firearms & narcotics from consideration by IGT, so that it can handle them independently. Or would you prefer not to run that OXP?

[phkb]

Could it not be an option to have no customs check ... on arrival, but to have the check instead on selling the goods in the station market? Say, on leaving the F8 screen

GalCop Missions has a "Slave repatriation" mission type that, when available, asks you to purchase the slaves on the market and "release" them by completing the mission. At present, it only has a 10% chance of being available when there are slaves on the station. I could potentially make that 100%, so that if there are slaves on the station market, the mission will be available. I could also expand this to all GalCop-aligned stations, rather than just the main station, so each station has a separate mission, linked to the number of slaves in the market of that station.

Outside of that, it's certainly possible to intercept the sale/purchase of slaves and do something, or when leaving the F8 market screen. I'll need to get a clearer picture in my head of what interactions you're looking for. For instance, what is the trigger to start the interaction? Is it:
(a) If you leave the market screen with slaves in your hold (regardless of whether you purchased them there or not):
Or:
(b) if you purchase slaves on the market screen and leave the screen with them still in your hold

Then, what should happen? Immediately ask player if they want to release these slaves? Or have an F4 screen where the slaves can be released?
If we've immediately asked the player to make a choice, do we ping them at that point if they say No? If we do, what do we do about the penalty you get when you leave a station with slaves on board? Drop that entirely?

[Cholmondely]

Not sure if this idea would fit in with Captain Murphy's original concept of this OXZ but here goes my thoughts anyway.

Slaves are a definite no-no. They should be freed or confiscated under any circumstance. Firearms and Narcotics on the other hand are a bit of a gray area that needs some momentary consideration on the part of a Commander. Oft times many tons of Firearms or Narcotics come my way through no fault of my own and these could be sold for some major profit as they are not illegal to import. Unfortunately if my hold also contains some Slaves then there is no choice but to free the Slaves and loose the profit on the other two. There is no other OXZ that handles Slaves in this manner so the choice of not using this OXZ is not an option.

My proposal is as follows. Add options to the Library Configuration of this OXZ so that choices can be made as to what goods are detected upon arrival at a GalCop affiliated station. Having looked at the JavaScript code this could be accomplished on my part with some major TWEAKS such as commenting out the large number of lines that reference the detection of Firearms and Narcotics. A possible solution but not an elegant one. Other players may want a variety of choices and such a TWEAKED version would not fit their needs nor be releasable. Adding said Library Configuration options is beyond my limited comment out and cut and paste coding abilities.

What do the rest of you Forumites think? phkb - would adding such options be something that you as the maintainer of this OXZ would be willing to undertake? Curious minds need to know. If all of this proves to be a bunch of hooey and bunk my attempts at commenting out the parts of the code not to my liking will commence forthwith. Well... after a bit of time has passed at least.

I've no problems with all three being illegal. I almost always add in Smugglers.oxp to my various oxp cocktails - but never trade in narcotics & firearms in any event.

[Cholmondely]

Could it not be an option to have no customs check ... on arrival, but to have the check instead on selling the goods in the station market? Say, on leaving the F8 screen

GalCop Missions has a "Slave repatriation" mission type that, when available, asks you to purchase the slaves on the market and "release" them by completing the mission. At present, it only has a 10% chance of being available when there are slaves on the station. I could potentially make that 100%, so that if there are slaves on the station market, the mission will be available. I could also expand this to all GalCop-aligned stations, rather than just the main station, so each station has a separate mission, linked to the number of slaves in the market of that station.

Outside of that, it's certainly possible to intercept the sale/purchase of slaves and do something, or when leaving the F8 market screen. I'll need to get a clearer picture in my head of what interactions you're looking for. For instance, what is the trigger to start the interaction? Is it:
(a) If you leave the market screen with slaves in your hold (regardless of whether you purchased them there or not):
Or:
(b) if you purchase slaves on the market screen and leave the screen with them still in your hold

Then, what should happen? Immediately ask player if they want to release these slaves? Or have an F4 screen where the slaves can be released?
If we've immediately asked the player to make a choice, do we ping them at that point if they say No? If we do, what do we do about the penalty you get when you leave a station with slaves on board? Drop that entirely?

Where do these free the slave missions come from?

Amnesty InterGalactic will only have so much money (The two thousand star systems of the Cooperative once enjoyed a golden age of peace and prosperity, and perhaps the wealthiest of them can still pretend to...). So 10% strikes me as quite reasonable.

Maybe 10-20% for the main orbital station and 10% for the other GalCop aligned (and 5% for the non-aligned - the charity would still be active there - just not at the pirate-aligned stations).

And maybe the money should change a little too.

But the ethical option (my previous-but-one post) strikes me as the more important tweak to this oxp. Why can't I just free the slaves willy-nilly without being approached, while they are still on my ship? There might well be some paperwork involved (Yes officer, these are not passengers. They are freed slaves...).

[Nite Owl]

You pretty much get what you're after by installing  Smugglers. It essentially removes firearms & narcotics from consideration by IGT, so that it can handle them independently. Or would you prefer not to run that OXP?

My problem with Smugglers is the rotating nature of what is and is not illegal. Arriving at a Poor Agricultural system with a Cargo Bay full of Computers only to find that the system has declared them Illegal is not my cup of tea. Therefore the proposed Library Configuration options for Illegal Goods Tweak would be the best option. Understandable that if this is a thing that is only a desire of mine that such changes on a universal scale may not be doable. Living with that would not be a problem.