Scripters cove

[Nite Owl]

Thank you phkb for the explanation.

Much appreciation to all three of you for your help and guidance.

The gauge is now installed on my Coluber HUD and updating properly. This includes a nicely colored bar and a level measuring background image like those used on all of the other gauges in the Coluber HUD. Have even gotten to the point where most JavaScript Operators and other such stuff are becoming readable without too much consulting of reference material.

One step closer to the Dark Side. <Eats the cookies>

[Norby]

it doessn't always make sense to display them

Currently serviceLevel is important only before you want to buy another ship: a maintenance can give better price for your ship.

Over this I attempted to make more sense in my hardcore addon named to ShipVersion, which penalized the player ship by losing all laser weapons when the serviceLevel reached the minimal value, like break off from the damaged hull.

But regardless of my repeated warnings that ShipVersion is designed only for top experienced players who want extra challenges, new players also regularly installed it, then complained about losing weapons "without any notice", so finally I removed this feature.

[Norby]

The gauge is now installed on my Coluber HUD and updating properly.

Nice work, congrats!

[montana05]

An interesting observation for laser weapons (excluding turrets) assigned to a subentity of a NPC ship:

When you assign a laser weapon as a subentity the common way (as much as I saw) is to define the laser as

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"forward_weapon_type" =

which makes sense, once the orientation is correct the front of the subentity should be the target area. Unfortunately the result is not exactly like that. If assigned to the back of the ship this lasers still work as front-lasers and not in the intended way.

Anybody else had a similar observation and are there any ideas how to work around this problem ?

PS:
Assigning the weapons to the ship as multiple lasers is obviously working, you even could keep the subentities as decoration. Problem is that this method doesn't offer different types.

[montana05]

While trying to find a work-around I ran into another problem, NPC ships hardly use back-weapons and even less broadsides. Is there any way that you could force or at least raise the chances that they are fired ?

[another_commander]

While trying to find a work-around I ran into another problem, NPC ships hardly use back-weapons and even less broadsides. Is there any way that you could force or at least raise the chances that they are fired ?

Yes there is. Increase their accuracy to above 5. Then the AI will start utilizing the more advanced tactics. Not entirely sure about it, but I don't think you can make it use side lasers for combat.

As for the forward_weapon_type subentities placed aft, have you tried using aft_weapon_type instead?

[montana05]

Yes there is. Increase their accuracy to above 5. Then the AI will start utilizing the more advanced tactics. Not entirely sure about it, but I don't think you can make it use side lasers for combat.

The various stages of accuracy I am using already, in this case I guessed 8.50 would be enough, well, I will try to get up to 10.00 to watch the results.

As for the forward_weapon_type subentities placed aft, have you tried using aft_weapon_type instead?

My first thought, would be be the most logic. Thats when I run into the second problem

Update:
The easiest way to force a NPC ship to use the rear-lasers for a test is to set the front-lasers to "NONE"
It seems that aft_weapon works as intended, the lasers fire at their own ship.

Conclusio for today, for now I will refrain from using subentities as rear-lasers, instead assigning them to the ship with the multi feature.

[montana05]

Another day, another surprise. It seems that self-aiming lasers (is_turret_laser = true;) ignore "weapon_mount_mode" = "multiply"; and/or "weapon_position_". All shots are fired from the center of the ship (0 0 0) so difficult to say if multi is recognized. Well, at least they fire now, once again not exactly as intended.

[phkb]

I know I should probably know this, but can someone remind me how you calculate the mass-lock distance of a sun or planet?

[another_commander]

Here is the code from PlayerEntity.m:

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Entity<OOStellarBody> *stellar = (Entity<OOStellarBody> *)ent;
if (EXPECT([stellar planetType] != STELLAR_TYPE_MINIATURE))
{
	double dist = stellar->zero_distance;
	double rad = stellar->collision_radius;
	double factor = ([stellar isSun]) ? 2.0 : 4.0;
	// plus ensure mass lock when 25 km or less from the surface of small stellar bodies
	// dist is a square distance so it needs to be compared to (rad+25000) * (rad+25000)!
	if (dist < rad*rad*factor || dist < rad*rad + 50000*rad + 625000000 ) 
	{
		massLocked = YES;
	}
}

[phkb]

Thanks, a_c! You know, I looked at that bit of code and somehow completely missing a crucial detail: "dist is a square distance". Note to self: must take more care when reading comments.

[montana05]

I never saw it before and I never thought its possible until recently I was proofed wrong, thanks to a copy & past glitch. It is possible to assign a subentity to a subentity, for example a flasher to a gun. The catch is that the coordinates are the one from the main entity, same as with other certain assignments like forward_weapon = , external weapons assigned to the back of a ship will mainly shoot forward of the ship, not forward of the gun.

[UK_Eliter]

Dear all

I am after a way of setting a (any) perpendicular course from a celestial object (sun or planet or secondary planet - or, better: a roughly - not exactly, i.e. I want some randomisation. I know how to get the celestial entity - with all its properties, I think - as an element in an array, but I don't know how to get a ship, which is controlled by plist AI + js ship script, to set the desired course away from the entity.

I think phkb might help me with this, but I have leaned on him a lot of already recently, and/but I don't really have the knowledge, or perhaps the mathematical background, to work it out myself. (I did look at relevant pages on the javascript and AI wikis, but I couldn't find anything suitable. I considered trying to use the plist AI method 'performFlee', but I am unsure I can set the flee-from-target to any celestial, as against a ship.)

[phkb]

Well, I'm here, so, you know...

This code will set the orientation of a ship to be away from the given planet (entity):

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// orient the ship so it is facing away from the entity
this.$orientationAwayFromEntity = function $orientationAwayFromEntity(ship, entity) {
    ship.orientation = entity.position.subtract(ship.position).direction().rotationTo([0,0,-1]);
}

Although if we're trying to get the AI to do something, it might be better to set a waypoint away from the planet and ask the AI to fly towards it:

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// returns a position that's the same distance as between the ship and the entity, but in the opposite direction 
this.$positionAwayFromEntity = function $positionAwayFromEntity(ship, entity) {
    return Vector3D.interpolate(ship.position, entity.position, -1);
}

No randomisation in that position, obviously, but I'll leave that for someone else.

[UK_Eliter]

Thanks! I'll have a go with that code and with the ideas offered elsewhere by rustem.