Recession

[johnsmith]

Across the eight galaxies times are getting hard. Pirates are getting more desperate. Stuck for cash, other pilots have become flying billboards for unscrupulous advertising companies. Rock hermits have been abandoning their distant homes and moving to safer regions planet-side. If you're lucky, you might see one of these rare abandoned hermitages on your travels.

Thinking of doing a "flavour" OXP for the Ooniverse. Anyway, abandoned asteroids and aberant pirates are easyish, but having trouble with my billboard model. I want to attach this rotating 3 sided cylinder to the back of a tugship, but I can't get the model to work. Or at least it fails to open in DryDock, so I assume there's a problem with the model. Can someone look at my meshworks files?

For bonus points, foolhardy pilots can accept missions to fly these billboards into some rather tricky spots. This will be fun, if I can ever get it to work. LittleBear, is it easy to make sure a player is flying a certain craft? Do you use checkForShips for roles player, and whatever the role of the other ship is, then set a mission variable? I had a look at Assassins, but the 8000+ lines of code made my head swim.

I'm also thinking of doing an escort mission, where on leaving the station you have to follow someone through a wormhole and make sure their ship doesn't get destroyed. Has anyone else tried this before in a mission?

[Dr. Nil]

No advise on Drydock, since I'm a PC user.

But a note on placing ads in Wings that I came up with for the Anacondas.

I started out with a cube which was resized to 50% along y and textured on the sides with the ads before changing it's shape for have the ads align with the Anaconda hull. This made it very easy to project the texture since it's to similar proportioned rectangels you're working with.

[LittleBear]

@johnsmith.

Oolite stores the ship the player is flying with:-

<key>ship_desc</key>
<string>icour-player</string>

in the save file. In order to test my player ships (rather than having to wait for them to come up in a shipyard), I edited my savefile to <string>hitsadder-player</string> and when I loaded the commander, I was flying a Vintage Adder.

It might be possible to include that the ship_desc must equal a certain one as a condition in script, but I don't know if this is valid as I haven't tried it. Somthing like:-

{ conditions = ("dockedAtMainStation_bool equal YES",
"ship_desc equal adship-player");
do = ( ....

might work, but I don't know if you are allowed to use ship_desc in script.

In the final version of Assasins, you will need to be flying a ship less than 80 meters wide in order to destroy the Battle Station, but this is done not by checking the ship the player has, but by the fact that as the tunnel you need to fly down is only 80m wide, you'll blow up if your ship is too big!

On the Escort Mission (sounds cool!), I don't know if you could follow the ship through a worm hole, but you could add the ship by the witchspace beacon. Give it an AI that starts under Enter with "scanforshipwithrole: player", nothing found = performtumble, found = send comms message "Form up on my wing escort", setstate to head for planet. If the Death_actions set the mission variable to client_destroyed, then you could use that to give a mission failed briefing. Along the path to the station you could add ships with an AI that starts under enter = "scanforshipwithrole: clientship", nothing found = performtumble, found = setstate to Attack Ship.

Not quite sure how you would check the ship docked Ok, but perhaps if perfore switching to dockingAI, the Ship's AI set a mission variable to complete, that would at least check that the escort had safely made it to the Station's Safe Zone.

[johnsmith]

Well, this is looking like a lot of work. Thanks for your suggestions so far. I'm just writing the mission text for the escort mission now, think it will be a mission for newbies in galaxy 1. I'm rolling a lot of unrelated ideas into this OXP, but what the hell.

I like Murgh's tug and Dr Space's billboard, but i think I really ought to use something a little smaller! And I think we have the rope attached in the wrong place.

[johnsmith]

Later: just playtesting this escort mission section. It's boring as hell, mass locked, and anacondas aint too speedy, then you get a couple of pirates, chase them, and one of them goes and takes out your boss while you're after the other one. Second time I've tried now there seems to be a little fleet of escorts, not sure why they're added sometimes (like_ship anaconda), but sometimes not. I could be explicit with escorts in shipdata.plist I guess. But the surprise is nice. Wonder how many pirates I should add to this to make it challenging, but easy enough for newbies.

Anyway, beta's here if anyone's bored.

http://www.ripserve.com/~johnsmith/recession.oxp.zip

[Griff]

hi johnsmith
not sure if this info is any use, but i think if you give the ship you're escorting a scanclass_rock setting in it's ship data you shouldn't get masslocked near it, but then, i suppose if you're being paid to escort it safely across the system they don't want to see you zoom off using your jumpdrive as soon as you leave the stations S zone

[johnsmith]

Just switched the boss ship to a Boa, and tweaked the AI to fly full speed. Playtesting still takes forever. Will update the beta later, when it seems to work. Was having trouble with scanning for player ships, so dropped it. Also, is there a way to create a wormhole to a certain planet, something like addships?

[Dr. Nil]

Just switched the boss ship to a Boa, and tweaked the AI to fly full speed. Playtesting still takes forever.

The Anaconda or Boa could also be a special tug version, with the cargo space replaced by engines which makes it a lot faster.

[LittleBear]

Could also maybe toughen the Client Ship up by boosting its energy and adding left right and rear turrets (easy to do - use the standard ball turrett and crib the code from Renegades). That would let you add a lot of pirates and create a fun battle, where the Client can take care of himself, but not well enough to survive to the station without the player joining in on his side. Could also maybe add him half way between the w/p and the planet as the "pick up point". Perhaps add a cluster of asteroids near his starting position - he's just picked up a haul of gem stones and gold, so needs the escort service to get home. That would cut down the boaring flying along with nothing to do. If you used pwm co-ordinates, you could add waves of pirates, the player having only having flights of a minute or so before the next wave hits. If you mod the holdkillplayerAI from assassins and change the "player" to "clientship" that would give you a custom AI for a ship that only attacks the client. Throw in a few regular pirates as well to liven things up. Maybe some police ships too to get a big battle going.

I don't think a wormhole can be added as a command.

[Cholmondely]

We're lucky that we didn't lose this one in the Great Deletion. The download still works!

Anybody willing to test it?

I'd like to bung it up on our wiki, but would like to know first if it works! It loaded on mine, gave me an interesting screen-shot and eventually a mission where I could not find the ship which I was supposed to be escorting. Not sure if the issue was me (most likely), my new AppleMac, or version 1.90.

1) Will want a Level Indicator rating for it http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/OXP_Levelindicators
2) Will want to know if any planets/systems are modified by it http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/List_o ... ed_in_OXPs

Thanks!

Cholmondeley

[Cholmondely]

We're lucky that we didn't lose this one in the Great Deletion. The download still works!

Anybody willing to test it?

I'd like to bung it up on our wiki, but would like to know first if it works! It loaded on mine, gave me an interesting screen-shot and eventually a mission where I could not find the ship which I was supposed to be escorting. Not sure if the issue was me (most likely), my new AppleMac, or version 1.90.

1) Will want a Level Indicator rating for it http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/OXP_Levelindicators
2) Will want to know if any planets/systems are modified by it http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/List_o ... ed_in_OXPs

Thanks!

Cholmondeley

I say, chaps ... Bump!

[andrax_iON]

Hmm.. 'beta' status in '06, possibly some modelling issues - I'd like to know the significance, in johnsmith's planning, of the wormhole question and whether LittleBear's response is valid wrt v1.90.

I've grabbed a copy, had a quick squizz; wonder if this might all look a little different as Spara's master class progresses. In the meantime, trying to digest the Economics wiki page, 20 pages of cim's thread on pirates/the npc ecosystem & wondering what a recession might look like in this context..

cheers!

[Cholmondely]

Hmm.. 'beta' status in '06, possibly some modelling issues - I'd like to know the significance, in johnsmith's planning, of the wormhole question and whether LittleBear's response is valid wrt v1.90.

I've grabbed a copy, had a quick squizz; wonder if this might all look a little different as Spara's master class progresses. In the meantime, trying to digest the Economics wiki page, 20 pages of cim's thread on pirates/the npc ecosystem & wondering what a recession might look like in this context..

cheers!

Thanking you, Sir!

[andrax_iON]

Okies - had a few runs thru, time to report. Tested on v1.90 (Linux) with minimal add-ons (below); fresh Jameson, easy start (Tionisla + 1k Cr) & racked up cash&upgrades plus necessary kills (need >16 for mission start).

Mission screens kicked in as expected, action starts on exiting witchspace at Riedquat; first time thru, I found Othello pretty quickly, scanned nearby ships (coupla Cleans, one offensive AspMkII and a coupla Geckos) but they kept their distance & hey - I got one job. For the next hour & ten, I kept tabs on Othello & escort (~8 ships) as they flew laps around the witchpoint buoy; no-one attacked them, no-one attacked me & we made no progress towards Riedquat. A stray Moray got jumped, at which point Othello's entire escort took off to join in & it was just me 'n' him for a coupla minutes, but nothing jumped us & the rest re-joined once the fracas was over. Short attention span, so I killed it & tried again.

Second time around I thought to get a bit more aggressive; well, it was a plan. Got wasted by the Asp & Geckos, not sure if they attacked Othello but one Gecko came in fast at his group and that's when they jumped me.

Third & fourth runs, I couldn't find Othello at all - hung around searching for 20 mins or so, but failed to make contact with his group or any bandits.

Othello's ship definition in shipdata.plist gets a 'like_ship' to 'anaconda', but no ai_type assignment or custom definition and two ship roles ("boss" and "anaconda-boss") that I can't find reference to - someone with better oolite-fu can no doubt shed light, but it seems odd to my novice eye.

I haven't spotted any reference to licence terms; one change I'd recommend would be to correct the spelling of Riedquat in missiontext.plist, but not sure if that's an option.

I'll try another coupla runs & post any worthwhile results; still get the sense this may be an unfinished project, but in no real position to judge (I can't fly a Cobra, let alone read .plists *grin*).

cheers!

---

Add-ons :

ZygoUgo.ZygoCinematicSkyNebulas.oxz
Griff.Station_Bundle.oxz
Kaks.FontTty.oxz
Svengali.BGS.oxz
Svengali.Library.oxz
another_commander.188NSGMaps.oxz

[Cholmondely]

Okies - had a few runs thru, time to report. Tested on v1.90 (Linux) with minimal add-ons (below); fresh Jameson, easy start (Tionisla + 1k Cr) & racked up cash&upgrades plus necessary kills (need >16 for mission start).

Mission screens kicked in as expected, action starts on exiting witchspace at Riedquat; first time thru, I found Othello pretty quickly, scanned nearby ships (coupla Cleans, one offensive AspMkII and a coupla Geckos) but they kept their distance & hey - I got one job. For the next hour & ten, I kept tabs on Othello & escort (~8 ships) as they flew laps around the witchpoint buoy; no-one attacked them, no-one attacked me & we made no progress towards Riedquat. A stray Moray got jumped, at which point Othello's entire escort took off to join in & it was just me 'n' him for a coupla minutes, but nothing jumped us & the rest re-joined once the fracas was over. Short attention span, so I killed it & tried again.

Second time around I thought to get a bit more aggressive; well, it was a plan. Got wasted by the Asp & Geckos, not sure if they attacked Othello but one Gecko came in fast at his group and that's when they jumped me.

Third & fourth runs, I couldn't find Othello at all - hung around searching for 20 mins or so, but failed to make contact with his group or any bandits.

Othello's ship definition in shipdata.plist gets a 'like_ship' to 'anaconda', but no ai_type assignment or custom definition and two ship roles ("boss" and "anaconda-boss") that I can't find reference to - someone with better oolite-fu can no doubt shed light, but it seems odd to my novice eye.

I haven't spotted any reference to licence terms; one change I'd recommend would be to correct the spelling of Riedquat in missiontext.plist, but not sure if that's an option.

I'll try another coupla runs & post any worthwhile results; still get the sense this may be an unfinished project, but in no real position to judge (I can't fly a Cobra, let alone read .plists *grin*).

cheers!

---

Add-ons :

ZygoUgo.ZygoCinematicSkyNebulas.oxz
Griff.Station_Bundle.oxz
Kaks.FontTty.oxz
Svengali.BGS.oxz
Svengali.Library.oxz
another_commander.188NSGMaps.oxz

Thank you for doing this.

I'll read it through and modify the wiki page!

Cholmondeley