The Assassins Guild OXP - Beta

johnsmith · Post by **johnsmith** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 12:32 pm

No, no cloaking device was used, and they'd still just hang around. I'm on the tail of another, and she doesn't want to use her lasers. Maybe she's whistling dixie?

Come across another weird bug. One of the sisters just flew straight into the planet. Ouch!

LittleBear · Post by **LittleBear** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 1:05 pm

That is weird! Are they still red on the scanner, but not attacking? Havent seen either of those bugs in playtesting, although sometimes an attacking pirate will turn red, but just sit in your sights letting you blast him. Perhaps its the same sort of thing? Their AI is based on ThargoidAI, but with the sister threats added and "nonThargoid" replaced with "player". So should work fine. Possibley it is an occasional game bug like the "sleepy pirates" bug, as the sisters are usually pretty lively!

EDIT:-

Most of the AIs I wrote myself from scratch (copying and pasting in stuff that I knew works from Giles's native AIs!), but I was still figuring out AIs when I wrote the Sisters AI, (I learnt stuff as I went on and the Soin Sisters are met about 10% into the OXP).

I'd sort of figured out AIs by the time I got to the end of the OXP, but just thought: "If it aint broke don't fix it" as far as their AI was concerned!

For the Soin Sisters AI I basicly took Giles's Thargoid AI and did a search and replace "nonThargoid" with "player" and added a "sendcoms message: [sister-threat]", in certain states. My own AIs might well be buggy, but as this is basicaly Giles's AI with a few tweaks I'm pretty confident its not an AI bug.

EDIT

Not sure why she drove herself into the planet! She does have "Head_for_planet" in her AI, but only if the player is not detected and anyway I told her to head for it, not into it, the fool!

EDIT : Did a few playtests with them and they were firing on me. Maybe its just one of those occasional oddities. You should be meeting their big brother pretty soon, see how the sisters behave when he is with them.

johnsmith · Post by **johnsmith** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 5:33 pm

Shortly before the "unfortunate incident" with the construction facility. Great OXP!!

LittleBear · Post by **LittleBear** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 5:45 pm

Grr! Will be adding more minesweepers for the next version!

Is that the moon on your left? It should have a green swirly texture, but looks like it has come up textureless (could just be the screen shot though).

johnsmith · Post by **johnsmith** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 5:56 pm

It took me a couple of attempts to get a big enough chain reaction in the right place. Much easier to just lazer the mark and hyperspace out. Please don't add more minesweepers, it takes away so much fun!

Moon was green, it's just rear view exhaust fumes that make it look like that.

LittleBear · Post by **LittleBear** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 6:00 pm

Better add a base_destroyed flag then, so if you blow it up it dosen't reappear (and change the System Description if the base is destroyed)! It will at the moment, as I didn't expect the player to be able to destroy it.

Whilst blowing up the Base is cool, the only problem with letting the player destroy it, is that if he does so before playing the Fair Wind Mission, then the breifing won't make sense and the Fair Wind will be there just with the other powered down ships and the Kraits, which also dosen't make much sense. Might therefore have to leave it and let it "rise from the dead".

johnsmith · Post by **johnsmith** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 6:21 pm

Presumably, there are only enough ships in that system for the station to blow if they know an assassin is coming. So unless there happen to be all those ships added in planetinfo.plist, rather than script.plist, it should be OK as there won't usually be enough kraits hanging around to trigger the chain reaction.

LittleBear · Post by **LittleBear** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 6:35 pm

The patrols (with native police AI) and the powered down ships are always there. Only the Guard Kraits, the ones by the beacon (the ones with killplayerAI) and the Fair Wind are added specifically for the mission. As the Base will launch Kraits to defend itself if you laser it, they'll always be enough Kraits around to trigger the reaction.

Tricky. I really like the idea of the Base being removed from the Oniverse permenatly and the systems description changing to add some comment about the actions of some lunatic with a Q-mine, particlulary as it only needs 4 lines of code to do it.

On the other hand, I can't let the Base disappear from the Oniverse until the Fair Wind mission is completed.

Judebert · Post by **Judebert** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 9:16 pm

So, how about: if the base is destroyed, turn the player Fugitive, up his bounty, and put in the "lunatic with a q-mine" text -- but add that the base has been rebuilt at great expense, and a manhunt has been instituted against the offending party.

For the next 10 jumps, add four manhunter ships with killPlayerAI every time the player exits witchspace.

So now the base has a reason to be rebuilt, and there's a consequence to destroying it.

Captain Hesperus · Post by **Captain Hesperus** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 10:28 pm

Judebert wrote:
So now the base has a reason to be rebuilt, and there's a consequence to destroying it.

As well as a rather narky message from the Guildmaster:
[dodgy Michael Caine 'The Italian Job' accent] "You were only supposed to blow the bl00dy mark up!" [/dodgy Michael Caine 'The Italian Job' accent]

Captain Hesperus
"I came here to chew bubble gum and kick a$$. And I'm all outta bubble gum!"*
*Bonus points to anyone that can name the film that quote came from.....

HueijRevisited · Post by **HueijRevisited** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 10:37 pm

"I came here to kick a$$ and chew bubble gum. And I'm all outta gum!"*
*Bonus points to anyone that can name the film that quote came from.....

I should know this but I never was much of a John Carpenter fan...

LittleBear · Post by **LittleBear** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 12:54 pm

Like Judberts idea, so I'll knock out a V7 next week to incorperate this:-

Destroying the repair base will make you a fugitive (even if you use an escape pod to clear your status!

) for a certain peoid of time. During this peroid of "heat", you will be occasionally attacked by the bases Security Kraits, whereever you are. The base will be rebuilt, but a comment to the system description is added so you have left your mark on the Ooniverse.

- "They Live". The Special Branch Cops seem to be fans too!

Captain Hesperus · Post by **Captain Hesperus** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 2:29 pm

LittleBear wrote:
- "They Live". The Special Branch Cops seem to be fans too!

And the man gets a Trumble!

Captain Hesperus
"If 'all the the world's a play', then my life is a tragedy."

johnsmith · Post by **johnsmith** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 11:48 pm

I've come across some more odities.

The inspector crashed into his space station when I chased him. Oops!

The black background in the mafia briefing is grey on my monitor.

Did you ever worry that ambitious pilots would rack up too many kills via q-bombs, exploiting the Thargoid wars? Every war makes a career, I know, but still.

I came across a Naga and an Anaconda by the "secure" galactic courthouse. What the hell were they doing? Why didn't anyone stop them? Won't someone think of the children!

There's a couple of typos where the word career becomes carrier. In triads debriefing "resuming their carriers", and in the end of the Gov Tarquin mission.

The Death Star was too easy. Destroyed it the first time with an e-bomb and a bit of distant shooting, the second time it blew up during the battle with the rebel ships. Third time I did get some shots in through the hole, but I was expecting to have to fly into the hole, turn 90 degrees, etc.

Performance - if you visit the Star Wars planet after the destruction of the Death Star, but before Tarquin is killed, you get about 5 fps, what with all of the big cruisers, little cruisers, fighters, and debris. OK, my iBook isn't high end, but still.

That's it for now, I'm all Oolited out! My fave missions were Ren Oshi, and the shipyards. I liked Tarquin too,it was fun, but the ships looked like they'd been borrowed from somewhere else. Can't think where though...

ArkanoiD · Post by **ArkanoiD** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 2:27 am

LittleBear wrote:
Like Judberts idea, so I'll knock out a V7 next week to incorperate this:-

Destroying the repair base will make you a fugitive (even if you use an escape pod to clear your status! ) for a certain peoid of time. During this peroid of "heat", you will be occasionally attacked by the bases Security Kraits, whereever you are. The base will be rebuilt, but a comment to the system description is added so you have left your mark on the Ooniverse.

- "They Live". The Special Branch Cops seem to be fans too!

..and new base should have more satellites, it sounds logical.