Musings for v.1.92

[Switeck]

Navy Asp Mark II

Galactic Navy OXP?

Yes, and I've seen the same behavior on random trader freighters and their escorts.

[Milo]

Yes, and I've seen the same behavior on random trader freighters and their escorts.

If I'm understanding this correctly, if AI scripts use setAI instead of switchAI too much, it can trigger an overflow that results in AI commands being thrown away, so effectively AIs don't work as intended at that point. I'm unclear if such overflows affect all AI, but if overflow is a global condition then a single misbehaving AI script can cause all AIs to break, including the vanilla ones. Therefore, I'm still a bit suspicious of Galactic Navy OXP (in that I don't use it and I don't recall experiencing this problem). Do I need to enable something extra in logcontrol.plist to see those errors? And do you have a consistent way of making this happen so I could try?

[Switeck]

The triggering event that seems to cause the Ai so much grief hasn't changed from when I first saw this over a decade ago...
A large group of ships which all try to respond to any one of them being hit...while ALL of them are under fire.
"AGGRESSOR_SWITCHED_TARGET"

[Cholmondely]

6) Allow fuel tanks to exceed 7ly of fuel (but keep the 7ly jump maximum distance)

Why be so restrictive regarding capacity? The 7ly jump distance, on the other hand, makes sense in terms of the maps we have and their geography, and reductions along the lines of Redspear's Hyperdrives also work well with the current map.

But why should the 7ly of fuel in the tank be hardcoded into the vanilla game and create such awkward workarounds (4 quite different versions of Fuel Tanks, etc)? The laws of Ooniversal physics restricting the jump to 7ly do not also apply to fuel tank capacity, surely?

[Redspear]

The laws of Ooniversal physics restricting the jump to 7ly do not also apply to fuel tank capacity, surely?

Besides Hyperdives, I've tinkered with this quite a bit (e.g. here) and there's a few things to consider that may not be immerdiately obvious.

• Canonically one and the same

This is expected to be the case by most HUDs and so displaying above 7LY tends to look fine on the nav charts but quirky elsewhere.

• Injector use

You could increase burn rate of course but with a reserve of another 3LY plus, the player likely loses something in terms of strategic tension.

• System dodging

The more fuel you have in reserve, the easier it is to leave a dangerous system almost immediately upon arrival or to simply jump past it in the first place.


If going down the route you suggest, I'd be tempted to have injectors burn from a seperate tank, incorporating a seperate fuel even.
There's already a dynamic tension between jump distance and time (re contracts) and jump distance and escape routes (remaining fuel). Maybe injectors can only be refuelled by sun-skimming (filling both tanks).

Top up in a safer system before trying your luck in that hell-hole of a rocky dump you're headed to next.

And that's another idea... help me...

[Cholmondely]

The laws of Ooniversal physics restricting the jump to 7ly do not also apply to fuel tank capacity, surely?

Besides Hyperdives, I've tinkered with this quite a bit (e.g. here) and there's a few things to consider that may not be immerdiately obvious.

• Canonically one and the same

This is expected to be the case by most HUDs and so displaying above 7LY tends to look fine on the nav charts but quirky elsewhere.

• Injector use

You could increase burn rate of course but with a reserve of another 3LY plus, the player likely loses something in terms of strategic tension.

• System dodging

The more fuel you have in reserve, the easier it is to leave a dangerous system almost immediately upon arriving there.


If going down the route you suggest, I'd be tempted to have injectors burn from a seperate tank, incorporating a seperate fuel even.
There's already a dynamic tension between jump distance and time (re contracts) and jump distance and escape routes (remaining fuel). Maybe injectors can only be refuelled by sun-skimming (filling both tanks).

Top up in a safer system before trying your luck in that hell-hole of a rocky dump you're headed to next.

And that's another idea... help me...

My concern is with big ships, whom I feel should use much more fuel in their fuel injectors, and thus would need bigger tanks. I'm happy for space constraints to restrict what happens with my Cobra Mk3 where I either lose a pylon or 5TC of cargo space when I'm using OXP's. OR alternatively gain just another 1 ly for my Cobra, but 20ly for a Boa. And while I use Ramirez's 3TC pylon containers, it does not make much sense to me. Maybe a choice between an extra 3ly or 5TC of Cargo Extension would make more sense?

But all this can be decided by OXP. I just think that the opportunity to change it more easily makes sense.

And, looking at the OXP's,
Ramirez's magic fuel tank holds 3ly and just takes up one pylon (I don't see pylons as being so big...) - and disappears immediately it is used up!
Stranger's magic fuel tank holds 5ly and takes up 5TC in the cargo hold - and disappears immediately it is used up!
Smiv's tanks cost much more, hold 1ly or 3ly, can only be used when the main tank is empty, and take up no space, filling in cavities in your ship
Timer's duplex tank costs a bomb, holds 3ly and takes up 8ly of storage.

Note the disparity between space taken up and fuel capacity?

I reckon that fuel is dangerous and there are limits as to how much one can carry with the protection etc.

[Redspear]

My concern is with big ships, whom I feel should use much more fuel in their fuel injectors

Charge them more for it and they effectively do...

and thus would need bigger tanks

...and therefore effectively have.

And then perhaps charge them more for fuel scoops while you're at it.

[Cholmondely]

7) Solar textures

Here's another:

Sun "textures"

How about suns (ignore the flare) with "textures" as in this:



Would solar textures be relatively easy to implement or not?

There is a couple of other examples here: https://www.subsetgames.com/forum/viewt ... 11&t=30003 (the 4th background & the 13th planet)

[Redspear]

How about suns (ignore the flare) with "textures" as in this:

I genuinely don't know the answer to the following questions but...

Wouldn't a sol like star be so bright as to make such detail undiscernable?

There must be a filter of some kind on the viewscreen (or prior) just to look at the star without damaging one's eyes but even then, are we confusing documentary/computer style images with what the pilot might expect to see?

[Cholmondely]

How about suns (ignore the flare) with "textures" as in this:

I genuinely don't know the answer to the following questions but...

Wouldn't a sol like star be so bright as to make such detail undiscernable?

There must be a filter of some kind on the viewscreen (or prior) just to look at the star without damaging one's eyes but even then, are we confusing documentary/computer style images with what the pilot might expect to see?

Yes. But. The viewscreen is presumably an enhanced camera view from the outside anyway. So one would expect the sun's glare to be toned down a bit.

And even if you want to argue that the front view is from a window rather than a camera, this does not work for the other views!

Jannah Berihn's diagrammes: Cobra MkIII: section, top deck, bottom deck. Note - no windows!
(I'd've put up a rotating Cobra MkIII to show no windows at the back, but these are more fun!)

[Redspear]

The viewscreen is presumably an enhanced camera view from the outside anyway. So one would expect the sun's glare to be toned down a bit.

I've always thought that...

• • windows are cool
  • you don't want a tech failure that could deprive you of a front viewscreen
  • therefore windows

And even if you want to argue that the front view is from a window rather than a camera, this does not work for the other views!

When it comes to the rear view, I'd agree.

Perhaps the various Breakable Equip oxps never included the viewscreens/external cameras because they were considered (and likely are) much too crucial to gameplay. However, if the external camera is only needed at the rear then it's loss is unfortunate rather than critical.

[Cholmondely]

The viewscreen is presumably an enhanced camera view from the outside anyway. So one would expect the sun's glare to be toned down a bit.

I've always thought that...

• • windows are cool
  • you don't want a tech failure that could deprive you of a front viewscreen
  • therefore windows

And even if you want to argue that the front view is from a window rather than a camera, this does not work for the other views!

When it comes to the rear view, I'd agree.

Perhaps the various Breakable Equip oxps never included the viewscreens/external cameras because they were considered (and likely are) much too crucial to gameplay. However, if the external camera is only needed at the rear then it's loss is unfortunate rather than critical.

Ahah! So you have a periscope mounted on your FdL Lightspeeder! I'd always wondered...

[Redspear]

Ahah! So you have a periscope mounted on your FdL Lightspeeder! I'd always wondered...

If by that you mean a flawless, precision instrument, the construction of which meaning each individual component being asigned to a master of their craft, painstakingly deliberated over, each taking no less than 20 attempts, and then the whole wonderously combined to a finely tuned masterpiece by the greatest engineering genius throughout the eight, then yes, I suppose you could call it a "periscope"

[Cody]

...therefore windows

When it comes to the rear view, I'd agree.

Yep... windscreen on the front, camera on the rear.

[Cholmondely]

No! No! No! Redspear has a periscope!

He confessed!