[WIP] GalCop Missions

[MrFlibble]

... and doing things I hadn't expected.

Glad to be of service So....

I did a special delivery mission. Y'know, find waypoint, dump cargo etc. Had to drop 16 slaves off at a waypoint. There were 18 aboard due to fights/salvage/fun along the way.

I approached the recipient ship, hailed them etc. then set my speed to 6 so I'd leave a steady stream of cargo, and hit 'D' 16 times. A nice line of cargo was laid before the customer.

Bless their digital hearts, they managed in all their excitement to spread a few of the canisters asunder, and out of the range they'd bother with, then so they just sat and waited. I managed to scoop up a few and drop them back to the clumsy oaf, but was left wanting for two, so popped to the main station to buy some up and get me in trouble with the rozzers again

I bought two more than was needed, and back at the waypoint I dumped all four and (by accident) one crate of luxuries. The aforementioned NPC oaf proceeded to scoop up all four, left the luxuries, and left me a prize of gems before jumping out of the system.

F5 status:

Code: Select all

Deliver -2T of slaves to a ship at a waypoint in Ceausis within 18 hrs 44 mins.

So this time, the NPC got the bonus! Perhaps if they can pick the correct type of swag, they should also take the right quantity.

While I was waiting for this BB to unclog (many 504's) I did a 'Gather lost cargo from asteroids", and after I'd scooped them all up, in the near vicinity I noticed a waypoint called "Debug position (6)"... one of yours?

Pirates for hire. Needed 24 barrels. Got 26, though it seemed to count escape pods, and kept adding all gathered booty to the mission swag pile after the requirement was met. While in flight, there's no hint on F5 about where to go with the swag once you have more than needed. Landing at nearby station to read the full job I got rewarded for three escapees, so then only had 23 again. Grabbed a load more, and went back for the prize. Not sure how much was taken from the hold, as I was getting quite frazzled by then.

Time for a mug of wire-water.

[MrFlibble]

Two spell/grammar fumbles found in an GalCop related email invite in game ...

I have another mission available that your might want to consider.

Code: Select all

sed 's/that your might/that you might/g'

find the cargo and bring it back and we're pay you 1014

Code: Select all

sed 's@and we're pay@and we'll pay@g'

[MrFlibble]

I'm grabbing cargo from an asteroid belt.11 barrels to find.

I've smashed two, and each time I broke one, the number to find shown in F5 goes down by one. I've just gathered the last (9 of 11 with 2 destroyed).

F5 now shows "Find remaining 0 cargo canisters..."

I'd expect a "win and return", or "not quite a win but return anyway" at this point, rather what appears to be an invitation to keep looking for zero things.

I will be re-flying this mission, "debug position (6)" is a handy short-cut for testing with teleport

I will have to stop and sleep at some point, but I'm loving this OXP.

[MrFlibble]

I'd expect a "win and return", or "not quite a win but return anyway" at this point, rather what appears to be an invitation to keep looking for zero things.

Went back to the origin station and cashed in.. it seems that the job was a success despite being short Should have been a small penalty perhaps?

[MrFlibble]

Defend satellites: I smashed one of the satellites (whoopsie!). After defending the last, the mission update alert lead me to F5 which showed "Defend 0 satellites in Dicebe from all attackers", rather than, "Go back to the station for a yelling-at" or similar.

[Cholmondely]

whoopsie!

If that truly is a bow tie that you are wearing, then I would be privileged to put your name forwards for membership of the Honourable Guild of Test Pilots, if you are so disposed. Standards of sartorial elegance have sadly fallen and a resurrection of suitable traditions is much needed.

[MrFlibble]

whoopsie!

If that truly is a bow tie that you are wearing, then I would be privileged to put your name forwards for membership of the Honourable Guild of Test Pilots, if you are so disposed. Standards of sartorial elegance have sadly fallen and a resurrection of suitable traditions is much needed.

• Bow tie

• Brandy

• Blaster

All present and correct. Count me in!

[phkb]

@MrFlibble: ((Thank you!) * 3) ^ 3
Thank you so much for your testing reports. This OXP was been in sore need of someone other than me (who knows how the missions are supposed to play out) poking holes in the logic. More power to you, sir!

[MrFlibble]

@MrFlibble: ((Thank you!) * 3) ^ 3
Thank you so much for your testing reports. This OXP was been in sore need of someone other than me (who knows how the missions are supposed to play out) poking holes in the logic. More power to you, sir!

Thank you sir! I have been in a similar situation. Everything works fine on the bench when operated by the creator, then the users abuse and break it.

On waking after a troublesome evening, I felt compelled to blow some stuff up.

Code: Select all

Destroy 2 surveillance and communication satellites in Rerebeer within 15 hrs 55 mins.

... Ideal.

A couple of hops down the line, after finding myself an instant criminal en-route for no reason I could discern, I let rip.

Moments later, only a satellite telescope remained. F5 stayed the same. Left system as fugitive (67). Rerebeer remained crossed as mission target on chart.

Returned. Mission deadline had elapsed. Satellites were back. F5 read...

Code: Select all

Destroy 2 surveillance and communication satellites within "no time".

Not wanting to leave a job half done. I blew them up again. F5 remained unchanged. For good measure I set sights on the satellite telescope but as my scanner was untroubled by debris, I held back for a moment to do a save in flight. As I arrived at the SS@EOU I got the message:-

Code: Select all

You have failed to complete the 'Destroy satellites' mission within the agreed time and have been charged 1768.0 Cr,

Yours,

MrFlibble. (Fugitive(82))

P.S. I ran the mission again a couple of times without doing whatever caused me to become a fugitive first time round. Same result. Blew up COMLR and Surveillance sat, no F5 update. Shot telescope for good measure. No change. Outcome, fugitive(66) with loss for mission. Should mention I'm using fuel stations, telescope, and teleport for enhanced fun, and to speed up testing.

[MrFlibble]

I feel there should be confirmation of mission outcome.

When you hit the "complete mission" button on the bulletin board, nothing seems to happen. It returns silently to the BB. with the completed mission erased. I feel that there should be some info given here.

Just words to the effect...

Code: Select all

GalCop Admin:

Mission $x outcome : (good/failed/fumbled/whatever)

Fee/Fine of $y (deposited/withdrawn).

Thanks/Begone.

Press [space] commander

...would be nice. There's room for better verbal flourish of course.

[MrFlibble]

I feel there should be confirmation of mission outcome.

Forgot about the email. Exactly what you get as email, but on screen between hitting 'complete' and returning to the BB would do nicely.

This bit probably needs posting as a whole game issue, though the GalCop mission controls suffer from it too, and that's where I first had cause to notice... Most menus below top level in F4 do not allow pause. Pausing in various other F-key screens has varying effect, sometimes silencing background buzz-track sounds, sometimes not. Would it be simplest for pause to be immutable everywhere in game, handled once in the code, globally. Basically a freeze. I still see one core running near 100% when I pause, which seems a bit mad/un-green. What's being processed while paused? Is there a Thargoid under my dashboard, immune to pause, mining bitcoin on my docking computer?

[Cody]

I still see one core running near 100% when I pause, which seems a bit mad/un-green. What's being processed while paused? Is there a Thargoid under my dashboard, immune to pause, mining bitcoin on my docking computer?

What graphics card are you running?

[MrFlibble]

I still see one core running near 100% when I pause, which seems a bit mad/un-green. What's being processed while paused? Is there a Thargoid under my dashboard, immune to pause, mining bitcoin on my docking computer?

What graphics card are you running?

VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation CometLake-U GT2 [UHD Graphics] (rev 02)
Core i3 10th Gen
Linuxmint 21.3, kernel 6.5.0-17-generic

Since you're asking that, I'm guessing that it renders the same frame over and over while paused, rather than 'freezing' with a still in the frame buffer.

Admittedly it's less than 100% of one core in less frantic situations, like near the station where I'm paused now, still eating c. 70%, seemingly across two cores, doing nothing, looking at still stars and half a planet not moving. Trivial place to save. Pause gets more use when in battle, where one core seems to be hit for c. 100%. paused or not.

[Cody]

Don't know if it will help, but can you set up a profile for Oolite? If so, try disabling multi-threading (or whatever it's called on intel gfx).

[MrFlibble]

Don't know if it will help, but can you set up a profile for Oolite? If so, try disabling multi-threading (or whatever it's called on intel gfx).

Might be able to nobble CPU threading in EFI bios, though I've never had cause to do that in 30+ years of Linux-ing. I've no clue if it can be done for the GPU.

I did just try:-

Code: Select all

taskset --cpu-list 1 ~/GNUstep/Applications/Oolite/oolite

Which tied it to one core. Same-ish. c. 75% waiting outside the station, c. 65% paused.

Code: Select all

sudo intel_gpu_top

Shows Render/3D running at over 80%, paused or not. Mostly under 5% when I clobber Ooolite.