Alien Systems OXZ

[Redspear]

Another thing useful to remember, in deep nests of conditions - if you need a test (value, property) at several points in a set of tests, it can save effort to store it in a locally-scoped variable (so : you can see it in this module, but it doesn't contaminate the wider namespace) the first time (in the stack of test conditions) that you need it, and don't have to calculate it again somewhere else in the test stack.

I'll doubtless make this mistake at some point in the future but having it pointed out in advance at least delays the time between making it and realising as much. Thanks.

Some people are conflating "insect" and "social insect" (bees, wasps, termites, ants). Which is a false conflation.

This is potentially a much bigger discussion than I have time for right now but, at least to the extent of this oxp, if the f7 screen says its insects and communism (or anarchy or corporates or whatever) then it's exactly that.

How or why it came to be so I prefer to leave to the player's imagination. If the player lacks such an imagination then perhaps they could try just accepting it and seeing how that works for them. I mean there's a whole bunch of stuff in this space game that bucks current understanding, so why not one more?

I seem to have found a bug with Alien.Systems ; can you check it, and see if you can find the fault.
(Given the discussion about variable scoping, I'll hazard a guess that you've got a namespace-clash with another OX(P||Z).)

I won't be able to look into this for a while unfortunately but consider it logged.
I don't use the email system oxp you mention and so that might explain why I hadn't noticed it.

Is the logic of this as-intended? As far as I can tell, this restriction :

Changes the appropriate links on F6 to display in red (oops - my intermittent red-green colour-blindness alarm has gone off ; it's not my problem, but it is one I've had to include in recruitment interviews ; should be more widely thought about since it affects several percent of users)
throws an alert if launching into witchspace with the Restricted System as your target, and aborts the witchspace countdown. BUT
doesn't object if you target a system the "other side" of Restricted System and your ASC chooses to route you through Restricted System

I don't think the colour changes are set directly by this oxp.
The other two are both supposed to work that way (if you mean ANA rather than ASC).

But I'm wondering what exactly your intent with these restrictions are?

Firstly that it be mysterious... That goal however seems largely unsuited to those who post on this thread (no offence intended).

• In terms of pure gameplay however
  • I wish that there be a reason that some systems initially appear to be inaccessible
  • I would like it to be a surprise when the player finds that they can access it
  • I would like the restrictions to have a few loopholes so that they not be too annoying once the player has worked them out
  • I would like there to be a potential reward/reason for accessing these systems without it being too lucrative

If you want me to answer 'exactly' then I can spell it all out via PM or with spoilers on the thread but not right now, I'm out of time.

[RockDoctor]

Firstly that it be mysterious...

Achieved. Not necessarily the way you wanted, but it's definitely mysterious to me.

• I wish that there be a reason that some systems initially appear to be inaccessible

Sounds intriguingly mysterious. Once the clash with "Email System.OXP" is fixed and I re-install Alien.Systems.OXP, I'll look more closely at that aspect. When I noticed the issue prominently enough to work out where it was coming from, I was close to the edge of a galaxy, and I'm still not at all sure if it was the system that was inaccessible, or merely some routes into the system that didn't work. Which is a strategy as old as Hannibal! (Voices sounding off pompously in Latin, "We don't need to worry about our northern flank, there's no way that Barca could get over the Alps.)
I will have to investigate more closely.
Hmmm, seems to me that the "Witchspace engine" (in the software sense) already has to populate, then prune, a collection of links between stars, filtering out the links longer than 7LY between the 64770 (=255 * 254) possible pairs of planets. Whether that is done at "jump time", on entry into a system, or after each Galactic Jump ... i don't know. But that array of several thousand pairs of (potentially) valid jump pairs would be a prime candidate for pre-calculation and storage for use in other tests in OXPs. Anywhere you need to know if a "proposed" jump is valid or not, in the logic of your OXP. It's probably a structure available in the API, but I haven't even thought about how to find out.
Do you know the "Link-G7" OXP that allows users to do a double-length jump to get to the isolated map sections. One way to implement that would be to mark a (small - 4 IIRC) number of system-pairs in such a structure for this special treatment. There are probably other ways to achieve it too.

[*]I would like it to be a surprise when the player finds that they can access it

"Surprise" like witch-driving into the middle of the biggest "Bug" invasion fleet since Ephebe laid down the law to Omnia (if you know your Pratchett)? Or something less ... exhilerating?

[*]I would like the restrictions to have a few loopholes so that they not be too annoying once the player has worked them out
[*]I would like there to be a potential reward/reason for accessing these systems without it being too lucrative

Oh, the loopholes will be probed with an enthusiasm that would shame a conference of proctologists.

[Redspear]

Sounds intriguingly mysterious.

It's not finished of course but plans are in place, and furthermore likely within my current ability.

"Surprise" like witch-driving into the middle of the biggest "Bug" invasion fleet since Ephebe laid down the law to Omnia (if you know your Pratchett)? Or something less ... exhilerating?

Surprise in the sense of "I did it!" or "It worked!". Trick then is for it to be rewarding of course.

Some of that is in the novelty that is now well known to anyone following the thread (with other elements yet to be added) but there are also plans for something a little different.

Oh, the loopholes will be probed with an enthusiasm that would shame a conference of proctologists.

[Cholmondely]

It's not finished of course

I came across this tucked away in another thread and just wanted to bring it to your attention:

I joined purely for this thread. I might stick around, I've been playing Oolite for what seems like decades

oolite.oxp.redspear.alien_systems:0.2

oolite.oxp.redspear.alien_systems.oxz\Scripts\alien_systems.js

Find the line:
_alienVisa = 0; // set jump restrictions
change it to:
_alienVisa = 1; // set jump restrictions

Save the file and re-add it to the archive.

As it regards v.0.2 it might well be irrelevant now.

[Redspear]

I joined purely for this thread. I might stick around, I've been playing Oolite for what seems like decades

oolite.oxp.redspear.alien_systems:0.2

oolite.oxp.redspear.alien_systems.oxz\Scripts\alien_systems.js

Find the line:
_alienVisa = 0; // set jump restrictions
change it to:
_alienVisa = 1; // set jump restrictions

Save the file and re-add it to the archive.

Cheat!

I came across this tucked away in another thread and just wanted to bring it to your attention:

Thanks, oh Cholmongous one