@ McLane:
yes 50/50 is way too high, for a single condition.
I like your ideas.
leave the ambitious story mission for later as an addon to your OXP, if you still feel like it by then.
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You could get around the dockingcomputer restriction, by temporarily suspending the legalStatus of a person when trying to dock.
have to check if there is such a thing as: status_string STATUS_EAGIS.
if not, aborted dockings could make this exploitable.
edit: nope. no eagis. maybe STATUS_DOCKING will do, but I suspect this applies more to NPCs.
It turns out changing a system's main station is a bit trickier than I thought.
It can be done with "setSpecificPlanetInfo: gnumber=pnumber=station=specialstation", although I haven't tested yet with variables instead of proper numbers. So that's not the problem.
The problem is that it can't be done while you are already in the system, and that makes the randomization a bit tricky.
To explain more: It seems the main station is created by the engine on entry into the system and can't be changed from that point on, as long as you are in the system. And this happens before a script_condition like STATUS_EXITING_WITCHSPACE is checked.
So if the station is exchanged for a specialstation when STATUS_EXITING_WITCHSPACE, nothing visible happens. The default station has already been spawned and will remain there unchanged until you leave the system and jump back again. Then the specialstation is there instead of the default one.
So the idea of "When the player jumps into a system sometimes on a random basis the main station will be a pirate station, where he can save his fugitive game." doesn't work. The exchange of the station has to be scripted beforehand.
Now how do you do this? An easy way would be to have the setSpecificPlanetInfo on ENTERING witchspace, not EXITING. Then the change would be done when the player exits. But how can I tell the script the planetnumber of the targeted planet before jumping? Planet_number returns only the current planet, not the targeted one. Any ideas on this?
Another way would be to exchange the station in any system on a random basis when the player is docked and show him a Galactic News Bulletin, informing him of the possible "safe haven". But what is the chance that he would be anywhere near the affected system? And a script cannot intentionally pick up a neighboring system. A "checkForNearestAnarchySystem" would be useful here. But without at there is no big point to the whole thing.
And another problem: The idea is to have a randomized process, so the player wouldn't meet always the specialstation in a specific system (GalCop would take it back). But I don't see a way to reset custom planetinfo to its default. E.g. the planet description. You cannot add one sentence on the station currently being hijacked and then remove that sentence again, leaving the rest of the description untouched. You always have to define and redefine the whole description. Or am I wrong with that one? Can you reset planetinfo to the default? Help needed!
Surely it must know the targetted planet, cos as you say it gens up the system before you exit, so it must know WHERE to gen. also your countdown says "Witchspace to xxxxx" and your nav screens know where to print the targetting "+" when you F6 etc ???
Of course the engine knows everything about the game. The problem/question is: Is there a method to query for the desired information in a script? And I don't know of a targetedPlanet_number querying state.
I think that a lot of the problems discussed above are due to an inconsistency in the legal structure of the game.
We have Galcop, which is all pervasive and runs all the Orbital Stations. The stations are consistent over all the planets. On the other hand Galcop presence in the form of ships varies from suffocating in Corporate systems to one PC Plod lounging against the station wall in Anarchy systems.
I would suggest an Asimov* type of "legal" structure. The Emperor's power is strong in the centre but, due to the logisitcs of space travel, weaker towards the periphery of the Empire. Probably this would mean that the stations would be "owned" by the system, not by Galcop. As you go towards the more lawless systems the stations become less fussy about who they let in. On the other hand the system has no control over Galcop so that there may be a strong Galcop presence (resented by the natives) even in Anarchy systems.
* For the really young ones: Isaac Asimov's SF novels.
@ davcefai: Something like that has been discussed before. An idea of having "frontier worlds", where with increasing distance from the central authority this authority's influence would decrease. It seems that it is like that in the "Frontier"-games.
I see two problems with that:
1) The current structure of the Ooniverse with it's eight galaxies and the distribution of planets in these galaxies is inherited from the original ELITE. And the general feeling is that this inheritance should be kept as it is.
2) A center-and-frontier structure would defeat the background-story of ELITE/Oolite. That's because the Ooniverse is not an empire. There is no strong central authority, no Emperor. GalCop (sometimes better abbreviated GalCoop) is the "Galactic Co-operative of Worlds" (see also the background articles in the wiki), a de-centralized structure that doesn't interfere very much with the affairs of it's member-worlds. It's only task and raison d'être is to enable space travel by maintaining stations in every member-world, securing the travel-lines and training pilots in the Lave Academy. That's all. All the planets are completely independent and free to run their affairs as they want to. Therefore the random mixture of worlds of different types in all the eight galaxies. That GalCop isn't a very strong central power can also be taken for a fact, because at some point during the timeline that can be (and has been) established between the events of the original ELITE and FFE (see wiki again) it vanished without a trace.
Some ideas in this thread do stretch this background story in various degrees (like the idea of GalCop being involved in "peace-keeping"-operation on an Anarchy-planet; up to now I didn't follow this idea any further), but I would not consent to ideas or OXPs that would completely break it, and this is pretty much a consensus on these forums.
I don't want to rock any boats. But it could however be possible to slightly modify Oolite code to permit a gradation in behaviour of the stations.
At the moment they all behave the same. One could make the ones in the more lawless worlds more relaxed about who they allow to dock.
As it is you can always dock manually but have to dodge the Galcop ships. OK, in an Anarchy world there is at most 1 Galcop near the station. Maybe near an Anarchy station he will not be bothered by fugitives docking.
At the moment they all behave the same. One could make the ones in the more lawless worlds more relaxed about who they allow to dock. Maybe near an Anarchy station he will not be bothered by fugitives docking.
I like it. As I saw it, Galcop keeps forces proportional to the system's contribuitions in relation to its GDP to the organization. Even a poor state may be well patrolled this way, but anarchies don't pay this tax. So, Galcop just to keeps enough ships to defend the station itself.
As for their behaviour, it could be that they live in fear for their lives...
"You mind your own business, pig, before you outgrow your usefulness. No, this Arcweed is none of your business!"
I don't want to rock any boats.
Good! When the boat rocks too much, the beer bottles tend to tip.
You know those who, having been mugged and stabbed, fired, dog run over, house burned down, wife eloped with best friend, daughters becoming prostitutes and their countries invaded - still say that "all is well"?
I'm obviously not one of them.
I agree with the part about the stations. I would like to have more variety in their behaviour. To be precise: more scriptable variety. So it's fine when stations in Anarchies let you dock more easily (and also the opposite has been suggested: better-maintained stations shouldn't allow you to dock even manually). But especially for custom stations it should be possible to set their attitude towards fugitivs/offenders/cleans in their shipdata.
- I've overhauled the "bonus" that you get on your legal status if you kill a criminal. Why should you cash in the bounty and get a reduction of your legal record at the same time? Now it is one or the other. Usually you will be awarded the bounty (as long as you're clean you will always get it). But if you're not clean yourself there is a 30%-chance that you will get a bonus on your legal status instead of the bounty. As it will happen more rarely now I have also slightly increased the bonus.
- I've introduced a new feature: If you are fugitive, there is a chance that on entry in a system you will be awaited by some bounty-hunters who are longing for the bounty on your head. They broadcast a variety of comms messages while coming after you. (I've used the killplayerAI from Assassins for them, but hit a small problem there: Sometimes they will--while in ATTACK_SHIP-state, which they never leave(!!!)--head for the planet instead of really attacking me. Have you had that problem as well, LittleBear?)
- "safe haven"-stations: We can't make a real safe haven for criminals, as station behaviour is mostly hardcoded. But there are some stations with a more "friendly" attitude towards criminals:
In some of the most infamous Anarchy systems GalCop has established "Sentinel Stations" close to the witchpoint, which are military stations. They will spit out police ships to help out when a bypassing trader is attacked by pirates. These stations of course also have a high techlevel, usually much higher than the system they're in.
However some of these Sentinel Stations have been overrun and captured by the pirates in the system, transforming them into "Renegade Stations". The pirates in these stations will occasionally attack bypassing traders. And if you dare to dock while not a criminal yourself you will be ripped off and only allowed to launch again after paying a hefty ransom. But if you have an impressive criminal record you may trade your hard-earned commodities (well, "hard" it was mainly for your victims who are now freely floating somewhere in space ) and get a good price for them, especially for everything the station's current occupiers are in need of, like firearms or drugs. Also the local slave-market will allow you to sell with profit.
To do: finish a good balance of the commodity-prices.
) and get a good price for them, especially for everything the station's current occupiers are in need of, like firearms or drugs. Also the local slave-market will allow you to sell with profit.