crime free piracy and police-kabooming!

[marianne]

while testing out stuff for the oolite manual, using a copy of my save file altered to give me a silly amount of credits, i've been doing many things that i wouldn't normally do. such as, piracy!! *wears her eyepatch, etc* - however, i've noticed something rather amusing that seems like a bug to me - ship AIs could not care less if you ram them. you can quite happily get a big heavy ship, like the boa class cruiser (i mention that ship because it's what i was trying out while doing this), go up to a police patrol, and take them out one by one by ramming them while the others ignore you, going about their policey business, until they, too, become kaboomed. not only does this add kills to my counter, but my legal status remains completely clean. where this bug is really relevant is that it enables crime-free piracy - taking my boa class cruiser out, i went on a little piracy-ramming run, and took out 9 legally clean traders, including assorted cobras, a couple pythons, and even another boa class cruiser, gaining me...2 t of food, 2 of textiles, 2 of radioactives, 2 of liquor, 2 of alloys, 2 of furs, 1 of alien items, and 46 grams of gemstones! along with assorted illegal items (i'm also surprised how many "clean" traders carry them, and don't get pestered by the police for it) which, being the law abiding ship ramming citizen i am, i naturally ejected straight away! the only damage from this was to my shields - i was careful to let them recharge. one effective way of getting the necessary speed in ships as fast or slightly faster than me was to tap the witchdrive fuel injectors... but anyway, surely ships should do something like - actively try to not crash, flying away if you get too close - maybe send a warning message ("Hey, careful where you're going ********! Do that again and I'm legally entitled to take you out!", or perhaps something a little less hostile, or random to show that some captains are easily irritable and some are very much benefit-of-the-doubt types) to you if you do get really really too close, or if you ram into them once, and mark you as hostile if you again get too close or ram them? just a thought, anyway :)
and just to distract everyone in case i said something stupid..."boobies!!"

[Captain Hesperus]

It's a doable thing, Marianne, 'cause the Hognose Tugship gives verbal warnings (abuse) when you get too close and when you prang it. I dno't know if you can apply a similar system to the normal ships' AIs, with a 'three strikes and you're out' systems for ramming (i.e. first ram was accidental, second was unfortunate, third was deliberate) to cause a ship to changed to an attacked AI.

Captain Hesperus
"I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about."

[marianne]

I'm deeply sorry ma'am that my deceased colleague flew into you and slightly damaged your shields. Yes that's right ma'am, fly close to me and I'll escort you safely back to the statio*BOOM*

[Captain Hesperus]

I'm deeply sorry ma'am that my deceased colleague flew into you and slightly damaged your shields. Yes that's right ma'am, fly close to me and I'll escort you safely back to the statio*BOOM*

Right On, Commander!

Captain Hesperus

[marianne]

ok *now* the game seems to be acting differently - i decided just for fun to start a new game, on one of my first docking attempts a viper or python or something came out of nowhere and i couldn't avoid ramming into and killing it, this was early enough in the game that it was my first kill, and...suddenly i'm a fugitive hehehe...odd.

[TGHC]

There are some inconsiderate commanders out there, in TNK sometimes when you launched a tailgater would smack into the back of you and you'd have to go back to your saved game.

As far as Oolite is concerned it does have a few of it's own foibles, but nothing really major, I don't recall any ship launching as I'm docking, I think that must be hardwired, but you can have fun when other ships are trying to dock, I guess it's all about lane discipline and stopping when the lights are red.

Have you tried a threepoint turn yet?

<ducks>

[Cmdr. Maegil]

Have you tried a threepoint turn yet?
<ducks>

I must admit that I've hotslotted past a Viper that was trying to dock, which made me chuckle, 'Oh cr@p, I just cut up a copper. Oh well, he wasn't indicating anyway.'

That's for HIM to decide, eh?

[JensAyton]

it's odd like, for a ship system that knows to mass lock you when some bugger's 25km away, you'd think there'd be an inbuilt proximity sensor that'd simply slow you or veer you off to avoid hitting a ship in the lanes.

You are of course welcome to implement such a system. ;-)