Annoying bug - ghosts back from the dead

Jakob Kramer · Post by **Jakob Kramer** » Fri Apr 20, 2007 10:26 pm

I have come across an annoying bug twice within the last hour. Perhaps it has been mentioned, but I couldn't find it when I looked, so if it's already mentioned before, I apologize.

I have rather often experienced that a ship reappears as a ghost immediately after being shot. That is, I fire at the ship until it explodes (I get credits and a kill is added), but immediately after this, the ship reappears as a ghost, sailing silently away from the explosion. The ship cannot be targeted or fired upon.
Well, this bug has been mentioned often as far as I can see.

What happens to me is that such ghost ships suddenly choose to attack me again (What? You here?! I thought I shot you already!). Unfortunately they keep all their ghostly qualities... I can't target them, I can't hit them with lasers. But they sure can fire their lasers at me! Against such formidable opponents the only choice is trying to escape.

I haven't come across this bug until one hour ago (have played for a few days), but now it happened twice within the hour (one Mamba and one Python).

I use Oolite 1.65 on PC (Win XP)

JensAyton · Post by **JensAyton** » Fri Apr 20, 2007 10:56 pm

The 1.67 test release introduced a fix for ghost ships that seems to have worked (although there are still occasional ghost cargo cannisters). It would be helpful if you could try out the current test release (1.68), which is theoretically available here, although BerliOS’s servers have been on the blink today.

Jakob Kramer · Post by **Jakob Kramer** » Sat Apr 21, 2007 7:57 am

I will try that.

At the moment the server seems to be down, so while I'm waiting, I have a quick question regarding installation:

Should I just install "on top of" version 1.65 or should I install 1.68 in a directory of its own (for testing purposes)? I am using the textured planets found at the download site (oolite-1.65-tp5). Should I go back to the original version before installing 1.68?

I hope this makes sense

Post by **another_commander** » Sat Apr 21, 2007 3:43 pm

In the Windows 1.68 version, there has been a change in the default paths in which the game is looking for resources. 1.65 was reading resource files from oolite.app\Contents\Resources, while 1.68 is reading from oolite.app\Resources. This means that, if you try to install on top of v1.65 you will probably either end up with a bad setup or you will have a setup that runs, but with duplicate resource files eating up hard disk space for nothing.

I would recommend temporarily moving your save game files folder to a known location on the disk, uninstall v1.65 and install v1.68. Then move the oolite-saves folder back under oolite.app. You should be able to use your saved games again without problem.

Hope this helps.

Jakob Kramer · Post by **Jakob Kramer** » Sat Apr 21, 2007 4:25 pm

Thanks for the advice.

I will follow the instructions as soon as I can access the server

JensAyton · Post by **JensAyton** » Sat Apr 21, 2007 9:12 pm

another_commander wrote:
In the Windows 1.68 version, there has been a change in the default paths in which the game is looking for resources. 1.65 was reading resource files from oolite.app\Contents\Resources, while 1.68 is reading from oolite.app\Resources.

Er, really? I thought it was looking in oolite.app\Resources before, except for logcontrol.plist. In fact, in modifying loading code I’ve been trying to ensure that this stays the case.

oolite.app\Contents\Resources is the correct place, I believe, and is ideally where it would look if the special case in builtInPath in ResourceManager.m was removed; if removing the special case worked and also made it look in the same place it used to, that would of course be good.

Post by **another_commander** » Sat Apr 21, 2007 11:53 pm

@Ahruman: Yeah, I am not sure why the Windows path has been hardcoded to oolite.app\Resources. Haven't tested it, but it looks like the code for non-Windows targets in ResourceManager.m could work for Windows as well. The change was applied by dajt at some point during the transition from 1.67.1 to 1.68. When berlios comes back up, I will probably be able to point you to the exact revision where this happened.

JensAyton · Post by **JensAyton** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 8:54 am

It could have to do with the problem of warning messages about “improper language installation” or some such… but that shouldn’t stop us from using a hard-coded path in Contents. (Sidenote: logconfig.plist was in a different place to other stuff in Windows at one point, but loading of that now goes through the same paths as OXP loading.)

Post by **dajt** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 9:39 am

No, I changed the code. The old code was looking in oolite.app/Contents/Resources, but some things always seemed to go in oolite.app/Resources and then when I saw the new logging code was trying to load its configuration from there I figured that was probably where things should have been all along. I don't think the logging code was using hard-coded paths, whereas the resource manager class was.

I assumed the oolite.app/Contents/Resources thing was a bug introduced when I firat did the GNUstep port. I'd always had it in mind to go back and look at it when I was at a complete loss of anything to do.

JensAyton · Post by **JensAyton** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 9:48 am

OK… so, before we change anything, does anyone know what the layout is on Linux? :-)

Jakob Kramer · Post by **Jakob Kramer** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 3:46 pm

Well, I have now downloaded 1.68 and tried it, but the change in the exhaust colour (much, much dimmer now) makes it virtually impossible to locate the ships. Unless they actually fly between me and the planet/sun, I don't see them until I'm almost colliding with them. If this minor thing was changed, the game should be playable again (it may be that I'm the only one with this problem).

Apart from this, the planet texture is not quite as nice as on the textured planet versions of 1.65 (the planets look like gas giants), but I'm sure this is just a question of taste.

The HUD I use (Fighter HUD Mk II) also displays incorrectly (the HUD itself doesn't display but all other things such as radar etc. do). I'm sure this is just a question of compatibility and will be fixed.

But for now I stick with 1.65, since I am able to locate (and take out) the pirates in this version

Frame · Post by **Frame** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 4:10 pm

Jakob Kramer wrote:
Well, I have now downloaded 1.68 and tried it, but the change in the exhaust colour (much, much dimmer now) makes it virtually impossible to locate the ships. Unless they actually fly between me and the planet/sun, I don't see them until I'm almost colliding with them. If this minor thing was changed, the game should be playable again (it may be that I'm the only one with this problem).

Adjust your gamma setting for your vidio card... to brighten things...

Jakob Kramer wrote:
Apart from this, the planet texture is not quite as nice as on the textured planet versions of 1.65 (the planets look like gas giants), but I'm sure this is just a question of taste.

In 1.68

press pause, press t, do a witchjump, and look at the planet/planets again... know though, that there is a slight increase i delay, when you enquire planet info, or do a witchjump..

Cheers....

JensAyton · Post by **JensAyton** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 5:00 pm

Jakob Kramer wrote:
Well, I have now downloaded 1.68 and tried it, but the change in the exhaust colour (much, much dimmer now) makes it virtually impossible to locate the ships. Unless they actually fly between me and the planet/sun, I don't see them until I'm almost colliding with them. If this minor thing was changed, the game should be playable again (it may be that I'm the only one with this problem).

Brightness will be slightly increased in 1.69. I’ll look into the issue in more detail for 1.70.

Jakob Kramer wrote:
Apart from this, the planet texture is not quite as nice as on the textured planet versions of 1.65 (the planets look like gas giants), but I'm sure this is just a question of taste.

The standard 1.65 doesn’t have textured planets. ;-)

Jakob Kramer wrote:
The HUD I use (Fighter HUD Mk II) also displays incorrectly (the HUD itself doesn't display but all other things such as radar etc. do). I'm sure this is just a question of compatibility and will be fixed.

1.65 and earlier for Windows (and probably Linux) displayed HUDs incorrectly, and some HUDs were designed for the bug. From 1.67, HUD display is unified across all platforms.

Griff · Post by **Griff** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 9:29 am

re: difficulty spotting the ships - could the space starfield background be given a colour some how? if i remember correctly, was it blue in 'Frontier'? i imagine though that colouring space will make all the explosion, exhaust and laser fire effects go weird colours as they mix with the background space colour.

Jakob Kramer · Post by **Jakob Kramer** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 10:19 am

Thanks for the informative replies!

I tried switching the planet texture on and it looks very nice indeed! (I also like the possibility to access the options menu when paused).

As for the HUD, I simply repositioned the HUD graphics by editing the hud.plist (the Y position had to be changed from -160 to 0). Everything works fine now.

As for the visibility of the ships a gamma correction does work (and I probably will have to go with that for now). Since I use my computer for work (I work as a freelance illustrator) I will however have to change the gamma settings back every time I exit Oolite to be able to ensure that my illustrations appear on print as they do on screen. Not a big deal, but it would be really nice if the visibility of ship exhaust etc. would be made a little better in future versions, as Ahruman also wrote probably will be the case.

An idea: Is it possible to make the visibility of ships etc. editable? That is, make a slider or something that enables players to set just how visible the ships, exhaust etc. should appear? This would be sort of a "gamma correction within the game".