max_defense_ships and max_scavengers in 1.69.1.1?

Commander McLane · Post by **Commander McLane** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 1:54 pm

Can anybody explain the discrepancy between the following two pieces of code? The first one is part of the shipdata-definition of a Generation Ship that I have made dockable by setting the isCarrier-key. But I don't want any ships to launch from it. So to prevent at least a launch of those I set max_defense_ships and max_scavengers both to 0.

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	<key>ghost-from-past-2</key>
	<dict>
		<key>ai_type</key>
		<string>ghostGenship2AI.plist</string>
		<key>equivalent_tech_level</key>
		<integer>0</integer>
		<key>escort-role</key>
		<string>ghost_genship_escort</string>
		<key>escorts</key>
		<integer>6</integer>
		<key>isCarrier</key>
		<true/>
		<key>like_ship</key>
		<string>ghost-from-the-past-genship</string>
		<key>max_defense_ships</key>
		<integer>0</integer>
		<key>max_flight_speed</key>
		<real>50</real>
		<key>max_scavengers</key>
		<integer>0</integer>
		<key>name</key>
		<string>Generation Ship</string>
		<key>roles</key>
		<string>ghost_from_past_2</string>
		<key>subentities</key>
		<array>
			<string>ghost-genship-dock 0 -284 0 1 0 0 0</string>
			<string>ghost-genship-cylinder 0 0 -25 1 0 0 0</string>
			<string>ghost-genship-cylinder 0 0 -6775 1 0 0 0</string>
			<string>ghost-genship-cylinder 0 0 -13525 1 0 0 0</string>
			<string>ghost-genship-cylinder 0 0 -20275 1 0 0 0</string>
			<string>ghost-genship-frame 0 0 -6050 1 0 0 0</string>
			<string>ghost-genship-frame 0 0 -12800 1 0 0 0</string>
			<string>ghost-genship-frame 0 0 -19550 1 0 0 0</string>
			<string>ghost-genship-thruster 0 0 -26300 1 0 0 0</string>
			<string>ghost-genship-name 0 0 0 1 0 0 0</string>
		</array>
	</dict>

The second one is a state dump of this very ship in flight. Interesting are the last lines starting with [dumpState.stationEntity].

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[dumpState]: State for <StationEntity Generation Ship 225>:
  [dumpState.entity]: Universal ID: 225
  [dumpState.entity]: Scan class: CLASS_NEUTRAL
  [dumpState.entity]: Status: STATUS_IN_FLIGHT
  [dumpState.entity]: Position: (3.48722e+06, -469.717, 497825)
  [dumpState.entity]: Orientation: (0.506512 - 0.505482i + 0.493428j + 0.494432k)
  [dumpState.entity]: Distance travelled: 12956
  [dumpState.entity]: Energy: 500000 of 500000
  [dumpState.entity]: Mass: 9.46689e+11
  [dumpState.entity]: Flags: isShip, isStation, hasMoved, isSunlit
  [dumpState.shipEntity]: Name: Generation Ship
  [dumpState.shipEntity]: Roles: ghost_from_past_2
  [dumpState.shipEntity]: Subentity count: 11
  [dumpState.shipEntity]: Time since shot: 100260
  [dumpState.shipEntity]: Behaviour: BEHAVIOUR_FLY_TO_DESTINATION
  [dumpState.shipEntity]: Destination: (-33413.2, -72264.6, 491040)
  [dumpState.shipEntity]: Other destination: (0, 0, 0)
  [dumpState.shipEntity]: Waypoint count: 0
  [dumpState.shipEntity]: Desired speed: 50
  [dumpState.shipEntity]: Fuel: 0
  [dumpState.shipEntity]: Fuel accumulator: 1
  [dumpState.shipEntity]: Missile count: 0
  [dumpState.shipEntity.ai]: AI:
    [dumpState.ai]: State machine name: ghostGenship2AI.plist
    [dumpState.ai]: Current state: CONTINUE_JOURNEY
    [dumpState.ai]: Next think time: 284.451
    [dumpState.ai]: Next think interval: 284.451
  [dumpState.shipEntity]: Frustration: 0
  [dumpState.shipEntity]: Success factor: 3.52137e+06
  [dumpState.shipEntity]: Shots fired: 0
  [dumpState.shipEntity]: Hull temperature: 60
  [dumpState.shipEntity]: Heat insulation: 1
  [dumpState.shipEntity]: Flags: has_ecm, escortsAreSetUp
  [dumpState.stationEntity]: Alert level: green
  [dumpState.stationEntity]: Max police: 8
  [dumpState.stationEntity]: Max defence ships: 3
  [dumpState.stationEntity]: Police launched: 0
  [dumpState.stationEntity]: Max scavengers: 3
  [dumpState.stationEntity]: Scavengers launched: 0
  [dumpState.stationEntity]: Docked shuttles: 2
  [dumpState.stationEntity]: Docked traders: 8
  [dumpState.stationEntity]: Equivalent tech level: 2147483647
  [dumpState.stationEntity]: Equipment price factor: 1
  [dumpState.stationEntity]: Flags: none

It seems to have defense ships (not defence, by the way), scavengers and on top of that police as well. I have given it no AI-commands to launch any of these, but would it, if I did? Is their number 0, as I put it in the shipdata, or 3, as the dump indicates?

Confused

And what about the third-to-last line, indicating an equivalent_tech_level of 2147483647 (which BTW is again 2^31-1, a number we met somewhere else as well)?

Oh, and last but not least, its escorts are not there. The complete entity-dump suggests that they are somewhere in the system, using route1patrolAI in the state HEAD_FOR_WITCHPOINT. By chance I stumbled across one of them, but the six escorts weren't even together.

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  [universe.objectDump]: -> Ent:5		<ShipEntity Bixeinian Escort 231> mass 26715.86 <AI 0x6d8690>{'route1patrolAI.plist' in state: 'HEAD_FOR_WITCHPOINT' for Bixeinian Escort 231}
  [universe.objectDump]: -> Ent:6		<ShipEntity Bixeinian Escort 230> mass 26715.86 <AI 0x1055cd20>{'route1patrolAI.plist' in state: 'HEAD_FOR_WITCHPOINT' for Bixeinian Escort 230}
  [universe.objectDump]: -> Ent:7		<ShipEntity Bixeinian Escort 229> mass 26715.86 <AI 0x10563850>{'route1patrolAI.plist' in state: 'HEAD_FOR_WITCHPOINT' for Bixeinian Escort 229}
  [universe.objectDump]: -> Ent:8		<ShipEntity Bixeinian Escort 227> mass 26715.86 <AI 0x105aac40>{'route1patrolAI.plist' in state: 'HEAD_FOR_WITCHPOINT' for Bixeinian Escort 227}
  [universe.objectDump]: -> Ent:9		<ShipEntity Bixeinian Escort 228> mass 26715.86 <AI 0x1054e6b0>{'route1patrolAI.plist' in state: 'HEAD_FOR_WITCHPOINT' for Bixeinian Escort 228}
  [universe.objectDump]: -> Ent:10		<ShipEntity Bixeinian Escort 226> mass 26715.86 <AI 0x10527750>{'route1patrolAI.plist' in state: 'HEAD_FOR_WITCHPOINT' for Bixeinian Escort 226}

JensAyton · Post by **JensAyton** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 9:32 pm

Commander McLane wrote:
It seems to have defense ships (not defence, by the way), scavengers and on top of that police as well. I have given it no AI-commands to launch any of these, but would it, if I did? Is their number 0, as I put it in the shipdata, or 3, as the dump indicates?

It will use three. The shipdata.plist entries max_scavengers, max_defense_ships and max_police are ignored due to a bug probably introduced between 1.68 and 1.69. Thank you for alerting me to this.

Edit: This affected equivalent_tech_level and equipment_price_factor too. Bug #11684 closed.

Commander McLane wrote:
And what about the third-to-last line, indicating an equivalent_tech_level of 2147483647 (which BTW is again 2^31-1, a number we met somewhere else as well)?

This is “NSNotFound”, a general placeholder value, meaning no equivalent_tech_level was found in the plist entry. A quick search of the source seems to indicate that this will result in a tech level of 6 being used for purposes of selecting defense, patrol and police ships, and the system’s tech level being used for equipment and ship trade.

Commander McLane wrote:
Oh, and last but not least, its escorts are not there. The complete entity-dump suggests that they are somewhere in the system, using route1patrolAI in the state HEAD_FOR_WITCHPOINT. By chance I stumbled across one of them, but the six escorts weren't even together.

There is a known bug where only some spawned escorts actually sign up for escort duty with the parent ship. I haven’t looked into the reason yet.

Post by **Eric Walch** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 7:23 pm

Today I played the groundbattle of my slavemission under oolite 1.69.1 It behaved a little bit different than under version 1.65.

First of all there is a bug in the coloring of the sky. Under version 1.65 the stars fade away near the planet surface, but with version 1.69.1 they get a big square border and are more visible than before. I do not know if this was mentioned before.

Then the battle itself. I placed 4 satellites in a square close to the surface. I gave them "illegally" a secondary role of "station". This had two advantages for me. By just adding hem they all four had a random orientation. The secondary role of station gave then all the same orientation. And with the role of station I could let them "talk" together by changing the alert levels that only stations can have.

The challenge of this part of the mission is finding them on a vast surface. The satellites are so tiny that your hight indicator must be halfway before you start seeing them. On radar you could see them on much greater distance, but I disabled the radar detection by using military jammers. (Under version 1.65 you could also disable the radar by illegally using scanClass: CLASS_NO_DRAW, but with version 1.69 this does not work anymore). For finding the satellites without problems you must navigate with the advanced_space_compass.

So far everything was OK in oolite version 1.65 but with version 1.69 my "stations" start launching ships although they do not have a docking slit and no stationAI. This problem was also mentioned in another posting that if you design an abandoned station it still launched system ships. Or if you design a pirate only station it will also generate normal ships.
In my case the problem was that those launched ships are visible on radar and my station location can now be spotted from a long distance.
(In my OXP version 1.1.1 I also anticipated that the player itself ends inside the stations if he uses his escapepod)

A real problem was the prevention of launching ships not. I set in the shipdata.plist all max_police, max_defense_ships and max_scavengers at 0. This fixed the problem for me and the stations became abandoned again. I hope other with the same problem can use this info.

Ahruman wrote:
It will use three. The shipdata.plist entries max_scavengers, max_defense_ships and max_police are ignored due to a bug probably introduced between 1.68 and 1.69. Thank you for alerting me to this.

I saw an effect with changing max_ships.

TGHC · Post by **TGHC** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 11:29 pm

Should this go in the scriptors cove Sticky Thread in the Expansion pack forum?

JensAyton · Post by **JensAyton** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 5:57 am

TGHC wrote:
Should this go in the scriptors cove Sticky Thread in the Expansion pack forum?

No. None of this thread is about scripting.

TGHC · Post by **TGHC** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 6:45 am

So that's where I've been going wrong!

Commander McLane · Post by **Commander McLane** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 7:20 am

Eric Walch wrote:
<some other stuff>

I saw an effect with changing max_ships.

Hey, and another method/command/key formerly completely unknown to me (and not documented in the wiki). I'll try it out on my problem at once.

Eric, I have a formal request to you: Could you be so kind as to put all findings of yours, as far as existing methods, keys and commands are concerned, in the wiki? That would make my life (and that of some other scripters, I guess) so much easier!

******

Oh, and:

First of all there is a bug in the coloring of the sky. Under version 1.65 the stars fade away near the planet surface, but with version 1.69.1 they get a big square border and are more visible than before. I do not know if this was mentioned before.

Yes, it was here.

Commander McLane · Post by **Commander McLane** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 8:06 am

Hmmm. I put an additional

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		<key>max_ships</key>
		<integer>0</integer>

in my Generation Ship's shipdata.

However its entity-state-dump still reads (the relevant part only)

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  [dumpState.stationEntity]: Max police: 8
  [dumpState.stationEntity]: Max defence ships: 3
  [dumpState.stationEntity]: Police launched: 0
  [dumpState.stationEntity]: Max scavengers: 3
  [dumpState.stationEntity]: Scavengers launched: 0
  [dumpState.stationEntity]: Docked shuttles: 2
  [dumpState.stationEntity]: Docked traders: 8

So it looks as if max_ships has no effect as well in my 1.69.1.1.

Arexack_Heretic · Post by **Arexack_Heretic** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 11:42 am

about the escorts:
Did you do a setUpEscorts in the setup_actions?
This should spawn the required number of escorts (minus one or two) near the mother and have them apply for a job.

For me these things never work either.

Post by **Eric Walch** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 9:13 pm

McLane wrote:
Eric, I have a formal request to you: Could you be so kind as to put all findings of yours, as far as existing methods, keys and commands are concerned, in the wiki? That would make my life (and that of some other scripters, I guess) so much easier!

That is also my opinion. There are so many hidden features you never would gues without documentation. I uploaded it at Station Ships . I linked it from the relevant part in shipdata.plist ans the "How to AI" page

But reading this code today I noticed that versions 1.65 and 1.69.0 explicit check with trader and shuttle launch that scanClass not equal CLASS_ROCK ( is not a rock-hermit). In version 1.65 I never saw traders coming out of a rock hermit. The next version I installed was 1.69.1 That one launched traders from a Hermit. I find it cool, but launching of shuttles from anything than an station orbitting a planet is wrong.

Today I examined a Behemoth. That one also launched traders I never noticed before. But when the Behemoth was on full speed the slow trader launched and was hit from behind by the Behemoth. And trader and shuttle counts can not be set to zero.

Arexack_Heretic · Post by **Arexack_Heretic** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 9:58 pm

isCarrier should block traffic from being launced.
excepting explicit AI/escort launches of defence-ships and such.

(docking should be possible, if I understand correctly docked_ships are remembered.)

isStation should enable traffic.

Commander McLane · Post by **Commander McLane** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 7:30 am

Arexack_Heretic wrote:
isCarrier should block traffic from being launced.
excepting explicit AI/escort launches of defence-ships and such.

(docking should be possible, if I understand correctly docked_ships are remembered.)

isStation should enable traffic.

Hmmm. According to the documentation isCarrier is just an alternative to putting carrier among the roles, and therefore shouldn't do anything else than that. And something like isStation doesn't exist.

Arexack_Heretic · Post by **Arexack_Heretic** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 8:48 am

I thought they were flags.
And I'm not describing anything real, just how I think it should work.

Post by **Eric Walch** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 1:35 pm

McLane wrote:
Hmmm. According to the documentation isCarrier is just an alternative to putting carrier among the roles, and therefore shouldn't do anything else than that. And something like isStation doesn't exist.

That is right. isStation only exist inside the code. But if "station" or "carrier" is listed among the shipdata roles the isStation flag is internaly set. The same applys for isCarrier. This also sets internally the isStation status. So the documentation is correct. IsCarrier is just a way to let a ship behave like a station in some ways and allow for the docking protocols.

JensAyton · Post by **JensAyton** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 10:20 pm

Eric Walch wrote:
But reading this code today I noticed that versions 1.65 and 1.69.0 explicit check with trader and shuttle launch that scanClass not equal CLASS_ROCK ( is not a rock-hermit). In version 1.65 I never saw traders coming out of a rock hermit. The next version I installed was 1.69.1 That one launched traders from a Hermit. I find it cool, but launching of shuttles from anything than an station orbitting a planet is wrong.

I’m not entirely clear on what all of that means, but it looks like something that could do with a proper bug report. Hint, hint.

Oolite Bulletins

max_defense_ships and max_scavengers in 1.69.1.1?

max_defense_ships and max_scavengers in 1.69.1.1?

Re: max_defense_ships and max_scavengers in 1.69.1.1?