Random Hits OXP

[Captain Hesperus]

I did several docking's and launches and everytime he said I had to kill Captain Hesperus"

Hey, what can I say, I'm a really unpopular feline.....

Captain Hesperus
....wanting to swap identities with someone everybody likes and admires.

[Commander McLane]

....wanting to swap identities with someone everybody likes and admires.

Perhaps you should first try to swap your merchandise with something everybody likes and admires?!?

[Eric Walch]

I did several docking's and launches and everytime he said I had to kill Captain Hesperus"

Hey, what can I say, I'm a really unpopular feline.....

Yeh, you are good in hiding. My killing contract is still not fulfilled. It will gain me 8000 credits. Do you have a better offer for not fulfilling the contract?

Criminals in Asp Explorers not appearing is a known bug (fixed for V1.1),

Yes, Hesperus was flying an Asp Explorers. It looks he just escaped killing.

EDIT: OK, I changed in shipdata.plist, "aspsexp" into "aspexp". Now Captain Hesperus appeared in the system. No match however, he tried to escape the system, but in the next system his ship was dead meat within an eye blink.

He escaped in his escape pod witch I smashed into pieces with my ship. No survivors left.

When I wanted to collect my promised reward of over 8000 credits they only paid me 250 credits and claimed I didn't kill Hesperus.

I feel cheated and issue my own contract.: 10.000 credits for destruction of the nearest Random hits space bar. When they don't keep their side of a contract they should feel the consequences.

EDIT2: I decided to fulfil my own contract. I bought a Nuke-missile, mounted a Q-bomb on top and headed to the Aritti system. There I took a good aim and shot the bastard.

The nuke missile is a slow missile, but very accurate. It delivered it cargo right in place. Woooh, what a fireworks. The hole spacebar disintegrated in a gigantic spectacle. I now have my revenge. They probably will have rebuild it at the next visit, but the costs for rebuilding is way higher than what payment of their contract would have cost them.

[LittleBear]

Confirmed! Yep, There is a chance of a false positive of "mark killed by e-bomb / mark killed by NPC" its on my To Do list for V1.1:-

Think these are the bugs in V1.0

1) Space Bars and hunters can sometimes lock on to a clean player - Think I have this fixed for V1.1.

2) Marks in Asp Explorers not appearing is fixed.

3) Slowdown on encountering mark - Eric's fix should work!

4) False positive for detecting use of e-bomb by player - think know how to fix.

5) False positive for NPC kill (Eric's fix for better dectection of who killed using Java shoud work).

6) Load of grammar probs in V1.0 now fixed.

7) Clones of dead marks appearing Mosser-like. Suspect this is due to not having a condition of RUNNING with AddMark.

Suspect that although you got him in his pod, the pods AI had reset all the playernear, playerfired etc variables so assumed he was killed in an NPC. Big A's Java script of just testing who killed the swine/renegade/brigand etc should work better! (if you ram the foul feline, as you didn't shoot him, V1.0 will assume that an NPC got him as you didn't shoot or missile him!)

Will be looking into these next w/e. V1.0 should be basiclly playable but expect some oddities!

The OXP is currently suffering from CPS style logic. :- The pod is dead. The Player didn't hit it with a laser. The player didn't hit it with a missile. The player didn't e-bomb or q-mine it. Therefore, the pod was killed by an NPC. Doh! Except the player might have rammed it without firing. Nellie is an Elephant. Nellie is pink. Therefore all Elephants are pink!

[pagroove]

Last night I flew to Xeacu in galaxy one. I coulnd't find the bar. I pressed the
' \ ' key several times to cycle through the modes of the advanced space compass. As stated in your readme I should set it to display a B? Is this correct. I have an advanced space compass.

Can you check if you didn't forget the above mentioned planet?

Tomorrow I'il check your oxp on a vanilla version of 1.70. Because in my Oolite directory I have installed many add ons at the moment. It's weird because other people don't seem to have problems with space bars not showing on the compass.

[LittleBear]

Will check it. When cycling through are you seeing 'W' and 'N'. If you have an advanced space comp. you'll always see these beacons as these are the ones for the witch-point and station nav beacons. If you have it it will be on your F5 screen. On some keyboards you need to press # instead.

EDIT : need to press / not \

? # Xeaqu, (104,36), TL: 1, Human Colonials, Anarchy, The world Xeaqu is a dull place. (PN 52). Should be "The Smoke Dragon Lounge". Code looks ok, but I'll fly over and have a look!

EDIT:

Flew there. The bar is present. On my keyboard (UK - Dell), you have to press # to get the ASC to cycle though its beacons.

[The Dreamcatcher]

First off, can I just say that so far this is probably my favourite oxp to date as it fits really well with my style of playing.

But... a little buglet.

There has been a few times (4 or 5) where I have not been able to dock with the space bar. Trying to dock manually results in death, and when using the docking computer the ship seems to pick a random point in space and just flies towards that indefinately. The only way I've found to cure the problem is to dock with the local station, relaunch and then head to the bar from there which always seems to do the trick.
The last time this happened was at Inoran in galaxy 2 after liquidating a mark nearby at Ausis.

[davcefai]

If you're too close to the bar and you try auto docking it doesn't seem to work. As far as manual docking is concerned be careful about complaining. People will start passing rude remarks about your piloting (happened to me a few days ago)

[LittleBear]

Tested the auto-dock. Seems ok but need to be about 4-5 kms before turning it on otherwise it wanders off. I suspect this is somthing to do with Oolite 1.70 rather than the OXP as the code for auto-docking is handled by the native code rather than the OXP. The OXP just tells Oolite that the Object is dockable by having its roles as "random_hits_spacebar, station". Manual docking shoudn't be any harder than with a main station EXCEPT you have no handy Nav Beacon to line up with. The snap of the Furry Feline on the Wiki page shows a perfect line-up. Using the yaw controls can help, but its really just a question of practice, same as docking in classic Elite. The docking port is the same size as the ones on all the native stations.

EDIT: Should point out, one danger with manual docking is that if there are Criminals / Thargoids / Pirates within 25km of the Bar, the bar will launch a hunter every 20 seconds until they are all dead (or have legged it). Getting a Python Class Cruiser in the face is likley to prove fatal! So wait until things have calmed down a bit before trying to dock (or join in the hunt yourself!).

Unless told otherwise (and I haven't with this OXP) all objects that are also stations orientate themselves so that their docking ports face the main planet. This maybe why you found docking at the bar easier by launching from the main station as you were already in the right plane with the docking port. Docking with an Oolite main station is a dodle as you can use the Nav Beacon to get perfect alinement, you have to do this manually with a bar, so you do need to brush off your classic elite docking skills to do it without comming to grief. I play keyboard only though, so it may be harder with a joystick. Also the ammount of playtesting I had to do to check the random generator, meant I docked with these bars a lot, so I may have got my eye in more than other commanders.

[matt634]

Just wanted to say that I love the OXP! I've actually had some time to play the game now that I'm done scripting - unfortunately this afternoon I start my second semester of law school so I won't be playing much.

Don't get discouraged with docking attempts - its all about practice! Play testing my OXP required so many manual docks that I've become a pro. Practice a few hundred times and you'll get so good that you'll be docking with injectors to save time.

[Commander McLane]

Unless told otherwise (and I haven't with this OXP) all objects that are also stations orientate themselves so that their docking ports face the main planet.

I tell you otherwise: No, they don't. They seem to line with the z-axis of Oolite's internal coordinate system (and there could also be a little random involved). As this happens to be parallel to the axis between witchpoint and planet, this misconception will arise when you only look at objects placed in the corridor.

Try putting a station way outside the corridor, and you will see that it doesn't line up with the planet.

[Eric Walch]

Should point out, one danger with manual docking is that if there are Criminals / Thargoids / Pirates within 25km of the Bar, the bar will launch a hunter every 20 seconds until they are all dead (or have legged it). Getting a Python Class Cruiser in the face is likley to prove fatal! So wait until things have calmed down a bit before trying to dock (or join in the hunt yourself!)

That should be no problem. There is a detection routine of ships in front of the port. Launching of ships is prohibited when there is a ship in this area. This is also a tactic to fight the Leviathan: Make sure you are close to the launching area and shoot the ship with your back lasers wile he is pursuing you. He will not be able to launch his defenders and you will kill him easy. Only problem is to get in front before he launches anything.

Unless told otherwise (and I haven't with this OXP) all objects that are also stations orientate themselves so that their docking ports face the main planet.

I also thought so, until I placed a corriolis station near the sun in my UPS. The docking ports are neither facing to earth nor the sun. That one I also dock manually as the computer takes to much time for it. But as Matt says: Manually docking is just a matter of practice. And I fly a bulky boa that almost always touches some sides while I am docking.

[LittleBear]

@Commander McLane. Ah I see. All the bars though are added in the witch-point / planet corridor so will generally have their docking ports facing the planet. @Eric. Didn't know that. I have had ships collide with me though, when a few Kms from the bar lined up with the docking port. I guess I was outside the "traffic control zone" and as the hunters AI pauses for 1 second before looking for targets on launching, it is possible to be rammed as a Super Cobra on injectors can travel a long way in a second!

On docking, remember that a lot of ships that are small have underhanging subentries. A boa, whilst big, is pretty pointy so may be easier to dock than a Longshot (small but with an underslung missile pod).

[pagroove]

Littlebear,

I just arrived safely and docked at one of your spacebars. The fault I made was unzipping the zip file it directly in the Add ons directory. So it was Oolite170\AddOns\Randomhits-v 1-0 instead of the \Oolite170\AddOns\RandomHits.oxp. Stupid fault of course. I should have looked better from the beginning. But now I am enjoying it to the max. I also find your modelling of the station excellent. Have you actually once thought of re-doing the standard space stations of Oolite?

Anyway,

The mission descriptions are very funny!
Thank you for bringing this must have oxp to Oolite

[LittleBear]

The model and textures are by Griff, with the Neon Signs by Heretic. I can code but I haven't got their artistic skill.

Griff and Ramon also did a lot of the ships for assassins. The Black Monk Station also came from Griff Reaserach Ltd and his has a busy ports OXP about somewhere that has a lot of nice stations in it. Heretic has also done some very nice ship models, but Griff seems the most active station builder ATM! (V1.1 of the bar is armed with turrets).

The Ships that appear in the OXP are all either Native models and textures or other OXPers. My OXP is just the putting the characters into ships that exist in the Ooniverse generally (and obviously creating the boards and making the characters behave as they should).