Thargoid Bounties

[davcefai]

Since about Friday of last week the bounties for Thargons have dropped dramatically. A Carrier used to pay 2000 Cr. Now it's 200 Cr. Some ships are yielding as low as 0.1 Cr.

I haven't updated my OXPs, just the nightly build.

Is this a policy change or a bug? It hardly seems worth the trouble to attack the invaders! (Walks away mumbling about how difficult it is to earn a decent living nowadays and all these penny pinching beaurocrats diddling an honest warrior out of his rightful bonuses) .

[JensAyton]

Probably an error in the changed display code. Bother.

[Commander McLane]

There was always a slight inconsistency about whether money is counted in credits or in tenths of credits. There are examples of both behaviours in Oolite. E.g. the awardCredits:-method in script.plist awards the specified amount of credits (not tenths of credits, as erroneously stated in the wiki!). So after an "awardCredits: 100" you are 100 credits richer. Also the bounties are supposed to work this way. On the other hand, prices in equipment.plist are given in tenths of credits. So the price of 300, specified in the equipment.plist for a missile, means that it actually costs 30 credits.

Maybe somehow these two systems of counting money got mixed up in 1.71?

Or, as Ahruman says, only the display got mixed up? In this case the overhaul of description.plist would be to blame.

@ davcefai: Could you, after your next kill, check on the F5-screen how much money was actually awarded? Probably the consoleMessage told you 200 for a carrier, but on the F5-screen your balance increased correctly from (e.g) 10000 to 12000.

[davcefai]

Will do, tonight.

To expand a little on this, it may have happened in stages. Initially the bounty for Terrorizer Frigates seemed to go low. (~5-10 Cr.) I assumed that somebody had decided that they were easy kills.

Then the rest of the lot were downvalued.

[JensAyton]

There was always a slight inconsistency about whether money is counted in credits or in tenths of credits. There are examples of both behaviours in Oolite. E.g. the awardCredits:-method in script.plist awards the specified amount of credits (not tenths of credits, as erroneously stated in the wiki!). So after an "awardCredits: 100" you are 100 credits richer. Also the bounties are supposed to work this way. On the other hand, prices in equipment.plist are given in tenths of credits. So the price of 300, specified in the equipment.plist for a missile, means that it actually costs 30 credits.

Slight? Hah.

Maybe somehow these two systems of counting money got mixed up in 1.71?

That’s my assumption, but it only makes sense if davcefai’s linking it to specific ships is spurious (I love the smell of apophenia in the morning).

[Commander McLane]

There was always a slight inconsistency about whether money is counted in credits or in tenths of credits. There are examples of both behaviours in Oolite. E.g. the awardCredits:-method in script.plist awards the specified amount of credits (not tenths of credits, as erroneously stated in the wiki!). So after an "awardCredits: 100" you are 100 credits richer. Also the bounties are supposed to work this way. On the other hand, prices in equipment.plist are given in tenths of credits. So the price of 300, specified in the equipment.plist for a missile, means that it actually costs 30 credits.

Slight? Hah.

Sometimes I love understatement.

Maybe somehow these two systems of counting money got mixed up in 1.71?

That’s my assumption, but it only makes sense if davcefai’s linking it to specific ships is spurious (I love the smell of apophenia in the morning).

I positively guess so (his mentioning of 0.1 Cr bounties points in the direction that it's a general phenomenon). But still the question remains whether the difference is in handling the bounties (= awarding them) or merely in the display string.

My question for the latter case is: Is there perhaps a difference between "bounty-d" = ("Bounty: %d"); (previous to 1.71.1) and "bounty-llu" = ("Bounty: %llu"); (1.71.1)? Specifically: Does "%d" probably refer to credits, and "%llu" to tenths of credits? If so, then we had already hunted it down.

[another_commander]

My question for the latter case is: Is there perhaps a difference between "bounty-d" = ("Bounty: %d"); (previous to 1.71.1) and "bounty-llu" = ("Bounty: %llu"); (1.71.1)? Specifically: Does "%d" probably refer to credits, and "%llu" to tenths of credits? If so, then we had already hunted it down.

The difference between the two is that the program expects to read an integer value in the case of %d and an unsigned long long one in the case of %llu. On a typical 32bit system, this is the difference between reading a 4 bytes long integer that can take negative values and an 8 bytes long integer that can only be positive. As you can see, this does not really have to do with the credits / tenths of credits thing.

[Hoopy]

I always thought thargoid carriers paid out too much anyway. You can just sit there shooting them and they do nothing to stop you. OK maybe one or two thargoid craft come out but that's just more money for afterwards.

Perhaps they need a dozen plasma turrets?

[Cmdr James]

5t seems to me that a Thargoid carrier, should be hugely wel equiped with launchable interceptors of some kind. Maybe they should have like 50 thargons or something? They should probably also have a decent escort.


I know thargoids are not human, and should not be expected to have human-like battlegroups, but it just does not make any sense to stick an undefended carrier someplace, and for it to not launch its guys.

[davcefai]

This refers to OOlite 1.72 / Apr 27 2008.

I can confirm that there is a bug is in the display. The bounties for all ships seem to be being divided by 10 in the messages but the "correct" amount is being paid out.

This bug extends to the text of contract descriptions. The numbers in the text are 1/10th of those in the table.

However my original comment about low bounties for Thargoids still has some relevance. Some of the bounties seem rather low. The following figures are from one battle and the kills are in chronological order:

Entity Awarded Displayed
-----------------------------------------------
Invader 114 11.4
Cruiser 5 0.5
Terrorizer 3 0.3
Terrorizer 80 8.0
Satellite 100 10
Carrier 2000 200
Carrier 2000 200

Later on:
Imp Courier 27 2.7

It seems strange that the Cruiser, which is quite a bruiser only fetches 5 Cr. Also I remember that Battleships, which can make you break into a mild sweat, also score low.

[Eric Walch]

It seems strange that the Cruiser, which is quite a bruiser only fetches 5 Cr. Also I remember that Battleships, which can make you break into a mild sweat, also score low.

That is because of a bug in the code. A_H tried something new in this release. He even mentioned it in the readme but never tested it. In the ship definition of bounty he writes:

<integer>2[d100_number]</integer>

He intended to generate a random number between 200 and 299. But this can not work because automatic string replacement only happens with script.plist. (and even there for selected lines). Result is that it only sees the 2.

[matt634]

The Navy pays Reservists 250 for a cruiser and 500 for a battleship. High Command felt the increase was necessary in order to attract and keep skilled pilots in reserve service because they do not earn a regular salary and depend on bounties and bonuses.

I am considering... hhrrrmm... I mean High Command is considering increasing these bounties further, perhaps to 500 and 1000 respectively.

[Cmdr. Maegil]

I love the smell of apophenia in the morning).

You made me replay more than half way trough Monkey Island 3 to get this, so have the decency to at least smirk!

The Lost Welshman: "This is Skull island, a place of evil and unspeakable horrors, named after the skull-shaped rock on its top."

Guybrush Threepwood: "It looks like a duck to me!"

The Lost Welshman: "Well, yeah, it's a matter of angle. You have to squint and tilt your head to see it properly"

Guybrush Threepwood: "When I squint and tilt my head, it looks like a bunny!"



(later on) "I still say it looks like a duck!"

[Commander McLane]

<smirks>

[JensAyton]

I can confirm that there is a bug is in the display. The bounties for all ships seem to be being divided by 10 in the messages but the "correct" amount is being paid out.

Fixed.

This bug extends to the text of contract descriptions. The numbers in the text are 1/10th of those in the table.

Also fixed. (Be on the lookout for more of these.)