Panicky Ident System

Post by **Kaks** » Tue May 20, 2008 12:18 pm

I had a quick & very superficial look at bug 1791 on berlios, and though I agree that the ident behaviour could do with some improvements when targeting a cloaking ship, I can't figure out what to do instead.

Any suggestions welcome!

Griff · Post by **Griff** » Tue May 20, 2008 8:45 pm

maybe after you ID a cloaked ship and get the first 'Target Lost' message on your HUD (when the ID'd ship blinks into cloaked mode), the ident system switches off so the player has to press the 'r' key again to switch the ident system back on?

Post by **Kaks** » Tue May 20, 2008 10:30 pm

Hmmm, the way ident has been working so far is that the moment you lose a target, it immediately tries to find a new one...

Maybe if it gave a warning to let the player know that there's a reason why it behaves differently...

What about: 'Cloaking device detected, shutting down targeting subsystems' after a ship cloaks? Would that make sense?

Post by **another_commander** » Wed May 21, 2008 8:48 am

Maybe it would be better giving a more generic failure message? The cloak is supposed to be a secret military device, so probably ships' computers would not have built in messages indicating they detected it.

I was thinking something along the lines of
'Ident lock system error', followed by suspension of further messages regarding the cloaked ship, until it decloaks.

Post by **Kaks** » Wed May 21, 2008 9:43 am

OK, what about 'Automatic targeting failure, restart targeting subsystems' ?

Or were you thinking to keep automatic targeting for all other ships?

Hey, just got an idea: if the ship is cloaked, I could get oolite to show the usual 'frame' around the cloaked ship, but the frame colour could change from green to yellow (maybe even flash between green & yellow) with no identification data, neither as an onscreen message, nor as writing next to that frame.

The ident behaviour would remain consistent (won't turn off by itself), the message spamming would end, and the player would see there's something not quite right with the targeting system when trying to lock on to a cloaked ship. Everyone's a winner!

Ok, if there's no objections, I'll run with this! Well, when I say 'run', I might be able to do something about it tomorrow night, or maybe even at 9pm tonight, if I find the time!

JensAyton · Post by **JensAyton** » Wed May 21, 2008 9:45 am

another_commander wrote:
Maybe it would be better giving a more generic failure message? The cloak is supposed to be a secret military device, so probably ships' computers would not have built in messages indicating they detected it.

I was thinking something along the lines of
'Ident lock system error', followed by suspension of further messages regarding the cloaked ship, until it decloaks.

I prefer the switching-off idea, because it doesn’t involve tracking additional state. :-)

Post by **another_commander** » Wed May 21, 2008 9:50 am

Fair enough. I agree with this. The simpler, the better.

Post by **Kaks** » Wed May 21, 2008 10:40 am

Ahruman wrote:
I prefer the switching-off idea, because it doesn’t involve tracking additional state.

Excellent, less is more (& less to do for me) works for me too!

Unless there's any really compelling reason to do otherwise, I'll implement 'Automatic targeting failure, restart targeting subsystems.' & switch off ident.

Post by **Disembodied** » Wed May 21, 2008 11:21 am

How long until someone reports the 'Automatic targeting failure, restart targeting subsystems' as a bug?

Post by **Kaks** » Wed May 21, 2008 12:36 pm