Rumor Central News : newsflah

[Eric Walch]

Cant figure how i missed this one :S

this.shipDestroyedTarget = function(target)

Maybe because it was not documented proper yet. Most of the listed handlers already had other names. Past two weeks I have been updating the Wiki Handlers page. Still far from ready and this one was also on the list for adding. But I wanted to test them before adding. This one is preceded by "this.shipLostTarget = function(target)". This first handler has probably a bug as it does not return the target but just "unknown" while the following shipDestroyedTarget does return the target.

Testing the new handlers did already give new equipment --> the Missile Analyser. This was a direct spinoff from new handler testing.

[Frame]

Cant figure how i missed this one :S

this.shipDestroyedTarget = function(target)

Maybe because it was not documented proper yet. Most of the listed handlers already had other names. Past two weeks I have been updating the Wiki Handlers page. Still far from ready and this one was also on the list for adding. But I wanted to test them before adding. This one is preceded by "this.shipLostTarget = function(target)". This first handler has probably a bug as it does not return the target but just "unknown" while the following shipDestroyedTarget does return the target.

Testing the new handlers did already give new equipment --> the Missile Analyser. This was a direct spinoff from new handler testing.

Thanks for the effort...

Did not read this until this day cause, the BB does not allways seem to show the correct icons for "new reply".

further on, i´m toying with the idea of having ships spawning fuel clouds, instead of just awarding fuel a few seconds after they died..

however, there some things i dont like.

if you scoop something, an extra ton is accumulated from your cargohold, this holds true to even scooping platinum and gold..

if you scoop 18 grams of gems, a ton of cargo space is accumulated.

This would be the same for the fuel clouds...

Therefore i would much rather have it check for nearby vessels carrying the Fuel Collector, and then award fuel, and by that the fuel cloud gets removed/explodes...

That way i can remove player only award.

however, does it make sense

That you can target a fuel Cloud ?
That you can destroy a fuel Cloud with your lasers..

The cloud will have limited life. it will start out with the fuel the craft exploded had, and slowly diminish in fuel content. once it hits 0 it will explode and dissapear. i think it should diminish in fuel content for each 5 seconds passed with 0.5 ly of fuel.. so a cloud is only existing in 70 seconds, if the craft from which it originated had 7.0 ly of fuel onboard.

furthermore there is the design problem of making a fuelcloud, i figured i can make a transparent cloud, and i would investigate shaders to have this cloud change its shape and colour somewhat, while the model itself would be a sphere, that might be distorted here and there... so that it does not look like a planet...

Edit:

I forgot. only the ship targeted by the player will be able to spawn a fuel cloud.. i do not think that would make much sense.

i wonder if there is a way to attach a script to any ship, while in game, but i figure there is not, since i foresee to many problems with that kind of ability...

allthough, would be nice with a world event handler

this.anyshipDied = function(ship)

I might even suggest/request that...

[DaddyHoggy]

Why would something that is dissipating rapidly, suddenly explode? Surely there is nothing too exploded? It should just disappear.

18gms of gems takes up one ton of space because they're inside the ships safe (which unless you install a certain oxp (name not remembered) looks like a cargo pod due to oolite originally being based on Elite which did the same) - of course once you're docked you can get to your cargo pad and move the gems to your safe - if you can get somebody to get rid of the empty pod (the wooden pallets of the ooniverse!)

I hope you find a solution I like the idea very much.

[Frame]

Yeah, i know why it takes up 1 ton of cargospace, but that would not be logical for a fuel cloud that is not in a barrel, but should just be scooped into the tanks, like when you sunskim...

[Eric Walch]

18gms of gems takes up one ton of space because they're inside the ships safe (which unless you install a certain oxp (name not remembered) looks like a cargo pod due to oolite originally being based on Elite which did the same) - of course once you're docked you can get to your cargo pad and move the gems to your safe - if you can get somebody to get rid of the empty pod (the wooden pallets of the ooniverse!)

I'm not sure if it is also true for scripted cargo. e.g. the cargo from cargo_wrech_teaser is mostly scripted. You scoop an cargopod and that the script runs and explicit awards you with 1 ton of something. If scooping always gives you a ton than scooping things would cost you 2 ton of space. (At least until the next docking).

And something like a fuel collector would use scripted cargo-pods to do its stuff along this line.

I must say, I never pay attention on cargo space as I fly a Boa Cruiser and have always lots of spare room left.

[DaddyHoggy]

Sounds like something needs to go in the suggestion box then - that scripted cargo doesn't necessarily take up x tons of cargo space...

[Frame]

I have a clear memory of when you scooped a splinter, and was awarded 1 kg of platinum/gem/gold, with the ore-processor. in 1.68 and 1.65.

That it would accumulate 1 ton of cargospace..

Using the ore processor was what inspired me to write the rock hermit locator, so that i could buy gold, platinum and gems relatively cheap. and dock to free up cargo space in a rock-hermit. i allways saw to it that the NPC mining craft had an accident, by placing myself very close to a splinter that it was about to scoop... usually at crashed into me, and blew up while my shields took a dent..

But back on track... it does accumulate 1 ton of cargo space despite whatever you scoop is only measured in grams or kilograms. if you award 1 ton, only 1 ton is accumulated. even if when you think about it, that it should accumulate 2 tons, i think the award code for cargo cant accumulate 1 kg or 1 g, or is designed not to do so...

[Frame]

ok, i decided that only the ship targeted by the player will spawn a fuel cloud..

this will be because of the limitations, the technical reason is because the system needs to know exatly where to fuel cloud was.

for the visual i have 3 options

an invisbel cloud, that can be targeted...
a near invisible cloud that can be targeted..
a visible cloud of dots floating around among each other...

i cant use a model with transparency map, since transperency is not an option

i even looked at the dictators.oxp to see how Ramirez did it, however his Astrofactorys dome fails to be transperent on my system which is running 1.71.2, with shaders on or off... somebody in the solar system oxp thread did write that these where supposedly transparent..

[Cmdr. Maegil]

ok, i decided that only the ship targeted by the player will spawn a fuel cloud..

for the visual i have 3 options

an invisbel cloud, that can be targeted...
a near invisible cloud that can be targeted...
a visible cloud of dots floating around among each other...

I like the last one the best, mainly because I think you shouldn't be able to target frosty smoke.
It also may solve the transparency problem, but IDK if adding 200 individual extra dots on the system, then handling their dispersal, won't have an impact on the FPS...

[Griff]

re. the fuel cloud: how about using a bunch of slowly blinking 'flashers' - i don't mean the guys that hang around in bushes wearing long coats.

[Frame]

re. the fuel cloud: how about using a bunch of slowly blinking 'flashers' - i don't mean the guys that hang around in bushes wearing long coats.

hmm long coated bush flashes... ... must have green stuff..

yeah, flashers could be experimented with, im just afraid that it will look kind of stupid.

My idea for the dots was to achive a similar effect to that of the explosions of classic elite... lots of dots that , at that time slowed my C= 64 down considerably. i have one model of dots ready.. the shape of the dots are of a tetra, a minimum face count sphere so to speak.

That way they look like a dot from all directions.. for a 768 face model thats 96 dots... the diameter of these will be like 2 cencimeters.

i´m thinking on spawning these as subentities, 3 models of 768 face each will spawn, and slowly energy will be drained, which should in turn destroy the sub entities(not tested yet though)::::

so finally there is only one model left, i will use a percentage of the energy left, to calculate how much of the fuel will be "fake"-scooped by the player..

for example, cloud starts out with 100 energy, ship had 7.0 ly of fuel... when player scoops it only has 50 energy therefore only 3.5 ly of the fuel is left to scoop.. come to think about it.

I´ll make it have even more energy so that it does not throw sparks... however this could affect the frangible behaviour, but if it works 100 energy will be where the cloud dies... and 100-200 will be used to caculate the fuel left in the cloud...

I also got an idea for making it "invinsible", my only concern is if the player bumbs into it.. would the player then not die...

i´ll have a go at the flashers though...

("jumps into the bush to look for those bush flashers ^^)

[Disembodied]

What about using something like the plasma balls that fall out of ships on the verge of blowing up?

[Cmdr. Maegil]

What about using something like the plasma balls that fall out of ships on the verge of blowing up?

Making them last longer and become scoopable as fuel? That' a nice idea!

[Frame]

while examining HUD icons for missiles/mines i worked out a possible solution for the problem with having the fuel collector online at all times.

You might do not want it to extract fuel from a derelict ship, however with the failure of me finding a way to use a keyoress, i deviced another way to use a missile pylon as a way of activating the fuel collector..

I tried to use a missile pylon as way of activating the fuel collector, only problem is that it is possible to buy the same number of Fuel_collectors as the number of missile pylons there is on ship. using incompatible_with_equipment with itself, will not work, cause it is treated as if it where a missile or mine.. while it is neither.

I examined missiles and bombs.oxp and found that the chaffs are also bugged, if you mount all your missile pylons with chaffs, the mission variables will just count down 1 each time, and when you used 5 it will removed the chaff from the currently selected pylon, even though this should still hold 3 chaffs, and once you fire one from the other chaff mounts, these will also be removed as the mission variable is below 0...

I even managed to draw a nice F in in missile mount.. it is not a perfect F, as the hud drawing function for missiles is somewhat limited... seems like all vertices connects back to first vertice drawn.. i tried figurering out if the hud icons where drawn in sets of 3 vertices for each face, however that would not explain the data and shape of a ECM resiliant missile.

here is my notepad notes, each "*" represents a vertice

Code: Select all

"EQ_HARDENED_MISSILE" =
	(
		 0,  3,
		 2,  1,
		 2, -3,
		 0, -1,
		-2, -3,
		-2,  1
	);

EQ_hardend_missile
 6            |
 5             |
 4             |
 3             *
 2             |
 1           * | * 
-0---------------------------
-1             *   
-2             |
-3           * | *
-4             |
-5             |
-6             |
         6543210123456

The icon will look like this.. X is the coordinate, while *** is just the what is inside the shape drawn... i did not find this very well descriped while looking at the wiki and the explanation for descriptions.plist

Code: Select all

EQ_FUEL_COLLECTOR
             |
             |
             |
           *****
           *****
           **|  
-----------****----------------
           **** 
           **|
           **| 
             |
             |
             |

however that is not the way it looks ingame, there it looks like this

Code: Select all

EQ_FUEL_COLLECTOR
             |
             |
             |
           *****
           *****
           ***  <--- note an extra asterix is added
-----------****----------------
           **** 
           **|
           **| 
             |
             |
             |

The extra asterix(read line), i cant tell why it is added, i tried several scenarios, and i´m confident my coordinates are correct, something that i dont know of is making this happen. prolly gl_polygon or something..

I would suggest in the suggestion thread that we be able to use our own special icons, one for armed and one for unarmed... but i´ll do that later.

using missile_pylons as attachment for extra equipment will also solve the keypress problem where multiple OXPs could be using the same keypress.

or we could make use of 3 new keys, namely 2 for selecting equipment, and 1 for on/off. that way we dont have to worry about confilcting keys

That also have to go into the guesstion thread..

well i´m rambling on, infact this reply took me 2 days to complete. thank god for the sleep button

[Frame]

Status

(DMO)Derelict Module Online...
-- need to be within 300 meters of target center...
-- ship need to be non thargoid and non-police...

--Features ships that selfdestruct upon detecting a hack, causing damage to nearby ships within 350 meters.

if pirate then 50% chance the ship carries an auto-destruct sequence of various Quality

if trader then 5% chance that the ship carries an auto-destruct sequence of various Quality..

(SFOK)Scoop Fuel On Kill module Online.
--need to be within 2000 meters
--need not to be a thargoid

--does not yet feature fuel clouds...

(CMM)MIT Cruising mode module online
--Need to be away from planets and sun... The planets magnetic field prevents the fuel Collector for gathering enough.
--The sun over-saturates the Fuel Collectors fine filters...
--The further away from the sun, the lesser fuel is Gathered. ie more time will elapse before 0.1 ly of fuel is transfered to the tanks..

(WFEM)WitchSpace Fuel Extraction Module
When the module detects No sun is nearby or present, it will open the fuel collectors filters wide open... this only works at max speed of engine ship as it needs the full power plasma ejected from the engines to work..

Tinkering
1 i´m wondering if i should put these in as seperate modules to be obtained... they do not need missile pylon atm.

2 Should i add Scoopable Fuel Clouds, since it makes little sense that only player killed ships will eject these...

3 Should the Fuel Collector use a missile pylon, and by doing that, be able to be Activated and Deactivated..

4 in case of selfdestruct, should the derelict ship start to tumble before exploding and thus give the player warning of impending selfdestruction..

You are welcome to share your opinions on this...