Improved IFF: Bounty / Cargo Scanner

[hircus]

The *lite backstories suggest the ability for scanners to scan the cargo content of the targeted ship -- in fact, in-game pirates seem to have this ability (or else I'm just imagining that I get more attention than usual when on luxuries cargo contracts?).

Likewise, the advanced scanner lets you know the criminal status of the target, but not how much bounty is currently posted. Would be nice, especially when battling Thargoids, since some of the Robot Fighters have bounties higher than the starting 50 and thus is worth more blasting than flogging at the casino / naval stations.

[DaddyHoggy]

Yeh, I've often wondered about this. I think it was possible in my days of playing Frontier on the Amiga (but then again, you could also scan the wormholes and work out if you could get ahead of your mark and wait for him to exit the wormhole... which is one feature I really really liked)

[Commander McLane]

I also remember that in Status Quo the scanner gave more information than is actually possible in-game, and I wish something of that could be implemented (have to re-read to see exactly what in displayed in the novel).

[another_commander]

A wormhole scanner would be possible but not so trivial to do in Oolite. The game knows everything about the wormhole it is creating and all that is left is present the information to the player. However, the tough part comes from the fact that theoretically, we need to keep track of all wormholes opened at any point in the game and be sure that whatever ship enters them emerges on the other side if the player happens to be there at the right time only, not any time. So, if the player sees a vessel going in a wormhole and reads on the wormhole info that said vessel has an ETA of, say, 49 hours 15 minutes, then decides to go for a tour around systems and arrives at the vessel's destination just in time, he should be able to see the same ship warping in. This already happens if you follow a ship that is jumping through the wormhole, but I think travel time is not currently considered when ships in wormhole transit are generated.

[Frame]

mass of ship and bounty can easely accesed, but there is presently no way to read out the content of the pirates cargo, not until it is flaoting around in space.

however, the only way to let the player now what it is is to make a message appear, just as when you see incoming missile...

The content of the cargo is afaik random generated upon spawn of the cargo canistors, and some pirate ships have not scooped up any cargo at all, but still spawns cargo canistors upon death... ofcourse this is for making the game more interresting for the player...

oh and btw inspired by this and remembering something was listed as read_only but aint, i have started writing a bounty ´scanner OXP

a Quick test.. showed me that it was possible to modify the text of the ships display info.

i was thinking about something like this

Code: Select all

Python: Bounty: 25 Cr

i´m afraid if i add in a line feed(if this is even possible) that it will be written onto the offender text.

Bounty will only show on ships with bounty.

could also prevent you from shooting up those escorts that by accident became offender....

Edit

As said as done

http://wiki.alioth.net/images/f/f6/BountyScannerOXP.zip

new version 1.01

http://wiki.alioth.net/images/7/76/Boun ... P_1.01.zip

[Eric Walch]

a Quick test.. showed me that it was possible to modify the text of the ships display info.

An another quick test in battle, showed that it works excellent.

Fast response in Suggestions.

[hircus]

oh and btw inspired by this and remembering something was listed as read_only but aint, i have started writing a bounty ´scanner OXP

Awesome! Thanks so much.

[hircus]

Just tried it and it works really well: now I know which pirate to waste my missiles on (the ones with higher bounties tend to fly better too).

I'm encountering a problem with Thargoid Spy Satellites though -- the scanner lists a bounty of 208 cr, but satellites always pay out only 100 credits. Weird. Probably more due to the way the spy satellites are scripted though.

[Frame]

new release... solves some potential problems, with langauge and mayhaps OXP conflicting...

http://wiki.alioth.net/images/7/76/Boun ... P_1.01.zip

[Eric Walch]

I'm encountering a problem with Thargoid Spy Satellites though -- the scanner lists a bounty of 208 cr, but satellites always pay out only 100 credits. Weird. Probably more due to the way the spy satellites are scripted though.

Frame,
I don't see why you limit the displayed bounty to 100. Only for thargoids it works unpredictable. The satelite has a bounty of 100 defined. The bounty property has a value of 208 and when I shoot it, I only get 108 bounty. There is something wrong here I think.

Strange, so I looked into the code:

Code: Select all

- (int) legalStatus
{
	if (scanClass == CLASS_THARGOID)
		return 5 * collision_radius;
	if (scanClass == CLASS_ROCK)
		return 0;
	return bounty;
}

Legal status of all ships equals bounty but for thargoids the actual size is used as legal status. But this still does not give an answer between the bounty property of 208 and an awarded bounty of 108. Maybe only limit the value when scanclass thargoid?

Yesterday I found a pirate attacking a police. I say his bounty increase with every hit on the police, so I waited for the bounty getting profitable. It rose above the 200 and than I went in for the kill. I don't know why the police thanked me while I let the pirate slaughter him

[hircus]

Legal status of all ships equals bounty but for thargoids the actual size is used as legal status. But this still does not give an answer between the bounty property of 208 and an awarded bounty of 108. Maybe only limit the value when scanclass thargoid?

Satellite's worth 100, so this actually makes sense. The funny thing is that the Thargoid Robot Fighters' bounties are variable, so I guess they are counted as normal ships (as far as bounties are concerned)

[Frame]

ok, gonna look in to this, this evening... i dont get though, how the bounty gets updated because of an error i think i made, or i am mis-intrepretating my own code again... (known to happen)...