Random Hits 1.2 - someone else got him?

[Dr Beeb]

Got a mission to go Gearzaen in Gal 3, quite a safe place (Rich Ind Corp State), done some hits there before. Arrived, no sign of the scoundrel. Loitered around, got bored, started mining an asteroid. Then a message popped up saying that I had vaporized the villian, said I was a jerk, but I could collect part(? I think) of my bounty anyway. So arrived at Space Station, got the full (? I think) bounty and a little promotion. Not sure what happened or whether this is all as intended ?

[LittleBear]

Its a bug on V1.2 that occasioanlly, the OXP will treat an accidental Mark Death (eg flew into an asteroid) as a "dishonerable" player kill. If you kill a mark with an e-bomb, cloaked or with a q-mine this counts as dishonerable. You still get paid, but you get a fine for being a cowardly custard. The fine is imposed in flight when the message comes up (you lose the credits there and then), but as you did the job the client still pays you when you dock. The fine take a big bite of your fee though!

The Bug is fixed on the WIP V1.3 (http://www.box.net/shared/esaf3ygrpq if you want the bleeding edge!) and the new version (should) give you a message along the lines of "[mark name] has been killed in a freak accident." in the event that the mark dies in an accident. The WIP version should regonise the following cases:-

1) Mark killed by player using lasers and uncloaked (Mission Succesfull - Message such as "You have terminated Captain Smith.")
2) Mark killed by player using e-bomb. (Mission Sucessfull, but you get a fine for being a coward - Message such as "You have murdered Captain Smith, but the Bounty Hunters Guild fines you 1,500 Credits for employing unsporting methods.).
3) Mark killed by an NPC (Mission Failed - message such as "Capatain Smith has been elminated by a better executioner.", but you get a small award for you wasted trip).
4) Mark died in an accident such as he injectored into another ship whilst in combat with the player or an NPC (Mission Failed - message such as "Captain Smith has met his end in a freak accident", small award for your wasted trip).
5) Mark shot down by player but his pod was scooped up by an NPC. (Mission Failed - message such as "Captain Smith has been captured and sold into slavery by deady rodents!", consulation payment awarded.)
6) Mark shot down by player but player failed to kill or scoop pod, allowing him to escape. (Mission Failed).
7) Mark Jumped and player failed to follow. (Mission Failed).

I've used a few cheats in the AIs which make it unlikley that an NPC will get the mark before you find him, but it can happen. If you hang around once entereing the system others may get him! Marks will not be attacked by pirates, but Cops will attack them as they are Offenders. A Corperate State is safe for law-abiding Commanders but most unsafe for Marks! All those extra Cops about makes it a bit more likley that one of the boys in blue will get your target if you take your time!

The Marks always flee an NPC attack if the player is not present, so it should be rare for an NPC to kill a mark. But accidents can happen!

[Dr Beeb]

thanks LittleBear

I also began to wonder whether cops had got him, so my actions were a little stupid ... I am happy to move on to testing the new version. As an aside, maybe it is ok to count it as a valid kill if the mark 'injects' into someone/something - if the player was within 25 km at the time - after all it was the player's (dubious) combat skill that forced the error - see that sort of stuff all the time when car horn-honking starts Actually if that specific case can be identified maybe the fine is smaller, with a message along the lines of, "the Guild discourages you from using such underhand methods in the future"

[LittleBear]

Cheers for the testing. I'm gonna try to get a full release of V1.3 out before Xmass, but RL is pretty busy ATM. The WIP 1.3 has the following new features:-

1) More accurate scripts on detecting who killed and how.
2) The name of the Victim is now shown on the ID Computer. (Comes up as "Captain Smith (Cobra Mk III)" or whatever.
3) NPC bounty hunters now have individual names on the ID Computer eg "Shauna McBride (Tracker)"
4) The Victim's escorts likewise eg "Richard Turner (Hired Gun)".
5) Killing Marks sometimes has consequences. Friends and Relatives sometimes come after you later on or they put a contract out on you. In the test version the chance is set at 100%, so you always have a killer on your tail when after you make a hit. For the release version it will be a random chance. After completing a hit you'll see some variables displayed on the screen after making a jump showing the progress of the killers after you. Once killed though the killers don't return. In the realsesd version, this information may be picked up by a fellow hunter warning you.

Still to do:-

1) Add the option to check the LRC whilst viewing the BB.
2) Improve the AIs. Although they work, I'm doing too much target scanning (which uses up system resorches). I think I can further speed up the OXP by improving this.
3) Improve the escorts AI. They work, but the do occasionally lose the mark and wander off.

[Commander McLane]

Unfortunately some of the new features together with 1.71.2's spawning-wrong-ships bug can lead to quite, errm..., spectacular results. Last time I killed a mark after installing the WIP 1.3, about 200(!) extra ships were spawned in the system! All of them looked like this:

Code: Select all

  [universe.objectDump]: -> Ent:295		<ShipEntity 0x18df2c00>{"Scanning Target..." ID: 414 position: (244515, 32405.7, -73687.2) scanClass: CLASS_NO_DRAW status: STATUS_IN_FLIGHT} mass 138862.28 <AI 0x125acce0>{"randomhitswormAI.plist" in state: "ATTACK_SHIP" for Scanning Target... 414}

For some reason the string "Scanning Target..." had made it to the ship's name, again they all had randomhitswormAI, and they all were invisible on the scanner (CLASS_NO_DRAW). And with way above 300 entities my system studdered quite a lot.

The spawning bug has to be squashed in 1.72, please!!!!

[LittleBear]

The Spawning bug always seems to pick entries from the last OXP installed. As Random Hits has a lot of entries (due to different versions of ships - hunter version, mark escort versions, mark version, revenge version, revenge wingman version etc) which may make it worse where RH was the most recent OXP installed. A temporay fix until 1.72 would be after installing RH move another OXP (preferably one with ony a couple of ships in it) to Desktop. Then Restart Oolite and exit. Put it back in and restart. I've only hit the multiple bad role ships bug once, but I haven't actually installed RH last as I've been writing it in place.

The fact that the name shows as "Scanning Target" is because when the bug adds the ship it does not add it with its JS Script. All ships in Random Hits 1.3 have their name set in shipdata to "Scanning Target..." The name you see on the ID Computer is set by its JS Script like this:-

Code: Select all

this.shipSpawned = function ()
{
	if(this.ship.shipDisplayName == this.ship.shipDescription)
        this.ship.shipDisplayName = expandDescription("[random_hits_guard_name]") // Show the Guard's name on the ID Computer when targeted.
	  this.ship.switchAI("randomhitsescortAI.plist")
	  delete this.shipSpawned;
}

Descriptions then defines the name. There are about 400 first names (thankfully I found a Baby Names Site to C&P from ), [nom] is used for the second name and then a desciptitive phase in brackets. So you get stuff like "James McKline (Hired Gun)" on the ID Computer. It takes Oolite a second or two to run the script and until it does so the ship has the name set by Shipdata. If you target a Hunter just as he's launching from a Bar the ID Computer reports "Scanning Target..." and then changes to "Simon Smith (Hunter)" or whatever. The use of "Scanning Target..." in shipdata is just for effect to deal with this case. If the player happens to target a RH ship just as it spawns, it appears as if his ID Computer has scanned it and identified the individual piolt.