strange appearance of systems where sun has gone nova

[Commander McLane]

Following this suggestion by Kaks I assigned the hasGoneNova property to all systems within my current galaxy. This had some results, at least one of which was unexpected and appears to be a bug.

(1) In my current system the sun disappeared instantly. Seems correct behaviour.

(2) The cabin temperature starts rising. Correct behaviour.

(3) On the F7-screens of all planets the descriptions are changed to the predefined nova-related values, except for my current system. This seems strange. After I jump to another system, the F7-screen changes for my first system as well. Can't explain that.

(4) In any system I jump to, it is the planet that has disappeared, and is replaced by the sun. However, neither planet nor sun show on the space compass. This seems definitely buggy. Here's the entity dump of a random system:

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  [universe.objectDump]: -> Ent:0		<PlayerEntity 0x1c8d200>{"Imperial Courier" ID: 100 position: (5871.56, -16158.7, 9211.72) scanClass: CLASS_PLAYER status: STATUS_IN_FLIGHT} mass 236108.38 <AI 0x13028f00>{"dockingAI.plist" in state: "GLOBAL" for Cobra Mark III 100}
  [universe.objectDump]: -> Ent:1		<DustEntity 0xc9cc000>{ID: 339 position: (0, 0, 0) scanClass: CLASS_NO_DRAW status: STATUS_ACTIVE} mass 0.00 (null)
  [universe.objectDump]: -> Ent:2		<PlanetEntity 0x15aea000>{ID: 341 position: (934733, -952448, 5.18139e+06) type: PLANET_TYPE_SUN radius: 799.036km} mass 0.00 (null)
  [universe.objectDump]: -> Ent:3		<SkyEntity 0x138f6c00>{ID: 338 position: (5871.56, -16158.7, 9211.72) scanClass: CLASS_NO_DRAW status: STATUS_EFFECT} mass 0.00 (null)

(by the way, and completely unrelated: the closing "for Cobra Mark III 100" in the PlayerEntity entry seems funny)

[another_commander]

(4) In any system I jump to, it is the planet that has disappeared, and is replaced by the sun. However, neither planet nor sun show on the space compass. This seems definitely buggy.

The compass is deliberately disabled in systems that have gone nova. This was introduced back in revision 2195, as the svn logs indicate:

Nova mission related improvements. Fixed crash viewing F7 screen and a different aegis related crash when in a system gone nova. Aegis crash bypassed by disabling compass in nova systems for now. (...)

I chose to disable the compass in such systems, because it was a) the easiest way to avoid a crash where a planet (miniature or not I don't remember now) was attempted to be referenced without existing and b) justified from my point of view, as you cannot really stay in a nova system for more than a few seconds anyway and could also be explained in-game as high radiation levels interfering with the compass electronics.

I agree that this may not be everyone's desire (hence the "for now" in the log). If the consensus is that it is so important to have the compass showing only the sun position in nova systems, then we can certainly try to have a further look at it. I just wanted to say that what happens with the compass now is by design. And yes, it should probably be mentioned in the changelogs as well, looks like this "detail" slipped through the cracks.

[JensAyton]

(by the way, and completely unrelated: the closing "for Cobra Mark III 100" in the PlayerEntity entry seems funny)

Fixed for 1.74, it’ll say <PlayerEntity 0x1c8d200>{"Imperial Courier" ID: 100 position: (5871.56, -16158.7, 9211.72) scanClass: CLASS_PLAYER status: STATUS_IN_FLIGHT} mass 236108.38 <AI 0x13028f00>{dockingAI.plist:GLOBAL} instead. :-)

[Kaks]

I can explain the delay! All system(info) properties are only checked when creating the system. Oolite normally assumes those properties are constant for the time you stay in that system. To make a system property effective immediately, we need to write the code for it. HasGoneNova is one that we haven't got the 'effective immediately' code for at the moment. Still, there should at least be a warning/error message in the log to say: 'hasGoneNova: this property can only be applied once you leave the present system'. For the time being, I'll add that warning.

After posting on the forum, I've gone to a novaed system too, and changing the sun_radius to improbably small values (system.info.sun_radius=10000) seems to do the trick - the cabin temperature is normal, there's a tiny sun, and no compass... Hmm, it's almost as if we were in witchspace... Ideal thargoid hangouts, now that I think about it....

[JensAyton]

The supported way to set hasGoneNova for the current system is with system.sun.goNova(). Making the current system suddenly post-nova doesn’t make much sense in most contexts, although perhaps launching from a station into a mysteriously empty system, turning around and finding the station has disappeared could be an interesting story element for someone…

[DaddyHoggy]

The supported way to set hasGoneNova for the current system is with system.sun.goNova(). Making the current system suddenly post-nova doesn’t make much sense in most contexts, although perhaps launching from a station into a mysteriously empty system, turning around and finding the station has disappeared could be an interesting story element for someone…

Da-da-da-da "You have entered The Twilight Zone" da-da-da-da

[Commander McLane]

I can explain the delay! All system(info) properties are only checked when creating the system. Oolite normally assumes those properties are constant for the time you stay in that system. To make a system property effective immediately, we need to write the code for it.

Interestingly, though, the other properties were changed immediatly, namely these:

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			System.infoForSystem(galaxyNumber, i).economy = -1
			System.infoForSystem(galaxyNumber, i).government = -1
			System.infoForSystem(galaxyNumber, i).techlevel = -1
			System.infoForSystem(galaxyNumber, i).population = 0
			System.infoForSystem(galaxyNumber, i).inhabitants = "None"
			System.infoForSystem(galaxyNumber, i).productivity = 0
			System.infoForSystem(galaxyNumber, i).description = "Due to the use of a devastating weapon " + system.systemNameForID(i) + " is now a dead world."

Anyway, I'm not using the has_gone_Nova anymore, since I discovered that setting some properties to -1 also does the trick. TL gets displayed as 0, and economy and government are not displayed at all, which for my ends is just as fine as a "N/A".

After posting on the forum, I've gone to a novaed system too, and changing the sun_radius to improbably small values (system.info.sun_radius=10000) seems to do the trick - the cabin temperature is normal, there's a tiny sun, and no compass... Hmm, it's almost as if we were in witchspace... Ideal thargoid hangouts, now that I think about it....

That's the really buggy part, I think. In my playtesting the sun doesn't only sit on the planet's spot, but it also seems to have the planet's size, without me resetting anything. Only once I had an instant death on arriving in a nova-made system. All the other times it just looked like the planet had become white, and the rise in temperature was less then dramatic (I would say with heat shields installed I had about 2 minutes until melting).

[Kaks]

Nice one about setting the system values as you wanted! Might be able to squeeze a n/a as a description for -1 in trunk...

Mind you, what happens to the market screen with -1 values? No Oolite for me today, so I can't check...

Just wanted to say that in trunk system.info.sun_gone_nova now affects the system instantaneusly! And no planets will be shown on the system info screen if a system has gone nova. We'll assume it's been destroyed.

I'll have a look at te sun's size & position once a system has gone nova, but we might have to wait a little while for that one!

[Commander McLane]

Nice one about setting the system values as you wanted! Might be able to squeeze a n/a as a description for -1 in trunk...

Mind you, what happens to the market screen with -1 values? No Oolite for me today, so I can't check...

Done it for you. This is what happens:

Actually I hadn't checked myself before. Glad that it doesn't produce weird results.

By the way, all this means that the Pandoraweapon has become a reality. If you want, you can cause galaxywide destruction now...

[Kaks]

Thanks, good to know that someone already fixed that non-existent bug!

Btw, congratulations on those hyper weapons! Truly impressive! But I fear there's going to be some uber-uber-peacenik that might want to spoil the fun, and maybe invent a device to stop those devices from exploding!

[Diziet Sma]

Btw, congratulations on those hyper weapons! Truly impressive! But I fear there's going to be some uber-uber-peacenik that might want to spoil the fun, and maybe invent a device to stop those devices from exploding!

Sounds like a job for DaddyHoggy...

[DaddyHoggy]

Btw, congratulations on those hyper weapons! Truly impressive! But I fear there's going to be some uber-uber-peacenik that might want to spoil the fun, and maybe invent a device to stop those devices from exploding!

Sounds like a job for DaddyHoggy...

No, I'd just make it very pretty looking when it (didn't) go off...