Oolite Bulletins

metatheurgist wrote:

I'm waiting for a stable release before comitting to an update.

The 1.77 deployment build is pretty damn stable (it's just not labelled as such), and well worth updating to.

metatheurgist wrote:

OK. Tried pitch and roll at 1,2 and went to 5,6 increasing both by 1 each time. The range for shooting cargo is still within the 2-3 kms range, though at pitch 2 roll 3 it did take a shot at 5kms and hit. I'm waiting for a stable release before comitting to an update.

Hmm... try turning them right down to 0.1,0.2 and see if that helps. You'll probably need to be stationary relative to the target, and it'll take a little while to aim, but it should at least be able to pick off cargo then. (Probably not missiles, though)

A "tailgunner" turret on a ship being chased by a missile should be the only thing that regularly hits incoming missiles, since the closure speed is reduced immensely and the angle-to-target is likely changing slowly. Thargoids can do this when they bother in v1.76.1 and probably much more often in v1.77, since they have an omnidirectional laser...but it's still hard-coded in such a way still that it's not a normal turret.

cim wrote:

Hmm... try turning them right down to 0.1,0.2 and see if that helps. You'll probably need to be stationary relative to the target, and it'll take a little while to aim, but it should at least be able to pick off cargo then. (Probably not missiles, though)

Well, I'm not actually trying to kill cargo, I'm just using them as a target reference since they're small, don't move around and are easy to "produce" in the game. It's cool if the object won't hit missiles, I'm just seeing what I can do with the scripting. Next stop will be to play with Wings 3d.

El Viejo wrote:

The 1.77 deployment build is pretty damn stable (it's just not labelled as such), and well worth updating to.

I'm content to wait. The only thing that really interests me is the improvement in visibility. Get tired of being hit by things I can't see sometimes, but I'll cope.

Switeck wrote:

A "tailgunner" turret on a ship being chased by a missile should be the only thing that regularly hits incoming missiles, since the closure speed is reduced immensely and the angle-to-target is likely changing slowly. Thargoids can do this when they bother in v1.76.1 and probably much more often in v1.77, since they have an omnidirectional laser...but it's still hard-coded in such a way still that it's not a normal turret.

Does seem that way. That's why I'm going to leave the mod attached to my cobra on the off chance it does shoot a missile when I'm heroically running away.

metatheurgist wrote:

Well, I'm not actually trying to kill cargo, I'm just using them as a target reference since they're small, don't move around and are easy to "produce" in the game. It's cool if the object won't hit missiles, I'm just seeing what I can do with the scripting. Next stop will be to play with Wings 3d.

El Viejo wrote:

The 1.77 deployment build is pretty damn stable (it's just not labelled as such), and well worth updating to.

I'm content to wait. The only thing that really interests me is the improvement in visibility. Get tired of being hit by things I can't see sometimes, but I'll cope.

If you are designing something to shoot other things another good reason to upgrade to 1.77 is the new abilities of the 'accuracy' key in shipdata. You can specify how good its aim is and tweak other aspects of combat performance etc.
Also there are many other aspects of the game (including some scripting elements) that are better/improved or new to the game in 1.77 that you might find useful.
Seriously, upgrade. Nothing to lose and lots to gain.

El Viejo wrote:

metatheurgist wrote:

I'm waiting for a stable release before comitting to an update.

The 1.77 deployment build is pretty damn stable (it's just not labelled as such), and well worth updating to.

There's some confusion as to what a 'stable' release actually means..

To borrow from (and extensively update) an old thread.

The only reason it is not called 'stable' is because since 1.76 a lot of new features have been introduced. And some of these features are still having the kinks worked out. Once this process is over, the resulting version (1.78) will be 'stable'.

In programmers terms, stable refers to a stable feature set, rather than a game that doesn't crash. The other requirement for a stable release is backwards compatibility. Meaning: Everything that worked on the last stable release (1.76.1) has to work on the next stable release as well. Therefore, as long as features that are present in 1.76.1 may be temporarily broken in the intermediate version (until they get fixed for the following version), the intermediate version could not be considered stable.


As I understand it, after the last round of new features were added, 1.77 is now in feature-freeze, and only bugfixes are being applied to trunk, until such time as the next stable version, 1.78, is released. OXP authors actually making use of those new features, and people actively playing with 1.77, are the only way that any bugs (of which there have been very few, to date) will be found.

Thus, there really is nothing to lose, and much to gain, (both for you personally and ultimately for Oolite itself) if you were to upgrade, metatheurgist. Up to you, of course.

Diziet Sma wrote:

Meaning: Everything that worked on the last stable release (1.76.1) has to work on the next stable release as well.

Within reason, anyway. There will be minor incompatibilities that affect some code, and sometimes planned deprecation of older features. A strict interpretation of that requirement would make it very difficult for us to add new features at all.

Oops.. yes, of course.. I actually meant to add some sort of qualifier like that, and forgot to do so..