Oolite Bulletins

Ran into a problem with this in my rift-crossing experiments. Came out of warp, immediately set a waypoint so I could find my way back to that point after dodging Thargoids etc. The waypoint appeared, but the compass wouldn't point to it and no distance showed, even when it was immediately in front of me. If I set two or more waypoints they were all visible, the compass wouldn't toggle between them. The only way I had to get back to any of them was to spin very slowly until I spotted them, even then I didn't know which one I'd spotted if there was more than one, how close it was, etc.

I assume that this has something to do with there being no witchpoint, base, sun etc. Don't know if this was deliberate, but it seems the sort of situation where a working waypoint might have been useful, what I got was less than ideal.

ffutures wrote:

Don't know if this was deliberate, but it seems the sort of situation where a working waypoint might have been useful, what I got was less than ideal.

Deliberate? Seems far more likely that being in interstellar space was simply something Neelix hadn't considered.. this was his first OXP, after all..

And I'm curious.. why did you wish to return to the exact same point anyway? It makes no difference so far as I can see.. even if you were to run on Torus for an hour, the jump-distance to the nearest system would remain the same.

The compass is disabled in locations without a main planet (interstellar space, nova systems). It therefore can't be used to track waypoints either - it's not an OXP issue.

Whether waypoints should even appear on the HUD in interstellar space I'm not sure.

Diziet Sma wrote:

ffutures wrote:

Don't know if this was deliberate, but it seems the sort of situation where a working waypoint might have been useful, what I got was less than ideal.

Deliberate? Seems far more likely that being in interstellar space was simply something Neelix hadn't considered.. this was his first OXP, after all..

And I'm curious.. why did you wish to return to the exact same point anyway? It makes no difference so far as I can see.. even if you were to run on Torus for an hour, the jump-distance to the nearest system would remain the same.

I assumed that if anyone else misjumped to this region of space they would tend to appear somewhere near that location.

cim wrote:

Whether waypoints should even appear on the HUD in interstellar space I'm not sure.

I'd say they shouldn't - lack of any reference points is one of those nice oddities of interstellar space.

Cody wrote:

cim wrote:

Whether waypoints should even appear on the HUD in interstellar space I'm not sure.

I'd say they shouldn't - lack of any reference points is one of those nice oddities of interstellar space.

OK, if it doesn't make a difference anyway I won't worry about it.

ffutures wrote:

I assumed that if anyone else misjumped to this region of space they would tend to appear somewhere near that location.

That raises an interesting point.. but I'm relatively sure that the populator doesn't add anyone else to IS space once you're there.. it's just you and whoever happens to be there when you arrive..

Diziet Sma wrote:

.. but I'm relatively sure that the populator doesn't add anyone else to IS space once you're there.. it's just you and whoever happens to be there when you arrive..

This has changed in trunk - subtly! <grins>

Cody wrote:

Diziet Sma wrote:

.. but I'm relatively sure that the populator doesn't add anyone else to IS space once you're there.. it's just you and whoever happens to be there when you arrive..

This has changed in trunk - subtly! <grins>

OK - I get a feeling that it really won't be worth waiting for rescue in the current version - I'll look forward to seeing how things come out.

As it happens, I can't recall exactly when the behaviour changed - it may be in 1.80?

1.80's interstellar behaviour is the different one.

It's annoying actually, but interstellar space now gets "unwanted guests" regularly after you first arrive.
Sometimes they're Thargoids...sometimes traders...sometimes something else?
I'd say it happens about once every 5 minutes, though I haven't timed it.

First off: let me add my eternal gratitude for this wonderful piece of equipment.

But (there is always a butt... ), recently, I came across three derelicts near a witchpoint, I picked the Boa first, thinking I might get a nice chunk of change for it, and managed to hook it on, despite the confusing "going too fast" at 10 m/s. (Succeeded by the simple expedience of fully stopping to figure things out, and getting hooked that way.) Of course got beset by a triplet of pirates, so i unhooked and killed them, spending my missiles in the proccess, hooked up again and continued. The a second gang of 4 or 5 pirates attacked, I unhooked again, set a waypoint and hightailed it out of there, intending to get more missiles and fuel at the not too far off station. I refueled, but in my haste and trepidation for the pirates near my derelict, forgot to replace the missiles. So I redocked, bought the missiles, launched, and found that inexplicably my lock on the derelict was gone, and also my waypoint[i/]. With no way to reliably find my Boa again I had to abandon it, and disheartenedly resumed my simple trading.

It is my understanding, that every system is (re-)created upon witchspace entrance and maintained until hyperpacing out. Then why do waypoints and derelict locks disappear in a revisit of a station? And can it be "fixed", pretty please?

My understanding of how ships are created is, ships will persist through a docking process if you don't reload the game. So, if you dock, save, and launch, ships should be where you left them. If you save, exit the game, open the game and reload, then the game world just got recreated, so when you launch it's all essentially new (save for anything that will recreate itself in the same location, eg Con stores, secondary planets, and rock hermits to name a few).

If you didn't reload after your dock then I think something might have gone wrong with the waypoint here. I'll have a look at the code and get back to you.

[Edit] OK, waypoint code is pretty simple, and I tested it with a few docks and launches, and all waypoints persisted between each one. If you didn't reload the game at all I'm not sure what happened.

My guest will be that your beacon got scooped by one of pirates. That's why you could not get back.

vsfc