Oolite Bulletins

The F5 screen should change even if you miss the briefing. But for some reason assassins seems to be refusing to start at all on Killer Instinict's machine. Will look into this!

This is strange. I tried it on my system and the first brief came up strainght away. I have all OXPs in except Thargoid Wars and Miliraty (so you may need to take Military out if you have it). I've e-mailed you your commander saved after the brief was given together with a jpeg so you can see the full mission breifing, together with some suggestions to try first before resorting to this!

Try your Commander with Military out.
Then with all the OXPs out except Assassins.
If all else fails try the commander i've e-mailed to you.

Topman LB, exemplary help and postings, you may well be in line for an OoBE in next years honours list.

LittleBear wrote:

The F5 screen should change even if you miss the briefing. But for some reason assassins seems to be refusing to start at all on Killer Instinict's machine. Will look into this!

I really hope to see the game's mission bugs squashed soon so it becomes unnecessary shuffle oxps like that.

Its usually avoided by setting a mission to start after a previous one has been completed. Trouble is Thargoid Wars cannot be completed. Military isn't a problem if you've finished it, but these are the only two OXPs that can run in G7. I don't think it would really be a problem for most missions, but the large number of briefing screen Assasssins features means your bound to hit the Thargoid Wars clash sooner or later.

The readme warns the player that he must take out Thargoid Wars and should complete Military (if installed) before playing Assassins.

However, Killer Instincts problem isn't an OXP clash. I checked his save file and for some reason Assassins is refusing to start at all on his system even though the Galaxy, docked at main station, mission assassins undefined and kills >200 are all met. This is serierously puszzeling!

A bug is a bug is a bug. I doesn't make sense to me, that the Thargs should stop their offensive due to the commander's dealings with a criminal group. Also it shouldn't be so that if anybody else wants to write missions for different galaxies, that they don't have the option because that galaxy is already taken, or that they should relate it to an oxp which players might or might not have installed.

It would be nice to know that some coders were working on removing those nasty bugs and to have some hope of seeing new stuff implemented.

The worst bug is of course STICKY MESSAGES - I've come to the point were I'd rather take my chances playing without HUD messages if someone just gave me the option. But any bug squashed is an improvement to the game, don't you think?

Yeah, the mission clash bug is weird. Playtesting with Thargoid Wars installed, somtimes everthing is fine and the Assassins Brief comes up first and then the Thargoid Wars brief. Sometimes though, the Assassins Brief stops the Thargoid Wars brief comming up and somtimes the otherway around. It is intermitant. I though of keying off the Thargoid Wars variables so that the Assassins Brief woudn't be displayed when it was time to display a Thargoid Wars brief, but then Assassins woudn't work at all unless the player had Thargoid Wars in as the Bug_Attack variable would never be met. I guess Giles hadn't figured on someone doing a mission which would be a on-going feature rather than one that could be completed.

I can live with the sticky messages, but the player really should be allowed to play more than one mission at once, as long as they weren't contradictory in their nature like working for Special Branch and the Guild at the same time!

I think one of the reasons why the game still needs work is that Giles didn't realize how popular that scripting he at first seems to have implemented only to write the native missions himself would become. It probably needs some serious adjusting now that people introduce and play with loads of oxps.

The sticky messages is the main reason most times when I shut the game down. I think it detracts a lot from the game. Not only because it's a very visual bug which detracts from believability (they can travel whichspace but do so in ships with lethally malfunctioning HUDs that could be made less dangerous simply by moving or resizing the text display part), but even more because it actually affects gameplay negatively.

Captial! I decided the old (trustworthy) method of an un-install re-install and assassins guild is now working. I missed the first mision breif but the oxp is in action. Now I'm in hot persuit of Be Soin. Many thanks to little bear for the pointers and the mission brief screen! Er anyone know where Be Soin is hiding - I've been roaming around this system for aaaages...

Did you use the Commander I sent you? My only concern is that Oolite is still not reading the Assassins script (in which case he won't be there as its the script that adds him).

Does the System have two planets? If so then I know Oolite is reading the planetinfo.plist at least.

If you set your cross-hairs between the two planets and jump towards the system you'll run into Be Soin near the OXP moon. The briefing you missed told you be was on a touring holiday near the Companion Planet. He's the only commander flying a "Vintage Adder" so check every yellow blip you come across with your ID computer to find your mark.

To check that Oolite is detecting the Assassins code, could you do this:-

Go to the OXPs Config file and open the shipdata.plist file with Notepad.

You see the second entry starts like this...
Could you put the curser after <string>victim1AI.plist</string> and press enter.

Now type in this:-

<key>beacon</key> [press Enter]
<string>T-Test</string> [press Enter]

Now exit and save the changes.

This is gonna give Be Soin a beacon with the letter T. When in the System where the Mark is, flick though your Advanced Space Compase. If the letter T comes up then Be Soin is there and Assassins is running properly.

Dr.-SPACE-Nil wrote:

The sticky messages is the main reason most times when I shut the game down. I think it detracts a lot from the game.

You can quickly remove them by toggling between front and rear or side views. It moves the offending message up the screen untill it drops off and just takes a few seconds.

It is an annoying bug, but you can overcome it easily without having to shutdown.

TGHC wrote:

It is an annoying bug, but you can overcome it easily without having to shutdown.

Thanks for the advise. I'm aware of the view switch, but it doesn't really do it for me. And it doesn't get any better by the fact that messages about which view you switched to often become sticky too.

I shut down (and not to restart) because I just don't get captured by feeling like I'm playing a bugged computer game where I have use the keyboard for switching views back and forth to avoid having my view obscured with messages about missiles fired at me in the combat which becomes too unbelievable because I have to focus on dealing with the bug instead of fighting...

Simply moving the place where the messages appear and their size would reduce this nasty bug from detracting horribly from gameplay to just being ugly looking.

It would appear that assassins guild is failing to start on my PC. I'm getting a cross on the first mission planet (indeed I'm there) but there is no moon or otherwise in the system. The planet discriptions have changed for this mission and there appear to be a host of police ships everywhere and a host of fugitive pirates to destroy (lots of cash in the cargo as well). So I'm content with kicking pirates off the screen, however I'm perplexed as to why assassins won't start properly. I've taken lots of steps to resolve this including reinstalling Oolite and the oxp's. Many thanks to little bear for the pointers but alas I think this is a loss. Any suggestions.....

Tis as I feared, Assassins started on my machine using your commander, so you have the cross and the descriptions of the planets and mission description have changed (as this info is stored in the save file), but Oolite on your machine is just refusing to read the Assassins.oxp (as the planets, moons, ships and missions are stored in this file.)

Sorry I really can't think of any reason why it just won't run on your system. I run on PC Windows XP - Oolite 1.65 and it works on mine. Johnsmith and MtKinta have completed it on the Mac and davefaci has completed it on Unix, but it won't even START on yours.

Take it the OXP is in AddOns and as you got Ionics running I cannot see that it is a problem with Oolite not detecting the AddOns file. Assassins uses the same OXP script as all the other missions, theres just more of it as its a big mission pack. I can only think its something with your system, but I cant think want would cause this.

You probabley have done this, but you did put the folder Assassins.oxp in AddOns rather than the AssassinsB7 folder? Oolite won't detect the script unless the .oxp folder is in AddOns. You don't have two copies of Oolite installed do you and have put it in the AddOns in the one that your not using?

Assassins Guild is working 100%. I've wiped Be Soin off the map and now I'm on my way to Esrire. Have no idea on why this was not working before, but I was away from my home PC for three months and have installed a new HDD as part of an upgrade. I think some of the files got lost or simply put into the wrong directory because not only did I have C:/Program files/Oolite but C:/Oolite. So after a lot of head scratching and file removing all is well - ah yet more happy hours of Oolite.........