Ion Bomb

[Ramirez]

i discovered this fact when i was trying to use the fueltank to refuel outside of a station with several ships in the vicinity. i happened to boost out of the area, somehow before being enveloped by the spheres of destruction, as i didn't even realize what had happened, until i by chance glanced back. i think it was because of the sudden spurt of odd messages decrying me a villian. sure enough when i checked my status, i was suddenly in one fell swoop a fugitive. whoops!!! *^^*

On occasion I've been in a dogfight and have just lined up a nice firing solution for a missile then I realise too late that I've had the fuel tank selected. Pesky things!

On the subject of an ion bomb, using existing AI etc I've made both missiles and bombs and that disable ships' systems, however they only work against a single target and the effect is permanent. More fundamental changes would be needed to the game's weapon system to produce a bomb which has only a temporary effect and which also can affect the player.

[nijineko]

so trying to script a timer for the change in ai would not work? say, if hit by the bomb, it changes the ai to either something innocious or to a new random movement type of ai for a set time, then resets it to original?

[Ramirez]

Some kind of timing may work - the problem is finding a trigger. There are only a limited number of things that a ship will react to on its own, and this is why we've had to use lots of convoluted methods to make things happen without having to introduce new code.

If we were to change the code, you could introduce a something similar to ECM. Activation of ECM is an event formally recognised by the AI code, and missiles have some lines their AI plist to roll a dice and detonante whenever an ECM is fired. If you have an EMP event, you could do something similar and have a "setAITo: null.plist" followed by an ExitAI to return the ship to its original state. Just as a test I can try adding this to any ship AI and use ECM to see what happens.

Putting aside code changes, for the EMP devices I've worked on, I've used a combination of scriptActionOnTarget and becomeUncontrolledThargon to render the target disabled. Here, the target ship isn't reacting to anything - the EMP missile is doing all the triggering and so by extention any resetting of the AI would also need to be triggered externally. However, I don't think the becomeUncontrolledThargon command can be reversed - it's not really an AI thing so I don't think you can issue a further instruction to simply switch to another AI and in any case you'd need to know what the ship's original AI was otherwise you'd end up turning police into merchantmen and vice versa.

Maybe some alternative script methods could be used. PerformHold, performTumble and performIdle all work with scriptActionOnTarget and they are not permanent. However, I'm not entirely sure how the AI code exits from these states, or whether its possible to send a specific instruction telling the target ship to return to its original AI state.

[Killer Wolf]

would look pretty cool if you could do something like :
set ai to tumble
pause (or whatever) for 15 seconds
set ai to Pirate (whatver)

would look like the controls had been scrambled by the EMP blat.

[Helvellyn]

However, I don't think the becomeUncontrolledThargon command can be reversed - it's not really an AI thing so I don't think you can issue a further instruction to simply switch to another AI and in any case you'd need to know what the ship's original AI was otherwise you'd end up turning police into merchantmen and vice versa.

I've not been playing Oolite long enough to have had a chance to notice if this does happen, but surely it should be reversible in case another mothership turns up to take control.

[nijineko]

that would be cool. i've not seen it happen. it appears that when the spawning mothership is destroyed all the slaveships tied to it go null. even when there were multiple motherships around, it still happened. ^^

[TGHC]

You can also earn credits by shooting or scooping them

[Disembodied]

You can also earn credits by shooting or scooping them

I usually prefer to shoot them than scoop them: not only do you get a bounty that's often bigger than any profit you'd make selling them, you also get a kill...

[nijineko]

doh.... now i'm going to have to wait around for the lasers too cool!

[Cmdr Wyvern]

The E-bomb inflicts 1,000 points of damage (or there abouts) to everything in range. A Cobra III has 350 points. Even the fearsome tiger or Imperial Courier only have 500! Some ships can survive an e-bomb

i´m pretty sure the Commodore 64 version E bomb didn´t have that kind of power, A Thargoid Warship has 600 energy units, yet i clearly recall that the E bomb was not able to destroy it, unless had it been damaged by laser fire first...

I think The E bomb damage has to be revised down to say 400, to me that seems like a more plauseble damage ability as if memory serves me right, it is only able to destroy smaller craft...

Cheers Frame...

Frame is correct.

In Elite C64, only small ships within scanner range would get obliterated by the E-bomb. Stations, Thargoids, Anacondas, and the occasional Python would survive the blast. It would usually enrage the Thargs and make them much more aggressive, though.

Oolite's E-bomb is a much more powerful weapon than Elite's E-bomb. Perhaps turning it's blast down a notch or two is in order.

On the other hand, Elite's lasers were stronger and didn't overheat near as fast.

[Arexack_Heretic]

One could set the AI of an NPC temporarily to an affectedByWeaponAI.plist, easy as far as I can see.

Code: Select all

You would do it like this. Have weapon do:
"performScriptedActionOnTarget: setAITo: affectedByWeaponAI.plist"
and becomeExplosion or otherwise deactivate/vanish.
The AI should have a bahaviour, a timer and exitAI when the timer is exceeded. 
The NPC returns to his previous AI, which may not be written with a RESTARTED message in mind, so it will just continue doing the last medhod called unless UPDATE message interrupts this. Failing this, the mindless state will continue untill some other input breaks the quo.

A bigger problem is affecting the player in a similar manner.

[Cmdr Wyvern]

You can also earn credits by shooting or scooping them

I usually prefer to shoot them than scoop them: not only do you get a bounty that's often bigger than any profit you'd make selling them, you also get a kill...

Install hoopy casinos.
The bounty on killed Thargoid fighters is only 50cr. A Hoopy will often offer 80+cr on scooped Thargons.

[Disembodied]

You can also earn credits by shooting or scooping them

I usually prefer to shoot them than scoop them: not only do you get a bounty that's often bigger than any profit you'd make selling them, you also get a kill...

Install hoopy casinos.
The bounty on killed Thargoid fighters is only 50cr. A Hoopy will often offer 80+cr on scooped Thargons.

I didn't know that. I wonder why? Do they break them down into hard-to-forge gambling chips? Or recondition them as drinks trolleys?

[Arexack_Heretic]

Another rumour or spacer-myth:

Thargoids use sophisticated predicion technology to navigate witchspace...like the Dune spacing guild
Obviously the hioopy casinos are attempting to destroy all captured thargons to prevent someone retroengineering the stuff.
Or they are doing research on it themselves... to increase their own odds.

[Cmdr. Maegil]

Another rumour or spacer-myth:

Thargoids use sophisticated predicion technology to navigate witchspace...like the Dune spacing guild

Crash and burn!
Even if they do, thargons aren't hyperspace-capable...

Press space, Commander, your idea didn't fly.