Thargoid behaviour

[Eric Walch]

As all existing OXPs containing possible pirate-victims would have to be changed--and that is most likely not going to happen--I'd vote for an "extended default", containing all the existing ships. (Of course somebody would have to look into all their shipdata to find out whether they already have the role "trader" or not.)

An "extended default" would change behavior of existing ships. And that is what should be avoided. This is a matter for the shipsdesigner. I think a pirate-victim-roles.plist, would complicate things to much for the average script writer and it will not be used to often. By just adding a key "isTrader" or better "isMerchantman" you give at least new created ships the possibility to have a good reaction on pirates. Most external ships are added in a role of trader and those are already found and hunted by pirates. Only a few ships are added with a script in a private role.

Having thunk about it, an is_trader flag won’t work because of the whole ships-can-have-multiple-roles thing.

I don't see a problem with ships having multiple roles. If the ship has both roles of "trader" and "pirate" than it is just a fault of the ship designer if he also sets the attribute "isMerchantsman". IsMerchantsman is better as it designates better the relation with the command "scanForNearestMerchantmen".
Now it is up to the shipsdesigner if the ship is mend to be hunted by pirates and behave like any other trader.
Any ship with primary role "trader" or with "isMerchantsman" will be hunted by pirates. And this is a straightforward solution that is likely to be adapted by scriptwriters and shipdesigners.

[Arexack_Heretic]

Just going back to the first post for a moment....

If scanForNonThargoid scans for roles beginning with Tharg*, why do I still get trouble from the Terrorizer escorts? ...
...em nevermind, I didn't give them Thargoid or Tharg* as role...Thargyte Terrorizer a good name?

[Eric Walch]

If scanForNonThargoid scans for roles beginning with Tharg*, why do I still get trouble from the Terrorizer escorts? ...
...em nevermind, I didn't give them Thargoid or Tharg* as role...Thargyte Terrorizer a good name?

Anything starting with Tharg* should work in the current Oolite versions.

[Arexack_Heretic]

I'll have to rename the Battleship too. Thorgorn.

edit:
re-role-ing all ships to 'thargoid-thargorn' etc does not solve the problem of thargoid on thargoid aggression.

Could it be that turrets attack thagoids on sight on their own volition regardless of the parent ship?

--
currently looking for the thread that detailed the methods to prevent the default-AI from being forced on escorts.
--
ps The forums were down for 2 hours or so...the agony.

[Commander McLane]

currently looking for the thread that detailed the methods to prevent the default-AI from being forced on escorts.

Have you got it? From my head: It's either the Progress-thread or the Scripting requests-thread. (And you will find some links there to the original discussion.)

[Arexack_Heretic]

yeah I found it on one of those 'Progress' IIRC.

The new autoAI key only forces the defaultAI to be implemented, not the shipdataAI.
Using launch-actions is the way to go then to switch tho the correct AI.

I still get Thargoid aggression though, though that may be due to some cashing problem I got, hiding the changes I made.

[LittleBear]

If your on Oolite 1.69.1 when you change stuff in a .plist you have to hold down SHIFT when you next load up Oolite, otherwise it doesn't read the changes.

[Arexack_Heretic]

ahhh!

See, now that is a good piece of advice.

I should read the changelog better...but I'm lazy.

edit:
...You sure this works on PC too?
I'm holding down shift while clicking the oolite shortcut, keeping it down while it loads, again when I load a commander.
still the clump o rocks is there.

[LittleBear]

Yeah. If you hold it down until you see the rotating cobra on the start screen the log reports that the cashe is cleared. Was very puzzeled as to why changes I was making to an equipment.plist were not doing anything until I found out about this! . Can confirm this works on PC.

[Arexack_Heretic]

found the trouble.
I had changed the piratesDen to have some attending asteroids by using setup_actios and spawn, these were the roids I saw....Gonna look for the Den itself as it's not there. Maybe the 'roids somehow destroy the Den when being spawned at the same location... maybe something else causes the Den to vanish after setup is complete.