Oolite Bulletins

Is it possible to get back on to the board without leaving the bar? I like to check system locations before accepting a contract, and I'd like to do it in the game if at all possible. Maybe the contract screen could include the (distance, min # of jumps) info on the offer screen?

I've put in a scripting request for a getDistanceBetweenSystems, so maybe when 1.73 of Oolite comes out, but ATM there is no way in an OXP to calculate the distrance. Although I know the Planet Number of your current location and the Planet Number of the mission system, there isn't any mathmatical relationship between them that could be used to calculate distance or jumps. The number of jumps is related to the co-ordinates, but there isn't a way to access them. You can check the F6 screen, then launch flip over and redock. I could add a View F6 Screen option to the b.b. to allow you to check the F6 screen. Really though I'd like to just display the number of jumps, but that'll have to wait for the next version of Oolite.

That would be great to get that in.

What I decided to do (since launching and reentering may lose the contract) is just alt-TAB out to windows and launch another version of oolite and use its galactic chart, then alt-TAB back to the main one after deciding yes/no. That's very efficient.


I've been having a lot of fun with RandomHits! Spent most of last night zipping all over galaxy one doing hits. I did encounter another fine when I had not used any WMDs. Are there other "cowardly" fines for things other than WMD use? I didn't even see the target (I was busy dogfighting other priates) so I have no idea what happened to him.

What do you do when you scoop up the target's escape pod? Can you eject it again and shoot it? Will you always have the option to terminate the mark when you land like happened to me once last night?

I suspect he crashed without anybody attacking him. The fault in the WMD test is that the OXP assumes that if the mark is dead and he has not ever been hit with a laser or missile or plasma turret (either by the player or NPC) then he must have been got by an e-bomb (which only the player has) or a q-mine (which NPCs can have, but are very unlikley to have fitted).

The Marks AI has a few 'cheats' to stop NPCs killing him. Firstly, pirates never attack them and they never attack other ships (except the player) unless fired apon. They can be attacked by Cops, Thargoids or NPC Bounty Hunters, but if the player is not around, the Mark always flees the NPC attack on injectors making it very difficult (but not impossible) for an NPC to kill him. In the unlikley event that an NPC drops a q-mine in the Mark's vicinity the Mark will flee (his AI keeps a look out for q-mines whilst he's flying along).

The only way the who_shot variable will remain undefined is if the mark died without anybody ever hiting him with a laser or firing a missile. 99% of the time this will be because the player e-bombed him. (You are very unlikley to get him with a q-mine, because as soon as he spots one he either flees at full injector speed or jumps out of the system - this is partcularly nasty as you will need to make it to the Mark's wormhole before it collapses whilst avoiding your own blue sphere of death - Q mines are more trouble than they are worth as a method of hitting Random Hits Marks!). However if he met with some bizare accident (like another ship in a battle injectored into him), 1.2 will wrongly assume he was player e-bombed.

Killing a mark whilst Cloaked will also count as a cowardly kill!

You always have the option to kill or hand over to GalCop a captured mark when you dock at a Bar or Main Station, although you can't eject his pod once captured.

As long as you don't make a H jump (this resets Oolite's random seed numbers) the missions will stay the same. However, you usually get about 12 - 15 different missions (3 - 5 at each skill level), so you will need to flip through the board a few times before a previous mission comes up again.