Oolite Bulletins

Pansen wrote:

Just one thing puzzles me... I seem to have been fitted with a 'cloaking device' knew this existed, but thought it was a different mission to get it, and don't recall any mention of being 'awarded' it - may have missed something, though! Am I supposed to have the cloak?

This is a great OXP.

Agreed this is a first rate oxp- welldone LB
I've just completed the Thorstan hit (mission 7), a bit lucky really as the mark was the first ship I targetted when I arrived at the navel base...

The cloaking device is gained from one of the native missions.
The device cannot be bought. It is activated by the number 0 (toggled on/off). If you look at an external view your ship seems to flicker and will be removed from radar so people upon whom you fire or even follow haven't the faintest idea you are the culprit. It also allows users to attack GalCop vipers without fear of fugitive rating.
However, the cloaking device slowly ebbs away at your energy banks, therefore rendering it not only temporary, but also a danger if it runs out in the midst of others lasers.

The cloaking device mission is informal in the sense you do not get a display screen. On roughly your sixth jump through the 5th galaxy, you shall arrive to meet 3 happy vessels. Suddenly, 1 shall fire on you whilst the other just sits there idly. The one that fires on you then turns away - still orange. You could kill them, but better is to wonder where the third ship went? They will start firing on you soon and will flicker visibly, but not on radar. They will be untargetable. Kill them carefully and pick up the cargo. You then have the cloaking device. WARNING - IF YOU MISS THIS MISSION (DEATH, DESTRUCTION OF DEVICE, THEY GOT AWAY) YOU MUST LOAD THE GAME AND TRY AGAIN. THE MISSION DOES NOT COME TWICE!

Yep. Its an oddity that can arrise if you completed the cloaking device mission but didn't actually scoop up the cloak. Your 'Mark Transponder Scanner' cannot function whilst cloaked, so assassins disables the cloaking device whilst you and a contract traget are in the same system. In code I did this by removing the cloaking device and then reawarding it when the victim died or you left his system. In order to check whether you had the cloak in the first place when the code does the reaward I only checked to see if the cloaking device mission read "COMPLETE". So if you hadn't completed the cloaking device mission then you don't suddenly aquire the cloak.

However, what I should have done really was check for the presence of the cloak itself and set an internal mission flag. It is possible to complete the cloaking device mission and fail to aquire the cloak. Oolite sets the cloaking device mission to COMPLETE when you kill the cloaked asp in G5. To get the cloak you have to scoop it from the wreakage.

I think what probabley happened is that you killed the cloaked asp at some point, but you didn't scoop the cloak. Because assassins only checks the mission status of the cloaking device mission, beacuse you'd completed it assassins assumed that you had the cloak.

Hi again.

just checked code, and only thing referred to is a 'cloakcounter', so prob a bug. Note that following the 'duel' mission, the cloak device is gone! Should have sold up when I had it, 'cos added about 100000C to my ship's value!!

Thanks for the help.

Hi - sorry - didn't realise this thread had moved onto a second page, so only read the last two messages after posting a moment ago....

I'm guessing that I must have failed to pick up the cloaking device, then - that's annoying - had no idea of the mission when back in gal 5, so prob would have just ignored the cargo!

I guess there's abosolutely no way for me to get the cloak now? (as noted above, it seems to have dissapeared from my equipment list after the duel mission).

To be honest, prob would have upgraded ships since gal 5, so guess I'd have lost the cloak anyway.

Incidently, I nor anyone I knew ever came accross the cloak many years ago in the original elite, so really hard to find! Great addition to the game, tho.

Sorry again! - not doing very well tonite...

Just read the post about the aquaticsOXP, so some hope still

Pansen, you really should upgrade to the newest version of Oolite. Many OXP's won't work any more with the version you have (you wrote 2007 somewhere) because they rely on functionality added in since 1.65.

You do know the oxp page on the wiki, yes? Lots of stuff, but many need 1.72.2 or at least 1.70 to run.

Have fun

L

Thanks again for the advice.

Will def have to sort out an upgrade, for sure...

Still finding funny things with the cloak:

To see if I'd completed the cloak mission without realising it, I jumped back (forwards?) to Gal 4, and found the Asp carrying the device, so def did not complete the mission without realising. Obviously didn't save this - just to test).

Also, on scooping a 'cargo container' ie no description as to what it was (system 7) I got the device again! - taken awy at the start of my next mission.. - anyway, not too worried about this. Just glad that it seems I did not miss the cloak in gal 4.

Should have said Gal 5 in the above post....