Oolite Bulletins

Posted: **Wed May 12, 2010 12:20 pm**

Let's see, the cloaking device...

Advantages:
1. All ships will not be able to track you, and will not react at all when you fire at them.
2. Missiles fired at you will instantly lose track of you upon activation - meaning you pretty much have an fail-proof ECM.
3. Your legal status won't be affected by crimes you commit while cloaked.

Disadvantages:
1. Drains energy (though not by much).
2. You won't be credited for kills/bounty you make while cloaked (though you could whittle them down to near-death then decloak.)
3. You won't be able to repair them without save-file editing, raw editing, or some form of OXP. Thargoid's repair bots won't affect them.

Other effects:
1. They're transferred to any ship you buy.
2. Your condition color will change to white.

Congratulations on getting it; try not to (ab)use it too much though.

Posted: **Wed May 12, 2010 4:30 pm**

Advantage 1 isn't quite correct, as if you fire when cloaked you decloak. At which point they will see you, and in most cases get rather upset.

And if you're cloaked then you won't get missiles fired at you at all, hence number 2 isn't quite right (although if you cloak whilst a missile is chasing you then what you say is correct).

X wrote:
Thargoid's repair bots won't affect them.

Umm Thargoid's repair bots can repair them, they just have a low (30%) chance of success per shot at it.

Posted: **Wed May 12, 2010 5:06 pm**

As I’ve said before, the cloaking device should be repairable in-game… you shouldn’t need a ‘hack’ or an oxp.
Only at TL14 or TL15 systems, and at astronomical cost, but it should be fixable in the vanilla game.

Posted: **Wed May 12, 2010 5:14 pm**

El Viejo wrote:
As I’ve said before, the cloaking device should be repairable in-game… you shouldn’t need a ‘hack’ or an oxp.
Only at TL14 or TL15 systems, and at astronomical cost, but it should be fixable in the vanilla game.

Personally, I like the idea of some kind of non-recoverable loss in Elite and the chance of losing the cloak permanently might just make the player a bit more careful.

In any case, if you want to make the cloak repairable, it can very easily be done already in 1.73.4. Open the file oolite-cloaking-device-pod.js, found in oolite.app/Resources/Scripts (first backup etc) with an editor and you will see that it contains this code:

Code: Select all

this.shipWasScooped = function (scooper)
{
	if (scooper.isPlayer)
	{
		if (!player.ship.hasEquipment("EQ_CLOAKING_DEVICE"))
		{
			player.ship.awardEquipment("EQ_CLOAKING_DEVICE");
			// Should we make it possible to repair?
			// EquipmentInfo.infoForKey("EQ_CLOAKING_DEVICE").effectiveTechLevel = 14;
		}
		else
		{
			player.ship.awardCargo("Gold", 100);
		}
	}
	// Should probably award 100 gold to non-player ships too, but they don’t have awardCargo at the moment.
};

Just remove the // from the start of the line reading EquipmentInfo.infoForKey("EQ_CLOAKING_DEVICE").effectiveTechLevel = 14;, save the file, restart Oolite with Shift down and you are set. Cloak can be repaired on tech level 15 systems.

Posted: **Wed May 12, 2010 6:50 pm**

Ahh... so the option was there, all along. Thank you, a_c.
Trouble is, it doesn't seem to work. Followed your instructions, but it doesn't show up in the ship outfitting list at a TL15. Any ideas?

Posted: **Wed May 12, 2010 6:52 pm**

Oh yeah, you are right. The reason is that this code is executed only when you scoop the cloak pod. If you have already scooped it then this won't work. Sorry, forgot to mention it earlier.

Posted: **Wed May 12, 2010 7:19 pm**

El Viejo wrote:
Ahh... so the option was there, all along. Thank you, a_c.
Trouble is, it doesn't seem to work. Followed your instructions, but it doesn't show up in the ship outfitting list at a TL15. Any ideas?

When you don't want to rescoop it, you can add the line:

Code: Select all

mission_TL_FOR_ EQ_CLOAKING_DEVICE = 14;

in your save file, between the mission variables. Probably you'll already found a similar entry for the naval energy unit. (This changing tech level for equipment will only will work for some selected equipment like the cloak)

Posted: **Wed May 12, 2010 7:53 pm**

another_commander wrote:
If you have already scooped it then this won't work.

<bangs head on wall>
Mierda!… are some bandits going to take a mighty kicking tonight, or what!
<sets navcomp for nearest anarchy system, smiling grimly>

Thanks Eric, but that’s a ‘hack’ as well, isn’t it? I might as well just ‘undamage’ it in my save file.

Posted: **Wed May 12, 2010 7:58 pm**

But with Eric's hack you'll only have to do it once. If you just unbreak them in the save then you'll have to do it again if you break it again.

Posted: **Wed May 12, 2010 8:28 pm**

I see your point Thargoid, but a hack is a hack!
I’m probably old fashioned, but I regard that sort of game-affecting hack as a cheat.

I’ll do without the cloak, as I have for months… maybe I’ll start a new commander when 1.74 emerges, do it over.
Then again, I didn’t want to start a new commander until Griff had finished his ship set.

Hey-Ho! However, thank you for your help, gentlemen.

Posted: **Wed May 12, 2010 9:07 pm**

Another thought… if the default setting is ‘unrepairable’, then the cloak should be shot-off completely, not damaged (wasn’t it like that in BBC Elite for all equipment… if it got shot-off, you had to buy the kit again at full price... or is my memory playing up again?).

Oh well…

Posted: **Thu May 13, 2010 9:11 am**

Thargoid wrote:
Advantage 1 isn't quite correct, as if you fire when cloaked you decloak. At which point they will see you, and in most cases get rather upset.

Are you by-chance playing version 1.72? In 1.73, default ships (and all the OXP ships I've seen) don't have "cloak_passive" active.

Thargoid wrote:
Umm Thargoid's repair bots can repair them, they just have a low (30%) chance of success per shot at it.

Oh, that's my bad, I peeked a bit and saw "chance of success decreases by 10% for each lvl above 9". And seeing that the cloak's TL is 99...

Posted: **Thu May 13, 2010 9:29 am**

X wrote:
Thargoid wrote:
Advantage 1 isn't quite correct, as if you fire when cloaked you decloak. At which point they will see you, and in most cases get rather upset.
Are you by-chance playing version 1.72? In 1.73, default ships (and all the OXP ships I've seen) don't have "cloak_passive" active.

On the contrary, he is playing trunk. cloak_passive as a default is an upcoming feature in 1.74, I think (and it only exists as a key since 1.73, where it is false by default).

Posted: **Thu May 13, 2010 9:39 am**

Commander McLane wrote:
On the contrary, he is playing trunk. cloak_passive as a default is an upcoming feature in 1.74, I think

This is the code that sets it up in the latest trunk:

Code: Select all

cloakPassive = [shipDict oo_boolForKey:@"cloak_passive" defaultValue:NO];

Default setting is still NO. Not that I would mind it making it a YES, though.

Posted: **Thu May 13, 2010 10:13 am**

Personally I am happy to leave the default at NO. It suits my privateer attitude.

But I remember some discussion about it where there was sort of a consensus for making YES the default.

Oolite Bulletins

Cloaking Device Mission (beware spoilers)