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Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2010 6:05 pm
by Smivs
Zieman wrote:
Good idea DaddyHoggy.

Nitpick: there's a typo here:
DaddyHoggy wrote:
"Bring a ACME Torus Fusion generator (equivalent TC = 425) to the Quitiri system by XXXX date."
Should read ...OOCME Torus Fusion generator... 8)
As used by Wile. E. CoyOote? :D

Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2010 6:10 pm
by pagroove
DaddyHoggy wrote:
Given the cargo buy/sell limits in Oolite on the commodity market (which Lestradae was trying to get round - reasonably - with OSE and the Oobay Market place) - the Anaconda is a pointless ship...

BUT...

If there was an OXP for Anaconda pilots that gave them loads of missions to haul special (physically) bulky kit across the galaxy (and I'm not talking just the normal large bulk cargo contracts here) - something that had a bit more "feel" about them:

"Bring a ACME Torus Fusion generator (equivalent TC = 425) to the Quitiri system by XXXX date."

etc.

Might make one feel like owning one of these OTT haulers actually worthwhile.

Thats a VERY good idea. Maybe a combo with the Bioomberg.oxp?

Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2010 8:32 pm
by DaddyHoggy
Zieman wrote:
Good idea DaddyHoggy.

Nitpick: there's a typo here:
DaddyHoggy wrote:
"Bring a ACME Torus Fusion generator (equivalent TC = 425) to the Quitiri system by XXXX date."
Should read ...OOCME Torus Fusion generator... 8)
:wink: Actually, I did consider that it should be (in the strictest sense) ACMOO, but I resisted.

Glad my idea has been well received - to be honest it simply stems from the idea of having to strip things down so that they fit in to 1TC pods - you buy say, 30TC of machinery and you can as you fly drop 30TC pods, but if that 30TC was just one single Combine Harvester off to a poor agricultural world intact that won't physically fit inside a Cobby3 unless its stripped down into 30 bits and stuffed inside cargo pods...

Wouldn't it be nice to imagine and describe picking up and delivering whole pieces of equipment in your Anaconda, or is that just me?

Posted: Fri Jun 18, 2010 12:41 am
by Zbond-Zbond
DaddyHoggy wrote:
..to imagine and describe picking up and delivering whole pieces of equipment
Thinking about how to describe e.g. the mass-electromagnetic-spectrohelioscope urgently needed at Planet X fuels the creative urge to draw one; the more impossible the written description the greater the scope for one's imagination. Is it a simple matter to assign an unused key (such as f9 - or any other key) to show the "cargo hold"? Some ships do define the cargo hold as an external view. The "empty hold" (currently undefined for an Anaconda) would become the "background" etc.

However, if the ship were always the Anaconda, then only one background cargo-hold would be needed.

No-one suggested wOoly coyote?

Posted: Fri Jun 18, 2010 8:57 am
by Kaks
It's worth mentioning that you can already load special cargo on the player's ship - with its own personalised description too - but if carrying special cargo no other cargo can be collected, or bought & sold.

Actually, you can still do some modest trade in the 'light' commodities: gold, platinum & gem stones, though no scooping - apart from fuel - will be possible due to the specially reconfigured cargo bay. (Yep, handwavium)
Come to think of it, I've no idea if it's actually possible to recover the captured thargons from Thargoid's OXP while carrying special cargo...

Posted: Fri Jun 18, 2010 12:17 pm
by Zbond-Zbond
How - or where - are special cargoes loaded (or found)?

Posted: Fri Jun 18, 2010 12:35 pm
by Commander McLane
Zbond-Zbond wrote:
How - or where - are special cargoes loaded (or found)?
The ur-example is not even OXP, but has been built into Oolite forever: The refugees from a certain system in Galaxy 5 which is about to go through a cosmic catastrophy as soon as the player arrives are special cargo. In order to take them aboard your cargo hold is emptied first, without compensation. And they show up on your manifest screen as special cargo in your hold, until they leave your ship in a neighbouring galaxy. :wink:

Posted: Sat Jun 19, 2010 12:49 am
by Zbond-Zbond
do you know whether it's possible to look at that part of the code? I've tried to find something similar (re. native missions - the same one, in fact) but have not been successful in the past :?:

Posted: Sat Jun 19, 2010 7:57 am
by another_commander
Zbond-Zbond wrote:
do you know whether it's possible to look at that part of the code? I've tried to find something similar (re. native missions - the same one, in fact) but have not been successful in the past :?:
If you want to see how special cargo is used in a mission, look at oolite.app/Resources/Scripts/oolite-nova-mission.js, line 117 for how to add and same file, line 59 for how to remove. If you want to see how it is done in the core code, download the source and have a look at src/Core/Entities/PlayerEntityLegacyScriptEngine.m, line 1422, -useSpecialCargo: method.

Posted: Fri Jun 25, 2010 6:07 pm
by tonyhippy
My Commander Ahab has now gone back to flying an Anaconda! Now I have the OXPs Fuel Tanks and Armoury it's not so bad. He's even been lurking in anarchy systems running stuff between the main station and Seedy Space Bar.

Admittedy I modded the stats slightly to add a couple of extra missile pylons......

Incidentally I tried Hired Guns OXP again, but the trouble with that OXP is that the hirelings just can't keep up (even with an Anaconda!!!) if you use the Torus Drive or even the Witchfuel Injector, and if you leave them too far behind they bugger off and leave you

Posted: Fri Jun 25, 2010 9:17 pm
by Thargoid
No they don't, they jump with you but off the scanner ([handwavium]or else their torus drive will interfere with yours[/handwavium]).

Do your torus jump, go back to normal flight and wait a few seconds. Your escorts will catch you up and reform their position to you.

Posted: Fri Jun 25, 2010 9:19 pm
by Poro
tonyhippy wrote:
Incidentally I tried Hired Guns OXP again, but the trouble with that OXP is that the hirelings just can't keep up (even with an Anaconda!!!) if you use the Torus Drive or even the Witchfuel Injector, and if you leave them too far behind they bugger off and leave you
Agreed! This really limits my use of Hired Guns. You could simply have the Ooniverse explanation that other ships do have Torus Drives, but don't seem to use them in relation to you, and the hired ships slave themselves to your Torus Drive. Whenever you boost - they boost.

EDIT: just read Thargoid's response, goes to show how little I use hired pilots.

Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2010 12:24 am
by Switeck
Don't bother ever trying to salvage ships using salvage missiles (from Dredgers v2.4.2 OXP) when you have Hired Guns around -- they may not even be on radar, but they quickly show up and blast the derelict ship. :cry:

Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2010 6:24 am
by Thargoid
Switeck wrote:
Don't bother ever trying to salvage ships using salvage missiles (from Dredgers v2.4.2 OXP) when you have Hired Guns around -- they may not even be on radar, but they quickly show up and blast the derelict ship. :cry:
Hired Guns v1.22 uploaded, which will fix that particular issue.

Alternatively open the file hiredGuns_escort.js, and change line 75 to:

Code: Select all

return (entity.isThargoid || (entity.isShip && entity.target && entity.target == player.ship && entity.hasHostileTarget && !entity.isDerelict));
The last check will stop them shooting at derelicts (except Thargoid ones, but those shouldn't exist anyway). That said if the derelict was truly a derelict it wouldn't be hostile to the player and actively targetting him, but that's a side-issue.

If you make the change manually, don't forget to hold down shift for the restart to clear the cache and make it take effect.

Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2010 7:48 am
by Eric Walch
Thargoid wrote:

Code: Select all

return (entity.isThargoid || (entity.isShip && entity.target && entity.target == player.ship && entity.hasHostileTarget && !entity.isDerelict));
I don't think that this will help. The main goal of the derelict is to fly to the dredger, so that is always its target. When the "entity.target == player.ship" is encountered, further evaluation stops.
The only moment that the target of a derelict could be the player is shortly after the pilot ejected but before the missile hits.
But even than the "entity.hasHostileTarget" would be false for a derelict.

For a ship having "hasHostileTarget" to be true it must be in one of the attack behaviours (including flee_target). A derelict is in idle-behaviour.

The only time your hired guns can target the "derelict" is when it is still alive and fighting. Once targeted by your hired guns, it can become a derelict, but your hired guns still have it as target. Adding a "isDerelict" in the search won't change this.