collision detection

[another_commander]

Try with a nightly build. I think all this was fixed after the 1.74.2 release.

[Disembodied]

I'm using 1.74.2 and I haven't been rammed by anyone since updating. There have been a few close calls but nothing fatal! The PCC is a big ship, though, so maybe it's harder for NPCs to avoid.

[Eric Walch]

Good question.

Is there a way to get rid of kamikaze pilots (Fer-de-Lances, mostly) in future releases? Make them pull up earlier?

We did this already. It's been ages since I last got rammed by a pirate on injectors (or without injectors, for that matter).

Not true in 1.74.2. I'm flying a Python Class Cruiser, got rammed by another PCC twice, by a Mamba once, and a lot of times by FdLs. FdLs did have injectors, the others didn't. Annoying as hell in any case.

What in 1.74 was changed is that ships that stop their injectors, slow down a bit faster than before. That helps avoiding head-on crashes.

The moment that ships decide to turn around is a bit dependent on laser type. Ships with pulse lasers turn closer to the target. That makes that ships with both pulse lasers and fuel injection are potential kamikaze pilots. In core Oolite this combination is avoided, but there could be npc ships with that combination.

As A_C mentioned have things in trunk changed here a bit. There are two mechanisms that try to avoid collisions in fight.

A) Setting a deliberate jink coordinate on approach that really sends the ship away from the player. That works quite well but avoids many of the near collisions that might frighten the player. Making this to good removes some of the fun.
B) All ships have an area around them that generates a collision pre warning. Ships getting such a warning will also try to avoid a collision. This results in more "near-misses".

In trunk is the distance at which B starts a bit enlarged, allowing ships to react a bit sooner in avoiding a collision. But B only works reliable when ships are not flying to fast, therefor trunk now also takes approach speed in account during fight. When the speed it to high for a reliable B mechanism, it uses the A mechanism to avoid a collision. At lower speed it also sets a jink position, but now one that sends a ship at a small angle(*) to the player and it fully relies on the B mechanism to avoid the actual bang.

It was tested with many ships and I think its better in avoiding fast approaching ships than before. But don't fully rely on it as flying at injector speed yourself to a ship approaching on injectors, still leads to crashes.

*: Actual a random angle that can also be zero sometimes, sending slow moving ships in a head-on collision course

[Zireael]

Thanks to all for replies.

1) I'm not using injectors in fight, never (I prefer to kill my engines and aim better)

2) I'm not going to use trunk. Too much effort.

I hope the kamikazes get removed before the next (non-nightly or trunk) version, though.

[another_commander]

2) I'm not going to use trunk. Too much effort.

What do you mean? It's your choice at the end, but for what it's worth, it is exactly the same effort as installing a standard version of the game.

[Zireael]

2) I'm not going to use trunk. Too much effort.

What do you mean? It's your choice at the end, but for what it's worth, it is exactly the same effort as installing a standard version of the game.

Right, and fighting bugs that could appear. No way. I prefer my version.

[another_commander]

2) I'm not going to use trunk. Too much effort.

What do you mean? It's your choice at the end, but for what it's worth, it is exactly the same effort as installing a standard version of the game.

Right, and fighting bugs that could appear. No way. I prefer my version.

The idea was that you would run the nightly once or twice for the explicit purpose of checking for yourself whether the kamikaze issue has been indeed fixed, not for substituting your standard game with it. I am one of the first to say that trunk is not for actual gaming, but it certainly is useful for testing.

Anyway, nevermind.