Oolite Bulletins

Changing the code to have ironhide kick in when shields are partially depleted worked and i saw no effect at all on energy banks.

I did notice the shield strength jumped back up from red to full strength, so investigated further.

Shields in Oolite have the following strengths :
basic forward shield : 128
Forward Shield Boosters : 256
Forward Mil Shields : 384

the values for the aft shields are the same, and these numbers are valid for a cobra MK III, Python, Tiger and a dragon M.
That suggests shield strength is the same for all ships.

This means ironhide strength with 200 / 400 seems a bit high, also the price is far to low.

I am now changing the script and equipment.plist to use 3 ironhide versions :
basic strength 128
civilian 256 (requires basic ironhide and shield boosters)
military 384 (requires civilian ironhide and mil. shields)

Ironhide will kick in when shields are below 25% of max, and only raise the shields back to 25% of max.
I also am trying to optimise the code.
(example : i am using alertConditionChanged to start / stop the timer now, instead of docking / leaving dock ) .

first alpha version is almost ready to be play tested, once i've gotten bugs out i'll look into uploading it somewhere so you can look at it

Or potentially combine it to make a better heat shielding when still mostly intact?

Lone_Wolf wrote:

Changing the code to have ironhide kick in when shields are partially depleted worked and i saw no effect at all on energy banks.

Umm, they already do. As soon as any hit gets taken on the shields they are restored by the IH, which depletes as a result.

Lone_Wolf wrote:

the values for the aft shields are the same, and these numbers are valid for a cobra MK III, Python, Tiger and a dragon M.
That suggests shield strength is the same for all ships.

It is. Only the size of (and hence number of banks of) a ships energy reserve changes from ship to ship.

Lone_Wolf wrote:

first alpha version is almost ready to be play tested, once i've gotten bugs out i'll look into uploading it somewhere so you can look at it

I would draw your attention to the license of the OXP at this point. As I said before, if you can get something that works better, we can merge it into IH, but I do not want a different version of IH flying around as it will probably break the original (and also the license terms).

Thargoid wrote:

Lone_Wolf wrote:

Changing the code to have ironhide kick in when shields are partially depleted worked and i saw no effect at all on energy banks.

Umm, they already do. As soon as any hit gets taken on the shields they are restored by the IH, which depletes as a result.

The main flaw with IronHide 1.01 in my opinion is that IH is depleted before the shields, not after.
This is not the kind of behaviour one expects from hull strengthening equipment, and also the reason why it has to be repaired so often.
My code puts IH effect closer to where it should be : used AFTER shields have been depleted.

Thargoid wrote:

Lone_Wolf wrote:

first alpha version is almost ready to be play tested, once i've gotten bugs out i'll look into uploading it somewhere so you can look at it

I would draw your attention to the license of the OXP at this point. As I said before, if you can get something that works better, we can merge it into IH, but I do not want a different version of IH flying around as it will probably break the original (and also the license terms).

I have called my WIP version ironHide 1.09alpha1 for now, the reason for alpha is that the change in IH code and behaviour is big, and needs to be tested.

Once i am reasonably sure it works as intended, i will find a way to send the code to you.
If you like it, it can become IH 1.10 and the description can be changed to reflect the new behaviour.
If you don't want it to become IH 1.10, i'll look into making it a separate
OXP and change the code to be compliant with the license.

Lone Wolf wrote:

The main flaw with IronHide 1.01 in my opinion is that IH is depleted before the shields, not after.
This is not the kind of behaviour one expects from hull strengthening equipment, and also the reason why it has to be repaired so often.
My code puts IH effect closer to where it should be : used AFTER shields have been depleted.

And in my opinion also. But as there is no trigger (at the moment) on the player ship taking damage, then it's very difficult to code it "properly" as you describe as being a bank between the shields and the energy.

I'm away for two week as of Saturday, so won't be able to test anything for a while. But as I said before, if you have a way to get the IH to trigger after shields are fully depleted but without triggering on other items that drain energy then I'm interested to see it.

If it works I have no problem with it becoming v1.10. I only mention the license (and indeed license my OXPs that way) to prevent multiple different versions flying around that would be incompatible and would screw each other up.

There seems to be a bit of an issue with 2.0.0. It does seem to kick in between the shields and the energy bank however equipment still gets destroyed. By the time the Armour had been destroyed I had lost most of my cargo and an alarming amount of equipment... Is this deliberate? I had hoped that the extra armour would protect my precious witchspace drive.

Thargoid wrote:

Read the readme - it's quite deliberate (as in I don't do anything about it).

It's designed to be realistic, concussion damage for example will turn the crew of a tank into pate on some occasions even if the vehicles armour isn't breached. And if it weren't the case, all those sparky consoles on the Starship Enterprise would be rather redundant...

If it worries you so much, invest in repair bots too

Pancake rounds are specifically designed not to breach the armour but to cause maximum amount of shrapnel on the inside of the vehicle - nothing more demoralising for an army to come across one of their own tanks, apparently undamaged, lift the hatch, only to find that the contents have been turned into soup. When it comes to interesting ways to kill each other, humans are A+ (unfortunately)

Particularly as the strategy is to wound rather than kill because that is a greater drain on resources.

Yeah... the human race has a 'talent for war', which brings to mind a sci-fi novel.

(cross posted from another thread)

Think I've got a bug (in v.2.0)!

Got in a firefight at a space bar, and my civilian IronHide armour got damaged.

When I arrived at the main station, there wasn't an option to repair (well to get a quote) but there was an option to buy another IronHide. I bought it. When I arrived at the next station, there was now an option to obtain a quote and repair. Now do I have two armours, or one (my save file says no lol)

From my save file, here are the relevant bits. I don't know if anything is of use though.:

Thargoid wrote:

It sounds like your first set was completely destroyed (taken down to zero). But it might be in that scenario there could be a carry-over from one set to the next to trigger the second repair quote.

I'll try your scenario out and see if I can replicate. Can you confirm whether the first set was indeed completely destroyed, or just damaged partially?

I think that that it was partially damaged, as it was brown on the equipment list (along with a number of other equipment items).

Strangely, since I posted that message, I have been given the option to obtain a quote/repair a couple more times, which I have done. I'm hoping that its all repaired now, but will let you know if it happens again.