Split: Cargo bug

[Commander McLane]

I always thought that the insurance policy came with the pod. Or was this done to discourage players from "creating" too many escape pods?

It was so that if you ejected you would actually have a ship again.

I've never thought about it before, but indeed it seems we've got two different types of insurances here.

The one you get together with your pod gives you back a ship like yours. It doesn't say, however, that if you're rescued from your pod your rescuer would be paid anything.

So perhaps there's some extra top-up insurance which makes sure your rescuer gets something, in order to encourage pilots not to sell rescued people as slaves. But then the question kicks in why the player isn't offered this top-up, and whether it wouldn't be better to have that a mandatory top-up anyway. Which brings us back to Disembodied's original statement: The insurance policy comes with the pod.

Therefore every pilot who is sitting in a pod must be insured.

But here's our solution: There are many non-pilots sitting in pods as well. Think of the multiple pods we have now. Only the pilot would have the ship-plus-rescuing-fee insurance. Everybody else wouldn't. Voilà!

By the way, this brings a rather dark edge to touristic cruises in the Ooniverse. Yes, there are escape pods for the cruise ship passengers in case something goes wrong. But no, they aren't necessarily insured, so the stranded passenger could end up being sold into slavery.

[Eric Walch]

By the way, this brings a rather dark edge to touristic cruises in the Ooniverse. Yes, there are escape pods for the cruise ship passengers in case something goes wrong. But no, they aren't necessarily insured, so the stranded passenger could end up being sold into slavery.

Passengers are actually better insured than trader pilots

For traders, the code makes a random selection from: 0, 125, 250 or 500 credits, while for passengers there is the random choice between: 25, 125, 250 or 500 cr.
(Passengers go in all extra defined pods for a ship)

--

Back to Disembodied his observation: I can't see any funny in the code. On docking all pods that contain a crew are first removed. Than the reward messages are generated for the crews with bounty/reward. When there is no message to generate, there is just 1 non of slaves rewarded. So, at first sight, the code seems very robust against bugs with pilots.

[Disembodied]

Hmm ... it is possible that I just wasn't paying attention! I'll keep an eye out though for any future occurrences. One other thing (and again, I might just have not been paying attention): I *think* that, on several occasions, I've scooped escape pods ejected from pirate ships, and later been given rewards for rescuing them as opposed to bounty for capturing them. Although I couldn't swear to it ... I'll keep a closer eye out in future though!

[Cody]

I *think* that, on several occasions, I've scooped escape pods ejected from pirate ships, and later been given rewards for rescuing them as opposed to bounty for capturing them. Although I couldn't swear to it

I'm pretty sure I can confirm that... memory tells me that's happened many times.

[Eric Walch]

on several occasions, I've scooped escape pods ejected from pirate ships, and later been given rewards for rescuing them as opposed to bounty for capturing them. Although I couldn't swear to it ... I'll keep a closer eye out in future though!

That is correct behaviour. But it were not the pilots you scooped than, but the pilots previously scooped by the pirates.

Before 1.74, the code for scooping pods had a bug that the running AI was not correctly stored and was not be restored on ejecting. Since 1.74 all pods are ejected in the AI state were they were scooped. For escape capsules it means that scooped escape capsules continue flying to the main planet after ejecting, like freshly generated pods do. In the past such pods just tumbled around in a nullAI.

[Disembodied]

That is correct behaviour. But it were not the pilots you scooped than, but the pilots previously scooped by the pirates.

Aha! That makes sense. Mind you, rough day ... to have two ships blown out from under you in one trip ...

[Darkbee]

That is correct behaviour. But it were not the pilots you scooped than, but the pilots previously scooped by the pirates.

Aha! That makes sense. Mind you, rough day ... to have two ships blown out from under you in one trip ...

It could always be worse... maybe you forgot to renew that life (rescue?) insurance policy and end up getting sold into slavery.

[Disembodied]

Back to Disembodied his observation: I can't see any funny in the code. On docking all pods that contain a crew are first removed. Than the reward messages are generated for the crews with bounty/reward. When there is no message to generate, there is just 1 non of slaves rewarded. So, at first sight, the code seems very robust against bugs with pilots.

I've just repeated this, and made sure to take careful note. I'd scooped three named escape pods, and one cargo pod containing slaves. Then I scooped another, uninsured, pod, and got the message "You have captured a slave". Before docking the ship's manifest was showing 5 tons of slaves.

I docked, and got bounty/reward for three pilots. But on the F8 screen, there was only 1 ton of slaves for sale. So either my one uninsured pilot got amalgamated in with the ton of slaves in the cargo pod, or he crawled out through the fuel scoop as soon as there was an atmosphere around the ship ... I prefer this latter version but in game terms there seems to be a cargo leak!

[Eric Walch]

I docked, and got bounty/reward for three pilots. But on the F8 screen, there was only 1 ton of slaves for sale. So either my one uninsured pilot got amalgamated in with the ton of slaves in the cargo pod, or he crawled out through the fuel scoop as soon as there was an atmosphere around the ship ... I prefer this latter version but in game terms there seems to be a cargo leak!

There surely is something weird going on. Not only leaking but also transforming.

I was not so patience as you, I just spawned ships with role trader and forced the pilot to eject with "abandonShip()" in the console. I went on till I had ten pilots scooped. Very weird as on the 6th I got the message captured instead of rescued. Traders should not produce pilots with bounty. But on docking, all ten gave a rescue message and an insurance fee. So at least one of the pilots got insured while in my hold

No slaves though. Statistically there should have been 2. EDIT: Thinking about it. Maybe there were two un-insured pods (with the captured message) but they showed up insured after docking? Confused...

I actually scoop rarely an slave when scooping an escape capsule. I now created a ship with a specific escape capsule with the "unpiloted" key set to true. (its a bug setting it to true, but I know there are oxps containing such pods) Such pods cant receive a pilot and always contains a slave. However, this was not the cause of the bug as I still had my slaves after docking.
I'll keep a better I on my slave-count in future.

EDIT: Found the bug for the inconsistent messages. The character code is so complex that it always breaks my brain when trying to understand.

For creating a pilot:
- first a random system number is generated and its government type is determined.
- based on the government type, the character might get a bounty to start with (discrimination by origin)
- than is a role attached to the character. When it is a trader, he might get a insurance.

This means that there are pilots around with both insurance and bounty. However, on scooping the code looks first at the bounty to generate a "captured" message. But on docking it first looks at the insurance and gives a "rescued" message. So to fix this, the bounty/insurance checks on scooping must be switched in future.

Still no sign for a cargo leak...

[Commander McLane]

Very weird as on the 6th I got the message captured instead of rescued.

I had always the feeling that something isn't right with this part of the code. The captured and rescued screen messages never seemed related to what ship I had blown up before, and they also were never related to the bounty or insurance messages on the arrival screen.

[Eric Walch]

Very weird as on the 6th I got the message captured instead of rescued.

I had always the feeling that something isn't right with this part of the code. The captured and rescued screen messages never seemed related to what ship I had blown up before, and they also were never related to the bounty or insurance messages on the arrival screen.

Okay, I now have it consistent. But it now springs to my mind what should get priority: bounty or insurance. It should be logic for the player as the player never sees the bounty of the trader pilot. That would suggest insurance first.

But, what if the trader ship became an offender? The pilot now definitely inherits a bounty from its ship. This pilot gave in the past always the "captured" massage.

Probably the bounty should go first after all, but than trader pilots have to be cleaned first?

[DaddyHoggy]

Very weird as on the 6th I got the message captured instead of rescued.

I had always the feeling that something isn't right with this part of the code. The captured and rescued screen messages never seemed related to what ship I had blown up before, and they also were never related to the bounty or insurance messages on the arrival screen.

Okay, I now have it consistent. But it now springs to my mind what should get priority: bounty or insurance. It should be logic for the player as the player never sees the bounty of the trader pilot. That would suggest insurance first.

But, what if the trader ship became an offender? The pilot now definitely inherits a bounty from its ship. This pilot gave in the past always the "captured" massage.

Probably the bounty should go first after all, but than trader pilots have to be cleaned first?

As you're clean once you've ejected and been issued your new ship perhaps insurance should take priority?

[Eric Walch]

As you're clean once you've ejected and been issued your new ship perhaps insurance should take priority?

After thinking it thru, I think insurance giving priority on scooping will give the behaviour most players would expect.

But ignoring the bounty on docking takes away a lot of the detail that went into character creation. So I now have the feeling we should add a new type of message that shows that the pilot has both a bounty and an insurance. Maybe even two different messages:

• - In high governments its more likely he is imprisoned after all giving a reward to the player.
  - In low government a higher chance the pilot is released and the player receives the insurance.

Any ideas about this and propositions for a short text in line with existing messages?

[Disembodied]

Would it be possible for the player to be offered a bribe by a scooped pilot with a bounty? One which might be higher (or lower) than the bounty itself ... It would mean adding in a "Do you accept Y/N?" message for each pilot, of course.

[another_commander]

Would it be possible for the player to be offered a bribe by a scooped pilot with a bounty? One which might be higher (or lower) than the bounty itself ... It would mean adding in a "Do you accept Y/N?" message for each pilot, of course.

From a player's standpoint, I don't think I would like anything that would make me work on a report screen. This screen is meant to be viewed quickly and then be out of the way. In addition to that, I would rather not change that particular screen's type from Report to Dialog.