Oolite Bulletins

Thanks for the tips guys. I've tinkered when the frangible setting and having made 10 jumps or so I haven't had an overhaul since, and that included several bouts of combat too.

That seems to confirm the initial diagnosis!

Unfortunately the initial (aka 'classic') implementation of frangible subentities had a 'minor' flaw: whenever a subentity was broken off, it would stay broken forever and ever, unless the player saved their game, that is.
Upon reloading the subentities would magically reappear!

The second part of the 'classic' behaviour was as much of a bug as firing all missiles on a cobbie, saving the game, and on reload, instead of the empty pylons... tah-dah! 3 new standard missiles!


What we have now: saving & reloading doesn't magically change a ship with broken subentities to a totally undamaged one on reload.

Of course, now that we have a non-magical ship, the maintenace overhaul is the only plausible in-game mechanism we can use to restore bits that were broken off...


Reverting to a buggy implementation of frangible subents seems, to me, a very weird decision... It seems better - to me - to have the fuller frangible subentities implementation, and to update player ship OXPs as and if a non-frangible update is warranted.

Hi Guys,

I had the same problem, subentities of my Caddy kept getting shot off, with the nasty bills as result.

After a while I added 'frangible false' to the main body of my shipdata.plist, and now the problem is gone

Greetz,
Onno.

I had this "problem" too, coupled with a low bank account. I do like the effect though, so I temporarily downgraded to a Griff BCC. When I get my cash flow fixed, I'll hunt the shipyard for an Omega and kick some serious (ehrm..) rear parts again.

After a while I added 'frangible false' to the main body of my shipdata.plist, and now the problem is gone

Hi onno256,

I'm having the same problems with my Caddy. 3 overhauls at about 40 thou each in one sitting!!
Could you tell me exactly where you added the frangible false and preferably the syntax too.
I'm really bad at programming, though manage to read it sort of..
Seriously thinking of going back to 1.74.2 Just to get away from maintenance costs.

Hey Alex,

I guess I spoke too soon, I was playing a while back, and noticed some plasma cannons missing in the external views. So what I did sort of didn't pan out. I'll look into it today, and respond later.

Time to tinker again, I guess....

Gotta love the Caddy, though!

Greetz,
Onno.

Alex wrote:

I'm having the same problems with my Caddy. 3 overhauls at about 40 thou each in one sitting!!
Could you tell me exactly where you added the frangible false and preferably the syntax too.
I'm really bad at programming, though manage to read it sort of..
Seriously thinking of going back to 1.74.2 Just to get away from maintenance costs.

Wait, doesn't the Caduceus repair itself, after some time? I thought if you waited long enough you wouldn't have to pay any maintenance costs at all...

In any case: frangible!

And the shipdata.plist you need to modify is the one inside caduceus.oxp

In case your shipdata.plist is in XML:

Thanks onno256 and Kaks
I was looking in the caddys ship.plist within the oxp for neocadd. which is the version I'm using.
Done a search for 'frangible' and after every entry was a false statment.
Oh and ye it reads as XML. Err, I don't actually know what xml is, just looks the same format.
I added the same 2 lines above and below my turret script just to be sure. Haven't tried it out yet.
I also modified my caddy omega to a Caddy OMG by having 3 more turrets added to the aft. Tweaked the pitch to be slower and roll slightly faster also took top end up a little.
Took weeks to sort that lot right.By asking propper proggers to get the right fit, bloomin things cost 500,000Cr. Really don't want them to be shot of by any tebar, jiely or herbert.

Thanks again Commanders
After a few flights and run ins, will post again with results.
No Post... The jielys got me!

And don't forget to make FALSE at all the frangible bits of code. As the spiny engine bits are also frangible. So if your editor has a find application type frangible into it and check the whole file. Otherwise you will still get hefty repair bills.

Listen to Thargoid, he knows what he is talking about.

Hmm interesting I thought sub-ents gradually regained power over time and respawned after they had recharged. I don't know the syntax and wider implications of fragable.

Still for game balance it does add a little spice to owning a flying pillbox.

ClymAngus wrote:

Hmm interesting I thought sub-ents gradually regained power over time and respawned after they had recharged.

If they have a value for energy_recharge, they do regain power over time, just like the main entity. However, if a subentity is shot off (= lost all its power = killed), it does no longer exist, just like a main entity that got killed. Ergo there is nothing which could regain power.

In short: just like a main entity, a subentity can come back from being damaged, but not from death.

ClymAngus wrote:

I don't know the syntax and wider implications of fragable.

I don't think there are wider implications. There are only two cases:

1) non-frangible: All subentities are fused permanently with the main entity. They don't have separate energy or energy recharge. If any subentity is hit, the main entity suffers damage. The whole bundle is treated like one single model with the combined number of vertices of main entity plus subentities. This was necessary to get around Oolite's faces-and-vertices limitations and build more complex models.

2) frangible: All subentities are attached to the main entity, but don't become part of the main entity. The game keeps track of them separately. They have their own energy and energy recharge. If one is killed, it dies alone, without affecting other subentities or the main entity. If the main entity suffers an existence failure, all subentities die with it.

And that's all there is to it.

I think frangible is an interesting direction to take and could end up adding considerable interest to the game.

What I'm wondering is at what point of damage on a frangible part is the maintenance overhaul triggered? Is it any damage at all, or a certain percentage? Considering the fee for the overhaul seems to always be the same, it'd be a bit steep if it's being triggered over a minor ding or some scraped paint.

And is there some point of damage where parts quit working? It'd seem a bit off if something will still work at full functionality all the way down to 99% damaged just as it'd be a bit odd to have it quit working the second it gets the show-room shine knocked off.