Oolite Bulletins

Here is a Scout I have just finished:

for download link visit this thread: https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=9695
and the textured version of my thargoid hunter:

The exhaust plume does seem to be relatively large and distant from the Thargoid Hunter...

DaddyHoggy wrote:

The exhaust plume does seem to be relatively large and distant from the Thargoid Hunter...

if you look at the linked thread you would know that the thargoid hunter (now known as `Bug hunter` or `RAID` due to a sugestion from Disembodied) is still in the development stages, the exhaust is one of the things still being developed.

by the way, RAID stands 'for Rapid Advanced Interceptor Destroyers'

hmmmmm, I finished the Hauler P30 and gave it route1trader AI and set up a quick script (when I say set up what I actually mean is borrowed Griff's 'Griff Krait' test script and changed 3 to 40) so that whenever I leave a station or jump 40 appear around me. but for some reason, instead of jumping away they all fly towards the sun, why?
here is a picture, all those little yellow things on my radar are Hauler P30s:

Staer9 wrote:

hmmmmm, I finished the Hauler P30 and gave it route1trader AI and set up a quick script (when I say set up what I actually mean is borrowed Griff's 'Griff Krait' test script and changed 3 to 40) so that whenever I leave a station or jump 40 appear around me. but for some reason, instead of jumping away they all fly towards the sun, why?

This indicates that they actually have route2sunskimAI.

A random portion of traders jumping in at the witchpoint will switch their AI to route2sunskimAI. So will a random portion of traders after launching from the main station. However, traders spawned close to the main station should usually attempt to dock, not fly to the sun.

well I checked and they are definately set to route1traderAI, I kinda wanted to see them all smash into the station
I was wondering if that would make the staion explode and spill out loads of free cargo

I had some fun with main stations and Baakili Far Traders when I was creating said OXP, I set the Baakili's density to 50 and gave it dockingAI... Once the station was hurled very near the system sun, and started to glow bright red .

my hauler p30s are extremely strong, I had to empty the magazine of commander mclane's heavy railgun and max my front military laser's heat out twice to eventually destroy one. but because of their huge cargo capacity I set the likely cargo to 1000 which causes the game to lag somewhat...

If you see one on the shipping lane just ignore it.

Staer9 wrote:

my hauler p30s are extremely strong, I had to empty the magazine of commander mclane's heavy railgun and max my front military laser's heat out twice to eventually destroy one. but because of their huge cargo capacity I set the likely cargo to 1000 which causes the game to lag somewhat...

I'd rather suggest to keep it in the normal range of 1 - 15. Enabling the player to fill his hold several times over after just one kill sounds a little like a get-rich-quick scheme.

Commander Mclane wrote:

I'd rather suggest to keep it in the normal range of 1 - 15. Enabling the player to fill his hold several times over after just one kill sounds a little like a get-rich-quick scheme.

the actual release was set to something between 40 and 60 (after all, it is meant to be a heavy cargo ship) I just like to play around with it to see what I can do, and through this I learn more. If a player is actually able to kill one, I think he deserves to be able to earn a lot of money (I get incredibly annoyed when I spend ages killing an anaconda and it's escort to find that it was actually empty).

if you download the oxp and try it (I think I left the test script in the release) you should find 3 every time you leave the station, I recomend them for testing new missiles and the like.

Staer9 wrote:

Commander Mclane wrote:

I'd rather suggest to keep it in the normal range of 1 - 15. Enabling the player to fill his hold several times over after just one kill sounds a little like a get-rich-quick scheme.

the actual release was set to something between 40 and 60 (after all, it is meant to be a heavy cargo ship) I just like to play around with it to see what I can do, and through this I learn more. If a player is actually able to kill one, I think he deserves to be able to earn a lot of money (I get incredibly annoyed when I spend ages killing an anaconda and it's escort to find that it was actually empty).

if you download the oxp and try it (I think I left the test script in the release) you should find 3 every time you leave the station, I recomend them for testing new missiles and the like.

This number of cargopods would be a reason for me to not download the OXP. It feels a little cheaty. The ship's cargo capacity—as far as I understand you—is in the same league as the Anaconda's, not many times more. The Anaconda has a likely_cargo of 7 (although I'd say that the amount of cargopods created is usually bigger than that; I am not certain how the calculation is actually done for traders), so that would also be the order of magnitude for ships which are comparable to the Anaconda.

On a related note: if the ship is so huge as to carry much more cargo than an Anaconda, it assume that it doesn't fit in a standard docking bay. In that case it shouldn't have route1traderAI at all. It should use the custom AI from bigships.oxp instead.

Commander McLane wrote:

It should use the custom AI from bigships.oxp instead.

Yes yes, I know, but I found out about this AI after I released it, seeing how uncommon it is I presumed that the player would only see it rarely on the shipping lanes... well I'm changing it now to compile with all you criticisms (but maybe set likely cargo to 10 not 7) then I shall release v1.1.

Staer9 wrote:

Commander McLane wrote:

It should use the custom AI from bigships.oxp instead.

Yes yes, I know, but I found out about this AI after I released it, seeing how uncommon it is I presumed that the player would only see it rarely on the shipping lanes... well I'm changing it now to compile with all you criticisms (but maybe set likely cargo to 10 not 7) then I shall release v1.1.

Thanks! As I said, anything between 1 and 15 is fine with me, so I'm more than happy with 10.

On bigshipsAI: of course you cannot guarantee that a player has bigships.oxp installed. But as far as I know bigships has a provision for that: it comes with a custom role (bigtrader or something like that). So don't give your ship the role trader, but the custom role instead. Then bigships.oxp will take care of the ship being spawned (together with other big traders if installed) in a reasonable proportion. If bigships is not installed, your ship won't appear.

This is a reasonable solution, because if ships too big to dock are trying to dock, silly things happen. Therefore it's somehow like a bug that ships too big to dock can exist at all without some provision that they don't attempt to dock. Bigships.oxp is exactly this provision.

I zipped up bigtrader.oxp with it so even if the user does not already have it installed they can put it in their addons folder with the hauler p30. however there are still a few bugs which my pityful knowledge cannot fix. they are stated in the readme and anyone can fix them and I will re upload the file.