[UPDATED RELEASE] - Escort Contracts OXP - 1.5.6 (07/05/12)

[Capt. Murphy]

Thanks for the feedback gents. I tend to use quick dock a lot so may have missed odd docking behaviour. I'll take a look at that bit again. I'm not convinced that all of the AI commands work as described in the documentation, particularly checkAegis which the mother's AI is littered with but rarely seems to produce the expected message. The player prompt to dock is produced by the shipScript rather than the AI.

OneoftheLost - that little bug should be fixed in version 1.

[maik]

I just encountered another bug--or a particularly stupid trader mother: It fled from combat (quite clever) but then headed almost directly away from the station and took me along for a ride with its jump drive. After a few minutes of going the wrong way I decided the galaxy is better off without stupid traders and was quite unhappy to see that this Boa Class Cruiser didn't even carry cargo.

[Capt. Murphy]

That shouldn't happen - it's supposed to get a facing destination message before engaging injectors/mass jump behaviour.

I'm thing I've got the docking behaviour bit ironed out and will review the rest of the AI to see where it's gone wrong.

In the meantime maik if you could add this line to escort_mother.js under the this.shipspawned = function (it's the first function) your log may be useful for working out what's going on.

this.ship.reportAIMessages = true;

I'm just on lunch break now and am flying to exotic destinations (well Greece, not that exotic) late tomorrow so don't know if I'll get an opportunity to update before them.

[maik]

OK, I added it between the this.shipspawned function and the this.ec_monitorplayerlocation function in the file ec_mother.js

Don't rush it, I don't even know when I will have time to play again. When I encounter the same behaviour again I'll post the log.

[Capt. Murphy]

Just to clarify it should look like this..

Code: Select all

// functions used in the starting system. ec_mother1AI.plist is the main AI used in the starting system.
this.shipSpawned = function()
{
	this.ship.displayName = "Trader " + missionVariables.ec_mothername +"'s " + ship.name;
	this.ship.setAI ("ec_mother1AI.plist");
	this.ec_playerwarnings = 0;
	this.ec_playerinflicteddamage = 0;
	this.ec_suppresslowenergyalert = 0;
	this.ship.reportAIMessages = true;
}

[maik]

Oh, thanks for the clarification. It didn't. Now it does

[Capt. Murphy]

Maik,

When you encountered that behaviour were you and the mother jump-driving immediately before the combat that she then fled from?

I can see a scenario in the existing AI where if the mother is attacked in-between the 2 second hops the AI will return to hopping once free of hostiles/mass locking objects without checking that it's facing the right direction.

[maik]

Hmm, can't say for sure. But not entirely unlikely. So far I haven't encountered this behaviour again though.

[Capt. Murphy]

It would be a pretty rare occurrence. The mother would have to be attacked within 2 seconds of a hop, then you would have to be within 2500m of the mother at the point the last hostile was killed or target lost and the area would have to be free of any other masslocking object at that point.

Anyway it looks like an easy fix for that little scenario, but I'll do some more testing.

I also want to add some code to ensure that the mother and any hired guns (from Thargoid's OXP of the same name) play nice together if you happen to take a few extra wingmen along with you so the next release will definitely be after I get back from hols.

[maik]

Great, enjoy Greece!

And please remember to stop the mother from talking about using injectors etc. after it already reached the station aegis.

[Eric Walch]

I just encountered another bug--or a particularly stupid trader mother: It fled from combat (quite clever) but then headed almost directly away from the station and took me along for a ride with its jump drive. After a few minutes of going the wrong way I decided the galaxy is better off without stupid traders and was quite unhappy to see that this Boa Class Cruiser didn't even carry cargo.

Not really a bug as the ship is defined as having rock scanclass. And rocks don't spawn cargo on destruction. I was surprised that I could not mine it with mining lasers

Anyhow, when you explicit add cargo to the 'rock' with:

Code: Select all

cargo_carried = "PLENTIFUL_GOODS";

in shipData.plist, the ship will have cargo on board.

[Capt. Murphy]

Thanks Eric....

Version 1.1 is released.

Tweaks and fixes to the AI to avoid the anomalous behaviour noted by Maik and Eric, and general fine-tuning of the AI.

Also added a pilot and cargo to the mother (thanks to Eric Walch for the tip).

Added code to gradually reduce a positive or negative escort reputation over time.

Added code so that any fire from a players ‘Hired Guns’ from the OXP of the same same are treated as Friendly Fire.

Updated download link and full read me is in the first post.

All feedback welcome - again no plans to further develop this in the near future, but any bugs found will be fixed.

e2a - just in case any one notices I've just realised the documentation says I released this tomorrow.....clever eh.... .....or maybe just confused....

[Lone_Wolf]

I took a mission to escort a Boa from Veale to regeatge in G1 , a distance of only 2.0 LY.
At the Regeatge witchpoint 3 ships ( revenge force for a RH mission) attacked me, and also hit the boa.
I killed the 3 attackers, then boa and i continued towards the main station.
a group of 6 attacked the boa, and it asked for help.
Just after i had killed the first of the 6, the mother send a critical request for help.
Before i could figure out which ships were directly attacking the boa, it was destoyed.

questions :
the boa should have had plenty of fuel to flee using injectors, why did they stay and fight ?

Is there anyway to indicate which ships are the ones attacking the mother ?

[Capt. Murphy]

The mother's use more or less the same combat AI as normal trader's - however they are more gung-ho in initial decision making, i.e don't immediately decide to run away from hostiles when they are first detected. They've got this ace wingman by their side that instils them with confidence you see. . This is deliberate to make the missions a bit more fun and challenging.

But that Boa would have been trying to run away when it sent the Condition critical message. At least 1/2 of pirates inject and would have been able to keep up with her.

I experimented with some of the earlier versions of a player autolock to the mother's current target, but it didn't really add to game play and conflicted with things other OXP's were doing. I guess I could colour ships hostile to the mother on the scanner, but then again I think that would reduce the challenge a little. There is always the Police IFF Scanner I released last week which highlights all criminals in scanner range with different colours.

When I get the first cry for help from mum, I tend to fly straight towards her trying to identify the ships targetting her by watching their laser fire. Then fire enough at the problematic ship(s) to either distract them to change target to me or destroy them depending on the general state of play in the furball. If things get really bad using a few missiles to encourage the hostiles to break away and run away for a bit will often give the mother the respite needed to get away.

Is this the first mission you've run or have you done a few? Personal success rate is about 9/10 of mothers get safely to their destination. I most often lose them if we run into a Pirate Cove in an already dangerous system.

[Dragonfire]

I only tried running one escort contract, and the fool flew right in front of me (between me and my target), then proceeded to turn around and fly straight into me. Last contract I EVER took.