Oolite Bulletins

Destroyed a couple of abandoned hermits, but there was no 'treasure' (that I could see) from either. It took a full blast from fore and aft lasers to destroy them, and the explosions caused my gfx card's fan to increase revs, which rarely happens in Oolite. They are tumbling rather than rotating about their dock axes - intentional?

Cody wrote:

Destroyed a couple of abandoned hermits, but there was no 'treasure' (that I could see) from either.

They should spawn 5-15 cargo pods. At least in my initial tests they did so. I wonder what's going on here. Nothing in the log, I assume?

Cody wrote:

It took a full blast from fore and aft lasers to destroy them, and the explosions caused my gfx card's fan to increase revs, which rarely happens in Oolite.

That sounds about right amount of punishment needed. You graphic card behavior suggests that the pods are spawned and they possibly get destructed. With full 20 simultaneous spawns my system stutters a bit. But then again, my system is not even close to high-end system.

Cody wrote:

They are tumbling rather than rotating about their dock axes - intentional?

That's intended behavior. It helps a bit to distinguish them.

Before the core explosions were improved, my old Smivs'Shipset featured enhanced explosions and this often led to there being no cargo - it was not surviving the blasts. My solution was to introduce 'toughened barrels', cargo pods with a max_energy of 50 which were much stronger. This worked a treat and seemed to have no effect on gameplay other than hurting a bit more when you collided with them! Maybe something like this might be needed.

I think I'm closing the root of this problem. Here's what happens. And those interested, don't bother checking the current test version, it's buggy and quite different from my current dev version.

* I create a new ship by like_shipping core hermit to get the correct model.
* I set is_carrier to false and override it with slightly modified definitions from basic asteroid to make it to be a giant rock.
* Upon destruction, it spawns by itself a huge number of debris, basically metal plates, instead of rocks.

The last bit is the one that makes the game stutter. I don't have enough knowledge what the game does at this point. Possibly it sees my rock as a giant ship and spawns debris in ratio with it's mass or something. And that behavior is possibly originating from some property of the original hermit definition. Maybe? I'll keep testing.

Aaaand got it . Setting the primary_role to "asteroid" after spawn does the trick. Progressing again .

Having barely survived a hermit explosion being inside it, the log told me that the damage wasn't done by the explosion itself but by a boulder hitting my ship many times. I survived another explosion, when I was in the docking tunnel, i.e. not really docked, without scrape. So it's a bit of luck, probably for the containers too.

Version 0.13.

* A low random number of abandoned hermits get spawned to desolate locations in all systems. These now work correctly and upon destruction spill a random number of loot to collect. They also have a bounty of 10 credits as they obviously have been used as shady storages.
* Destruction of core hermits now might leave a couple of containers floating with appropriate contents.
* Tweaked behavior when pirates shoot the hermit (all variants). The hermit kindly asks the pirate in question to stop shooting. Some pirates do stop and some don't. That's the way they are. Anyway, this effectively lessens the probability for them accidentally destroying the hermit.

https://app.box.com/s/n7kg7ytqm7b2d1qdeo9aszmrafpnlhvt

Norby's suggestion about using the new Bulleting Board system looks interesting. Occasionally there might be a post by GalCop hinting about the whereabouts of an abandoned hermit to be destructed. I'll take a look at it at some point.

Maybe now were closing the 1.0 version . Just don't give me any more ideas .

spara wrote:

Just don't give me any more ideas .

You could attach laser turrets to the rock hermits to fend of pirates that keep shooting...

spara wrote:

Just don't give me any more ideas.

What... like pirate hermits masquerading as abandoned hermits?

spara wrote:

Just don't give me any more ideas.

Or like make it so, that you may land on some abandoned hermits to loot there 0.0cr markets directly or repair their systems to bring them online again and claim them your own?

spara wrote:

Just don't give me any more ideas.

Or thargoid hermits!

Now what did I just say about new ideas ? Some intriguing ideas there, btw.

Haunted hermits. WHOOOOOOooooooooo!

Smivs wrote:

Haunted hermits. WHOOOOOOooooooooo!

What an awesome idea! An abandoned hermit, lights turned off, pipes removed and the dock sealed tight. And yet, a miner launches through the seal, flies from asteroid to asteroid and docks again. You shoot the miner, and the laser just goes through. You try ram it, and you just fly through. Upon destruction of the rock, the miner appears no more.

A ghost ship? Like the  Flying Dutchman?