Oolite Bulletins

Commander McLane wrote:

I don't see any reason why this shouldn't work for orbiting a planet as well.

The main reason will be that there is no AI command that allows you to set a destination towards the centre of the planet And when you need JS you can just as well do it proper.
I just tested my code in game, noticed an error and fixed it now above. With above AI and JS, the ship first flies to the orbit and than follows it. In the meanwhile it scans for hostile ships. The whole fighting, when needed, I leave to an oolite AI.

Just to let you know that I am currently testing an updated version of this OXP. This version will include Commander McLane's Aurora updates, and should address the issue of liners turning up all over the place far too frequently.
I am testing a new populator script based on Government and Tech Level, so they should never appear in Anarchies, and only in other Gov't types of TL 8 and above.
I have also added another ship, an Inter-system Ferry, based on the Anaconda. This will act as a 'make-weight' so that when the game calls a 'liner', these will be called most commonly, thus reducing the number of 'big' liners appearing. Big Ships does the same with standard Anacondas, so it is a tried and trusted way of limiting numbers.
I will play-test this for a few days to ensure that the big liners are appearing correctly and with a sensible frequency before release.

way to go Smivs

The other day I came across a liner (can't remember which) that was parked in front of a station and exchanging shuttles with the station. The only problem was that it was parked about 10 km right in front of the station, where you'd usually expect to find a nav buoy. Well, let's just say that the buoy repair ship had a hard time delivering a replacement, because there was this big, freaking liner sitting where he wanted to go.

So perhaps the liner AI should stop the ship in a slightly greater distance to the station, in order to avoid accidents like this.

On the plus side, at least colliding with a station buoy after a recklessly close approach doesn't lead to this.

Commander McLane wrote:

The other day I came across a liner (can't remember which) that was parked in front of a station and exchanging shuttles with the station. The only problem was that it was parked about 10 km right in front of the station, where you'd usually expect to find a nav buoy. Well, let's just say that the buoy repair ship had a hard time delivering a replacement, because there was this big, freaking liner sitting where he wanted to go.

Something to look at for v1.5.

Edit:- Looking at the AI it is set to 10Km, which of course is the distance of the buoy from the station so I will try changing this to 15Km. This is not too close to the planet, but my only concern is that any shuttles might try to fly through the buoy to get from station to liner or vice versa. I'm assuming that the game's in-built collision-detection etc will prevent this. One way to find out...

Smivs wrote:

I have also added another ship, an Inter-system Ferry, based on the Anaconda.

Brilliant.

Commander McLane wrote:

The other day I came across a liner that was parked in front of a station and exchanging shuttles with the station.

Off-topic trivia story: a few years ago on a cruise ship in the Western Med, after the shore excursions they couldn't get one of the winches working to retrieve one of the launches. We had to sit there in the bay for about 4 hours while two crew members were 'stranded' in this launch. After half an hour of bobbing about they were either authorised - or through their own initiative - decided to put the launch through its paces. They spent the next 2 hours belting round the bay, spinning it, slamming it from full ahead into reverse, zooming round the cruise ship and generally had a whale of a time showing off.

I think they must have been told off in the end; they spent their last hour creeping round the edge of the bay exploring caves and buoys.

(Some people moaned about the winch failing - these launches are also lifeboats. We explained the benefit of using the lifeboats as launches means they get tested every day or two so any faults get found and fixed very quickly. Also, the crew become expert in their handling: this was why we assumed they were allowed to 'play' for a while.)

Saw this in the Latest.log: I saw the Cruise Ship 'Patricia' and requested to dock; no response so it definitely is not one you can dock with.

Yes, the 'Patricia' is one of the Saga Class liners and is not dockable. I'll have a look and see if I can work out what is going on there. Thanks for the heads-up.

Edit:- Ah, it's the one of the custom AIs for the liners. There is one part where it looks like a dice-roll can 'launch shuttle' regardless of whether the liner has shuttles or not
I might need to do a custom AI for the Saga Class ships without this 'feature'. Also the Aurora is no longer dockable due to issues with its dock, so the same problem could apply to that ship as well. Now is a good time as I'm having a serious tidy-up of the OXP. It should be sorted before the update release.

Some of these liners seem to have a targeting box problem -- if/when you target them, the targeting box appears much larger than the liner. Might this cause collision and pathfinding issues?

Switeck wrote:

Some of these liners seem to have a targeting box problem -- if/when you target them, the targeting box appears much larger than the liner. Might this cause collision and pathfinding issues?

Switeck, I suspect you are refering to the issue first discussed here. This has been sorted now thanks to Commander McLane, and the pending re-release will include this fix.

28th May 2012

Update release - v1.4

This update release has an improved populator to reduce the number of big Liners appearing - they should now be quite rare. They now only appear in relatively stable systems (no Anarchies and only TL9 and above). Commander McLanes bounding-box corrections to the Aurora have been included, and three varieties of 'Inter-system Ferries' have been added.
As per discussions elsewhere, the 'readme' is now available as both .txt or .rtf files.
Download

Update release.
v1.4.1 is now available. This is just a minor AI update to prevent the Aurora liner ariving at a planet and staying indefinitely. It will now head off towards the witchpoint after a short wait.

Edited to add:- Thanks to Commander McLane for the bug alert.

Smivs wrote:

Update release.
v1.4.1 is now available. This is just a minor AI update to prevent the Aurora liner ariving at a planet and staying indefinitely. It will now head off towards the witchpoint after a short wait.

That bug might be why I found two Auroras at a station, as pictured on the Screenshots thread.

Very possible. I think the Big Ships populator generated two, but this might explain why they both ended up at the planet together.

Update version release - v1.5

Just a note to let you all know that v1.5 is now available. This is a cosmetic update.
An issue with the Emerald dock has been addressed - it did not 'fit' properly and was previously set too far back in the ship. To improve matters the dock has been re-positioned. The dock model will be replaced in a future update to improve the fit further.
The Saga Class Liners, their escort Adders and the three Inter-system Ferries all have updated textures and now also have normal and specular maps.

'Ooniversal Ferries' Inter-system ferry