Oolite Bulletins

Hi,
I tried it again just now and had the same failure.
I cleared my browser cache and tried again and it works, so sorry about that.
I can now download all your oxp's.
Thanks for your patience, I will repay it by fully enjoying playing the expansions.


<edit>Well, Changed my Oolite experience for the better! My Dangerous commander had his 7 first hits die due to unfortunate accidents while he was hunting all over the system for them, so no full payoff there. His 8th he finally found, killed his henchmen with usual methodical glee, chased the hit through a wormhole, sent him to Giles and then followed him to said ultimate destination curtesy of an unexpected Q-Bomb (I think...) while screaming Yes! Yes, I gottim! Well he was an archbishop. Maybe Giles was on his side.
So now back to Harmless new commander, looking forward to a more interesting and hopefully longer carreer than the last one..... Cheers Littlebear! <edit>

Hmm. The number killed by unfortunate accidents smells a bit like a bug, unless you were just really unlucky. Its only meant to happen if the ship dies without any body being the killer, for example he crashes or anothe ship crashes into him. I'll do some further playtesting but you shouldn't have that happen too often. An NPC police ship will probabley get him eventually if you really take your time, but I'd only expect you to fail about 10% of missions due to someone other than you getting the target. There might be an AI fault that sometimes causes them to crash until certain circumstances, but the seemed to be acting senibley last time I looked at them.

Oh, If you have the Flying Dutchman OXP installed that can increase the number of accidental deaths as they have no way of knowing what "Fly from the Wraiths to come" entailes! They are smart enough to run from q-mine blasts but not the suicide ships! Because of the way Oolite's dice work, if Flying Dutchman's dice decided to put a suicide ship in the marks system near the mark's starting position, it'll be there everytime you enter the system from the same saved game. I'll tell their AIs to run from suicide ships as well for 1.4!

I don't have the Flying Dutchman OXP installed, I do have quite a lot of OXP's installed though.
I didn't realise that the number of accidental deaths might represent a bug, the only other information I can think of that may be of use is that it was always quite a long time before I got the unfortunate death message. Usually (although not always) I had travelled from witchpoint to station, docked, then travelled from station to witchpoint at least.
I also notice that on my system ships do crash into space stations more often than I would expect so maybe I have an OXP that is causing that.
You mention NPC police ships getting him eventually, I have Galactic Navy and totalpatrol OXPs installed so maybe that increases the likelehood of that.
<edit>Oh, and I have Realistic Shipyards as well, which I think adds fugitive capital ships, and they really do cause a lot of disturbance in a system, I am thinking of not using it anymore as even though I like what it does generally there are just some silly unrealistic ships in it which sort of defeat the point, might mention that on the appropriate thread - then again, I don't know what realistic means so I can't really talk--- *wanders off mumbling to himself*.<edit>
Cexeceian ant meatballs, 3.92 credits? you gotta be outa your carapace mate!

I've cheated a bit in the intersts of gameply by making pirates ignore marks and marks never engage an NPC in combat if the player is not present. However, Thargoids, Cops and Navy ships will attack them. The game keeps running when you're docked so if you park up the mark is still out there and may be got by an NPC. If you have a lot of cop and navy oxps installed then the odds are greater. A behmoth, condor or Thargon Battleship will after all swat a standard cobra with its turrets pretty quickly even if it attempts to evade. However an NPC kill should generate a message such as "Captain Smith has been terminated by a better hunter." rather than "Captain Smith has been introduced to the Lord Giles in a freak accident." If you live a in a cop heavy universe they are more likley to steal your kill, particular if you take your time. Were you gettting the accident version though or the npc kill version? Hey those meatballs had to be shiped through 5 Galaxies, cheap at half the price I'd say!

If you live a in a cop heavy universe they are more likley to steal your kill, particular if you take your time.

I had something similar the other day. I was quite fast at the main station and arriving there I got the massage my target was killed. I restored the previous game and went on injectors to the station. Even before arriving the target was killed again. Only a third time I managed to get the target in time.

LittleBear wrote:

Were you gettting the accident version though or the npc kill version?

I was getting the "Captain Smith has been introduced to the Lord Giles in a freak accident." version. I never got the better hunter version.

My latest commander was killed again after slogging his way up to above average and successfully terminating his first hit - he got pi**ed of with the tigers and rammed one of their pythons (who are those guys anyway - should I know them?), so I will be a while getting to the stage where 'people' in the bars will consider me for new missions.

Now that I think of it, the problems with the previous commander were all in galaxy 2, maybe one of the oxp's that kicks off in galaxy 2 like the thargoid one were responsible, I have a freakish intuition that because they normally seem to eject, that they are getting blasted by an npc and then the escape capsule is meeting with an accident of some kind...

LittleBear wrote:

Hmm. The number killed by unfortunate accidents smells a bit like a bug, unless you were just really unlucky. Its only meant to happen if the ship dies without any body being the killer, for example he crashes or anothe ship crashes into him. I'll do some further playtesting but you shouldn't have that happen too often. An NPC police ship will probabley get him eventually if you really take your time, but I'd only expect you to fail about 10% of missions due to someone other than you getting the target. There might be an AI fault that sometimes causes them to crash until certain circumstances, but the seemed to be acting senibley last time I looked at them.

I can back the problem with "unfortunate accidents". It became really annoying, but saving before entering a system works I'll do that anyway, as Witchspace is a known source of crashes to my current installation.

Concerning the "luck" - there REALLY seems to be something wrong. I had some mails with Thargoid about it, as my fuel scoop breaks up before I can fill a 25T cargo hold - EVERYTIME I tried so far. Furthermore, I more often got contaminated fuel than real one - and I've had a look into the script myself, from the calculation, as I understand it, it should be extremely unlikely.

Something like that also happened when I was flying a Python: Fuel leaks over and over....roughly one per hour. I never had leaks with any other ship, not before, not afterwards.

Uhm...and I even had my whole screen spammed after a Witchspace jump because there were so many bountyhunters, that the whole scanner went yellow, until half of it became flashing blue - and the sky filled with blue orbs. They almost completely jumped at the same moment. Strange stuff.

But then....maybe it's me...I've often experienced such strange stuff with computers. Working colleages were even afraid that when I touch their computers, they would start to malfunction

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At present Marks can be generated as a stating position anywhere between the w/p and the station. They never dock (unrealistic I know but you'd never get them if they did) but will approach to within 5 km of the station before turning to the w/p. Basically they patrol flying from witchpoint to the station and then back again. This can mean they come very close to the station and can therefore be shot down by police ships launched by the station before you arrive. For 1.4 I'll stop them going with 35kms of the station which should make it less likley that they get shot up by the cops before you get to them.

The problem with the randomness is due to the fact that Oolite (and all computers) use a seed number to generate psedo-random numbers rather than a trully random generator like rolling a real dice. The 'seed number' from which the random numbers are calculated is advanced when you make a jump. This means if you save you commander and jump into the marks system, the same random number is always chosen. So if the seed number puts the mark in a dogdy position by bad luck, you get the same bad luck each time you jump from system A to B. Jumping to a third system and then jumping to the mark's system would give the dice another throw. This is why the Bullitin Board entrys remain consitant. Dock at a space bar and check the BB entries. Now fly to the station and save. Exit and load up the save game and fly back to the bar. You'll see the messages are the same. Only when you make a jump will they change. If Oolite was an old-style DM rolling real dice the chances of two messages being the same would be literally trillions to 1 as it rolls 'dice' with hundreds of sides hundreds of times to generate the BB entry. Because the seed number is the same though, the sequence of numbers rolled by the same seed number is always the same.

Keeping the Marks away from stations will improve the odds of and NPC not getting them, but there is always a chance. If you fly towards the station's Nav Beacon (N) you will be more likley though to sucessfully intercept the mark than if you fly towards the planet.

The Excessive number of hunters is a known bug on 1.3, fixed on 1.4. The bug was too fold - 1) too many hunters were placed in the launch que so you get a stream of them comming out AFTER a battle and so when they find no targets they ALL jump. 2) They all jumped as soon as they can flying in a straight line. This means as soon as the first one jumps the wormhole is in the flight path of all the others, so they ALL end up at the same system within 7 light years. For 1.4 I've fixed the AIs so the station only places 1 hunter in the que at a time and they now take a random vector and fly for a random distance before executing a jump, so they don't all end up jumping to the same system.

My suspision is that the large number of Accidental Deaths was caused by the bad luck of the mark being spawned near a police patrol. The Marks AI tells it to flee on injectors to get away from the Cops. If he's been spawned right in the middle of a police patrol the odds of a crash are quite high. Its not likley that this will happen, but the problem with the seed number is that if this happens on the first attempt it keeps happening again as long as your seed number is the same. When you load up the same commander and make the same jump to reach the same system, the seed number remains the same.

LittleBear wrote:

At present Marks can be generated as a stating position anywhere between the w/p and the station. They never dock (unrealistic I know but you'd never get them if they did) but will approach to within 5 km of the station before turning to the w/p. Basically they patrol flying from witchpoint to the station and then back again. This can mean they come very close to the station and can therefore be shot down by police ships launched by the station before you arrive. For 1.4 I'll stop them going with 35kms of the station which should make it less likley that they get shot up by the cops before you get to them.

Really, I haven't seen the targets being eliminated by other ships, so far. It was ALWAYS the accident...and the problem to find them might have to do with the problem that for some time now the WP beacon is destroyed in the systems where I have to search, right from the point when I leave Witchspace. My "best" solution so far is to jump to a nearby system and back again, making another approach.

Concerning those accidents, which happen quite often, could it be a solution to have those targets just re-appear again if that happens? I guess you would not have to bother about possible police shootings then.

LittleBear wrote:

dice another throw. This is why the Bullitin Board entrys remain consitant. Dock at a space bar and check the BB entries. Now fly to the station and save. Exit and load up the save game and fly back to the bar. You'll see the messages are the same. Only when you make a jump will they change. If Oolite was an old-style DM rolling real

Sorry on that, but I've found out, that
- if one accepts more than one contract, only the last one is saved (I had some nicely on a row, would have been nice)
- if you read all three offers and then go back to the first entry, ALL three offers are replaced, thus it's possible to cheat by going through this list over and over again until a "difficult" contract in a nearby system comes into sight

LittleBear wrote:

station's Nav Beacon (N) you will be more likley though to sucessfully intercept the mark than if you fly towards the planet.

That's good to know, as I expected it to be the other way. Seems I do need to install the buoy repair as soon as the wiki is up again...it's difficult to patrol the lane if you don't have a Witchspace buoy. At least the station is often visible from everywhere (as a grey pixel).

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Added an edit on the accidents.

When you try to take a contract and are busy you (should) get a message saying that you can't take it as you are busy. This message is also randomly generated, so now the sequence of numbers is interupted and the messages you have on return to the boards will change. A single seed number will probabley generate about 12 different adverts, but if you keep flipping through the board returning to page 1 from page 3 you'll find the same ones comming up again.

LittleBear wrote:

... but if you keep flipping through the board returning to page 1 from page 3 you'll find the same ones comming up again.

Uhm...does that mean it's fixed a newer version that I don't have yet, or is this an indicator that my version behaves strange through something else? I did download and install all that stuff recently, and do have version 2.61 of random hits installed.

I do DEFINITELY get 3 new messages when I read all three and then "return to the first". I can do that as often as I wish...and that appears to be a bug to me, as it
- allows to wait until a "matching" offer is being made
- disallows to read all three and then pick the one closest to me

I just have seen a few things which might explain the high number of "accidents":

- I came without fuel for injectors to the targets system, went on course for the station and wanted to refuel. Since it took so long on the lane, I had my browser launched...until I got a warning sound. Switched back...I almost rammed the station and the victim came flying straight fromt he planet to me. He flew so very close to the station that I was afraid it would destroy his ship by a hit caused during rotation. The target also was alone, although it was the most difficult contract I could get.

- before I could land, I was attacked by another NPC (not from this contract)...and when I shot at that ship, it turned and attempted to flee. Stupid guy...when he turned, his ship faced the planet, and then he hit the injectors until I saw an explosion.

- while flying through "black" space, close to a planet, I often do get into the outer layers of the atmosphere and begin to take massive heat, even though visually my flight path should be outside the atmosphere.

Maybe these things somehow work together?

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Uhhh, the strange stuff continues.

I just had a very difficult time to get to the blue parrot...two times I had so many (common) pirates en route that I could fill my 25T cargo hold...and then the game crashed in mid-flight?!?

Started another time, went to the sun instead of the bar for refueling and THEN to the bar...almost nothing, althoug I do have deep space pirates installed...but then, at the bar, there were common pirates attacking it.

The blue parrot even did send the "Oh, thank you! Help at last." message...and many bounty hunters did launch. However, once the pirates were down, the bounty hunters took onto the station! Most of them were fugitive by that time, but I even had a "clean" hunter attack me, as I was defending the station against the fellow hunters...and I'm still clean.

Was that friendly fire by the blue parrot that caused the hunters to behave so strangely, or did they serve something wrong?

Ohhh NO! I had the game running while sitting in the bar...then I hear multiple ECM...launch....another hunter is attacking the bar (Alfred Davis)...then another ship launches: Alfred Davis, another hunter, picks out Alfred Davis (same name, other title)...while even more hunters launch in order to defend the station....WHAT IS GOING ON?

After defending even more and shooting down two Alfred Davis...there appear two new, clean Alfred Davis. And most of the hunters who did help me ended up attacking the blue parrot, too, becoming fugitives and ending in nice explosions. One did even deliberately crash it's asp into the bar! Luckily these things are not as vulnerable as rock hermits.

Ok...and I even took ONE single hit from the bar...exactly one...and then the gun did instantly stop firing at me. I'm still clean, guess the bar wanted a hunter behind me...so is this all about accidental friendly fire? If so, maybe the rules for FF should be dramatically changed...as when I do jump in to rescue a convoy and accidentally fire on some of the "clean" escorts, they won't return fire, nor do I become an offender...they just understand. What's wrong with navy and hunters that they behave so much differently?

...or they gave them some drugs in their food...I had to shoot down the other 2 Alfred Davis, when they became fugitives, attacking the station. Some more hunters did crash themselves into the satellites and station, which still holds....the battle continues for more than 30 minutes now, and for every fugitive hunter that dies another clean one starts attacking the station...nice money, though...as the bounty on those mislead judges is quite high

Another five minutes....and finally, all hostile bounty hunters have been shot down, while me and two other clean ones do guard the bar. That was quite some battle! Wish I could save at the bar...

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The friendly fire stuff is WIP (not included in Beta 1.3). I'll put up the 1.3.1 version as a link here for testing.

This is whats new:-

- Friendly Fire Code for Bars and Hunters (if the bar hits hunters by accident or visa versa they may curse over the comms link but don't shoot each other).
- Improved Launch Control.
- More sensible use of turrets by the bar.
- MB40 Mining Machines operate near bars, together with GalMine Hoppers.
- Code for adding Revenge ships improved.
- When being chased by Revenge Ship a passing hunter will give you a warning before they strike.
- Code for Galaxies 1 - 4 done for displaying the sector where the mark is.

Could you test on this one as I've changed so much stuff since 1.3 (beta) that its pretty hard to remember whats fixed and whats not. This installs as RandomHits274.oxp As before can you delete the old version and install this one.

Link :-

http://www.box.net/shared/m33spb79bj

Note : As this is a test version: 1) 5 Thargoids are always added near a bar when you enter an anarchy from Hyperspace. Don't Panic, the bar's defences will probabley have taken them out before you arrive, but if you get there whilst there's still a battle in progress feel free to join in! 2) Revenge ships will always chase you after a kill, they now can appear anywhere in the lanes or at the witchpoint. A console message will display whats happening with them when you jump. 3) You may occassionaly get a comms message from a ship saying somthing like "In randomhits scavengerAI". This is for testing so I know which AI a ship was using if / when he did something silly. 4) Enabled detection of Thargoid's Surface Bars.

New Models : AutoMiner, GalMine Hopper and AutoPay Pod by Griff.

Added link to new test version. Described above.

http://www.box.net/shared/m33spb79bj

Being able to loop the board is intended as its meant to be like a real BB where you can browse and pick a job that suits your location and firepower. The multiple Alfreds is probabley just down the oddities in random number generation. Thanks to C&P (and a baby names site) there are about 400 first names on the list for generating, but you often get a couple with the same first name even though the odds are against it. The bar probabley wasn't targeting you, it's just that its plasma travels sub-light so the bolt can hit an innocent ship if you fly across its turret after its released the bolt. It won't (shouldn't) deliberatly target you if you are clean. Friendly fire code is only in the new realease, there was no code to deal with friendly fire in 1.3 (beta) and below.