Oolite Bulletins

Posted: **Sun Sep 25, 2011 9:47 pm**

Eric Walch wrote:
add the griff constrictor to your oxps. That ship has a rear laser, that the original has not.

That's an aft mil laser, as well... 'nice' when you're in a long stern chase!

Posted: **Sun Sep 25, 2011 10:48 pm**

Eric Walch wrote:
What do you expect when firing an über missile at the target. That missile is designed to avoid a fight. You can't blame the constrictor mission for that.

Well, you're right I guess. Probably I got myself TOO spoiled by flying an über ship (Dark Rainbow) for a while. After all the hype I've read on the I-Missile thread about its unstoppable capabilities and exceeding speed, I was amused when I one day could evade one that was fired at me, by just hitting the injectors and keeping an eye on it on the rear screen...

and the fact that it costs only $200 tends to make me assume it's not so much über after all.

And when you really want a fight, add the griff constrictor to your oxps. That ship has a rear laser, that the original has not. Makes it a bit harder .

Mmmm... don't suppose Griff's stuff will work well on my machine (shaders disabled).

But while waiting for your [very heplful !!] replies, I've been digging deeper and found some interesting - and OLD - stuff here. For example:

1. This thread has a lot of interesting Constrictor stuff.

2. This is indeed the same msg I got from the Navy:

3. And also yes, since the Constrictor hunt is the first in-game mission I should NOT be expecting something overly complex. I just guess there's too much Constrictor-related hype floating around the forum... noobs tend to get involved in this magic aura somehow.

4. And yes, the hint-and-search-and-hint-again method is and was born boring...

[said by someone else, long before me, with a different choice of words].

5. And yes... ??? in this post here the author had the SAME inglorius killcount increase that I got - quoting:

beeze wrote:
Good chase! Was on 530 kills - now on 786

so blame it on the mission code somehow, I guess.

I've fixed down my kill count manually anyway - I don't consider it fair to be awarded 259 kills for firing one missile and not even be allowed to watch the fireworks.

UPDATE: just compared again beeze's killcount increase to my own. He got 256 and I got 259... so I believe that the code awards the magic amount of '256' kills upon Constrictor destruction, and I actually got 3 more by travelling and shooting here and there...

As Gimli said to Legolas after the latter killed an enormous Oliphaunt in LOTR:

Gimli wrote:
It still counts as ONE.

Thx y'all folks - cheers !!!

UPDATE: added comment on killcount increase.

Posted: **Mon Sep 26, 2011 7:17 am**

sdrubble wrote:
5. And yes... ??? in this post here the author had the SAME inglorius killcount increase that I got - quoting:
beeze wrote:
Good chase! Was on 530 kills - now on 786
so blame it on the mission code somehow, I guess. I've fixed down my kill count manually anyway - I don't consider it fair to be awarded 259 kills for firing one missile and not even be allowed to watch the fireworks.

UPDATE: just compared again beeze's killcount increase to my own. He got 256 and I got 259... so I believe that the code awards the magic amount of '256' kills upon Constrictor destruction, and I actually got 3 more by travelling and shooting here and there...

The killcount is felt as a bug by many, but fully intentional and probably inherited from Elite itself:

Code: Select all

		if (missionVariables.conhunt === "CONSTRICTOR_DESTROYED")  // Variable is set by the ship script
		{
			player.credits += 5000;
			player.bounty = 0;	  // legal status
			player.score += 256;  // ship kills
			missionVariables.conhunt = "MISSION_COMPLETE";

Posted: **Mon Sep 26, 2011 9:38 am**

Eric Walch wrote:
sdrubble wrote:
UPDATE: just compared again beeze's killcount increase to my own. He got 256 and I got 259... so I believe that the code awards the magic amount of '256' kills upon Constrictor destruction, and I actually got 3 more by travelling and shooting here and there...
The killcount is felt as a bug by many, but fully intentional and probably inherited from Elite itself

Yes, that's correct. Elite always awarded 256 kills for the scalp of the Constrictor.

Someone said earlier that they was going to fix this 'bug'. Don't! It's not!!

Posted: **Mon Sep 26, 2011 11:07 am**

I just moved the "constrictor more-hints" oxp to the wiki table with problem oxps.

While the original legacy version worked perfect, has Arexack_Heretic completely corrupted the JS translation. Its full of syntax errors and even a clue string like "constrictor_hunt_1_235" is wrong as it does not exist. In the legacy version he uses "constrictor_hunt_1_253". So probably a typo in the conversion. Arexack_Heretic stopped with active oolite programming when JS was introduced. Just a pity he changed something from good working to bad because he never tested the new changes.

Posted: **Tue Sep 27, 2011 6:49 am**

sdrubble wrote:
Now, while we're at it... would someone advise me on the log entry below [it's mostly offtopic, so I will gladly ask this elsewhere if the answer is not immediately obvious] ? Maybe related to the phantom kill count ?
Code: Select all
13:42:15.159 [Random_Hits]: (Hatred : 20. Events Timer : 7. Dockings : 4. Events Number : 0. Special Mission Timer : 7. Revenge Status : YES. Time to Strike : QUITE_SOON. Revenge Jumps Made : 0. Special Mission : WAITING. Master Timer : 7. Dice Roll : 0)
Mind you, should I be expecting some kind of revenge from RH? I NEVER completed a single RH mission... just had 1 failed and 1 cancelled...

I think you get *LOTS* of Random Hits hatred points defending the bar from attacks.
No RH missions required.

Posted: **Wed Sep 28, 2011 4:27 am**

Switeck wrote:
sdrubble wrote:
Now, while we're at it... would someone advise me on the log entry below [it's mostly offtopic, so I will gladly ask this elsewhere if the answer is not immediately obvious] ? Maybe related to the phantom kill count ?
Code: Select all
13:42:15.159 [Random_Hits]: (Hatred : 20. Events Timer : 7. Dockings : 4. Events Number : 0. Special Mission Timer : 7. Revenge Status : YES. Time to Strike : QUITE_SOON. Revenge Jumps Made : 0. Special Mission : WAITING. Master Timer : 7. Dice Roll : 0)
Mind you, should I be expecting some kind of revenge from RH? I NEVER completed a single RH mission... just had 1 failed and 1 cancelled...
I think you get *LOTS* of Random Hits hatred points defending the bar from attacks.
No RH missions required.

Thx Switeck.

Since I've made that posting, I've been adding and removing OXP's a bit, so I've been keeping a close eye on the log. While I didn't even defend the bar ever, the log has been giving successive reports of an 'increasingly approaching' revenge, so I'm more or less prepared.

While I was initially amused (revenge for WHAT,

anyway ???), I came to believe it might be related to my failed (and only) mission, where the mark sent me a missile to play with while he absconded in an escape pod. He DID succeed in his getaway

, but the revenge might be related to his ship loss, after all...

But we'd better not delve too much on this issue here, lest we conspurcate this Constrictor thread...

Cheers, and take care.

Posted: **Wed Sep 28, 2011 8:07 am**

sdrubble, check out RH readme files. There are other reasons...

As for the Constrictor, it shouldn't be too hard to force it to NOT use injectors initially in the fight. Then it's only moving 0.60 (LM?) instead of 7x that. That should mean on each pass it fires at the player a LOT more times. So in the "ATTACK_SHIP" section, change the Enter line to:
ENTER = (performAttack, "setSpeedFactorTo: 1.0");

And add:
"PLAYER WITCHSPACE" = (enterPlayerWormhole);
...in the "ATTACK_SHIP" section. You try to flee via a hyperspace jump (or someone else's wormhole), the Constrictor will follow!

Also in the "ATTACK_SHIP" section, ATTACKED could be changed to:
ATTACKED = (setTargetToPrimaryAggressor, fireMissile, performAttack);
(It was previously using "setStateTo: ATTACK_SHIP" in the "ATTACK_SHIP" section, which seems a little silly.)

shipdata-overrides.plist could be used to modify the Constrictor's missiles to all hardheads and add a delay between missile shots so ECM is far less effective against them.

Posted: **Wed Sep 28, 2011 11:25 pm**

Thx Switech,

I've searched for the string 'revenge' inside the 'Spoilers.rtf' and 'ReadMe.rtf' files from RH... found only one sentence, which deals with '1 point awarded', but nothing about possible reasons for a revenge.

I guess there's also a surprise fun factor involved here - I assume that whenever a revenger attacks me, I will hear some insults explaining why he's doing so. Better (and probably more fun) to leave it at that.

As to the Constrictor mission, thx for the technical tips (which might be of good use in some other situation in the future).

But I really see no point in modifying config files to change the behavior of a mission which is already done. With so many different things to do, explore and add to Oolite, I don't see the point in tweaking something that is already accomplished, just so that I could experience it again in a slightly different way.

Right now I'm setting up to play with ToughGuys, Behemoths and Galactic Navy, which will probably be a much more interesting way of spending time than a re-run of the [boring] Constrictor pursuit. Ditto for the battle possibilities thereof.

Cheers, and take care

Posted: **Mon Feb 25, 2013 7:26 am**

After several new (re)starts with new commanders and working my way up, I've finally found and destroyed that !@#$%% constrictor. It has taken a lot of effort to finally hunt him down and destroy him. Congratulations to the people that wrote the mission.

Posted: **Mon Feb 25, 2013 10:56 am**

ozhank wrote:
Congratulations to the people that wrote the mission.

On behalf of Mssrs. Bell & Braben, let me gladly accept the congratulations.

Oolite Bulletins

Constrictor hunt more hints problem...

Re: Constrictor hunt more hints problem...

Re: Constrictor hunt more hints problem...

Re: Constrictor hunt more hints problem...

Re: Constrictor hunt more hints problem...

Re: Constrictor hunt more hints problem...

Re: Constrictor hunt more hints problem...

Re: Constrictor hunt more hints problem...

Re: Constrictor hunt more hints problem...

Re: Constrictor hunt more hints problem...

Re: Constrictor hunt more hints problem...

Re: Constrictor hunt more hints problem...