Oolite Bulletins

Eric Walch wrote:

Eric Walch wrote:

In the past the old cascade owner was transferred to the cascading explosion. Now its removed. But I am not sure if this was intentional or missed during some code change. Being unintentional would explain why it is not in the release notes.

Chain breakage was added in r4241(February 2011) By Ahruman with comment: "More ParticleEntity breakupage".

Definitely unintentional, then. I’m on the fence regarding whether it was wrong. (the Tionisla Graveyard exploit was mentioned above, but I think that was nerfed by not giving rewards for unpiloted ships.)

Fatleaf wrote:

The second issue I found was that the turrets rate of fire was dramatically increased to the point of it being very boring very quickly. I tried to give the turrets a fire_rate entry but no matter what I tried I could not slow the rate down. Could it be that the Caduceus uses its own style of turrets and not a standard ball turret?

Did I get the answer right with this issue? And is there any work around for this? I was wondering if the Vortex users are finding the same?
Thanks.

Fatleaf wrote:

Fatleaf wrote:

The second issue I found was that the turrets rate of fire was dramatically increased to the point of it being very boring very quickly. I tried to give the turrets a fire_rate entry but no matter what I tried I could not slow the rate down. Could it be that the Caduceus uses its own style of turrets and not a standard ball turret?

Did I get the answer right with this issue? And is there any work around for this? I was wondering if the Vortex users are finding the same?
Thanks.

The answer on which type of turret the Caddy uses is in the Caddy's shipdata. And then you need to manipulate the turret that is referenced there.

Commander McLane wrote:

The answer on which type of turret the Caddy uses is in the Caddy's shipdata. And then you need to manipulate the turret that is referenced there.

Ah! I think I get what you mean. Thanks CML

Commander McLane wrote:

The answer on which type of turret the Caddy uses is in the Caddy's shipdata. And then you need to manipulate the turret that is referenced there.

And even when the default turret is used, when using the new subEntity declaration, you can specify a different range for every individual turret. (Within limits)

Ahruman wrote:

Definitely unintentional, then. I’m on the fence regarding whether it was wrong. (the Tionisla Graveyard exploit was mentioned above, but I think that was nerfed by not giving rewards for unpiloted ships.)

Well, for what it is worth, I liked getting credit, and I think it was pretty fair that the opponent had to be on radar in order to get that credit, for that is how I remember the Q-mines working.

Fatleaf wrote:

Commander McLane wrote:

The answer on which type of turret the Caddy uses is in the Caddy's shipdata. And then you need to manipulate the turret that is referenced there.

Ah! I think I get what you mean. Thanks CML

Fatleaf,

you might be willing to do a test drive on The Dark Rainbow - it's an offspring of the Caddy, but the coding on the turrets is more explicitly done there than in the Caddy (i.e., fire_rate), so that the 1.76.1 codefixes would not have undesired results.

Of course you also know that the DR's turrets fire purposefully quicker than the Caddy ones, so that the DR might not actually appeal to your playing style.

Just my 2 cents.

Cheers

sdrubble wrote:

Of course you also know that the DR's turrets fire purposefully quicker than the Caddy ones, so that the DR might not actually appeal to your playing style.

Just my 2 cents.

Cheers

I got it sorted thanks. But the Caduceus is only my test ship which mostly collects dust. I only took it out to see if there was any difference with it in 176.1 and that is where I found the issue. My player ship is the S9. But thanks for the heads up.

Fatleaf wrote:

sdrubble wrote:

Of course you also know that the DR's turrets fire purposefully quicker than the Caddy ones, so that the DR might not actually appeal to your playing style.

Just my 2 cents.

Cheers

I got it sorted thanks. But the Caduceus is only my test ship which mostly collects dust. I only took it out to see if there was any difference with it in 176.1 and that is where I found the issue. My player ship is the S9. But thanks for the heads up.

I've not noticed a difference in the turrets, but I have noticed since even in 1.76, the Caddy is completely disagreeable when it comes to the ring fuel stations- 99% of the time I blow up upon trying to dock with said fuel station. I can be aligned perfectly, and it still blows up - kind of a slap in the face before the screen goes white and it's time to push the spacebar.

CommRLock78 wrote:

... I have noticed since even in 1.76, the Caddy is completely disagreeable when it comes to the ring fuel stations- 99% of the time I blow up upon trying to dock with said fuel station. I can be aligned perfectly, and it still blows up ...

Hi CommRLock78,

Such a "disagreement" between the Caddy and the drive-thru fuel stations is a long-standing issue, since Oolite 1.75.3 and maybe even before then.

Whilst the issue has never been actually "solved", there are 2 workarounds that can actually save you and your Caddy from the Space Bar the spacebar.

#1. Always enter the fuel station tunnel from planet-side instead of from witch-point side. While this requires an awkward maneuver whenever when you enter a new system and need refueling, it should preserve your life and/or your ship (just don't ask me why or how this is such).

#2. Whenever you're flying the Caddy (or The Dark Rainbow which also shares the same genetic incompatibility with one side of the fuel stations), activate the switch inside the Fuel Station OXP, which will inhibit the appearance of the drive-thru fly-thru stations and replace them everywhere with the drive-by fly-by fuel satellites (you'll find these ones to be always friendly and harmless).

Have a nice refueling, man !!!

EDIT: the "stricken-thru" bits speak for themselves . Been doing too much driving and too little flying lately...

sdrubble wrote:

#1. Always enter the fuel station tunnel from planet-side instead of from witch-point side. While this requires an awkward maneuver whenever when you enter a new system and need refueling, it should preserve your life and/or your ship (just don't ask me why or how this is such).

#2. Whenever you're flying the Caddy (or The Dark Rainbow which also shares the same genetic incompatibility with one side of the fuel stations), activate the switch inside the Fuel Station OXP, which will inhibit the appearance of the drive-thru stations and replace them everywhere with the drive-by fuel satellites (you'll find these ones to be always friendly and harmless).

Have a nice refueling, man !!!

Hey, thanks Sdrubble . I've been wondering why that happens for a while, but figured since the Caddy was being discussed, I thought I'd jump in and ask about it (I'm fairly new to Oolite, and 1.76 [window$] was actually the first version I ever played ).

sdrubble wrote:

Such a "disagreement" between the Caddy and the drive-thru fuel stations is a long-standing issue, since Oolite 1.75.3 and maybe even before then the Caddy exists (which is since Oolite 1.72.2).

Fixed that for you.

Which brings me back to one of my mantras: Plasma turrets are not meant for player ships.

Commander McLane wrote:

sdrubble wrote:

Such a "disagreement" between the Caddy and the drive-thru fuel stations is a long-standing issue, since Oolite 1.75.3 and maybe even before then the Caddy exists (which is since Oolite 1.72.2).

Fixed that for you.

Hahaha !!! Thx for the tip - I didn't know that the Caddy was born with this issue already built-in.

Which brings me back to one of my mantras: Plasma turrets are not meant for player ships.

Well, that's a matter of taste I think ... but do you mean that the issue is actually brought up by the presence of turrets ? I wasn't aware of any other turret-bearing player ships that would also be kicked out by the Fuel Stations... Does that happen with the Vortex for instance ??

On a side note: The Dark Rainbow is not simply a ship with turrets - you'd better think of it as a flying array of turrets which happens to have a very functional Iron Ass built inside.

sdrubble wrote:

... but do you mean that the issue is actually brought up by the presence of turrets ? I wasn't aware of any other turret-bearing player ships that would also be kicked out by the Fuel Stations... Does that happen with the Vortex for instance ??:

Somehow (player)ships with turrets trigger collision when entering a structure. And although the fuel station has two open sides, only one entrance is being seen as the 'officially' docking entrance. And from that side normal collision behaviour is ignored. That way is safe. And because, lucy enough, the script still uses the legacy addShips commands, you can be sure the safe side is on the planet side. The new addShip commands add ships with random orientation and you will no longer be able to keep head and tail apart for these stations.

Eric Walch wrote:

Somehow (player)ships with turrets trigger collision when entering a structure. And although the fuel station has two open sides, only one entrance is being seen as the 'officially' docking entrance. And from that side normal collision behaviour is ignored. That way is safe. And because, lucy enough, the script still uses the legacy addShips commands, you can be sure the safe side is on the planet side. The new addShip commands add ships with random orientation and you will no longer be able to keep head and tail apart for these stations.

Thx for the clarification Eric... up to this moment I wasn't aware of any of these details.

As they say, constant change is the only permanent thing in life...

OTOH, if I understood right what you said, the random orientation (coming with the new addShip command) would only affect stations with more than one docking port, such as the current fuel stations and some others I can't remember right now... so I suppose that for any stations with ONLY ONE dock, that one dock would still remain safe for a turret-bearing ship.

Or maybe I'm still missing something here ???

Cheers & thx