Oolite Bulletins

Its not so much a bug, but a fact of life!

The OXP is adding an extra station and about 80 extra ships to the system. It takes Oolite a few seconds to do this. However, once Oolite has sorted itself out the game should run normally. You'll probabley have a few "stutters" as your cross-hairs come up (and the Kraits by the beacon hail you), but set your course for the Repair Base and your frame rate should pick up again.

If you find Oolite is really struggling you could take out a few other high demand OXPs (like Black Monks) and put them back in when you've completed this mission. It runs Ok on my elderly PC, but only after waiting about 30 seconds whilst Oolite is busy adding all the ships.

The OXP mods about 20 systems. In most cases it only adds a few ships, so there is no noticable slowdown in entering the system. However at Beatle and 4 other systems the OXP adds a lot of "objects" to the game. Afraid this means you will have to wait 5 to 30 seconds (depending on your set up) when you enter these systems. But once Oolite is done adding the objects, the game should run normally.

It was a trade-off. I could have added the objects slowly (using STATUS IN FLIGHT), which would have meant no delay in enting the system, but the gameplay constatley interupted as the ships were added. Instead I used the STATUS EXITING WITCHSPACE / STATUS LAUNCHING command, so there is a hang when you enter these systems, but once Oolite has sorted itself out and added the objects the game plays normally. Sorry about this. Price of Epic 200 ship plus multi-sided battles!

UPDATE!

Please note Assassins does not ATM work properly on PC Oolite 1.68, although seems fine on Mac Oolite 1.68. It works fine on PC 1.67, 1.65 and below. But for some reason (that I havent worked out yet!), on 1.68 the script can get caught in a "loop" displaying the same mission briefing again and again.

Play on 1.67 or 1.65 if you are using the PC!!!

UPDATE - LOOP BUG TRACED!

The loop bug has been traced and it is a problem with the way 1.68 PC works. Assassins does work fine on 1.68 (Mac) however. This is the problem:-

PC 1.67 and below allowed scripters to change the F7 System data entries for a system as often as they liked using "setSpecificPlanetInfo:". However, PC 1.68 only allows you to do it once. If the script tries to change part of an F7 entry that has already been changed then Oolite "bails" out of the script and does not read any of the commands after the second "setSpecificPlanetInfo:" command.

On PC 1.68 Assassins will work fine until you recieve a message from the Guild warning you that their computer has been hacked. At the start of the OXP the description of Be Soin's home world was set. When (as this briefing mentions) the Soin's burrow was destroyed by one of the Guild's operatives arranging a *ahem* "misfire" of a Navy weapon, the script reset the decription to: "Orramaor is noted for its companion world Apollodorus. Formaly the corporate headquarters of Soin Classic Shipyards Ltd, the Planet Orramaor is now famous for a large crater on the southern continent."

This causes Oolite to bail from the Script and not read any other commands. So you get stuck in a loop, as all the Commands after the "setSpecificPlanetInfo:" were not read and so Oolite still thinks that the stage is before you saw the briefing and gives you the briefing again.

It is a feature of the OXP that Systems change depending on the player's actions and the actions of NPCs. In all over 60 changes can be made, to systems descriptions, populations, govenments and tech levels. Obviously not every briefing will change the Universe, but a lot will. The OXP will be unplayable on 1.68. Its not somthing I can really fix, but maybe the Devs can fix it for 1.69.

Assassins isn't the only OXP that does this, the same problem will happen with Ionics.

DO NOT therefore play on PC 1.68, although the OXP will function correctly on PC 1.67 and below.

The Devs are aware of the oddity on the PC, so hopefully will be fixed by an updated version of PC 1.68!

Thouroughly enjoying this mission so far. In fact it's the inspiration for my current burst of Ooliteering.

On the other hand it was a little surreal being greeted by my avatar the first time!

Well, as I said when I asked permission to use your avanta, many moons ago, its the perfect calling card for those shady money lending Black Monks and their friends in the equally disreputable Assassins Guild!

It took me a while to remember that you'd asked me. Anyway great work. Since I got to elite a few months back it's the missions that bring me back to playing this great game.

I still have the same problems in Linux that I had before i.e. I go to a modified system and everything locks up.

The problem begins on entering witchspace - I just jump straight into the system, no rings. The system is empty and none of the keys respond. You might remember that last time this happened on the first hit - this time it's a later one.

I tried to copy the code that appeared in the terminal, but it won't let me. I highlight the text, but as soon as I let go, it vanishes.

Oh well, will just have to stick to playing this mission in XP

Hmm Odd. Think Davfaci is on Unix and it was working on his set-up. B7 did have a case bug with hitsplanet1.PNG, but that was fixed by 1.2. Might have missed one though. Could you post the name of the system where this is happening as then I'll know which textures to look at?

It happens when I go after the "Fair Wind". I'd done the other missions in XP and copied everything across, so I don't know what happens with them.

When I keep the terminal open, the debugs pop up like crazy as soon as I jump into the system.

nb I found two .png's in planetinfo.plist, which I changed to .PNG. I can now see the sun and planet, but still no controls, so I can't move around to see what else is there.

Ok the blighter is hitsplanet4.png!

In planetinfo its typed as hitsplanet4.PNG. Could you go to planetinfo and change it to hitsplanet4.png?

Its a tricky bug to squash as a windoz user as not only does the os not care about case it also lies about it! I made the texture in Paint and told paint to save it in PNG format. When looked at with windows explorer, the OS claims it ends .PNG not .png. The DOS command prompt tells the truth however!

EDIT: PS when you test this, bear in mind there is a "hang" whilst Oolite populates the system (maybe as long as 30 seconds), where the game is frozen. So give Oolite a bit of time after to emerge from hyperspace.

How to copy from the terminal window in *nix:

Highlight the text, then press Shift + Delete.

You can't use Ctrl + C 'cos that is a kill signal.

To sort out OOlite problems: scroll up to the first error and fix that if it is a case problem - usually "can't find file".

This will reduce the number of error messages. Repeat the action and fix again until all is sorted.

There's something else you may need to do and that is to sync your graphics driver with your current version of the kernel.

When you update the kernel you may need to re-install the graphics driver. If you don't X might not start OR will start but strange things may happen with graphics.

I won't go into more detail yet but if you need help with this please post.

If you want a list of filenames in the correct case you can go to cloud9.dyndns.tv click on FTP server and download DirAssassins.txt.

Made the change, now when I go to Beatle (still no witchspace rings) I see a sun, planet and clouds. Still no controls though, and no ships either.

Have pasted a load of stuff from the terminal. Let me know if you want me to send it to you.

Edit - removed superfluous OXPs to make it run quicker, including kleptohud. With the default HUD, the crosshairs vanish when I jump to Beatle.

The crosshairs always vanish when you make a jump anywhere. They come up again when the system is populated. Normally this is only a delay of a second (or less), so you tend not to notice it. At Beatle I've gone rather over the top with Objects. The Script is adding the repair base, 30 odd powered down ships nearby, loads of tugs taking broken ships to the repair yard, the Fair Wind, a mine sweeper defence network and loads of Krait police patrols. Whilst Oolite is "reading" the script Oolite freezes. The ships only appear (and Oolite only unfreezes) when the game has read all the script commands. The same thing happens with every system, but with the Be Soin hit (for example) the script only added a dodec and Be Soin's Adder, so the freeze is so short you tend not to notice it.

At Beatle Oolite is processing 129 Script Commands to populate the system, whereas a Orramor it only had to process 2!

Generating ships is very memory and processor heavy, so adding 129 of them takes Oolite a while.

How long the freeze with no cross-hairs will be probabley depends in part on our system's processing speed. Could you make the jump to Beatle and leave Oolite alone (go and make a cup of tea!). Just to test whether this is the normal hang or if there is still a problem on Unix.

You don't normally have to wait long entering an Assassins Modded system, but Beatle is so heavily modded and I'd like to check whether its a Unix problem or just the normal delay.

EDIT : Just tested on my (very crap and slow PC) running 1.65tp on XP. Had a 45 second wait before my cross-hairs came up and the game started running again. When the Game is frozen are you seeing a green moon near the normal planet? If so then Unix is adding the moon OK and you just need to give Oolite a little time to read all the script commands.

I had to code it this way as the exiting hyperspace is a natural break in the game play. So I got Oolite to do all its processing at this point, so although you have to wait entering the system, once Oolite is running again you don't get interuptions to the gameplay.

Well, it works fine on XP, it's just in Linux I have the problem. I have a dual boot, so same hardware.

I jumped into the system and waited. The clock started running properly, and I found myself very close to the planet with altitude falling, so I think it must have finished populating. Still no controls.

That is really stange!

I know the no sun being added and Oolite running with no controls is a texture name bug. Whilst writing the OXP if I mistyped the name of a planet texture Oolite would behave as you described. I guess this is as the game got stuck in a "add a moon with texture X", "nope no texture X found, better look again" so the game never got to the point of giving you control as it was stuck in a loop.

But having a Sun and the game running but with no controls is a new one!

As a final bug-test could you delete the planetinfo.plist? (or move it out of the OXP onto deasktop so you can still use it on XP by putting it back in once tested on Unix). This will stop the OXP adding any extra planets. The planets are really eye-candy, all the mission ships stations etc will still be added, so you can play the OXP without the extra planets it just won't be as pretty. Some Marks will also be a bit harder to find as the planets act as "landmarks" to help you find them (eg Be Soin Holidaying near the compainion planet), but the Marks will still be in the System even with planetinfo deleted. The Station orbiting the planet will also still be there (even with the planet gone), so you can use the OXP stations compase beacon to find where the planet normally would be.

Do you get the same crash now? If you don't then it must be somthing to do with the planets (but only on Unix) and its not a case-sensitivery bug, so I'm not sure how to fix it, but at least I'd know something is up with the planets on Unix! If you still get the same crash then we can rule out the planets and I'm really stumped!

I know Davfaci playtested the final 5 missions on Unix and these involved going to Systems with 4 extra planets and hundreds of extra ships, yet he didn't get this crash.

Until I can find a bug-fix, as you have both O.S., suggest you play on XP as you do miss a nice feature of the OXP without the planets. Skimming a rocky moon whilst fighting as part of a fleet of other ships against an enemy fleet with two Gas Giants in the sky does look rather nice! (Though I say it myself!)