Oolite Bulletins

Simon B wrote:

Heh - I've finally figured out that when NPCs activate their witchdrives, a wormhole appears. This lets everyone dive through.

Welcome to the club!

Simon B wrote:

I note
- players do not make wormholes, they get a countdown.
- sensor-lock is not possible on a wormhole.
- players cannot tell where a ship jumps to unless it is scripted.
- npcs don't seem to follow players through witchspace

This is not completely correct. NPC's get a countdown, too. (It is scripted in their AI, in form of a 'pauseAI: 15.0', before they actually make the jump.)

There is a thread somewhere else where we discussed the issue of not-knowing-where-a-wormhole-leads-to. The engine knows (if you make an entity-dump, you will see the wormhole-entities listed, together with their destination). There are, however, some additional problems with this, if you really are striving for realism. For instance you would have to keep into account the travel times. There was the idea that you could overtake an NPC who does a long jump by doing two short jumps into his destination system, and then wait for him for several hours. Which of course means that the engine would have to take track not only of the ships from your last system, but also those from your second-to-last, or even third-to-last system. And this is where it gets quite complicated quite soon.

Last not least: As also discussed in that other thread, it is not at all trivial to make the destination of a wormhole known to a script.

Simon B wrote:

The end of the countdown needs to make a big blue sphere in front of you

I beg to disagree here. What the jumping pilot sees at the end of the countdown is not the blue sphere that is left in the system he is just leaving (he is leaving the system, after all!), but the witchspace tunnel he is entering into. And this is exactly how Oolite (and Elite) have always worked.

If you want a (somehow) analogy from RealLife™: The pilot in an airplane that goes super-sonic does not hear the 'bang' of breaking the sound barrier. Only those he 'leaves behind' notice the phenomenon.

Simon B wrote:

OR the npc initiating the witchspace jump needs to vanish as their wormhole forms around them - then the other ships dive in.

Again this is exactly how it works already. As you see practically in every system, when a big trader launches from the station and disappears--leaving a blue sphere, into which his escorts dive and disappear as well. And if you follow, too, you see them all at the other end of the tunnel, rearranging as a group.

So I don't see what should be addressed or changed here.

Simon B wrote:

A sensor lock on a wormhole could tell you where it leads - maybe restricted to advanced sensors?

Please search the boards, as there was a debate about this quite recently (two weeks ago, perhaps?).

Simon B wrote:

A sensor lock on a ship which jumps out should tell you the destination - in combination with above, by transferring the lock to the resulting wormhole. If you disagree with above, this still needs to be considered.

Well, a sensor lock tells you nothing but a ships name and legal status. And even from an in-game perspective I don't see why internal data from a ship's navigational computer should become accessible to anybody who locks his target computer on the ship. Aren't computers in the time of Oolite guarded by firewalls in any way?

Simon B wrote:

Particularly viper-pursuit craft should occasionally chase a fugitive through witchspace. Same with hunters, and aggressive pirates.

I guess here you are talking about chasing the fugitive player. Entirely possible by script, and already done in some scripts. Only that it doesn't work this way technically.

Technically, the very moment a player leaves a system, that system ceases to exist, and is replaced by a completely different system, the one the player is jumping into. Because at any given time there is only one system created by Oolite. Which means that, if the player leaves the system, there are no viper-pursuits, hunters or pirates anymore to follow him. They had an existence-failure.

If you want to give the impression that a ship is hunting the player through witchspace, you simply have to spawn it again, as soon as the player has arrived in the new system. And this happens already--think of the Thargoids that chase you through half of Galaxy 3 during the Thargoid Plans mission.

Simon B wrote:

A sensor lock on a wormhole could tell you where it leads - maybe restricted to advanced sensors?

A sensor lock on a ship which jumps out should tell you the destination - in combination with above, by transferring the lock to the resulting wormhole. If you disagree with above, this still needs to be considered.

Check the Witchspace cloud analyser thread for more information on this.

Disembodied wrote:

Simon B wrote:

A sensor lock on a wormhole could tell you where it leads - maybe restricted to advanced sensors?

A sensor lock on a ship which jumps out should tell you the destination - in combination with above, by transferring the lock to the resulting wormhole. If you disagree with above, this still needs to be considered.

Check the Witchspace cloud analyser thread for more information on this.

Ah, yes. This was the thread where we discussed it.

Commander McLane wrote:

Simon B wrote:

Heh - I've finally figured out that when NPCs activate their witchdrives, a wormhole appears. This lets everyone dive through.

Welcome to the club!

Simon B wrote:

I note
- players do not make wormholes, they get a countdown.
- sensor-lock is not possible on a wormhole.
- players cannot tell where a ship jumps to unless it is scripted.
- npcs don't seem to follow players through witchspace

This is not completely correct. NPC's get a countdown, too. (It is scripted in their AI, in form of a 'pauseAI: 15.0', before they actually make the jump.)

There is a thread somewhere else where we discussed the issue of not-knowing-where-a-wormhole-leads-to. The engine knows (if you make an entity-dump, you will see the wormhole-entities listed, together with their destination). There are, however, some additional problems with this, if you really are striving for realism. For instance you would have to keep into account the travel times. There was the idea that you could overtake an NPC who does a long jump by doing two short jumps into his destination system, and then wait for him for several hours.

?? So two 3ly jumps take less time than one 6ly one? Does this mean that' in time-critical situations, I'll make my destination sooner with smaller jumps?

Which of course means that the engine would have to take track not only of the ships from your last system, but also those from your second-to-last, or even third-to-last system. And this is where it gets quite complicated quite soon.

Well... yes - the solution is for the time spent in jump to be consistent.

Last not least: As also discussed in that other thread, it is not at all trivial to make the destination of a wormhole known to a script.

I suppose I have been fooled by certain missions into thinking that this info is easier got than it is.

Simon B wrote:

The end of the countdown needs to make a big blue sphere in front of you

I beg to disagree here. What the jumping pilot sees at the end of the countdown is not the blue sphere that is left in the system he is just leaving (he is leaving the system, after all!), but the witchspace tunnel he is entering into. And this is exactly how Oolite (and Elite) have always worked.

I'll have to look more closely I guess... this is the option 2 mentioned below:

Simon B wrote:

OR the npc initiating the witchspace jump needs to vanish as their wormhole forms around them - then the other ships dive in.

Again this is exactly how it works already.

Now I'm impressed - most developers have trouble including a requested feature within a few weeks - but Oolite devs managed to include this feature in negative time! Excellent work :)

Simon B wrote:

A sensor lock on a wormhole could tell you where it leads - maybe restricted to advanced sensors?

Please search the boards, as there was a debate about this quite recently (two weeks ago, perhaps?).

I see a link in replies - thanks.

Simon B wrote:

A sensor lock on a ship which jumps out should tell you the destination - in combination with above, by transferring the lock to the resulting wormhole. If you disagree with above, this still needs to be considered.

Well, a sensor lock tells you nothing but a ships name and legal status. And even from an in-game perspective I don't see why internal data from a ship's navigational computer should become accessible to anybody who locks his target computer on the ship. Aren't computers in the time of Oolite guarded by firewalls in any way?

Considering how the ship jumps out - the sensors are getting the info from the resulting wormhole.

Otherwise - how does anyone know where the targets of certain missions have gone to?

Simon B wrote:

Particularly viper-pursuit craft should occasionally chase a fugitive through witchspace. Same with hunters, and aggressive pirates.

I guess here you are talking about chasing the fugitive player. Entirely possible by script, and already done in some scripts. Only that it doesn't work this way technically.

Technically, the very moment a player leaves a system, that system ceases to exist, and is replaced by a completely different system, the one the player is jumping into. Because at any given time there is only one system created by Oolite. Which means that, if the player leaves the system, there are no viper-pursuits, hunters or pirates anymore to follow him. They had an existence-failure.

An attack of acute solipsism - yeah

If you want to give the impression that a ship is hunting the player through witchspace, you simply have to spawn it again, as soon as the player has arrived in the new system. And this happens already--think of the Thargoids that chase you through half of Galaxy 3 during the Thargoid Plans mission.

Those are the same Thargoids? Because I wiped out a dozen of the suckers! But that's what I was expecting - yeah.

Having this happen as routine in the main game would be nice. Say - 1 in 3? With a comms message along the lines of "Ha ha! You can't get away that easy!"

For that matter - this would be good advise for the scripted occurances.

I am pleased to find that Oolite is still not letting me down.

Simon B wrote:

- npcs don't seem to follow players through witchspace

They do! The AI send a special message when a target creates a wormhole. Pirates are scripted to follow a player through a wormhole while in the attack state. And yes, this is the only script I know of that checks this message (Maybe random hits also?)

Simon B wrote:

?? So two 3ly jumps take less time than one 6ly one? Does this mean that' in time-critical situations, I'll make my destination sooner with smaller jumps?

Hmmm, you're still in the phase where every day a new and exciting discovery waits for being made?!

So, yes. Jumptimes increase with the square of distance. So a single 6ly jump takes a huge amount of time, while three 2ly jumps are almost negligible. I guess you've now read the thread Disembodied linked to. There I did the maths: a 6.8ly jump (the longest possible in Oolite) takes a full 20 hours game time more than two 3.6ly jumps (the smallest possible substitute with two jumps). So you would have an awful lot of time to spend waiting for the guy you have overtaken.

By the way: Have you never looked at the bottom of your F6-screen? Whenever you target a planet in your current jump-range the travel time is displayed there. So you just have to compare some times, to find out that they grow with the square.

And of course the fact that short jumps are much faster plays a very crucial role in any mission with a time-component (like for instance cargo and passenger contracts).

Oh, and an answer to another question:

Simon B wrote:

Otherwise - how does anyone know where the targets of certain missions have gone to?

Well, usually you will be told in your briefing where to search for somebody, won't you? And then there will be a small reminder in form of the short description on the F5-F5-screen.

And if you're asking about the case where a target jumps out in front of your eyes (like it happens with Random Hits): There is no need to 'know' where he goes. You just have to follow him through his wormhole. (We have already established that you can do this, haven't we?) However, if you fail to do so, he is gone. (Well, not completely true. As he can only be in neighbouring systems, you can of course do a systematic search in all systems within jump-range. He has to be in one of them.)

Eric Walch wrote:

Simon B wrote:

- npcs don't seem to follow players through witchspace

They do! The AI send a special message when a target creates a wormhole. Pirates are scripted to follow a player through a wormhole while in the attack state. And yes, this is the only script I know of that checks this message (Maybe random hits also?)

Never seen it: jumping out is one of my more common methods to evade pirates. So far, I have got away every time I've survived the 15 secs.

Another observation - I have managed to follow an NPC through some half-dozen jumps before said worthy decided to go refuel.

NPC was an Iguana in hunter role, spawned from a seedy spacebar. Certainly not normal for those anacondas.

...
I've been moaning a lot - all this discussion is good for my understanding of the game, and I wouldn't be getting replies if folk didn't think it was maybe worth it... still, I better hand out the boquets too...

Just a note here:

I have been running the Realistic Shipyards. Not all ships are to my taste, but some have been mindblowing:

Bandersnatch
Jabberwocky
Kestrel
Mussurana Void-Yacht
Imperial Courier
Josher
Griff-Krait
Mugger - finally decided I liked it.

These are the outstanding models I have seen so far.

In order to run some of the oxps in full-screen, I have to shut down compiz-fusion... but I'll live with it.

I do like the Josher! Owned one for a long time and a very good trade ship that you can also use for combat. Nicely blanaced, you feel like you a flying a freighter, allbeit one that can pack a lot of shields and armement.

Commander McLane wrote:

Simon B wrote:

?? So two 3ly jumps take less time than one 6ly one? Does this mean that' in time-critical situations, I'll make my destination sooner with smaller jumps?

Hmmm, you're still in the phase where every day a new and exciting discovery waits for being made?!

Well...

[quoe]So, yes. Jumptimes increase with the square of distance. So a single 6ly jump takes a huge amount of time, while three 2ly jumps are almost negligible. I guess you've now read the thread Disembodied linked to. There I did the maths: a 6.8ly jump (the longest possible in Oolite) takes a full 20 hours game time more than two 3.6ly jumps (the smallest possible substitute with two jumps). So you would have an awful lot of time to spend waiting for the guy you have overtaken.[/quote]Cooo ... now insystem time is also pretty short compared with jump times, and I've been trying to work out the refueling time.

So this meas I can be pretty certain to get passengers to their destination on time by making shorter hops.

By the way: Have you never looked at the bottom of your F6-screen? Whenever you target a planet in your current jump-range the travel time is displayed there. So you just have to compare some times, to find out that they grow with the square.

Hmmm... this I noticed in 1.71+ but not in the old one.

And of course the fact that short jumps are much faster plays a very crucial role in any mission with a time-component (like for instance cargo and passenger contracts).

Well - the jump time would regardless. Basically ou end up aking lots of short hops - which increases your in-system time by 15 secs times one-less the number of jumps. (over a single jump route.) Also increases the chance of a witchdrive malfunction during the mission - if it uses flat odds, on a per-jump basis.

On a strategic note - does not seem to be much effect - unless there is something to cleverly exploit this besides a deadline?

By comparison - make jump-times a square-root (say) of the distance, and longer jumps are more advantageous for the captain in a hurry. However - longs jumps leave the ship more vulnerable during system time... less scope for injector use for eg.

I've seen threads about increasing the jump distance too.

Oh, and an answer to another question:

Simon B wrote:

Otherwise - how does anyone know where the targets of certain missions have gone to?

Well, usually you will be told in your briefing where to search for somebody, won't you? And then there will be a small reminder in form of the short description on the F5-F5-screen.

But when I get to the target system in the constricor hunt, he's not there. The locals tell me he jumped out headed for Meezlypuss... now, how did they know?

If someone followed him and jumped back to tell everyone, then why say he headed in that direction? Why not just say "scouts report he went there."[/quote]

And if you're asking about the case where a target jumps out in front of your eyes (like it happens with Random Hits): There is no need to 'know' where he goes. You just have to follow him through his wormhole.[/quote]

Random Hits is a case in point - when the target jumps out, I recall getting a message about where he went (in brackets after the "your target jumped out".)

Also - captains are going to want to know where the residual wormholes anacondas etc leave near the stations go, before using them.

Since allowing some sort of scan seems to be deemed too difficult, presumably adding the option to hail a ship to find this out would also be too difficult?

The ability to follow through wormholes adds the intreguing possibility of ships hailing the player asking "hey buddy, you going to Kowsplat?" because they want to go there too. Then saying "thanks" if the player did, and allowed time for the other guy to catch up.

The hunter jumping many times if you follow is down to his "clear up" AI. I hadn't figured on you following one! Basiclly I wanted to create a safe zone near the bar. So the Bars AI launches them at the drop of a hat if it spots Thargoids Pirates or any ship with a bounty on it. It also launches if crimes are committed nearby. But I didn't want to make Anarchies too safe. That'd be no fun and would rather overload Oolite with ships in the system. Clean Commanders will be defended within 25kms of the bar, but outside that little island the space lanes are as dangerous as ever.

To tidy up hunters launched by the bars, Once all criminals within 25km have been eliminated, if the hunter finds no more targets to kill there's about an 85% chance he'll either jump out immedatley or look for any valuables to scoop and then jump out. Idea was to simulate NPC hunters having contracts of their own to do, so most will be travelling out of system once they've picked up a bit of pocket change from killing any pirates by the bar.

15% of hunters though when they find no targerts will go on a long patrol of the Anachy Sytems's space lanes looking for targets. This has the desired effect of getting good battles going near the bar (i've also added bars to pirates target lists so sometimes pirates attack the bars - silly!), but after the battle the ships are cleared away. Does mean though when you follow a hunter and he spots no targets by the w/s beacon in the new system there's an 85% chance he'll jump again. So if you follow he'll probabley do an unrealistic number of jumps before switching to a long patrolAI. Improving the AIs for the hunters and bars is on my to do list for 1.4 of RH. I'll fix by switching to a jumping hunterAI that after a jump go's staight to a long patrolAI. Also need to add script messages of break off to stop friendly fire incidents between the bar's turret gunners and the hunters launched.

With the Constrictor hunt, its hand-scripted. When the mission is running the F7 entries of a load of systems in G2 as set to say things like "When't for me at XXXX try there." One system is changed to say "You can challenge him if you like he's at YYYY". Once the player checks the F7 screen at a system thats been changed, he's in the loop and so flys the route, eventually coming to the system where he is. The game only adds the contsrictor ship when the player is at that system and the mission varable for the contrictor hunt is that the hunt is running. Gives the impression you're chasing him, but it was all pre-destined!

Simon B wrote:

Well - the jump time would regardless. Basically you end up aking lots of short hops - which increases your in-system time by 15 secs times one-less the number of jumps. (over a single jump route.)

Well, yes. But what are 15 seconds, even if you would make 100 jumps, compared to the 46.24 hours(!) your ship clock advances for a single 6.8ly jump?

Simon B wrote:

Also increases the chance of a witchdrive malfunction during the mission - if it uses flat odds, on a per-jump basis.

While this is true, the built-in odds of a witchdrive malfunction are pretty small. I would estimate it happens to me perhaps once every 40 or 50 jumps.

Simon B wrote:

On a strategic note - does not seem to be much effect - unless there is something to cleverly exploit this besides a deadline?

It's up to scripters to exploit it. I for instance am working on an OXP where it is going to be crucial to jump to a distant system and back in less than 7 game days. You can only do that with small jumps through all intermediant systems. If you fail to be back in time, the mission will take a different turn from what happens if you are back early.

Simon B wrote:

I've seen threads about increasing the jump distance too.

Not going to happen. The 7ly-barrier is a valuable Elite-legacy.

Simon B wrote:

But when I get to the target system in the constricor hunt, he's not there. The locals tell me he jumped out headed for Meezlypuss... now, how did they know?

Yes, there are some inconsistancies in the game, aren't there?

You could rationalise it, of course, by saying that the outgoing traffic scanners in the main stations are able to monitor the wormholes and determine their destination. Ships' scanners, however, which are smaller and less powerful than station scanners, cannot do that.

Simon B wrote:

Another observation - I have managed to follow an NPC through some half-dozen jumps before said worthy decided to go refuel.

Correct observation. This is because NPC don't actually use fuel for jumping. They only need it for their injectors. (Another small inconsistency.)

Simon B wrote:

adding the option to hail a ship to find this out would also be too difficult?

Ship-to-ship-communication is another long standing wish (of mine, as well). But impossible with the current game.

Simon B wrote:

The ability to follow through wormholes adds the intreguing possibility of ships hailing the player asking "hey buddy, you going to Kowsplat?" because they want to go there too. Then saying "thanks" if the player did, and allowed time for the other guy to catch up.

Something like this would be possible. But the player cannot communicate back in any way. He just would have to make the jump, and on the other end the NPC-ship would be re-spawned, to make it look like he followed the player.

Sounds pretty easy. Might do it as a small etude.

Having constant-time for a jump would make the wormhole-scanner MUCH simpler to code. Personally I would prefer it anyway - original Elite never had a ship clock for one thing and for another, to me it makes more sense that a wormhole is literally a folding of space so irrespective of how much 'real space' distance the wormhole covers it doesn't take any distance/time to fly through it.
However such a change would deviate far too much from existing Oolite and I'm sure there was a good reason for it being the way it is. It also adds a more strategic element to all time-related missions and ultimately every design decision is about adding 'fun' to the game, irrespective of how 'logical' or 'realistic' it is.

Micha wrote:

Having constant-time for a jump would make the wormhole-scanner MUCH simpler to code.

Sure - but look at the strategic effect of having the jump-time proportional to the square-root of the distance?

I like the idea of tempting players to push their luck. Like the idea that you can push the jump distance a bit more at a massive increase in the chance of a jump malfunction. If someone tries to jump more than, say 7.6ly, they are almost certain to fail... it kicks in as a temptation when a player runs into a 7.2-4 ly gap and has to backtrack... it tempts them to risk a long-range jump with dubious results.

I *do* see the objection - thase gaps are carefully placed and part of the game is getting tripped up. Still... an equipment item like "witchdrive supercharger" gives a one-shot boost of 0.1ly with a 20% failure, 0.2ly with 40% fail, 0.3ly with 70% and 0.4ly with 98%.

LittleBear wrote:

The hunter jumping many times if you follow is down to his "clear up" AI. I hadn't figured on you following one!

This was when it was telling me that some other hunter was getting my kills... I go WTF? Look around - nobody there: maybe he got caught in the Q-bomb... and next time I see this other hunter launched just ahead of me... I thinks: clever scripting: he's after my mission target the cad!

When I give chase, his first few jumps are in the right direction... hah! Confirmed! So I shot him up when he finally stopped running and it turned out not to be that at all.

:D

Commander McLane wrote:

Simon B wrote:

Well - the jump time would regardless. Basically you end up aking lots of short hops - which increases your in-system time by 15 secs times one-less the number of jumps. (over a single jump route.)

Well, yes. But what are 15 seconds, even if you would make 100 jumps, compared to the 46.24 hours(!) your ship clock advances for a single 6.8ly jump?

Yes - that's kid of my point...

Simon B wrote:

On a strategic note - does not seem to be much effect - unless there is something to cleverly exploit this besides a deadline?

It's up to scripters to exploit it. I for instance am working on an OXP where it is going to be crucial to jump to a distant system and back in less than 7 game days. You can only do that with small jumps through all intermediant systems. If you fail to be back in time, the mission will take a different turn from what happens if you are back early.

Yes, but that's another deadline thingy - I meant besides deadlines.

OK - it's probably counter-intuitive...

Still more creative would be a "hot pursuit" set of missions ... you have to get to a system ahead of some other vessel which has already left...

Simon B wrote:

I've seen threads about increasing the jump distance too.

Not going to happen. The 7ly-barrier is a valuable Elite-legacy.

And I agree that increasing it messes with the game-play. If this were done, something else would have to be done.

I don't like hard barriers and I prefer to let players hang themselves. If there were a ship-superdriver item which allowed an singe 7.2ly jump, at substantial chance of breaking something though - that would make for more interesting play.

I'd actually start the danger inside the 7ly limit too.. perhaps 7ly is just the "recommended maximum safe jump distance" - exceed and you are not insured. But the odds of a misjump are higher than, say, a 6ly jump.

The addition of the external tank already increases range by 3ly, without increasing the max jump. Which is actually a good solution.

Another method is to deliberatey trigger a misjump to some destination - exiting interstellar. Using the fuel pod, then retargeting the drive. Again - this represents an abuse of the engines.

A device which does this once could be purchased in anarchy systems - possibly at salvage yards.

Simon B wrote:

But when I get to the target system in the constricor hunt, he's not there. The locals tell me he jumped out headed for Meezlypuss... now, how did they know?

Yes, there are some inconsistancies in the game, aren't there?

You could rationalise it, of course, by saying that the outgoing traffic scanners in the main stations are able to monitor the wormholes and determine their destination. Ships' scanners, however, which are smaller and less powerful than station scanners, cannot do that.

Only the main stations are not sensitive enough to tell honest men from pirates at that witchpoint range. Sure - they cauld have jumped closer to the station.

Simon B wrote:

Another observation - I have managed to follow an NPC through some half-dozen jumps before said worthy decided to go refuel.

Correct observation. This is because NPC don't actually use fuel for jumping. They only need it for their injectors. (Another small inconsistency.)

They can also get bigger tanks!

Simon B wrote:

adding the option to hail a ship to find this out would also be too difficult?

Ship-to-ship-communication is another long standing wish (of mine, as well). But impossible with the current game.

I'm not so sure about that - one could have a "hailing frequency" triggered by a player action ... this will be the chatty channel. Opening the hailing frequency indicates a willingness to talk... the other ships send chatty comms messages about the destination, where they've "been", pirate activity, what they are hauling, where they are going... etc. It need not be very interactive.

Sounds as scriptable as the existing comms chatter.

Or maybe some of the big haulers just like to natter an the CB - rubber duck this here's big ben coming right up on your six hauling food and machinery, you got your ears on, come back..."

Simon B wrote:

The ability to follow through wormholes adds the intreguing possibility of ships hailing the player asking "hey buddy, you going to Kowsplat?" because they want to go there too. Then saying "thanks" if the player did, and allowed time for the other guy to catch up.

Something like this would be possible. But the player cannot communicate back in any way. He just would have to make the jump, and on the other end the NPC-ship would be re-spawned, to make it look like he followed the player.

Yes!