Pirate Coves

[Anonymissimus]

A few suggestions for the update:

• This OXP makes the search for rock hermits much more dangerous. (Without a strong fighter ship at least, though Vortex pirates can also come out ) It should therefore make normal hermits more effective to dock with. They should sell thrice as much precious metals or so.
• Docking with a pirate cove should be punished if the player is clean. Maybe let it cost 5000cr to bribe the guards for letting him flee or so. If the player is offender, no special action; fugitives could get improved support (especially high-tech shipyard for maintenance and equipment)
• The pirate cove status should be revealed by the attackers coming out then or by coming near if offender/fugitive, not only by docking (so you can be sure it's not a normal hermit without being punished when docking).

[Anonymissimus]

the markets, like all older oxp markets, no longer seem to work at all.

What do you mean, exactly ? I can buy or sell stuff at pirate coves. Does not seem to differ much from normal rock hermits.

[DredgerMan]

Hi All!

After a previous report of a weird attacking pattern, posted here and with kind assistance from A_C, I was able to do some quick searching and found that the issue mentioned was indeed linked to pirate coves.

I found this out by lanching into a system, clearing the Aegis and then spawning a pirate cove. I targetted the spawned cove first before targetting the ships that can out of it. During the battles I had the following occur, similar to the original issue.

Code: Select all

> :spawn [pirate-cove]
> this.T = system.addShips("[pirate-cove]", 1, player.ship.position, 10000); if (this.T) this.T = this.T[0]; else consoleMessage('command-error', 'Could not spawn "' + "[pirate-cove]" + '".');
[Station "Rock Hermit" "Rock Hermit" position: (-49935.3, -38523.5, 491177) scanClass: CLASS_ROCK status: STATUS_IN_FLIGHT]
Rock Hermit 9367 spawned at 7 km

Far Star 129 spawned at 7 km

Player alert condition changed from 2 to 3

Player targeted Rock Hermit 9367 who has 1000 energy

Player lost lock on Rock Hermit 9367

Player targeted Far Star 129 who has 350 energy

Player attacked Far Star 129 who has 338 energy

Player attacked Far Star 129 who has 327 energy

Player attacked Rock Hermit 9367 who has 1000 energy

Player attacked Far Star 129 who has 315 energy

Player attacked Rock Hermit 9367 who has 1000 energy

Player attacked Far Star 129 who has 304 energy

Player attacked Rock Hermit 9367 who has 1000 energy

Player attacked Sidewinder Scout Ship 3208 who has 240 energy

Player attacked Sidewinder Scout Ship 6091 who has 240 energy

Player attacked Far Star 129 who has 300 energy

Player attacked Rock Hermit 9367 who has 1000 energy

Player attacked Far Star 129 who has 289 energy

and so forth.

I then flew on to encounter some multiple pirates and tried the same again. Target one enemy then target another and start blasting. The resulting battle followed the normal pattern without additional non-hitting attacks.

Code: Select all

Player attacked Krait 23440 who has 130 energy

Player attacked unsuccessfully by Krait 23440

Player got message from Krait 23440 : Life! I can't shake them!

Player attacked Krait 23440 who has 118 energy

Player attacked Krait 23440 who has 106 energy

Player attacked Krait 23440 who has 95 energy

Player attacked Krait 23440 who has 83 energy

Player attacked Krait 23440 who has 71 energy

Player targeted Cobra Mark I 20085 who has 150 energy

Player attacked Cobra Mark I 20085 who has 138 energy

Player attacked Cobra Mark I 20085 who has 126 energy

Player attacked Cobra Mark I 20085 who has 114 energy

Player attacked Cobra Mark I 20085 who has 103 energy

Player attacked Cobra Mark I 20085 who has 91 energy

Player attacked Cobra Mark I 20085 who has 79 energy

Player attacked Cobra Mark I 20085 who has 67 energy

Player attacked Cobra Mark I 20085 who has 55 energy

Player attacked with Missile from Cobra Mark I 20085

Player attacked Cobra Mark I 20085 who has 44 energy

Player got message from Cobra Mark I 20085 : Parking meter! Witchspace and rock!

Player attacked Cobra Mark I 20085 who has 32 energy

Player attacked Cobra Mark I 20085 who has 20 energy

Player attacked Cobra Mark I 20085 who has 8 energy

Player lost lock on Cobra Mark I 20085

Player target Cobra Mark I 20085 is destroyed

Player killed Cobra Mark I 20085 with energy damage

Wreckage 20906 spawned at 19 km

Wreckage 4991 spawned at 19 km

Player hit by ECM, 3 remaining

Player hit by ECM, 2 remaining

Player hit by ECM, 1 remaining

Player hit by ECM, 0 remaining

Player targeted Python 7115 who has 706 energy

Player lost lock on Python 7115

Player attacked unsuccessfully by Mamba 16221

Player attacked unsuccessfully by Mamba 16221

Player attacked unsuccessfully by Mamba 16221

Player attacked by Mamba 16221 384+384 shield and 525 energy left

Player taking shield damage from Mamba 16221 384+369 shield and 525 energy left

Player attacked unsuccessfully by Mamba 16221

Player attacked unsuccessfully by Mamba 16221

Player targeted Mamba 16221 who has 240 energy

Player attacked by Mamba 16221 381+381 shield and 525 energy left

Player taking shield damage from Mamba 16221 381+366 shield and 525 energy left

Player attacked unsuccessfully by Mamba 16221

Player attacked unsuccessfully by Mamba 16221

Player attacked unsuccessfully by Mamba 16221

Player attacked by Mamba 16221 379+379 shield and 525 energy left

Player taking shield damage from Mamba 16221 379+364 shield and 525 energy left

Player attacked unsuccessfully by Mamba 16221

Player attacked unsuccessfully by Mamba 16221

Player attacked unsuccessfully by Mamba 16221

Player attacked by Mamba 16221 378+378 shield and 525 energy left

Player taking shield damage from Mamba 16221 378+363 shield and 525 energy left

Player attacked by Mamba 16221 374+369 shield and 525 energy left

Player taking shield damage from Mamba 16221 374+354 shield and 525 energy left

Player attacked unsuccessfully by Mamba 16221

Player attacked unsuccessfully by Mamba 16221

Player attacked unsuccessfully by Mamba 16221

Player attacked unsuccessfully by Mamba 16221

Player attacked unsuccessfully by Mamba 16221

Player attacked by Mamba 16221 373+373 shield and 524 energy left

Player taking shield damage from Mamba 16221 373+358 shield and 524 energy left

Player attacked unsuccessfully by Mamba 16221

Player attacked unsuccessfully by Mamba 16221

Player attacked unsuccessfully by Mamba 16221

Player attacked unsuccessfully by Mamba 16221

Player attacked unsuccessfully by Mamba 16221

Player attacked by Mamba 16221 375+375 shield and 519 energy left

Player taking shield damage from Mamba 16221 375+360 shield and 519 energy left

Player attacked by Mamba 16221 372+367 shield and 520 energy left

Player taking shield damage from Mamba 16221 372+352 shield and 520 energy left

Player attacked by Mamba 16221 368+358 shield and 521 energy left

Player taking shield damage from Mamba 16221 368+343 shield and 521 energy left

Player attacked unsuccessfully by Mamba 16221

Player attacked unsuccessfully by Mamba 16221

Player attacked Mamba 16221 who has 228 energy

Player attacked unsuccessfully by Mamba 16221

Player attacked Mamba 16221 who has 216 energy

After the battle I spwaned another pirate cove, to check if the issue would still be there without first targetting the pirate cove.

But the same issue happened.

Code: Select all

> :spawn [pirate-cove]
> this.T = system.addShips("[pirate-cove]", 1, player.ship.position, 10000); if (this.T) this.T = this.T[0]; else consoleMessage('command-error', 'Could not spawn "' + "[pirate-cove]" + '".');
[Station "Rock Hermit" "Rock Hermit" position: (-86235.2, -92753.3, 427859) scanClass: CLASS_ROCK status: STATUS_IN_FLIGHT]
Rock Hermit 24301 spawned at 9 km

Player alert condition changed from 1 to 2

Krait 1906 spawned at 9 km

Player alert condition changed from 2 to 3

Player targeted Krait 1906 who has 506 energy

Player attacked Krait 1906 who has 494 energy

Player attacked Rock Hermit 24301 who has 1000 energy

Player attacked Krait 1906 who has 482 energy

So, in short three times i have noticed the unattacking attacks when a pirate cove was involved and targetting one then switching the target for attack makes no difference. It doesn't actually create a problem, or at least not one that I can see but there does seem to be a coding issue.

[Cmdr. Aiden Henessy]

An interesting incident occurred to me earlier:

I had just exited a Dodo, and was waiting around the lane seeing if I could hitch a ride with another ship. To my luck, I found a Trident shuttle was jumping with his escorts. But what was interesting to me was that it said, "Destination locked. Jumping to Pirate Cove now."

Now, I didn't know that pirate coves counted as their own separate planets. Maybe it was just a glitch, and it was displaying it's end destination, and not just the system it was jumping into? Well after the wormhole appeared, I locked on to it. It gave the destination as Pirate Cove. Odd. Still, I followed in. I was greeted with a "witchjump warning" and the ominous beeping of the scanner... I found myself in the middle of a pitched battle between Thargoids and pirates. There was the pirate cove, and all the asteroids, out in the middle of Interstellar Space. There were four or five pirates already out, but being shoot to bits. Within seconds of my arrival, the pirate cove exploded majestically. The Trident was next to go, and then me.


I didn't think fast enough to pause and take a screenshot, and I have absolutely no idea how to get the log or code or anything... so I know I'm not at all helpful in reporting this (seeming) glitch. But it sure was interesting. (And it gave me an idea for an OXP to have coves, asteroid fields, and other oddities out there in Interstellar Space. Currently it just seems like a dead-end and a game ender.)

[spara]

Sounds like some other OXP at work. Interstellar tweaks OXP perhaps?

[Norby]

in the middle of Interstellar Space.

If you have a decent ship then this is a good place to practice your skills and make steps towards to the next ranking.

Otherwise press and hold down F6 right in the tunnel until the map appear at the end of jump, quickly select your destination system and press 'h' to start countdown asap. Then inject or dodge a few more seconds and you are out of trouble. The hitchhike saved the half of jump fuel.

[UK_Eliter]

Here's a very belated reply, and a request.

The reply is to spara and Cmdr. Aiden Henessy. The message, 'Destination locked. Jumping to Pirate Cove now' does not owe to the Interstellar Tweaks OXP. (Source: I wrote that OXP.) The arriving in witchspace amidst a pirate-thargoid battle: yes, that may well have been Interstellar Tweaks.

The request: can we give pirate coves - and maybe just all rock hermits - more hit points (i.e. energy) please? They seem to easy to destroy. If the change isn't forthcoming, I'll be moved to hack my local versions of the OXPs!

[phkb]

I'll put this here, as it seems like a better place for the moment, rather than creating a new "2.0" thread.

Here is Pirate Coves 2.0: Download PirateCoves_2.0.oxz

Here's a summary of the changes:

• Reworked populator script to allow the game to be saved at Pirate Coves.
• Moved the location of Pirate Coves to be a little bit away from the main space lane.
• Made all the spawning rules for Pirate Coves configurable via Library Config, including:
  • Whether single Pirate Coves should be spawned at all
  • Whether to include a sample Pirate Cove at Diso (G1)
  • Controlling how close to the space lanes a single Pirate Cove should be spawned.
  • Whether Pirate Coves should replace standard Rock Hermits, in any of their 3 varieties (neutral, chaotic or pirate), and what the chance of the replacement should be

Before I update the DM, it would be good to have a few more eyes go over this, particular how it plays. By moving the single PC further away from the space lane (rather than being in scanner range of it), could make Pirate Coves harder to find, which I think makes more sense, but other opinions are welcome. Have a play and let me know.

[Cholmondely]

I'll put this here, as it seems like a better place for the moment, rather than creating a new "2.0" thread.

Here is Pirate Coves 2.0: Download PirateCoves_2.0.oxz

Here's a summary of the changes:

• Reworked populator script to allow the game to be saved at Pirate Coves.
• Moved the location of Pirate Coves to be a little bit away from the main space lane.
• Made all the spawning rules for Pirate Coves configurable via Library Config, including:
  • Whether single Pirate Coves should be spawned at all
  • Whether to include a sample Pirate Cove at Diso (G1)
  • Controlling how close to the space lanes a single Pirate Cove should be spawned.
  • Whether Pirate Coves should replace standard Rock Hermits, in any of their 3 varieties (neutral, chaotic or pirate), and what the chance of the replacement should be

Before I update the DM, it would be good to have a few more eyes go over this, particular how it plays. By moving the single PC further away from the space lane (rather than being in scanner range of it), could make Pirate Coves harder to find, which I think makes more sense, but other opinions are welcome. Have a play and let me know.

1) I've got the original loaded. I obviously misunderstood this OXP - I'd presumed that it beefed up every chaotic rock hermit rather than create a fourth variety. Does this OXP do anything if it does not spawn "single" pirate coves?


2) Wiki entry: Some exceptional pirates manage to gather up a band of cutthroats and take over either abandoned or manned Rock Hermits, slaughtering or inducting those who they find inhabiting them. From this point, the Rock Hermit is referred to as a Pirate Cove and are considered real navigational hazards to trade shipping. The normal tactic of a Pirate Cove is to remain powered down until a likely target comes onto their scanners, then the pirate ships power up, mass-locking the target's in-system hyperspeed drive. From this point, only the most skillful or lucky pilots can fend off or escape them. The usual result is the target is overwhelmed and destroyed, their cargo scooped and any evidence of the combat cleared away before the police arrive on the scene.

I read this as saying that the OXP does nothing other than spawning pirate coves with their unusual behaviour. And if one adds this OXP to their collection they are doing so because they wish pirate coves to be spawned.



But in any case: Does this make sense?

0) The OXP scenario does fit in with the increase in piracy following the collapse of the "Golden Age"



1) What really happens in space?
I would presume that there is a local "community" in each solar system. The miners, the rock hermits, the local in-system traders who buy their wares and supply them. They know each other. And they are known to the management of the main GalCop orbital station (both local planetary authorities and GalCop) and the local GalCop police. (I'm ignoring the presence of OXP stations such as SIRF or Taxi Galactica which strike me, frankly, as bizarre!). In a corporate state or democracy, this community would be strong. In an anarchy or a feudal, it would be feeble, existing through the forbearance of pirates.


1a) And, again, where do all these pirates come from? The planet surface? Pirate Coves?

In an anarchy pirates can be based where they like, one presumes. But in a feudal state? Should one presume that the Feudal State merely controls (sort-of) the planet surface and not the solar system? While the Anarchy controls neither?



2) Police?
Surely the police response to creating a pirate cove in a system such as Diso (Democracy) would be immediate? They would hear about it through the local community.

So what would actually happen? There would be a raid, destroying the Rock Hermit (why?) but not pointlessly establishing a pirate cove (which would be immediately clobbered by the police).

Only in an anarchy (or interstellar space) could such a Cove be created and continue to exist. This is, of course, presuming that the vanilla game police force in an anarchy is too feeble to dislodge them. Is this true?


2a) And then what about the GalCop police? And their funding?

Anarchies have no government so all funding for GalCop police there must be external - or locally raised by the local GalCop forces. What about Feudals? Do they pay a minimum stipend to GalCop? Does this get them a larger police force?

How many police are spawned by the Vanilla game in an anarchy - and how many in a feudal?



3) Photographic "kill" record
And there would be the Elite Federation's records of the pirate's kills. Which are analysed immediately (the increase in Elite ranking is immediate). One presumes that the GalCop police have access to this material even if not immediately (one is only tagged as an offender/fugitive if police are physically present - so this is not done from the Elite Federation's photographic record. But might be a result of legal complications, rather than lack of access or issues with speed of analysing the records). So there would be a response, even if delayed. And eventually, even in an anarchy, with a task force being sent from a better policed system - especially if like Zaleriza it is blocking a trade route.

[phkb]

Left running with default settings, Pirate Coves does potentially 2 things:
1. Occasionally spawns a single Pirate Cove
2. Occasionally replaces a “neutral” aligned Rock Hermit with a Pirate Cove (in about 25% of cases).

With the controls I’ve added in, you can increase (or decrease) the percentage, have it additionally replace a percentage of “chaotic” or “pirate” Rock Hermits, or turn all of the replacements off, and just have the extra Pirate Cove. Or do the reverse: turn off the extra Pirate Cove, and just have occasional replacements.

While I’ve allowed for the replacement of pirate Rock Hermits, in gameplay they don’t spawn very often anyway. In Gal 1, in a vanilla game, I found 8 across the entire chart. So don’t expect a lot of replacements to happen even if you up the percentage chance a bit.

[Nite Owl]

Read through the files in this OXZ and am fairly sure on what settings would be used in order to have it fit into my Ooniverse. Only one question remains which probably has already been answered in my understanding of the files but just want to be sure before going forward and adding this into the mix.

How well will this play with Spicy Hermits and your own Extra Rock Hermits? When doing a bit of a TWEAK to Spicy Hermits (rearranging markets) the earlier version of Pirate Coves was affected by what had been changed in a very detrimental manner resulting in the OXZ having to be removed. If the Solo Spawn Option or replace only Pirate Rock Hermits option is set (what is being leaned towards) then the Spicy Hermits changes should not affect this OXZ at all. As to the Extra Rock Hermits OXZ will these Pirates Coves spawn with all the fancy extras or as just the standard looking Rock Hermits?

More than likely you do not have the answers to these questions as yet and they will come about through a bit of play testing on the the part of the general public. Will start that testing as soon as Real Life allows. Thanks Once Again for pushing the boundaries.

[phkb]

How well will this play with Spicy Hermits and your own Extra Rock Hermits?

Short answer: There should be no conflicts between this OXP, Extra Rock Hermits and Spicy Hermits.

(Note: PC = Pirate Cove, ERH = Extra Rock Hermits, RH = Rock Hermit. In case the following gets confusing!)

Longer answer: Spicy hermits updates the default markets of neutral, chaotic and pirate RH's. (It also adds some abandoned RH's, and applies some tweaked AI to Hermits, but for the purposes of analysing how everything interacts, those aspects can be ignored for now).

What that means is, any OXP that adds to one of the three RH pools will, by default, pick up the market definition from Spicy hermits.

ERH does that: it doesn't do anything with the market, and accepts whatever the default would be. If you have Spicy hermits installed, you get the spicy hermit market. If you don't, you'd get the default Oolite hermit market.

PC's have their own market definition. So, if one of them spawns, it should ignore whatever default Oolite has available and override it with its own.

So that's the market side. As for what types of RH could become a PC, the answer is only the default Oolite RH. A PC is like_shipped from the Oolite RH template, and not from anywhere else. So you won't get a RH from ERH becoming a PC.

Leaving aside the single PC for the moment, lets look at the RH replacement side of things. At the moment, with the way the roles are set, when Oolite asks for a ship with the role "rockhermit", there will be 3 takers: ERH, PC and the standard RH. ERH will take precedence and make a choice to either allow one to spawn or not. If it decides Yes, you'll get an ERH from its pool, and PC won't get a look in. If it decides No, then PC will have a go and decide if it will allow a PC to spawn. If it decides Yes, you'll get a PC. If it decides no, Oolite will fall back to the default RH.

As for the single PC, it's rules are independent of the standard RH spawning rules. If you're really interested I can outline them for you.

Hopefully that explains all the interactions. To the best of my knowledge, there should be no conflicts with any of the OXP named above.

[Nite Owl]

Thank You for the very thorough details. Let the testing begin. Well... as soon as life lets me.

[UK_Eliter]

phkb: thank you for your work; the changes that you describe - those made by the new version of the Pirate Coves OXP - sound like good ideas to me, though I have yet to test that new version.

I think there's something to be said for Cholmondely's idea that pirate coves should exist only in in anarchy (or one might say: or similar systems.) (I add here though that anarcho-syndicalism gets a bad press in Oolite. How about some happy anarchies? Anarchy and liberty!) Still: I take that already the chances of such coves is weighted towards the more lawless systems.

Also, I should check whether the new version of Pirate Coves continues to work with my 'Harder Hermits' OXP.

[Cholmondely]

I add here though that anarcho-syndicalism gets a bad press in Oolite.

There is Ascension - introduced by Famous Planets. I've noticed that none of our anarchists ever did anything with it... (other than applaud its existence).

Admittedly it might be anarcho-capitalist rather than anarcho-syndicalist... !



I don't know where Treczoks got the above animation from - it's not in Povray Planets which has a different texture for Sori instead.

But Stranger does have a texture for Ascension in FPO: