Oolite Bulletins

Posted: **Sat Nov 13, 2010 12:42 pm**

Mmmm. Sounds like a stealth-tax on bigger ships to me.

Posted: **Sat Nov 13, 2010 12:54 pm**

Why stealth?

If you add the scrape-and-get-a-fine oxp & then buy a really big ship you should kind of know what's likely to happen...

Posted: **Sat Nov 13, 2010 1:48 pm**

Well at first glance it looks like a general fine for bad pilots, but as a big ship is more easily scrapable, they are more likely to get caught out by this, so something that looks like a general fine is much more likely to catch big ships than small ones. That, in my book, is a stealth tax!

Posted: **Sat Nov 13, 2010 2:01 pm**

I head some of these stations are deliberately making their docking bays smaller, just to increase their revenue. Apparently flying a more generously-proportioned ship is a "lifestyle choice" ...

Not that I care! I can fit the Radio Maru through a catflap. True story. Let the fatties pay! They get all those cargo contracts, they can afford it.

Posted: **Sat Nov 13, 2010 2:54 pm**

Smivs wrote:
That, in my book, is a stealth tax!

Sure, if that applied to all the players all the time. The thing I'm puzzled by is that we're talking about a possible future oxp, which is something anyone has to specifically choose to install.

Using a real - existing OXP - as an example, some people like farSun, some don't. But if someone said it includes some form of stealth punishment for people who want to go sunskimming, I'd also ask 'why stealth?'. If the sun is more distant it'll take longer to reach it!

Again, no-one is obliged to install anything that doesn't fit their concept of a perfect ooniverse!

Posted: **Sat Nov 13, 2010 4:37 pm**

Smivs wrote:
Mmmm. Sounds like a stealth-tax on bigger ships to me.

Erm, spot the light-hearted throw-away jokey comment

For what it's worth I actually quite like the idea, and I could see it sitting comfortably in the core game, let alone an OXP. Parking without due care and attention. HeHe.

Posted: **Sat Nov 13, 2010 4:48 pm**

Kaks wrote:
Smivs wrote:
That, in my book, is a stealth tax!
Sure, if that applied to all the players all the time. The thing I'm puzzled by is that we're talking about a possible future oxp, which is something anyone has to specifically choose to install.

I just installed the handler in trunk and tested it against the following station script:

Code: Select all

this.name        = "mayanStation"; 
this.author      = "eric walch"; 
this.description = "Script for the mayan station"; 
this.version     = "1.0"; 

this.lastShip = null;
this.fines = 0;

this.shipCollided = function (ship)
{
    if (!this.lastShip || ship != this.lastShip)
	{
		this.lastShip = ship;
		this.fines = 5;
	}
    else
    {
        this.fines += 5;
    }
}

this.otherShipDocked = function (ship)
{
    if (this.lastShip && ship == this.lastShip)
    {
        ship.bounty += this.fines;
        if (ship.isPlayer)
        {
            player.addMessageToArrivalReport("You have been fined " + this.fines + " ₢ for irresponsible docking.")
        }
    }
    this.fines = 0;
    this.lastShip = null;
}

Strange, the first few docking I had trouble to hit the wall at all with my boa II. But than I managed scratching the walls without killing myself. The fines message showed up in my arrival report after docking.

I was fined 15 credits, so I must have hit it 3 times.

And it won't be a core feature. An oxp writer has to explicit add it to his station.

Posted: **Sun Nov 14, 2010 9:09 am**

That's pretty cool code...shame it's station specific, though that could at least be customized on a per-station type basis.

15 credits would seem hardly excessive for a fine for anyone other than a new Jameson. A tiny problem would be going negative if someone had spent all their "liquid" credits. I do that a lot early on from buying up Gold/Plat/Gems with spare credits. I guess if credits ran negative...they could be set back to 0 and the player hit with a time penalty from sweeping/cleaning/repairing the docking bay.

Posted: **Sun Nov 14, 2010 10:20 am**

Kaks wrote:
.... but if all else fail you can create a custom player ship script that will check how close you are to the nearest station when taking scrape damage. .....

I just noticed that it is impossible. We only have event handlers for energy damage (shipAttacked), not for scrape damage or heat damage. The only time when a ship gets notified about scrape or heat damage is as cause when it dies.

Switeck wrote:
shame it's station specific, though that could at least be customized on a per-station type basis.

It could also be written as worldscript: both station as ship get the notification. I just had to revert the AI notification to ships. dockingAI.plist dictates that ships abort docking when receiving a COLLISION message. And some big ships started to abort their docking to often.

Posted: **Sun Nov 14, 2010 10:41 am**

Switeck wrote:
That's pretty cool code...shame it's station specific, though that could at least be customized on a per-station type basis.

15 credits would seem hardly excessive for a fine for anyone other than a new Jameson. A tiny problem would be going negative if someone had spent all their "liquid" credits. I do that a lot early on from buying up Gold/Plat/Gems with spare credits. I guess if credits ran negative...they could be set back to 0 and the player hit with a time penalty from sweeping/cleaning/repairing the docking bay.

I agree, 15Cr is really small as a fine, unless the player is just starting out. It would probably be better if scraping the docking bay got you community service, sweeping/cleaning the docking bay, instead of a fine. The length of time spent cleaning up after the Craboids would depend on how many times you scraped the bay ... say, 4 hours for every clunk? 6, maybe? It's less of a penalty for beginners (they're unlikely to have any time-specific missions) and more of a penalty for experienced pilots who might have somewhere to get to in a hurry and who should know better ... Don't know if this is doable via an OXP, though.

Posted: **Sun Nov 14, 2010 10:49 am**

Eric Walch wrote:
I just noticed that it is impossible. We only have event handlers for energy damage (shipAttacked), not for scrape damage or heat damage. The only time when a ship gets notified about scrape or heat damage is as cause when it dies.

Is this where I point out I've had a request for an event handler that triggers when the player takes damage posted for a few months now?

Admittedly it wasn't for this case (it was to allow armour such as IronHide to work properly), but it would solve this little issue too.

Posted: **Sun Nov 14, 2010 11:21 am**

Thargoid wrote:
Admittedly it wasn't for this case (it was to allow armour such as IronHide to work properly), but it would solve this little issue too.

Although scrape damage activates no handler, it will always be followed by a collision handler. (Only the station dock missed a collision message but will be there in 1.75) Having both a scrape and a collision message is probably two times the same.

Oolite Bulletins

Permit systems and system permits