Coming Clean!

[Disembodied]

The offer would be put up purely randomly, regardless of the player's legal status. So he could indeed just fly to the system and kill incoming fugitives.

I don't know whether a direct tie-in with Random Hits (as in using Random Hits target ships) would be possible. Normally a target is only created when you visit a Space Bar and accept a contract.

One could contemplate random based creation of Random Hits targets (plus bounty hunters being after them) independent of the player taking a contract, but I feel that should be done in Random Hits.oxp. It would also create powerful opponents even in places where the player didn't call for them.

Hmm ... it might be possible though to create an occasional tough fugitive with a suitably high bounty, coming in to look for an amnesty. If they have a custom AI, so they don't attack non-hostile ships, they might be a temptation for bounty-hunting players. If they became a powerful opponent it would be the player's own fault for attacking them in the first place!

[Eric Walch]

Each time the player receives an acknowledgement of assistance, or hands an escape capsule over to the authorities, (s)he would be given a score (of sorts). Once a certain score is reached the player would receive a clean status again.

Something like this is already happening since 1.74: Every time you get a "thank you" message from a police for helping him, your bounty is reduced by 20%. Of course this is hardly noticeable when it changes from offender to offender, and I only remember one such instance when my status visible changed from offender to clean.

[Commander McLane]

Hmm ... it might be possible though to create an occasional tough fugitive with a suitably high bounty, coming in to look for an amnesty. If they have a custom AI, so they don't attack non-hostile ships, they might be a temptation for bounty-hunting players. If they became a powerful opponent it would be the player's own fault for attacking them in the first place!

Yes, that would be absolutely possible. One of the renegade pirates springs to mind.

Indeed, in the system where the amnesty takes place everything will have to have a custom AIs. The amnesty-seekers, while marked as offenders or (more likely) fugitives will have an AI that makes them head straight to the special station (or carrier), generally disregarding other ships. Of course, if attacked they'll know how to defend their skins. Special bounty hunters will be on the lookout only for these ships, not for normal pirates. A way of minimizing the interference of police ships would be to remove them entirely from the system. After all, it's a GalCop offer, and it doesn't make sense that GalCop would hunt down those who take it, so the cops will temporarily withdraw. All of the aforementioned may also be subject to a little random fluctuation, for instance some over-zealous may try to use the opportunity to bring a most-wanted criminal to justice. All this could be possible directions for script fine-tuning.

First, however, I have to check whether my assumptions about the general scriptability are correct.

[Commander McLane]

Something like this is already happening since 1.74: Every time you get a "thank you" message from a police for helping him, your bounty is reduced by 20%. Of course this is hardly noticeable when it changes from offender to offender, and I only remember one such instance when my status visible changed from offender to clean.

I didn't know!

This means an element of the Anarchies.oxp-bounty-handling has been incorporated in the code, and nobody has told me yet? Wow! Should I drop this element from Anarchies now?

I'd like to know, though, what the chances are for getting the "thank you" message. I think you get it when you hit a criminal who has already hit a police ship before, at least that's what I recall from playing. Or has this changed when the bounty reduction was implemented?

[Eric Walch]

I'd like to know, though, what the chances are for getting the "thank you" message. I think you get it when you hit a criminal who has already hit a police ship before, at least that's what I recall from playing. Or has this changed when the bounty reduction was implemented?

"thank you" messages are generated when a hostile ship changes target. The old victim sends a special AI message to the new target of the hostile ship. The ship is remembered so that is won't send a second message to the same ship. When you activate AI logging, you will have noticed those special AI messages starting with "AIMS_AGGRESSOR_SWITCHED_TARGET and followed by two ID numbers. The AI engine can't do anything with it but other code inside Oolite interprets these messages.

This switch code also raises the bounty of the aggressor a bit.

[Commander McLane]

This switch code also raises the bounty of the aggressor a bit.

Yes, I've noticed that.

A question about balance, then: if you're in the habit of intervening in fights between police and criminals, I imagine that you could get a fair amount of "thank you" messages. Under this assumption I would tend to think that a bounty break of 20% is quite a lot. The formula used in Anarchies is 2/3 * sqrt(bounty of killed ship). So the reduction depends on who you are dealing with. If it's a petty offender you won't get much of it (1). For a fugitive with a bounty of 111 (which is what you get for hitting the police) it would be 8 (both due to rounding). Obviously, if you're a petty offender yourself, 8 is much (but then, you would become clean just by making some jumps). But if you are close to 100 yourself, it's far less than 20%. And you only get it randomly, for one in six kills.

Don't get me wrong, I like the tying to the police "thank you". It's what I actually had in mind, but couldn't do per script. So the way in Anarchies is only a workaround, and I am happily dropping it. I am just a little worried that redemption could become too cheap.

[Switeck]

I've seen a pirate changing targets between 2-3 ships attacking it increase its bounty to over 1000 credits, often so quickly that it sometimes fails to get a shot off at one before changing targets to another. I've even exploited it to get a Fer de Lance to over 2500 credits bounty.

[Commander McLane]

Notification of progress:

I am thinking along the lines of:

• GalCop offers an amnesty for all pilots willing to enlist for a special mission (something Thargoid-related, I guess). All is needed is an announcement randomly popping up at a main station (or perhaps not at main stations, but rather at the less tidy places: Salvage Gangs, Hacker Outposts, Free Trade Zones, and the like). DONE; suggestions for places to get the offer are welcome
• The script picks a system where to report at random, calculates the travel time it takes to get there, and adds between 12 and 72 hours to that in order to establish a dead line. I think that should be doable with the current JS methods. All of this is stored in mission variables. Until the deadline has passed, no other offer pops up. DONE
• In the destination system, a special station is created where you have to report (this is mainly to avoid that you have to dock at the main station and get informed on your report screen that you just licked the hangar clean or have been sent for correction, and now you're clean).
• If the player arrives in the system during a certain time window before the deadline (let's say 12 or 24 hours), he will find other offenders and fugitives heading for the special station. He may decide to have a blood-fest with them instead of going for the station.
• If he docks with the special station before the deadline, he gets a mission offer. On docking again after finishing the mission he becomes clean.
• When the deadline arrives, regardless whether the player went for it or not, the mission variables are cleared and another offer can randomly be made.

I've always wanted to do something where the game time plays a role as a factor in the setup. This seems like an ideal opportunity.

You may notice that both the remaining time and the distance are smaller on the manifest screen. They are updated on the fly.

PS: Can someone give me a better word for 'factually' on the first screenshot? What I want is to say laconically that you either succeed or die trying. So either you actually live to get your amnesty afterwards, or the certificate will be stuffed into your coffin. But I'm somehow lacking the short-and-snappy word for the first case.

[Cody]

PS: Can someone give me a better word for 'factually' on the first screenshot? What I want is to say laconically that you either succeed or die trying. So either you actually live to get your amnesty afterwards, or the certificate will be stuffed into your coffin. But I'm somehow lacking the short-and-snappy word for the first case.

Successful completion of this mission implies that you survive, so the ‘snappy’ word you’re looking for is hard to find. Better might be:

'Complete this mission successfully, and amnesty for all previous crimes and felonies will be granted. Should you die honourably in the attempt, it will be granted posthumously… a comfort for your family'.

[Commander McLane]

Perhaps 'personally' is the word I'm looking for. (It implies that you're there to receive the amnesty.)

[Micha]

I would advice against using multiple exclamation marks - it reads more like script-kiddy than government official, IMHO.


Also, amnesty means that they will not be prosecuted during the terms of this deal, it's not something to strike the record clean afterwards.
The reward might be better worded "On succesful completion of this mission, the applicants' prior crimes and felonies will be struck from his or her GalCop record."

I'm also unsure how to re-word 'factually or posthumously', but factually is incorrect.
Possibly:
'...GalCop record, or pardoned posthumously'.
'...GalCop record, or, if circumstances warrant, pardoned posthumously'.
or
'On successful completion, or honourable death during, the mission, ...'


Hope this helps. And looking forward to it!

[Captain Tylor]

Involvement in the successful mission will lead to the applicants' prior crimes and felonies being struck from his or her GalCop record

[Commander McLane]

I would advice against using multiple exclamation marks - it reads more like script-kiddy than government official, IMHO.

I agree with the point.

However, it's not a government official, but the news bulletin of iNews, who may well be the 32nd century equivalent of the Sun, for all we know. In fact the first two lines and the last line are copied wholesale from the earliest OXPs. I don't even know who came actually up with 'iNews' and this style, but it has existed long before Anarchies.oxp, and I wouldn't want to change it.

The template is

Code: Select all

---iNews Flash!!!

<HEADLINE IN ALLCAPS>!!!

<text>

---Details at 10 on iNews!!!

It's quite obviously built on the other template used in the built-in missions (and in countless OXP-missions, all of mine anyway)

Code: Select all

---INCOMING MESSAGE

<message text>

---MESSAGE ENDS.

which is in all likelihood inherited verbatim from 8-bit Elite.

As I said, I didn't invent it. I just have a thing for consistency.

Okay, I dug a little. It's from Deposed (which is one of the oldest mission OXPs) and has also been incorporated in Lovecats. And in these OXPs the headline in allcaps isn't there. So that must have been my own addition, or been added in a third OXP before I came along. I honestly don't remember.

Also, amnesty means that they will not be prosecuted during the terms of this deal, it's not something to strike the record clean afterwards.

Amnesty means both. In the words of Webster's dictionary:

amnesty |ˈamnistē|

noun ( pl. -ties)
an official pardon for people who have been convicted of political offenses : an amnesty for political prisoners | the new law granted amnesty to those who illegally left the country.

• an undertaking by the authorities to take no action against specified offenses or offenders during a fixed period : a month-long weapons amnesty.

verb ( -ties, -tied) [ trans. ]
grant an official pardon to : the guerrillas would be amnestied and allowed to return to civilian life.
ORIGIN late 16th cent.: via Latin from Greek amnēstia ‘forgetfulness.’

As for the wording, these are some good ideas. I will incorporate them in some way. Thanks!

[Sarin]

This is starting to sound like beginning of Dirty Doozen OXP

[Commander McLane]

This is starting to sound like beginning of Dirty Doozen OXP

You can expect a long and nasty fight, so much is for sure.