[UPDATED RELEASE] - Escort Contracts OXP - 1.5.6 (07/05/12)

[Capt. Murphy]

Which version were you using DragonFire?

Prior to 1.1 mother's didn't do collision avoidance. They do now.

[Oathbreaker]

Looks like a great mod. Especially the part about "M" and a triangle denoting the location of the escortee if you lose them in a system. I'd advise putting that in the wiki article just for other people like me who might think they've lost the marbles.

Also, don't try this in a Cobra Mk 3 without some serious fire power and extra shields and skills.

[Oathbreaker]

Bug
Minor

How to reproduce:

Complete mission, wait inside the station's envelope. "Mother" will repeatedly ask you to return to within scanning range after already telling you to go ahead and dock.

Also seems like the in-system jump logic doesn't always work as advertised - the ship kept saying "Preparing to Jump" while I stayed within 2.5km range, yet never jumped over the course of about a minute. No ships in vicinity, green light on mass lock jump indicator. EDIT: NVM, seems the jumps do happen, it's just an instant teleport thing, really. Suggest a visual indicator, pref the regular jump drive star streaks, if even for just a little time.

Suggest replacing generic call sign "Mother" with the name of the person you're escorting, alt. ship's name pulled from some random database alt. generic call sign from these lists:
http://www.monitoringtimes.com/Military ... -APR09.pdf
http://www.f-16.net/callsigns.html
http://www.the-guide.nl/callsign/
http://www.ominous-valve.com/callsign.txt

[Capt. Murphy]

Re the jump - it's a hack pure and simple - jumps are only visually obvious when facing the same direction as the mother and get more obvious the closer you get to the planet. If you look carefully you'll notice some disturbance of the mother's exhaust plume (not deliberate it's an artifact of the jump). Can't do star streaks unfortunately.

I'll check the docking bit again - that shouldn't happen after the Mother has reported that she is safely in Station Aegis.

[Capt. Murphy]

Oathbreaker - can I just double check that you are getting Please return to Scanner Range messages after you've had a "Safely in Station Aegis. Thanks for your help. Please dock at will and meet me in the bar for payment." communication. You haven't got something like Traffic Control OXP installed that gives docking instructions when you enter the Aegis?

[Eric Walch]

Oathbreaker - can I just double check that you are getting Please return to Scanner Range messages after you've had a "Safely in Station Aegis. Thanks for your help. Please dock at will and meet me in the bar for payment." communication.

I had the same problem. The mother refuses to dock. I did an AI logging:

Code: Select all

[ai.takeAction] AI.m:519: Boa 366 to take action sendScriptMessage: ec_checkplayermasslock
[ai.message.receive] AI.m:455: AI ec_mothergroupjumpAI.plist for Boa 366 in state 'GLOBAL' receives message 'CLOSE_TO_PLANET'. Context: handling deferred message, stack depth: 0
[ai.message.receive] AI.m:455: AI ec_mothergroupjumpAI.plist for Boa 366 in state 'GLOBAL' receives message 'AEGIS_CLOSE_TO_PLANET'. Context: handling deferred message, stack depth: 0
[ai.message.receive] AI.m:455: AI ec_mothergroupjumpAI.plist for Boa 366 in state 'GLOBAL' receives message 'AEGIS_CLOSE_TO_MAIN_PLANET'. Context: handling deferred message, stack depth: 0
[ai.message.receive] AI.m:455: AI ec_mothergroupjumpAI.plist for Boa 366 in state 'GLOBAL' receives message 'AEGIS_IN_DOCKING_RANGE'. Context: JavaScript reactToAIMessage(), stack depth: 0
[ai.takeAction] AI.m:519: Boa 366 to take action setTargetToSystemStation
[ai.takeAction] AI.m:519: Boa 366 to take action setAITo: ec_mother_dockingAI.plist
  [plist.parse.failed] OOPListParsing.m:74: Failed to parse /Users/ericwalch/Library/Application Support/Oolite/AddOns/Escort Contracts 1.1.oxp/AIs/ec_mother_dockingAI.plist as a property list.
Unexpected character { at line 1
  [ai.load.failed.unknownAI] AI.m:804: Can't switch AI for <ShipEntity 0x12c3d5a00>{"Boa"} from ec_mothergroupjumpAI.plist:GLOBAL to "ec_mother_dockingAI.plist" - could not load file.
[ai.takeAction] AI.m:519: Boa 366 to take action pauseAI: 2
[ai.takeAction] AI.m:519: Boa 366 to take action sendScriptMessage: ec_checkplayermasslock
[ai.message.receive] AI.m:455: AI ec_mothergroupjumpAI.plist for Boa 366 in state 'GLOBAL' receives message 'AEGIS_IN_DOCKING_RANGE'. Context: handling deferred message, stack depth: 0
[ai.takeAction] AI.m:519: Boa 366 to take action setTargetToSystemStation
[ai.takeAction] AI.m:519: Boa 366 to take action setAITo: ec_mother_dockingAI.plist
[ai.takeAction] AI.m:519: Boa 366 to take action pauseAI: 2
[ai.takeAction] AI.m:519: Boa 366 to take action sendScriptMessage: ec_checkplayermasslock
[ai.takeAction] AI.m:519: Boa 366 to take action pauseAI: 2
[ai.takeAction] AI.m:519: Boa 366 to take action sendScriptMessage: ec_checkplayermasslock
[ai.takeAction] AI.m:519: Boa 366 to take action pauseAI: 2
[ai.takeAction] AI.m:519: Boa 366 to take action sendScriptMessage: ec_checkplayermasslock

This log fraction says enough. The docking plist you use has a syntax error and is not used at all. At four places there is a missing semicolon in the UPDATE part.

[Oathbreaker]

Oathbreaker - can I just double check that you are getting Please return to Scanner Range messages after you've had a "Safely in Station Aegis. Thanks for your help. Please dock at will and meet me in the bar for payment." communication. You haven't got something like Traffic Control OXP installed that gives docking instructions when you enter the Aegis?

Click image to view full contents of my Oolite folder. In short, no, I don't have Traffic Control, and yes, the escortee kept sending after arrival in station aegis.

Also, great mod. Gives a bit more reason for me to shoot at stuff instead of just flying to a random system to pick a fight and the fly out.

[Eric Walch]

Hello Oathbreaker. From your screenshot I see you are also working on a mac. Maybe this syntax error is ignored on windows and therefor it does work for Cmd Murphy.

---
On the subject of "Engaging Jump Drive". I noticed it also works if the player is facing a different direction than the mother. That would be strange as both fly in the same direction now but noses point different. You probably want to add a check by calculating a dot product of both headings. The result is 1 when both point in the same direction and -1 when pointing in opposite directions. So a valid test would be

Code: Select all

if (this.ship.heading.dot(player.ship.heading) > 0.9) [engage jump drive]

[Oathbreaker]

Yup I'm on a Mac.

Here's another minor issue, not really bug, might be called a feature but it's a bit rough on new players or those in unfamiliar local space territory.

I get to a station and get offered some escorts. I have no way to check the map and either have to accept the mission without really knowing where I'm going, or decline the missions and then exit the station, hit Shift+C to immediately re-enter and repeat this until I get a chance to do another escort after having checked the map to see where I'm interested in going and where I'm not interested.

A change could be to either allow the player to re-access the escort mission screen after checking the map/commodity market, or simply make the map accessible during the mission screen.

Not a big deal, just a minor inconvenience, really.

EDIT: One of the major reasons I love this mod is that it gives you a focal point for your space battle, so it's not just shoot-kill-move on, there's an actual point and purpose to it - the other being that it lets you do that with a full tank of fuel for the afterburners, which is a sore point with me when you get to a system on the edge of your fuel reach and then find yourself with no afterburners. Good job, anyways.


[Bug, Minor]
If you accept a mission and change your mind, launch and re-dock you'll get a message saying you failed. Great. Except the guy will keep messaging you to "Approach my ship" while you're inside the station. Big deal? No, not at all. But kinda ...weird. Creepy weird. Like that gay guy (not that there's anything wrong with *that*) that followed me around a 7-11 store that one time in college. Proof:

[Capt. Murphy]

Thanks for the feedback gents. Useful tip of the heading check Eric, understanding of Vector3D is not a strongpoint

I can confirm the dockingAI parses fine under windows-will double check all of the syntax. I should be able to jig the missions screens to allow access to the charts and be able to return to the mission screens. And that final error might be a plist error aswell.

May be a little while for an updated release. Oolite time will be limited over the next week or two.

Oathbreaker - have you discovered latest.log and previous.log yet? Not sure where they live on a Mac. Useful to post with error reports as the header lists your system and graphics capabilities along with installed OXP's and any errors on loading or later in the game.

[JensAyton]

Oathbreaker - have you discovered latest.log and previous.log yet? Not sure where they live on a Mac.

They live in the FAQ, under Diagnosing Problems. (On a Mac, they’re also accessible through menus.)

[Eric Walch]

I get to a station and get offered some escorts. I have no way to check the map and either have to accept the mission without really knowing where I'm going, or decline the missions and then exit the station, hit Shift+C to immediately re-enter and repeat this until I get a chance to do another escort after having checked the map to see where I'm interested in going and where I'm not interested.

The easiest solution is to just download the galactic map and print it out.

The oxp could offer a chance to break out, allow the player to manually visit the map and than resume the code. It is possible to script it that way. I do it in UPS courier, but this option makes the script quite complex.

An intermediate solution is to only give distance and direction. For direction the code could use the formula:

Code: Select all

this.$positionToDirection = function(pos){
    var pos1 = system.info.coordinates;
    var pos2 = new Vector3D(pos);
    var dx, dy, x2, y2;
    
    dx = pos2.x - pos1.x;
    dy = pos2.y - pos1.y;
    x2 = Math.abs(dx);
    y2 = Math.abs(dy);
    
    if (x2 > 2.41421 * y2){  // x2 > y2 / Math.tan(Math.PI/8)
        return dx > 0? "east" : "west";
    }
    if (y2 > 1.732 * x2){
        return dy < 0? "north" : "south";
    }
    if (dx > 0){
        return dy < 0? "north-east" : "south-east";
    }else{
        return dy < 0? "north-west" : "south-west";
    }
};

Maybe a suitable candidate to add to the "Cabal_Common_library.oxp ?

I can confirm the dockingAI parses fine under windows-will double check all of the syntax.

No need to check the other .plist files, they are okay. It are only the 4 semicolons in UPDATE. After fixing them, this and the other AI.plist files opened okay with my mac plist editor.

[Svengali]

Maybe a suitable candidate to add to the "Cabal_Common_library.oxp ?

Yes .-) I'll add it asap .-)

[Capt. Murphy]

Thank you very much Eric - I had toyed before with trying to recreate the UPS and or Random Hits method for this but put is aside for another day. I tend to just quickly check the short range chart before docking if I'm hoping for a mission.

I'll get an interim release up with the fixed AI and the tweak to the synchronised jump up tomorrow morning and then tinker with the mission screens to do one or other of these methods.

[Capt. Murphy]

Version 1.2 uploaded - see first post for updated read me and download link.

Thanks to Eric and Oathbreaker for bug reporting and tips.

Version 1.2 (13/7/11)

Fixed dockingAI that would not parse correctly on Mac systems.
Tweaked and tidied the synchronised jump code. Player must be between 500m-2500m and on approximately same heading as mother before synchronised jump will happen. The minimum distance has been introduced to avoid mother making course changes whilst hopping due to avoiding ‘collision’ with the player.
Added an additional check to avoid anomalous communication from the mother when docked.