Oolite Bulletins

phkb wrote: ↑Mon Jun 06, 2022 10:07 pm

Is linking prices to the main station desirable, though? If you're in a system where computers are being bought for 102cr, you'd be making yourself a prime candidate for cargo dumping. Again, I have no issue with the idea, just trying to get to the bottom of the problem to see all (or at least more of) the solutions.

"Free credits" cargo dumping is more likely to happen with price differences between the Hermitage and the main station, so long as some cargo is available...such as from pirates/fences/bounty hunters selling cargo there.

Reducing the max amount of any particular commodity to only 5-31 (depending on how upgraded the Hermitage is) is another way to reduce credit-earning from buying/selling cargo at the Hermitage.

It's my play style.

With the previous versions (0.7) I had no real idea what I was doing or what the upgrades did. So I would set the prices of the RH market to stop trading and then trade with the local system to equip my ship and then try and start developing the RH (but never got that far: My brief forays into mining usually involved getting attacked by pirates). I was sold oodles of Witchfire whiskey when the price rose above that of the main orbital, crippling my budgeting.

I'm trying for the same strategy here.

Guess I`ll just do a plain list of thoughts and observations again, without cross-quoting :) Everything below is done under 0.8.9

1. First off, I updated my 1.90 to test release as suggested, and the log is now heavily polluted by great many multiples of such events:

[oxp-standards.deprecated]: TL99 is deprecated for EQ_[all dial and indicator names here]

which it produces in hundreds on each F3 action. It makes it really hard to read, my last session logged 21MB of text! Should I do something about it manually or ok to switch to 1.91 for further testing?

2. Tried to invoke the background miner activity script by spending 2 days 19 hours on repairing my Class 7 Armor. Darned pirates, though I delivered most of them for "debriefing" with GalCop at the main station. Nevertheless, here is corresponding log piece, exactly as it were:
haven`t tested by hyperspacing somewhere yet, will do that, but doesn`t seem to be working.

3. That said, Income and Expenses breakdown in Hermitage Management does show some "General Income", source of which is unclear, but appears to be dependent on station TL.

4. My hired miner died. I was in system but away from the Hermitage, not reloading for quite some time and not doing anything time-advancing, and on the next visit saw several pieces of alloys amidst slowly drifting boulders, which kind of gave the clue. However, on next reload there he was as good as new :) So, whether this was an accident and he got hit by the rock, or someone blasted him, or RNGods told him to (haven`t found an exact moment in the log), this was not recorded anywhere, which could be improved upon. "If he dies - he dies" (c)

5. Having a minimum of three Energy Storage Units is fine by itself, just put a note in the Power and Energy section in F3 informing the player of the fact. That is more a question of the available space balancing, but I`ll get to it later. Initial recharge not starting (mentioned earlier) only happened to second and third consecutive ones built, if that helps.

6. While advancing the Hermitage TL, Maintenance overhaul in F3 keeps showing deprecated levels as available. Not sure it supposed to. But please make sure that overhauling at current TL does service all equipment of equal and lesser level. Also, the option for individual component maintenance would be really convenient.

7. Just out of curiosity, I got from station TL4 to TL8 without saving and reloading whatsoever - flying from the Hermitage to the main station to certify a new one, doing some business in system, then back to the Hermitage, buying a next and so on. Everything went fine, and spawned an upgraded station on reload, as supposed to.

8. For the fun part - not sure it has anything to do with the Hermitage itself, but I got ambushed by Thargoids right at my doorstep! And, it happened in that long no-reload-session mentioned above, so I`ve been there like dozen times already, when - suddenly - five greens appear out of nowhere and say something about poets. That was calling for some proper blasting, and quickly solved my alloys shortage problem, plus nice 5000Cr bounty for the Hulk. Just imagine this happening for the player in an Adder or Cobra I with mining laser.. Worth mentioning that they haven`t tried attacking the station.

9. Regarding the Hermitage vs Station price discussion. I`d say there`s no need to match them, because that will essentially stop any trade from happening, same effect if you have your price lower and stock is zero for that commodity. Just do a quick pass over the F8 page on startup, setting what you want to buy with higher price (like Fuel or Radioactives for reactor), and everything you don`t with lower than main station. What I found is that the Hermitage, with its dynamically simulated trade, is a perrrfect drop for anything that the station market is already saturated with. Like if you mine 100t of Slaves or Firearms from the derelict pirate Python, that could be a quick way to legal trouble - I just put them on Hermitage market with a price 7 to 10Cr lower, and they move real quick. Or Alloys, of which the space wrecks are a plentiful source. That long session I mentioned produced almost 8000Cr income in trade only (including fuel sold) - this way, for somewhat combat-capable entrepreneur the Hermitage is much more viable as an independent trading post than on-site producing station.

Everything major that was discussed earlier appears to be working good :) Cargo transfer, storage, prerequisites detection, prices and miners saving all fixed, great!

zx_cb wrote: ↑Mon Jun 06, 2022 11:50 pm

irst off, I updated my 1.90 to test release as suggested, and the log is now heavily polluted by great many multiples of such even

You can control what goes to the log file with the logcontrol.plist file. It's in the oolite.app\Resources\Config folder.

zx_cb wrote: ↑Mon Jun 06, 2022 11:50 pm

Tried to invoke the background miner activity script by spending 2 days 19 hours on repairing my Class 7 Armor.

Two issues here: Ship Config is not triggering any of the events I'm currently looking at to determine when a time skip happens (which I have a patch for); and also, the background miner activity only happens when you're not in the same system as your Hermitage. It's not at all clear cut what needs to happen here: on the one hand, you have employed contractors who will actually launch from your Hermitage and do their thing, then redock and offload their cargo. That can't be sped up. Doing a background process on top of this could interfere with tracking the state of entities (eg if the background process decides that the scavenger has been destroyed, while the actual scavenger is out in the asteroid field busily scooping materials). I'm of a mind to basically ignore time skips in the local system, but at the same time, income and expenses are calculated daily, whether your employees scoop minerals or not.

Local time skips are tricky to deal with, due to needing to interact with spawned entities; remote ones are much easier because it's all just data at that point. I've put off dealing with it because of these complexities, and I expect I'll be tweaking this element for some time to find the right balance.

zx_cb wrote: ↑Mon Jun 06, 2022 11:50 pm

That said, Income and Expenses breakdown in Hermitage Management does show some "General Income", source of which is unclear,

Each upgrade for your Hermitage can have an "income" and "costs" property, which will figure into daily income and expense calculations.

zx_cb wrote: ↑Mon Jun 06, 2022 11:50 pm

My hired miner died.

This should have been logged, but I might have mis-configured something (or my configuration was subsequently updated and removed by another OXP). I'll run some more tests and check this one out.

zx_cb wrote: ↑Mon Jun 06, 2022 11:50 pm

Having a minimum of three Energy Storage Units is fine by itself, just put a note in the Power and Energy section in F3 informing the player of the fact.

Will do.

zx_cb wrote: ↑Mon Jun 06, 2022 11:50 pm

Initial recharge not starting (mentioned earlier) only happened to second and third consecutive ones built, if that helps.

It does, thanks.

zx_cb wrote: ↑Mon Jun 06, 2022 11:50 pm

While advancing the Hermitage TL, Maintenance overhaul in F3 keeps showing deprecated levels as available. Not sure it supposed to.

Yeah, it shouldn't. Looks like a bug.

zx_cb wrote: ↑Mon Jun 06, 2022 11:50 pm

Also, the option for individual component maintenance would be really convenient.

Just working out how to implement this at the moment.

zx_cb wrote: ↑Mon Jun 06, 2022 11:50 pm

Just out of curiosity, I got from station TL4 to TL8 without saving and reloading whatsoever

The Management page might report that the station has a particular TL, but according to Oolite core code, it won't have changed. Changes to TL will have an impact on the things you can buy on the F3 Outfitting page, and none of that would change without the save/reload.

zx_cb wrote: ↑Mon Jun 06, 2022 11:50 pm

For the fun part - not sure it has anything to do with the Hermitage itself, but I got ambushed by Thargoids right at my doorstep!

I have code ready to do station attacks (with a variety of antagonists), but I haven't put in any triggers for it yet, so it's likely either the core game, or another OXP doing it.

zx_cb wrote: ↑Mon Jun 06, 2022 11:50 pm

Everything major that was discussed earlier appears to be working good Cargo transfer, storage, prerequisites detection, prices and miners saving all fixed, great!

That's great news! Thanks for your hard work in testing!

Some additional musings…

Operating costs: I implemented a number of upgrades with a daily cost to keep said upgrade functioning. However, after some more thought on the matter, I wonder if this is the best system to use. With some exceptions, I think it might be better to use commodity resources as the daily requirement, rather than credits. I think that plays into the game loop better, and the process of juggling the various resources required for an expanding Hermitage is more interesting. For some upgrades, it probably makes more sense not to have any ongoing costs.

Here’s what I’m thinking of changing: (these items currently have operating costs)
Life Support Systems: requires minerals
Nav beacon: none
Distillery: already has commodity requirements
Weapons Manufacturing: already has commodity requirements
Narcotics processing: already has commodity requirements
Refinery: none (in order to use it you need resources)
Reactor: already has commodity requirements
Market capacity: none

Those are the easy ones. The following ones are trickier, and if anyone has some suggestions, please throw them my way!
Defensive turrets, security systems, TechLevels, Energy storage units.

Some items still warrant a daily cost, things like bars and restaurants, Shipyards, and Equipment price factors.

Let me know what you think. With the majority of the bugs eliminated in the current version, balancing is the next major component to work on, along with implementing some of the suggestions put forth up thread. Once I’ve had a few good passes on tuning the systems, the next major ticket item are things like random events and story elements.

SInce 0.8.9 is mostly stable and playable, I wanted to spend some time with it, and did. Here`s some new bugs for you:

1. Test game version produced more specific return on failing to access Facilities menu while building something:

[script.javaScript.exception.unexpectedType]: ***** JavaScript exception (Hermitage_Management 0.8.9): TypeError: upgrades[i].value is undefined
[script.javaScript.exception.unexpectedType]: ../AddOns/Hermitage.0.8.9.oxp/Scripts/hermitage_management.js, line 391.

2. Sending the cargo from market to storage through remote management while not in home system logged the transfer, but on that commodity`s details page, storage capacity turned into NaN \ undefined, denying any further action with it. Reloading that save (still away from home system) declined access to Market and Storage menu in remote management with this:

[script.javaScript.exception.unexpectedType]: ***** JavaScript exception (Hermitage_Management 0.8.9): TypeError: mkt[keys[i]] is null
[script.javaScript.exception.unexpectedType]: ../AddOns/Hermitage.0.8.9.oxp/Scripts/hermitage_management.js, line 1538.

Returning to the system where my RH is has cleared both issues.

3. I guess the delay you put on loading Hermitage market data has hit us back, as now all markets on stationary dockables that are not the main station are being synced with the Hermitage, both for prices and stock. I observed this with SIRF, Con Store, and an RH in another system.

4. Remote activity simulation script is working but weirdly. On hyperjump from the home system it produced a bunch of credible logevents, resources being added, sold and traded, and even killed my miner in the process ([Hermitage_Main]: Dannall Bandor was killed collecting minerals), but on return jump is just gave several "[Hermitage_Main]: remote trade start > [Hermitage_Main]: remote trade end" messages, no resources produced by miners and no further trade details provided. Upon arriving to the Hermitage, I found lots of new stuff on the market, but no record of these transactions in "Income and Expenses" and no money debited or credited. Same happened later while advancing the time while docked in the home system.

5. Purchasing the Turret Defence upgrades does not produce any visible turret subentity on the station, so no way to confirm they exist and will fire upon someone. Probably not. Also, it would be good to have their details provided in description - range, damage and fire rate - so the player could know what he pays for.

6. Hired miners wage are only accounted in daily expenses summary if the miner was hired on that day, and is being dropped the next day.

7. A minor QoL tweak: for items that allow multiple installs, like Energy Storage Units, to query building several in one order, prompting the player how many.

8. Another not so minor tweak: to account an installed upgrade price when superseding it with higher level one, like you did in ShipConfig. Now player has to pay full price each time, getting only miniscule return in materials.

Regarding your last post, I generally like your way of thinking, though here`s what I`ve been considering for some time:

Drop the available space limitation (and its extension upgrades) altogether. Why:

200 cubic meters is too small, both from plausibility and balance standpoints. Imagine a space 3 x 6.6 x 10 m - that is 200 m^3, basically a tiny housecorner bar (with no kitchen), while having a rock of 700m in diameter that is roughly 180 million cubic meters. Sure, take out of it the docking port, the bays, the shell, but still plenty of space! Furthermore, first available upgrade comes at TL7, which will require 130 to 150 m^3 already taken by the necessary prerequisites and some very modest market and refinery upgrading, leaving little room for things like Distillery and Bar. Even after that, space is a very limiting factor and placing a shipyard (if the player wants it) is almost impossible without sacrificing core systems.

On the other hand, what is Life Support supposed to do on a space station in a hollowed asteroid? Three basic things: heating, air recuperation (scrubbing CO and keeping Oxygen level), and water recuperation (including humidity and waste removal). All three are tied to one universal resource: power.

So my suggestion: while structures and upgrades would still take their listed space, they should not be hard-limited by it, instead taxing the Life Support system with power draw proportional to it. Further progression possible here this way: Type 1 is ineffective and requires 1.5MW per m^3 supported, Type 2 is "standard" dropping to like 1.2 per 1 rate, Type 3 is 1:1, Type 4 is 0.9:1, Type 5 is 0.8:1, with lower levels requiring small amounts of Minerals as ongoing operational resource and somewhat more for servicing, to simulate replacing the filters, while higher levels consuming also Gold and\or Platinum to account for their quality catalytic pads. Higher output reactors would be much more desirable, and will be the only factor truly limiting the expansion.

On account of personal ship hangar size, existing limits could be replaced with considerable power draw (like 100MW) per each additional docking berth occupied, keeping in line with the idea, so the player would have to think ahead if he could afford not only the monetary cost, but also to have a new ship docked at all, instead of having the space by default.

Oh, story/mission elements would be great! I already imagine shady stowaways arriving with merchant ships hiding from the law or on the run from the evil guys, or shady merchants proposing to store some "perfectly legal" cargo for them :)

zx_cb wrote: ↑Thu Jun 09, 2022 9:56 pm

Oh, story/mission elements would be great! I already imagine shady stowaways arriving with merchant ships hiding from the law or on the run from the evil guys, or shady merchants proposing to store some "perfectly legal" cargo for them

Rock hermits are a good canvas for stories.

OK, I'll take these one at a time:

zx_cb wrote: ↑Thu Jun 09, 2022 9:56 pm

Test game version produced more specific return on failing to access Facilities menu while building something:

What was the "something" you were building?

zx_cb wrote: ↑Thu Jun 09, 2022 9:56 pm

Sending the cargo from market to storage through remote management while not in home system logged the transfer, but on that commodity`s details page, storage capacity turned into NaN \ undefined, denying any further action with it. Reloading that save (still away from home system) declined access to Market and Storage menu in remote management with this:

[script.javaScript.exception.unexpectedType]: ***** JavaScript exception (Hermitage_Management 0.8.9): TypeError: mkt[keys[ i]] is null
[script.javaScript.exception.unexpectedType]: ../AddOns/Hermitage.0.8.9.oxp/Scripts/hermitage_management.js, line 1538.

Yep, bug. Found and fixed.

zx_cb wrote: ↑Thu Jun 09, 2022 9:56 pm

I guess the delay you put on loading Hermitage market data has hit us back, as now all markets on stationary dockables that are not the main station are being synced with the Hermitage, both for prices and stock. I observed this with SIRF, Con Store, and an RH in another system.

That's... super weird. Using your game environment and saved games, I haven't been able to reproduce this, but it's almost 100% a conflict with another OXP. The only market I'm restoring is a Hermitage, so it's really strange how any other market can be impacted. I'll keep testing this one, but it's got me stumped at the moment.

zx_cb wrote: ↑Thu Jun 09, 2022 9:56 pm

Remote activity simulation script is working but weirdly.

Kind of weirdly. It would run if you aren't in the Hermitage system. Which works fine if you're jumping out of the system, because your destination doesn't have the Hermitage, so it runs. But going the other way, your destination is the Hermitage system, so it decides this is a local system and the code didn't run. Yeah, I know. Anyway, I've now got it working so that it will run on any jump.

zx_cb wrote: ↑Thu Jun 09, 2022 9:56 pm

Purchasing the Turret Defence upgrades does not produce any visible turret subentity on the station

Yep, bug. Found and fixed.

zx_cb wrote: ↑Thu Jun 09, 2022 9:56 pm

Hired miners wage are only accounted in daily expenses summary if the miner was hired on that day, and is being dropped the next day.

Yep, bug. Found and fixed.

zx_cb wrote: ↑Thu Jun 09, 2022 9:56 pm

200 cubic meters is too small

It's "m²", not "m³", but I think I got my definition wrong anyway. I think it really should be "square meters" or "sq m" for short.

Either way, I take your point. Although I still think there should be a limit on the amount of things you can install. Having 50 hydroponics units, type 6 refinery and reactor, bar, restaurant, distillery, weapons production facility, narcotics processing facility, 60 energy units, a shipyard, 200t storage facility, 150ly fuel reserve, black market, auto repair system -- it feels like there's too much stuffed inside a rock hermit.

Having the life support power draw proportional to the number of upgrades installed is a cool idea though, as is doing the same the for personal hangar. I'll explore what's involved in getting that logic to work.

Re story elements, there are two paths to develop here: individual, one off story beats that don't need any additional story scaffolding; and more involved, longer term story elements that need to track state and potentially have branching paths. The one-offs are easier to implement, so I'll probably start with a few of those, and then build up to the larger ones. So, send through any suggestions and I'll start slotting them into one group or the other.

phkb wrote: ↑Fri Jun 10, 2022 6:09 am

It's "m²", not "m³", but I think I got my definition wrong anyway. I think it really should be "square meters" or "sq m" for short.

My maths is a little rusty, and Google isn't my friend on this one. In a lot searches I found that 200 sq m is the same as 200m², whereas in my mind 200 sq m is the equivalent of about 14m² (where 14mx14m = 196 sq m). (This link does conversions for you http://www.endmemo.com/cconvert/m2m.php). 200 sq m is about the size of an average house in many countries. A Rock Hermit is probably a bit bigger than that. An average warehouse is around 1000 sq m, which is probably a bit bigger than I was imagining.

So, aiming for at least a modicum of realism (for something that is completely made up) what size do you think the internal area of a RH would be? And is that m², sq m or something else?

Rock Hermits are BIG as far as asteroids go in Oolite...so probably more like 100 meters minimum diameter.

phkb wrote: ↑Sat Jun 11, 2022 3:41 am

200 sq m is about the size of an average house in many countries. A Rock Hermit is probably a bit bigger than that. An average warehouse is around 1000 sq m, which is probably a bit bigger than I was imagining.

So, aiming for at least a modicum of realism (for something that is completely made up) what size do you think the internal area of a RH would be? And is that m², sq m or something else?

That is the point I`m for - any hard limit on space (whereas area or volume) will lead to player questioning its plausibility based on his real-life experience and perception. On the other hand - carve as much as you`d like from the asteroid, as long as you can [life] support it.

Your confusion probably comes from the power factor placement :) 14 x 14 (thus, an area of a square with 14m side) is indeed just shy of 200m^2, so (14m)^2 = 196 m^2. To be said, I used to run a concert bar that was occupying 600 m^2 space, so 200 is really way too small for any serious development, especially industrial.

From the wiki page:

The sizes of asteroids varies greatly; the largest, Ceres, is almost 1,000 km (600 mi) across and qualifies as a dwarf planet.

The majority of known asteroids orbit within the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, generally in relatively low-eccentricity (i.e. not very elongated) orbits. This belt is now estimated to contain between 1.1 and 1.9 million asteroids larger than 1 km (0.6 mi) in diameter,[52] and millions of smaller ones.

OK, I think I've beaten this thing into the ground now. v0.8.10 now available here: Hermitage.0.8.10.zip. A long list of changes:

• Fixed issue with remotely moving cargo from market to storage.
• Fixed issue that was preventing calculated mining and trading routines from running when jumping into your Hermitage system.
• Fixed issue that was preventing some upgrades from being installed and activated correctly.
• Fixed issue in expenses calculation that was skipping the wages for miner contractors currently in space.
• Fixed issues with accessing Hermitage Management from interstellar space.
• Fixed issue where multiple maintenance overhaul items were showing.
• Fixed issue where log file entry for individual maintenance overhaul items has 'undefined' in the text, rather than the actual item name.
• Fixed issue that was preventing upgrades with an associated value from being set to an initial value correctly in some cases.
• Fixed issue where repairing an item was using the commodity quantities for installation instead of repair.
• Fixed issue with Auto Repair upgrades where sometimes the heading "Repairable items:" would not be shown on the details page.
• Ensured all timers attached to Hermitages are stopped properly.
• Added extra info to specialised equipment that describes what upgrades it relates to.
• Added ability to link the prices of market of your Hermitage to the system main station.
• Upgrade items that have a low service level will now be coloured cyan in the facilities list.
• Changed base value available space to 600m2, with possible upgrades to 900 and 1200. Tweaked space values for some upgrades.
• Whenever a upgrade is removed, 50% of original purchase price is now refunded to the player.
• Tweaked resources recovered from most upgrades to be around 50% of installation resources.
• Arranged facilities list in alphabetical order.
• Added space used to facilities management details page.
• Added ability to perform a maintenance overhaul on an individual upgrade.
• Streamlined code for adding ships to hangar, making it easier to allow for custom ships in future.
• Streamlined code for monitoring status of contractors and defenders, making it less likely to lose records.
• Tweaked look of standard ball turret.
• Code cleanup.

I should mention, I’m still looking at how to implement the item discussed up thread, of having life support power linked to certain upgrades. I thought it best to go with this version for now, before I jump in and break a whole pile of new things.

Edit to add: Also, I forgot to update the readme.txt file with the latest specs on all the equipment etc. I'll update the wiki shortly, but I might refrain from pushing another update just to update a text file.

Quick (small) update: I now have "life support load" as a distinct property on several items, the sum of which is used to determine how hard your life support unit is working. That then plays into the service level and reliability stats when determining if the unit will suffer any sort of incident. Life support load is distinct to the power requirements of a unit.

To aid with the process of dealing with various stats and conditions of upgrade items, I've added a bunch of new maintenance pages: one just listing all power-related devices, one for items that contribute to the life support load, one for service level, and one for items that have some sort of processing component. The original "see everything" list is still available to cover any items that don't appear in the other sub-lists. I've also flattened the menu tree a bit, bringing some other items to the root level for faster access.

Rounding out the life support coverage, I've also added two new components to all hermitages: a distinct "hangar" item, which defines your personal ship hangar space, and an "administration hub", which covers the control centre, pilots' lounge and ready room, and the security room. Using these two new items, I can calculate the life support load from employing miners, defenders and guards, as well as the impact from housing their ships in the station. There's probably a whole bunch of other units I could add in a similar vein, but I think those two cover the basics. They aren't upgrade-able at the moment, but that could change in the future.

Given the general stability of the current release, I think for the next one I'll turn off the "free upgrades" and "1 minute installs" flags, to allow for a more authentic game experience. If I get some play-testing time, I'll try to get the new release out by the end of the week.

Edit to add: At the moment, the plan for playtesting is to determine whether it's too easy or too hard to make a living. I don't want to turn this into a "free cash" money-making exercise, but at the same time, after sufficient investment of resources and time, it should get you to a point where it could be self-sufficient and operating without a lot of oversight. The journey to get to that point should be reasonably long.

Once you reach that point, I'll be looking for other external factors to come into play, along the lines of story elements and random happenings, any one of which might impede the flow of credits. But for now, we can at least determine if any of the base gameplay loops are making life too easy/hard.