Oolite Bulletins

Norby wrote:

Corny wrote:

I didn't know how to convert it.

Maybe you forgot what you said in the XML to OpenStep converter thread.

Then I got you wrong... you said "The insertintohudlegends.plist now contain XML lines also", so I thought you added XML that is readable by the Property List Editor.
But you added OpenStep lines, not another bunch of XML lines, right?

Norby wrote:

TimeLimit is a common problem of all OXP writers, to step forward need to be repeatable (at least on the same machine) and need to find which OXP produce it. My usual way to find is the binary halving: remove the first half of the OXPs and if the problem persist then halve again. If gone then must double check the another half due to there is possible to gone also and exists only if both part present.

Can you produce the disappearing ship with the Towbar OXP only? If yes then you do not need to go through the halving process.

I wasn't able to reproduce the ghost ship yet.

Corny wrote:

I thought you added XML that is readable by the Property List Editor.

I have no mac so I placed into both lines with comments and you need to cut&paste the right lines only with a simple text editor.

Yeah, tried that

The ship still disappears when I want to tow it. Both times it's been a ship spawned by Deepspace Pirates. Could it be that your OXP is just not compatible with ships spawned by that OXP?

Corny wrote:

Both times it's been a ship spawned by Deepspace Pirates. Could it be that your OXP is just not compatible with ships spawned by that OXP?

I can tow these ships also using your OXP list what you sent me. My guess is the bug is not in the js code but triggered by a function call in some rare cases, maybe under Mac only where I can not try.

I see in the video that you approached the Cobra too fast (140) so I tried this speed more time but still can not reproduce. I collided with the target every time. If you can not reproduce at low speeds then I can suggest to arrive to the 100m border very slowly due to you can pick up only if the speed difference is less than 10.

Another chance is prime and activate Towbar within 200m but over 100m, this will lock also and maybe avoid the bug.

I also have a ship miner installed and set that to Cargo Only, if that helps... I'm going to give it another try today

Successfully towed a ship today! Same OXPs as before, however, I removed the Ship Miner, approached slowly and did not prime the towbar before I was 199m close. Also, it wasn't a Deep Space Pirate.
I would like to help you more to debug this, but honestly, I don't have that much time for flying around in a system, trying to find Pirates and getting one to eject over and over again to narrow down what causes it

Ship Miner and Towbar priming surely not count due to the ship disappeared before Towbar locked on message. Maybe high speed count when you cross the 100m border or the type of the target ship if using custom AI or ship script.

Set $TowbarDebug to true to get derelict ships and a weakened offender right after undock for an easy test. You can replace "[python]" key to "pirate" (without []) in the 275. line of the towbar.js within the shipWillLaunchFromStation function to get random pirates, this will be similar with Deep Space Pirates.

That's a great OXP. I noticed a couple of bugs and problems. Maybe they improve the oxp:

• The injectors will remain broken if the towbar breaks and you don't have the special towing injector modification.
• When you join a fight and then disable a ship, the NPCs still continue shooting at it. The ship seems invincible for them at this point if you have the laser reductors (maybe even without).
• When the bar breaks and you get to the stations, save, then die and reload, the towed ship is gone. It isn't gone if you just enter the station, repair the tow bar and then come back.

And here suggestions:

• The efficiency of disabling ships is too high. Now I can loot every ship easily, all the captains are all of a sudden wimps.
• Some ships should have trumbles in their cargo bay
• Don't have derelict ships loose speed as they are abandoned. It will make it much harder to salvage.
• Make NPCs fight over derelic ships, so you can't just disable all the enemies and then salvage everything.
• Some ships should be trapped, e.g. set to auto-destruct with a timer. You won't know until you start towing.

Btw salvaging fuel at the risk of starting a fire and having an explosion would be great too. You could use the salvage level to reduce the risk as one gets more experienced.

Hi popsch, thank you for the long report!

• Injectors fixed in v0.92 (hopefully).
• I never seen invincible derelict ships. NPCs often bad in aim especially from far, peoples mentioned in this forum endless battles between NPCs, so maybe survive long time but not really, and not towbar specific due to reductors affect player fire only.
• If you left behind a derelict ship then can be destroyed anytime by others or by internal damages. The technical reason is if you load a game then you get a new system due to other ships are not saved. It is possible to save the towed ship into missionVariables and respawn after reload but I think better if there are a possibility to lose the ship.

• NPC ships are weak in the core game, you can install shields and others to stenghtening them.
• All derelict ship will be stopped after a while by the core game, I can not change this.
• If you can disable all the enemies then you can salvage everything. I do not understand how do you think to make NPCs fight over derelict ships to solve this "problem".
• Trap ships, trumbles and risky fuel mining are implemented in v0.92 also, thank you for the ideas!

Great.

• In Towbar_ShipExplode2, you might want to first enable the injectors and then deal the damage, so that the injectors can be damaged through the blast.
• Maybe the ships are not invincible, but it's weird that the NPCs continue attacking a derelict ship.
• With NPCs fighting over derelict ships, I mean that it would be fun if the NPCs also try to go for the derelict ships like they try and go for free floating cargo. Also when you plunder a ship and dump 30 cargo containers, this should attract scavengers (clean or not) like flies.
• Instead of just having a blast when you try to tow the ship, can't you do a self-destruct through a timer with random lenght as soon as the escape pod leaves the ship? This means that a derelict ship might even self-destruct all of a sudden while you're still fighting off other enemies.
• In v0.91 (couldn't yet investigate with 0.92), when you use the tow missile, then somehow all the cargo is left in space. Where the ship used to be, it all of a sudden shows a huge box that represents 30t of food or other cargo. I assume that's a bug.

In general, I like the oxp a lot. Thanks.

popsch wrote:

when you use the tow missile, then somehow all the cargo is left in space. Where the ship used to be, it all of a sudden shows a huge box that represents 30t of food or other cargo.

It is a feature. The wiki say tug drone will drop out all cargo when take over a ship to reduce the chance of a pirate ambush. Currently when a drone hit it's target then both will disappear during you read the payout screen and left behind cargo only.

The big box is another feature: I found annoying to scoop 100t food in 1t pods, so boxes are implemented to reduce the scooping time. It is your reward, get it before others do.

Your other ideas now in my todo, thank you.

To possibly add one more thing: The Galcops should be able to read the id of a towed ship. So they should be able to detect who attacked the ship and consequently attack you if you were pirating and attacked a 'clean' ship. You can add the same to the tow missile, but instead just show a message and set the status to offender (or worse).

In v0.93:

• NPCs will stop attack derelict ships.
• Towbar will not autolock if you are not enough energy to survive a possible trap.
• Timed bomb implemented and can be blown also when towbar locked and failed to neutralize (higher salvager reputation give better odds to prevent detonation).

Scavengers are coming near stations already (you can test it if you set $TowbarDebug to true which will place some derelict ships when you undock), but in deep space currently no extra scavengers added yet - it is need more thinking due to simply spawning ships from the nothing is not believable.

popsch wrote:

The Galcops should be able to read the id of a towed ship.

I have two problems: first, when player start tow a ship I simply can not imagine that all of the previous attacker will be reported (from when?) due to the last is not enough. Second, I read in the forum about why pirating attacks are not reported if missed by police so I think it shoud not be reported at all.