Oolite Bulletins

Holmes177 wrote:

Another question for Spara:

I accepted a rescue mission at the RSS station at Onatbeza for a pilot that had ejected and was supposedly at Inzaquma. Went to Inzaquma dock and was informed that he was not there. Likely captured by slavers and they could be found at a location mapped to my Advanced Navigational Array, and would be identified by an "S". Went to ANA and can find no planet identified by an "S". Flew all around Inzaquma hoping to combat the slavers & rescue the pilot, but although I killed a few bad guys, I have yet to locate the pilot!!

Not Advanced Navigation Array, but Astrogation Computer. You should find the slaver base by launching and finding beacon 'S' from your ASC (advanced space compass).

Holmes177 wrote:

I really like this OXP, & especially the odd twist that gets thrown in occasionally, but is there a better 'read-me' file than what comes with the OXP download? I need more 'how to' information.

Glad you're liking it, but I really can't take too much credit. It's cim's original work that I, with help from Dertien and Keeper, have facelifted/upgraded to be in par with all the other fine oxps out there. I think cim quite deliberately wrote the oxp so that you need to read the mission screens very carefully. There should be enough information there to help you. Maybe you should take screenshots of the mission screens so that you can refer to them later .

Thanks, all. I did refer to the ASC main page - should have studied it more earlier. The screenshots are a great idea! I'm still on a learning curve with Oolite, but willing to try about any challenge. Found that I was not using the ASC correctly, so hopefully, I'll be able to figure things out without too much help. Thanks again for these two, quick responses.

I've encoutered a small problem with the rescue stations, but I'm not sure if it's a bug in the OXP, another OXP or in the game itslef or what...

After flying several successful missions with RRS I accepted a mission to a rescue station in near Lave in G1. Flew over there only to discover that it was the system I'd come from a few jumps ago, where I witnessed the main station getting destroyed by an asteroid storm (tried to save it, but couldn't. Picked up a nice holdful of alloys though). It seems that when the main station was destroyed, the RRS station blinked out of existence too. Now I'm stuck with a (long overdue) package that I can't deliver, and no more missions are being offered to me.

I'm guessing the problem will go away, probably with a reputation hit, when I jump to G2 for the constrictor, but right now I'm stuck puttering around G1 trying to work off a fugitive status and chasing military fiasco's Hydras.

Is it possible to have an RRS station in the system when the main station has been destroyed? If not, maybe the OXP should check that the RRS station actually exists when you jump into the target system, and cancel the contract without penalty if it doesn't.

Potential Debris wrote:

Is it possible to have an RRS station in the system when the main station has been destroyed? If not, maybe the OXP should check that the RRS station actually exists when you jump into the target system, and cancel the contract without penalty if it doesn't.

The problem is that Rescue Stations thinks there is a station in that system - and will even add it on arrival. That another OXP then removes it again a few seconds later is something that's rather difficult to control for.

If you temporarily remove the Asteroid Storm OXP you should be able to jump into Leesti and find the RRS station.

Hmmm. Some kind of core mechanism for marking systems as non valid mission destinations as well as locking systems until missions are completed might be handy. Would require mission oxps to be updated though.

spara wrote:

Hmmm. Some kind of core mechanism for marking systems as non valid mission destinations as well as locking systems until missions are completed might be handy. Would require mission oxps to be updated though.

I'm not sure I like this idea. I don't think any system should be off-limits for missions - sometimes only one specific system will do (for all kinds of reasons such as location, combination of TL and Gov't etc) and to deny these would be a needless limit on what missions could do. Also I don't think core changes (such as locking systems based on OXPs) is possible. The core game will not know about WIPs and anyway this would be a classic case of the tail wagging the dog.
Also, asking authors to update mission OXPs is unreasonable, because of the huge ammount of work this could involve and also because some mission OXPs are no longer actively maintained - the original author is absent.
The offending OXP in question is known to cause problems (as I know from my experience of having to make Xeptatl's Sword work with it), and I have suggested before that this is looked at.
It is a classic example to all OXP authors as to why the implications and consequences of OXP changes to core-game features (permanently removing a main station in this case) must be fully thought through. There is a list of planets used by OXPs which can be refered to as well, to avoid clashes. OXP authors should consult this list when planning major affects on or changes to the systems as they appear in the core game.

Fair points. Too late for such a solution indeed. There's always the per oxp solution of aborting the mission if something goes wrong. I'll see if it's an easy fix for this one.

In XS I replaced the main station by script when the player re-enters G1. Perhaps you could do something similar like this? I think that this should change the mission_variable before the populator kicks in, thus re-instating the main station. This should not really break immersion even if the player has just left a station-less Leesti and returned immediately, as canon has it that planets actually have several stations in orbit, and you simply visit the first one that you encounter. If that one is destroyed, and you return to the same system, you simply find and go to one of the others.

<Thinks a bit...>
Actually a better way to do this might be to re-set the asteroid storm mission_variable upon leaving Leesti system, or any system come to that in case another main station has been destroyed instead (I think Asteroid Storm can do that). Then you are not relying on your re-set happening at the correct part of the exiting witchspace/populating new system cycle.

Oh, just wanted to say I love the Rescue Stations OXP. Is an update planned to "Griff it up" a bit in the skins department?

Get the updated version that spara and I did. Shiny!

Keeper wrote:

Get the updated version that spara and I did. Shiny!

Where can I find that and will it mesh with the fact I used the oxz version of the add-on?

mossfoot wrote:

Oh, just wanted to say I love the Rescue Stations OXP. Is an update planned to "Griff it up" a bit in the skins department?

Auts. The oxz version is an updated one that's been worked to keep the original look that cim, the original creator, gave it. With the help from Dertien (new arafura model) and Keeper (all custom shader magic) it's been graphically updated to fit in with Griff's ships. Works well with Smivs creations too, btw. Not to mention all the other changes under the hood. As a collaborative project it's always possible to spice it up a bit with new textures and we'll be very happy to include them in if someone makes new ones .

Thargoid wrote:

I think the Manifest for this OXZ may have a mistake in its file size. I just tried to download it via the in-game manager and it's saying the download size is 4096.00MB, which doesn't sound right to me...

It gets to about 38MB and stops, so I'm kinda wondering if the 4096.00MB should perhaps be 40.96?

That's strange. It looks ok here.