Oolite Bulletins

Ranthe wrote:

I've loaded it up and have attempted one run with Atomic Annie, the deck and three Sidewinder escorts to a Feudal system - got shot up to the point of "Press Space, Commander" but it was rather run to order "Escorts, launch and engage!" when menaced by pirates!

Will do further testing and let you know how I go.

Thank you! My notices:

1. Autolauch is implemented right for this situation to save the time of priming and activating the deck. But now in v1.1 you must go a bit slower than your max. speed for autolaunch due to the travel at max. or injector speeds mean you run and do not want left behind your escorts.

2. Launched escorts will not reduce the hits you suffer until all attacker is alive, but can reduce if you prevent launch (by travelling at max.speed) and go away from the attackers: some shots will hit escorts on the deck instead of your ship.

3. The XL deck is especially good in this defense due to the rolled escorts cover larger part of your back. You should order the strongest escorts to the last two positions to do not lose a weak one faster when you run choosed to use your aft laser.

Just doing some testing of how the Escort Deck (v1.1) works usage-wise with an Anaconda at Norby's request, and have just experienced a couple of instances of my escorts terminating their escort (and presumably doing a runner) after exiting witchspace.

1. Launch with four Sidewinder escorts on Escort Deck
2. Engage witchspace jump
3. On arrival in target system, get message "Escort Terminated" and only one escort remains!



I did a check of latest.log and found this - apparently Atomic Annie came out of witchspace too close to the beacon!

I think you was extremly unlucky. The exit point is random around the buoy within some km so I never seen this before and I guess you will not see it again in short time.

Fighting against collisions is not easy due to when I forcefully collided a ship then it is killed before the collision event handler called so I can not prevent the kill. I will set a collisionException but this will work from Oolite v1.81 only.

A tactical note: your ship is over 400t so the XL deck is available also where you can hold 8 escorts below 60t so if you prefer Sidewinders then it is better for you. The default deck can hold fewer but wider ships like Krait and heavy escorts like Asp and others in [wiki]EscortPack[/wiki].

Norby wrote:

I think you was extremly unlucky. The exit point is random around the buoy within some km so I never seen this before and I guess you will not see it again in short time.

At least it's not like the old days, where collision with the buoy was a constant hazard.. That was always fun.. lots of near-misses and the occasional SPLAT! moment.. especially if you had YAH billboards as buoys..

I am getting those terminations due to scrape damage quite often when those escort ships dock. I am not sure how to prevent them, as they also happen when I don't move at all.

I think I can live with that if that's because I am carrying derelicts I found at the end of my laser pointers.

But, I fear this is the same with bought escort ships, and I don't know if I am willing to invest 100k to 500k Cr knowing that I will lose them at the 10th docking.

Can you enlighten me on the situation and purpose?

Additional request: There are several occasions where I would wish my escorts wouldn't automatically launch on Red Alert. Would it be possible to include this in the 'b' options?

I am sorry, I have not so much idea why these collisions happen, the script try to catch escorts and lock to the deck when possible.

Currently if you travel with max. normal speed or over then your escorts will not launch.

Norby wrote:

Currently if you travel with max. normal speed or over then your escorts will not launch.

Sorry but at least for me, this is not true. My escorts jump from the Deck on Red Alert even with max speed (which is, with the Q-Charger, twice the normal max speed). Maybe the Q-Charger is the culprit here?

Regarding the crashes, could it be that those ships try to dock with too much relative speed? Maybe because of (again) the Q-Charger which probably sets the ship's max speed higher than expected?

I did a little test, increased the "catching" distance from 500m to 1000m. I did not lose one single ship in "normal" docking procedures (mediocre speed), and one by me heading at Q-Charger speed directly into the front laser of the trusty Wolf "Feersum Endjinn".

So I guess, for a combination of quicker "mother" ship with quicker escort, the 500m catching distance is too short for the checking period of the catcher script.

So - I'd either enhance this distance, or decrease the timer delay.

QCS wrote:

I'd either enhance this distance, or decrease the timer delay.

Thank you for the testing, here is an update, please try it.

EscortDeck v1.2 contain:
-Refined escort landing sequence to prevent collisions, thanks to QCS.
-Added a collisionException between the Witchpoint Beacon and escorts.
-Fixed rollback price of unsuccessful escort purchase in Rock Hermits.

QCS wrote:

the trusty Wolf "Feersum Endjinn"

That name would get you a +1 rep from me, if this board had such a thing..

Norby wrote:

QCS wrote:

I'd either enhance this distance, or decrease the timer delay.

Thank you for the testing, here is an update, please try it.

EscortDeck v1.2 contain:
-Refined escort landing sequence to prevent collisions, thanks to QCS.
-Added a collisionException between the Witchpoint Beacon and escorts.
-Fixed rollback price of unsuccessful escort purchase in Rock Hermits.

Awesome I will try to test it this weekend, I will not have the time next week.

Diziet Sma wrote:

QCS wrote:

the trusty Wolf "Feersum Endjinn"

That name would get you a +1 rep from me, if this board had such a thing..

I can not name the escorts. The former owner named it like this. I guess this is Random Shipnames OXP or something similar So, whoever created that name, take that imaginary rep +1

QCS wrote:

I can not name the escorts. The former owner named it like this. I guess this is Random Shipnames OXP or something similar So, whoever created that name, take that imaginary rep +1

It's from Random Ship Names. As well as the word lists that combine to produce genuine randomly generated names, the OXP also contains a lot of stand-alone names drawn from whole bunch of different sources, including book and song titles, lines from poems, mottoes, etc. We also included a bunch of Culture ship names, too.

Disembodied wrote:

We also included a bunch of Culture ship names, too.

I knew about the Culture ships.. but wasn't aware until now that any names from Banks' non-Culture fiction had made it in.. very cool.

Hi Norby,

I did a little testing with the latest release, so far the docking procedure seems to have improved significantly. I was even able to manage a photo shooting without losing one single escort

Unfortunately I had a major accident and I am not sure if and how this is related to your last changes, as I have never seen this in the older version.

After a successful fight, the escorts were automatically called back. My Wolf escort was next to me heading forward when it got the order to dock. It seems it was out of docking range, and I was at half speed. The Wolf did a quick U-turn and plunged directly into my front. I was only on half shields... and after that I had no shields and no ship anymore.

I don't know if this is possible but do you think it could be done that the ships only try to dock from the rear of the carrier, and with a rather slight speed difference only? And try to avoid being in front of the carrier (on green alert, that is)?


PS/Edit: Ah well and I just noticed in the log:
8:05:49.746 [shipData.load.error]: ***** ERROR: the shipdata.plist entry "escort-ghavial_gun" specifies non-existent model "escort-ghavial_gun".

This happens upon start of Oolite 1.80.

Edit2: I just got in the log...

19:12:09.004 [escortdeck_escort]: Wolf Mark I 3: Feersum Endjinn terminated by [Ship "Witchpoint Beacon" position: (6.36663, 3.3509, -28.5262) scanClass: CLASS_BUOY status: STATUS_DEAD] scrape damage

QCS wrote:

The Wolf did a quick U-turn and plunged directly into my front.

I use setDesiredRangeTo:500 in AI.plist so escorts should go this far from your ship and stop within, plus a check in every seconds: if a landing escort is within 800m then attach it to the deck. All NPCs have a built-in knowledge in the core to avoid collisions but this is not always successful. I think this can happen sometimes in the real life also.

QCS wrote:

8:05:49.746 [shipData.load.error]: ***** ERROR: the shipdata.plist entry "escort-ghavial_gun" specifies non-existent model "escort-ghavial_gun".

Thank you fo the report, fixed in the new EscortPack v1.1.

QCS wrote:

19:12:09.004 [escortdeck_escort]: Wolf Mark I 3: Feersum Endjinn terminated by [Ship "Witchpoint Beacon" position: (6.36663, 3.3509, -28.5262) scanClass: CLASS_BUOY status: STATUS_DEAD] scrape damage

This is reported by Ranthe also (see above) and the fix is already done but can work from Oolite 1.81 only.