Oolite Bulletins

gsagostinho wrote:

Could it be because that specific mission was accepted via the e-mail system instead of the bulletins

That's my thought. I might have "accidentally" removed the restriction during one of my clean up sessions, thinking, "Oh, I won't need that here because it's already defined."

Face, meet palm.

gsagostinho wrote:

I just remembered that I first transmitted a greeting before transmitting the password,

That shouldn't be an issue, but I'll check it out.

gsagostinho wrote:

in another mission, I was supposed to find a blackbox in between two systems.

This mission briefing should have included the text "Note: Make sure your Advanced Navigation Array is set to the shortest route. You must enter interstellar space from either SystemA, with your target system set to SystemB, or from SystemB, with your target system set to SystemA." Are you able to confirm whether that was present?

In any event, I'm adding a new element to the bulletin board briefing to hopefully make it clearer (hopefully) that you need to force a misjump, without actually saying "You need to force a misjump".

gsagostinho wrote:

I got an offer for a delivery mission which required 946 Cr of deposit and would pay me 971 Cr, giving a net gain of only 25 Cr. How are these values calculated?

The values are determined by the type of cargo in question. Essentially this is trying to avoid the exploit where you accept the mission and receive the cargo, but then just sell the cargo for instant profit. By having a deposit which covers the cost of the purchase of the cargo, it doesn't benefit the player to sell the cargo.

That being said, there's also the argument that there's a lot easier ways of making 25cr. The lowness of the net gain will largely be due to (a) current level of experience with that type of mission in that system, and (b) general level of experience (ie player score). I'll have a look at the calcs and see if I can tweak it a bit to make it more tasty, without overdoing it.

Edit: Actually, I found that I wasn't applying some of the bonus amounts (for distance and player score) to the payment for the "Delivery cargo to waypoint" missions. That might make a difference.

That's my thought. I might have "accidentally" removed the restriction during one of my clean up sessions, thinking, "Oh, I won't need that here because it's already defined."

Ok, so that should be an easy fix.

This mission briefing should have included the text "Note: Make sure your Advanced Navigation Array is set to the shortest route. You must enter interstellar space from either SystemA, with your target system set to SystemB, or from SystemB, with your target system set to SystemA." Are you able to confirm whether that was present?

Yes, it included that text, but now that I think of it I probably forgot to set it to the shortest route. Most of these missions seem to be time critical (I failed the last one by a mere 20 minutes delay!), so I am always setting the Advanced Navigation Array to shortest time instead of shortest route and I probably forgot to change it (face meets palm). So if I would have set it for the shortest route, would a misjumpt happen naturally or would I still need to force it by making strong movements with my ship as the countdown approaches zero?

In any event, I'm adding a new element to the bulletin board briefing to hopefully make it clearer (hopefully) that you need to force a misjump, without actually saying "You need to force a misjump".

Yes, of course. I really like how you handled a lot of these missions in non obvious ways. For instance, the flickering signal of an abandoned ship (black box recovery) is a perfect idea.

The values are determined by the type of cargo in question. Essentially this is trying to avoid the exploit where you accept the mission and receive the cargo, but then just sell the cargo for instant profit. By having a deposit which covers the cost of the purchase of the cargo, it doesn't benefit the player to sell the cargo.

That being said, there's also the argument that there's a lot easier ways of making 25cr. The lowness of the net gain will largely be due to (a) current level of experience with that type of mission in that system, and (b) general level of experience (ie player score). I'll have a look at the calcs and see if I can tweak it a bit to make it more tasty, without overdoing it.

Edit: Actually, I found that I wasn't applying some of the bonus amounts (for distance and player score) to the payment for the "Delivery cargo to waypoint" missions. That might make a difference.

Yeah, I can see how this exploit would ruin things, but one the other hand I think that if something require a deposit + some hard work, the minimal net profit I would expect is 50-60% of the initial deposit. It's not even that 25 Cr is a small amount, but that 25 Cr is peanust compared to the amount of time, work and risk (if I fail, I would lose my initial deposit). But glad you already found something that can make a difference.

@phkb apologies for spamming this thread, but here are a couple more things:
- on the "Hacking the witchpoint beacon" mission, the "Mission expires in" value is shown as "14 hours 48 mins **". What are those two asterisk, is there a meaning to it?
- also, since hours is written as a full word, perhaps writing minutes instead of mins would look better (there seem to be plenty of space for this field anyway).
- when I accepted that mission, I thought I had 14h48' to get there and hack the witchpoint beacon. But after accepting, my F5 screen says that I have that time to "Hack the witchpoint at Rabiarce and return to Xeisare." Perhaps this should be made clear when missions are offered: is that time only to get the job done or is the return to the original system also included?
- still on the F5 screen, perhaps you should insert the word "beacon" in the mission description, as "Hack the witchpoint at Rabiarce...." seems to be missing it
- finally, I got there and tried using my Witchpoint Beacon Security Access equipment but I was told that it only works when targeting the beacon, which I was. See image below (I magnified the message gui so it is still readable with the 1000 px width limit of images in the forum):

Looks like a bug. Possibly several. Thanks for finding them! I'll try to get an update out tonight.

phkb wrote:

Looks like a bug. Possibly several. Thanks for finding them! I'll try to get an update out tonight.

No rush at all, and please let me know if I can be of any help with testing or anything else.

gsagostinho wrote:

please let me know if I can be of any help with testing or anything else.

You are already being a great help by testing these missions to find the bugs! Thank you!

phkb wrote: ↑Sat Aug 12, 2017 10:30 pm

You are already being a great help by testing these missions to find the bugs! Thank you!

That's great to hear. I will continue testing it and reporting any issues here!

@phkb I see on your release notes that you have "Turned off lights on derelict ships", but the last derelict ship I found had lights (basically, it was a Cobra Mk. III with the emission map working).

And here is one idea: did you consider doing some mission using the Satellites OXP, perhaps requiring one of them to be hacked, destroyed, steal data, etc.? That could be very nice and it would give the commanders a reason to see those pretty satellites from close distance

gsagostinho wrote:

did you consider doing some mission using the Satellites OXP

I hadn't but that's a great idea. I'll add it to the list. Thanks!

One more thing concerning the "Hacking the witchpoint beacon" mission, shouldn't the equipment Witchpoint Beacon Security Access be removed in case the player completed the mission as well as if he failed it? I got stuck with that equipment in my list

Yes, it probably should have. Still, this gives you the opportunity to sell it though! Not through official channels, though.

Edit: And, oh look, I have this comment in one of the script files:

phkb wrote: ↑Tue Aug 15, 2017 11:31 pm

Still, this gives you the opportunity to sell it though! Not through official channels, though.

Nice, so this gives me the opportunity of getting part of the 2500 Cr penalty fee I had to pay when this mission was not accomplishable (which, by the way, you totally owe me).

Can I make suggestion / request concerning the range finder equipment please?
Could the list of options used by the range finder include asteroids and rock hermits?
The only reason i ask is that i mine extensively both to keep my missile machine topped up with raw materials and to fill the cargo hold of my D.T.T Cyclops for processing by my ore processor.
It can be a struggle at times (even with asteroid tweaks on) to find enough asteroids.
I appreciate that what I ask may well over complicate matters & slow things down (keeping track of all those asteroids)