Oolite Bulletins

I just chased a mark through 3 wormholes before he ran out of fuel. After that, I targeted one of his escorts and that was clean. I first thought about an error in setting up the bounty, but it was correct. NPC ships lower their legal status on jumping, just like the player does. So if there was a police waiting at the other side, he would have thought I was killing an innocent ship.

After a long time I docked with a space bar yesterday (Oolite 1.73.4 Mac; RH 1.3.6), and ran into two problems:

1) The name of my mark wasn't resolved. On all three possible screens it read Seems the underlying assassination_board_subject isn't defined, but I don't know why. But that's only cosmetic.

2) Worse: when I declined all assassination offers and got to the screen where I am presented the bill, the spinning bar stopped spinning, and Oolite was completely frozen. Even worse: I couldn't even end it or get back to the Finder by any means. I had to resort to completely resetting the computer (pressing the on/off button for five seconds). It didn't happen again when I re-started the computer and Oolite, though.

I have now completely removed Random Hits, and it seems to me that my framerate has gone up, even outside Anarchy-systems! Are there some very scripting-heavy things going on all the time, if you have it installed?

*****

Oh, and purely out of interest: Why (and how!) does the spinning bar on the mission screen spin around a different axis than any other ship? I am very interested in how to create various different spins, but I thought there is only one available in the game by default.

Commander McLane wrote:

After a long time I docked with a space bar yesterday (Oolite 1.73.4 Mac; RH 1.3.6), and ran into two problems:
......
I have now completely removed Random Hits, and it seems to me that my framerate has gone up, even outside Anarchy-systems! Are there some very scripting-heavy things going on all the time, if you have it installed?

I have ported RH completely to JS, so I think any problems you found are fixed (And probably new ones were added). I made heavy use of some upcoming 1.74 features so release will have to wait until we have a final Oolite 1.74. You can download a test version from my sign. (The texture and model folder are missing though to keep the download small. It must be copied in from an older version)

It feels as if speed now is much better. I think this has nothing to do with JS but with strongly reducing the AI activity of ships flying around the station.

And has nobody noticed?: the station never had a dock defined. Just adding a subentity in the shape of a dock does not tell Oolite this subentity is a dock. Now it falls back on a feature that without a dock it places the docking area in the centre of the station. That's the reason you had to fly through the back wall to dock.

Commander McLane wrote:

Oh, and purely out of interest: Why (and how!) does the spinning bar on the mission screen spin around a different axis than any other ship? I am very interested in how to create various different spins, but I thought there is only one available in the game by default.

This was bothering me also. It has to do with internal code for stations (and carriers). One of the rotation axis is set to zero when in performTumble. I now added an exception to the code so it won't happen in 1.74. (Stations on the demo screen already had that exception, but not on the missionscreens)

Commander McLane wrote:

Oh, and purely out of interest: Why (and how!) does the spinning bar on the mission screen spin around a different axis than any other ship? I am very interested in how to create various different spins, but I thought there is only one available in the game by default.

If you really want to do something like this take a look at Snoopers and the documentation Webdoc. It uses 2 different approaches to change the default-spin for models on missionscreens, though both use the same mechnism to take control. And there's even a lot more possible, but that's another story .-)

Random hits users that switched to the new Oolite 1.74 can download a beta version from my signature below. As far as I am concerned, the current version comes very close to a final version. The full package is just to big for me to host.

In the RH version on my boxspace I removed most of the Model & Texture files leaving only a file 450 kb in size. To make it work again you must add the missing files from an older RH version. (see enclosed instructions).

Main difference with the old legacy version:
- fps count in anarchy systems is now better.
- the advertised hits come now with a distance, so you now know in advance how far to travel.
- the advertised hits are now closer to the current system, specially the level 1 hits.

Eric Walch wrote:

The full package is just to big for me to host.

If you want to, here's a offer from me to host the full package.

Running the new version on 1.74. I followed the instructions etc and the station is there etc, but I get no mission screen. Strangely I get the same problem with The updated Feudal Systems. I can dock with the Lodge, but no mission screen appears....same cause, possibly?

tonyhippy wrote:

Running the new version on 1.74. I followed the instructions etc and the station is there etc, but I get no mission screen. Strangely I get the same problem with The updated Feudal Systems. I can dock with the Lodge, but no mission screen appears....same cause, possibly?

I have no clue what happens. The station is added, so the installation looks okay to me.
Have you removed all old versions of RH.oxp? If not it might sometimes spawn the stations from the older version. In the old station you only docked after hitting the back wall, with the new station you dock well before hitting the wall. The script won't recognise the old stations.

I'm also getting the problem with no mission screen. All the old files are gone, after I followed instructions to copy models and textures. The bar functions perfectly well, buying and selling commodities etc., it just doesn't offer any missions

Poro wrote:

I'm also getting the problem with no mission screen. All the old files are gone, after I followed instructions to copy models and textures. The bar functions perfectly well, buying and selling commodities etc., it just doesn't offer any missions

Bug confirmed. At least I found a bug were players with less than 10 RH points did not get the missionpage. With more than 10 points, also the special missions may start. But for some reason, the code that ensured there is always a mission page on docking, ended inside of that loop. It never triggers for players with only a few finished hits. I should have playtested with a novice RH rank.

So it were only the veterans that got an offer. Uploaded a corrected version now. On the bar, there should always be a mission screen of some sort on docking. When not, there is a bug somewhere.

Working fine now! If you'll excuse me, I have a fugitive to catch...

Hi, encountered a few problems with the new beta version for 1.74

Accepted the mission, i like the new distance showing, helps alot, however, once i reach the mark, unlike in the previous version, they dont attack me, one could argue this is more realistic as they not supposed to know who the bounty hunter is, but just feels alot easier to fight them, ran this part a few times to see if i could get different behaviours, nope, always the same, ignores me, on occasion with even ignore weapons fire, there is no comms like in the previous version where he sends you some insulting comments etc.

After i retired the mark, it doesnt tell me the usual "you have killed XXXXX", i have to check my f5 to see if it registered the kill.

Lastly, after i dock to recieve the reward, the usual mission screen comes up, but afterwards i'm instantly DEADLY and have been awarded around 4300 free kills.

Cobramac wrote:

... once i reach the mark, unlike in the previous version, they dont attack me, one could argue this is more realistic as they not supposed to know who the bounty hunter is, but just feels alot easier to fight them, ran this part a few times to see if i could get different behaviours, nope, always the same, ignores me

Yep, now that I've played with it a bit longer, I'm getting the same thing.

After i retired the mark, it doesnt tell me the usual "you have killed XXXXX"

That part worked okay for me, I ran the same mission twice, with two different endings and text was displayed each time.

Lastly, after i dock to recieve the reward, the usual mission screen comes up, but afterwards i'm instantly DEADLY and have been awarded around 4300 free kills.

Again, me too. Although I was awarded something like 2400 extra kills. I like my F5 screen now - *Deadly* - but I'm going to have to change it back... once the problem is resolved.

I saved the log file somewhere, let me know if it will be useful Eric.

Cobramac wrote:

Hi, encountered a few problems with the new beta version for 1.74

Accepted the mission, i like the new distance showing, helps alot,

Yes, 1.74 made it possible to select destination systems within a certain range. So they are all outside a minimum range and inside a maximum. And by comparing coordinates you get a distance and direction.

however, once i reach the mark, unlike in the previous version, they dont attack me, one could argue this is more realistic as they not supposed to know who the bounty hunter is, but just feels alot easier to fight them, ran this part a few times to see if i could get different behaviours, nope, always the same, ignores me, on occasion with even ignore weapons fire, there is no comms like in the previous version where he sends you some insulting comments etc.

This part should have been unchanged. But some targets are more aggressive and other are more cowards. The choice is already part of the ships definition. If the target is a coward, it will have a larger chance to be a coward the next time. Although I changed a lot here in structure (Merged about 40 ship scripts into one single and about 8 AI files into one single), the effect for the player should have stayed the same. But only have to deal with two complex files instead of about 50, largely identical files, made programming much easier. (No need to make a certain change at 50 places every time)

After i retired the mark, it doesnt tell me the usual "you have killed XXXXX", i have to check my f5 to see if it registered the kill.

That message must be there because it is broadcasted simultaneously with updating the F5 message. Somehow you missed it. Did you look back in the comms-log?
This part is mostly unchanged. What I did try to fix was that you killed the target, but on docking it was claimed somebody else did. This was quite annoying in the original release and should be fixed in the JS version.

Lastly, after i dock to recieve the reward, the usual mission screen comes up, but afterwards i'm instantly DEADLY and have been awarded around 4300 free kills.

That a stupid beginners error of me. At two places in the code I mixed up score with credits And because my score was already that high, I never noticed during play.

Poro wrote:

Yep, now that I've played with it a bit longer, I'm getting the same thing

Hmm. Now I start to doubt. The "cowardness" of the target is stored as integer in the scriptInfo. Because I use XML plist (instead of ascii) I could define the values as integer. This works correct on a mac, but I start to remember that on windows the type of an XML plist might me ignored and it is read in as string anyhow. So I changed that part by forcing the values read from shipdata to be explicit used as Integers and Floats. I'm not sure if its needed but it won't harm to explicit define the type on reading scriptInfo.
EDIT: and I found an other error that might have influenced chances between attack/fleeing.

Corrected version is on-line now.

I know I said this same thing back in 2008 when I first encountered it, but I think it bears repeating: I absolutely love Random Hits!

It's like a whole second game added on top of oolite, and it's got everything a good game should have: humor, suspense, action, adventure, and loads of eye candy. Many thanks to you for maintaining and updating it, and to LittleBear and the cast of dozens who created it. Long may you all reign, and may your lasers stay cool.

And now, I have an annoying stand-up comedian in Ceinzala who needs attending to.