Oolite Bulletins

SteveKing wrote:

At one (or maybe many a) time, my Capt. James was about to follow a python and escorts through a wormhole. He was about a minute behind, having decided to follow on a whim. Anyway, was approaching the wormhole with the scanner activated and there was a message pop up saying "We're currently under attack by pirates, calling for assistance", or whatever the standard phrase is, I think coming from the wormhole as, when Capt. James went through, there was indeed an attack in progress at the witch point.

The question is whether this can indeed happen, or can that sort of transmission only happen within 'normal' scanner range?

To me this raises a different question.. can the game even do what you suspect it of doing?

Distress messages come from a particular ship.. was that specific ship there when you emerged from witchspace? I'd be more inclined to think the call was broadcast by another ship in the same system as you, and that you just coincidentally stumbled across a battle going on immediately after your jump.

I've seen phantom comms messages very occasionly myself - but from whence they came, I know not. I kinda like them, as it happens.

Diziet Sma wrote:

To me this raises a different question.. can the game even do what you suspect it of doing?

In theory, no: wormholes do not have communications capabilities.

In practice ... a ship which has entered a wormhole can still send comms messages, which will be received by ships in range of the wormhole until it collapses (this is probably a bug). It's entirely possible some combination of events and/or OXPs caused the ship inside the wormhole to transmit a distress signal after entering the wormhole (though the existence of a fight at the other side was indeed just coincidence)

For a while in the 1.79 nightly builds, you would often on witchspace exit get a wide range of comms chatter logged on the screen from ships not visible on either side of the wormhole, often - far more often than you'd expect from their in-system appearance rates - including Thargoid warships. I still have no idea why that was happening.

cim wrote:

For a while in the 1.79 nightly builds, you would often on witchspace exit get a wide range of comms chatter logged on the screen from ships not visible on either side of the wormhole, often - far more often than you'd expect from their in-system appearance rates - including Thargoid warships. I still have no idea why that was happening.

Considering where Thargoids like to hang out, I think we can take this as proof that witchspace is REAL!

<nods>

cim wrote:

I still have no idea why that was happening.

For some perverse reason, I find that immensely pleasing.
Have those phantom messages stopped? I've not seen any for a while.

Cody wrote:

Have those phantom messages stopped? I've not seen any for a while.

I set the comms routines for the new AIs not to send messages while the player was in witchspace, so they no longer happen from that cause ... but they can still happen.

Very spooky, in other words.. I'm with Cody.. I like that..

The Ooniverse is a very strange place.. haunted, even..

cim wrote:

In practice ... a ship which has entered a wormhole can still send comms messages, which will be received by ships in range of the wormhole until it collapses (this is probably a bug). It's entirely possible some combination of events and/or OXPs caused the ship inside the wormhole to transmit a distress signal after entering the wormhole (though the existence of a fight at the other side was indeed just coincidence)

Diziet Sma wrote:

Distress messages come from a particular ship.. was that specific ship there when you emerged from witchspace? I'd be more inclined to think the call was broadcast by another ship in the same system as you, and that you just coincidentally stumbled across a battle going on immediately after your jump.

I don't remember whether it was the same ships in distress at the witch point as entered the wormhole, I didn't think to check. It worked for me at the time - if it was coincidence, then Cpt. James got a few bounty credits out of it

Given that wormholes and witchspace operate under an entirely different set of physics, who can say what could happen in the vicinity of a wormhole. Maybe they are the Ooniverses Twilight Zone...