Oolite Bulletins

Smivs wrote:

The problem with promoting an OXP station (or dockable) to main-station status is that they are not guaranteed to be there after a save, and main stations are the only place you can save. It's a bit of a conundrum!

Ah, yes. But that would propably be possible with extra scripting, though? (Oh, and with a warning not to remove station oxps before there is a new station...) .
What would be nice to have, but it's way above my abilities, to script a general desaster oxp, where the main station is built up again over time... first a smallish not much more than a dock thing replaces the main station (and still beeing there if another OXP calls for it) and then it begins to grow, with maybe working drones scuttling about (and essential doing nothing as long as the player is there, exactly like normal construction workers... ).
That way it would be possible to destroy main stations because of terrorist acts, technical failure, asteroids, solar storms, war atrocities... and after a while everything would be back to status quo. Would even allow players to blow up stations without remorse...

Smivs wrote:

The problem with promoting an OXP station (or dockable) to main-station status is that they are not guaranteed to be there after a save, and main stations are the only place you can save. It's a bit of a conundrum!

It is and it isn't, as if the OXP main station then disappears through uninstall then the baton gets passed on again to another station, trunk or OXP just as if the original OXP station hadn't been there in the first place when the "real" main one went boom.

There is perhaps an argument for multiple "main station style" stations in trunk (or via OXP) anyway, as per the novels. Then one would get "assigned" to the ship on system entry, and it would become for them the one true main station.

It's an OXP concept I've pondered for a while, but never quite got around to (aside from WildShips, which started there and then detoured).

I think I like the idea of making it possible for other stations to become the main station, too.

Rorschachhamster wrote:

Another thing is, that I am repeatedly reminded that some blokes saved Leestimain by the News... only I had failed this mission... GalCop hides a major disaster from the general public!

Maybe they mean that you saved the people on the planet, not the station? I got such a message, too.

Another story: when I visited Leesti with my cheat-Test-Falcon-S (that is: in another reality where the station still exists), the mission started again. I thought "hah, this time it will be easy with the Falcon", loaded as many plasma torpedoes as possible and launched. The asteroid was already very close to the station, so I fired my torpedoes as if there where no tomorrow. I didn't even have to fire them all before that Doomsday Rock burst... but it seems the asteroid was already too close to the station. The station blew up - and I had an immense bounty on my head! Guess the shockwave of my plasma torpedoes cracked the station... but I had no choice!!! Believe me, officer!! I could never have stopped it with lasers only! Sad thing is, I also had to kill all ships there. (ok, I could have fled, but I never flee with the Falcon!) Not funny. But didn't save afterwards, anyway

To have more than one main station would seem cramped due to scale issues short of it appearing out of view on the other side of the planet, I suppose you could be redirected to it by stationary police vehicles along the route (for the sake of immersion), and perhaps until the following idea arrives..
Which could be that next to where the main station is being rebuilt bit by bit, is now a coWorlds funded emergency station with jump and slow flight capability. It could look interestingly half ship half station (a bit oil-rig?), smaller with less commodities the prices of which taking in to account the activities of its own mining fleet, collecting for materials to help rebuild the main station.
Upon docking you are asked if you would donate towards the new station as it is in the interest of all galactic traders to keep the stations going, and also once it has arrived to have traders docking there instead of the other main.
The emergency station also provides home for the engineers, mechanics and fitters rebuilding the main, so work vessels are also constantly in and out of it, hovering around the build in between, so perhaps it is part of the company contracted to the build and has adverts promoting themselves as worthy of public donations.

GGShinobi wrote:

Rorschachhamster wrote:

Another thing is, that I am repeatedly reminded that some blokes saved Leestimain by the News... only I had failed this mission... GalCop hides a major disaster from the general public!

Maybe they mean that you saved the people on the planet, not the station? I got such a message, too.

I got such messages (yes, I did save the station) all the time after that.. it was spamming the news to such an extent that it became annoying, and I removed the OXP so as to get some variety back into my news bulletins.

Something else that could use fixing.

With 1.79's populator it's quite possible to put a station near the to be destroyed station, so that it will be the main station after the disaster and ever after. I've done it with a SuperHub and it seems to work ok.

If the Superhub oxp is installed, this hack will put one in Leesti. If the worst happens, the system is not wiped clean, but instead the Superhub nearby will be promoted to be the main station.

Here's the modified AsteroidStorm.js. Just replace the one in the original with this one. You also need the [wiki]Superhub[/wiki] oxp by PAGroove.

Since in it's current form this oxp breaks stuff, this simple solution might be something to consider for a new version.

I resurrect this thread in order to draw attention to an error that it generates (under, at least Oolite 1.81). Please see here.

EDIT: I may have misidentified the culprit here. The error is back in my log, even without Asteroid Storm installed!

With 2 military lasers and 4 hard missiles I can destroy it only maybe 50% of the time. Biggest problem seems to be the random starting distance, with less than 5000 metres it becomes pretty much impossible.
The NPCs seem to do weird things, they are activating ECM for no apparent reason, that can obviously ruin the thing. I don't think another fight is going on there. And not sure about their involvement, I've seen them firing a few times but mostly even the police vipers seemed to be uninterested.
As it is a huge problem to not have a main station in that system - I frequently visit it on my contract routes - there's only to uninstall the oxp after saving the station failed. Because reloading a save is cheating, you know.
I suggest the station should survive the crash if the asteroid is already "weak" and explode after time if it is "damaged". Even if I would have just needed one more barrage or maybe 3-5 seconds it still goes down.

I found that the solution seemed to be to keep my distance and keep firing at it from near the station, rather than closing in - that just used up the time I needed to destroy it.

I fire immediately when I can do so without hitting the station (which also happened a few times, I was Fugitive despite saving the station).
Once that the lasers are overheated anyway there's some time to move away from the station and the asteroid's course while the lasers are cooling.

This OXP seems to be missing a license.