Oolite Bulletins

Vincentz wrote:

Just a couple of suggestions :

I really like this, and its some of the first I buy (never know when a derelict ship is floating by in space)

Though... I think Escort Deck is too cheap (same with towbar), and I think Docking Computers should be a requirement for both.

Prices could be 2000 for escort deck and 750 for towbar, and reason for docking computers, is they need to dock to your ship

Reasonable suggestions. I also think, the Escort deck and the Towbar could get some (slow!) decay while they are being used because they have to withstand high forces. Those devices should need some overhaul every now and then, available at the same tech levels as the original devices.
Having some escorts for free is a very very strong advantage. The occasional lonely Pirates usually don't even survive long enough to cry for help when they are targeted by my 4 heavy escorts and my Military Laser.

QCS wrote:

Having some escorts for free is a very very strong advantage. The occasional lonely Pirates usually don't even survive long enough to cry for help when they are targeted by my 4 heavy escorts and my Military Laser.

How do you get free escorts? whenever I get a derelict ship, it is turned in when I dock and I get a small fee.

Vincentz wrote:

How do you get free escorts? whenever I get a derelict ship, it is turned in when I dock and I get a small fee.

Well, whenever there is a derelict, there is a chance (I can not tell how high) that this ship is a usable derelict and not only available for salvage. If it is usable, it can only be attached to your Escort Deck and not to the Towbar. But then, the ship is an active Escort and on Red Alert from being attacked, this Escort goes off automatically and defends you.

You just seem to have the RNG against you For my eyes, the chance to get a usable ship is still too high.

I am currently protected by a Granite Asp, a Granite Fer-de-lance and two Wolf Mk1 ships. Quite passable fleet that is, but I guess, the expensive Escorts from the Station markets are way better than that. It is rumored that especially the Sniper variants seem to be well equipped and piloted by an Ace.

Whoah!!!

I just downloaded the new version of EscortDeck OXP.

Now when loading my game, one of my Escort Wolf ships is sold immediately, the other one disappears without trace.
Only the two Granite ships are left.

I reverted back to V1.4 and all the ships are back again.

Well, there was a bug until v1.4 which allowed to hold ships on deck up to 130t, but the documentation contain that the max. mass of an escort ship is only 40% of your ship's mass. This bug is fixed now so all outweighted escort was sold when you loaded the game. You got the salvage value for both ships regardless of another problem in Towbar OXP which prevent to show the second salvaging screen in this specific case and I was not able to fix this yet, sorry.

The mass of a Wolf MkI is 104t but your Cobra Mk3 can hold escorts up to 85t only (as shown on the escort MFD from now), to hold Wolfs you need at least a Python. This is a balancing rule what I intended to work from the beginning so I do not want to change it.

When I found out that the mass limit is must be fixed then I thinked a lot on your ships and decided to make an exception with the Granite ones which firstly gone also due to the unique double density. My idea is these have hardened nose to perform better in ramming other ships (which increased by the density) without double mass. Still a compromise but I can accept it for the playability, much better than allow holding of all heavy escorts which should defend the slow and heavy trader ships only.

Ahh ok I see...
and I understand.

Question is now, is the market also limited on Escorts which are allowed now?

I remember having seen all those heavy escorts like the S8 ships in the Shop with your old OXP version. I can not check the newer one right now, though, so just asking this possibly silly question.

QCS wrote:

is the market also limited on Escorts which are allowed now?

Yes.

Norby wrote:

QCS wrote:

is the market also limited on Escorts which are allowed now?

Yes.

Hmm... I am still being offered all those too large ships like S8. The only ship it should offer me (if I understand correctly) should be the Ophidian.

I don't have the Credits to check what happens when I buy one of the large ships.

QCS wrote:

I don't have the Credits to check what happens when I buy one of the large ships.

Just hack a copy of your game save for some extra credits, and test away..

QCS wrote:

what happens when I buy one of the large ships.

You receive a message: "You can't buy S8, too heavy (123t > 85t)".

Looks like an advertisement but unintended, just a safety check. There is a preliminary check also in equipment condition but ships in EscortPack missing the needed data due to the pack was made before the checking function. I will fix in the next pack.

Hmm I am not sure what happened.

I didn't play much the last days. Today I was able to play a bit. I found three "usable Fer-de-lance (54t)" and the message said as usual that I should go near to pick it up.
When flying there, it did not pick them up to the Escort deck. I did not get a message that it would be too big for the deck (which would also be strange since I have a Granite Fer-de-lance on Deck). When flying close, the Towbar picked them up. This is strange as well, as Towbar would not pick up usable ships in the past (only salvages). Once I prevented Towbar to pick the ship up by staying in motion until I bumped into the Derelict, which made it also attach to the Towbar.

I don't know if that's only with Fer-de-lance since I only encountered those when playing. Any idea what could have happened?

There was an exhibition at the Witchpoint, but usually that only prevents ships from being attached to the Towbar.

QCS wrote:

it did not pick them up to the Escort deck.

Is there something in the Latest.log?
Are you sure you maintained target lock on the ship?
Can you reproduce the problem?

QCS wrote:

When flying close, the Towbar picked them up.

Towbar can pick up usable derelict ships also, but this ship will be salvaged in the next dock. This is an useful feature when your deck is full.

QCS wrote:

I bumped into the Derelict, which made it also attach to the Towbar.

This is another feature of Towbar, you can pick up ships by collision also.

QCS wrote:

There was an exhibition at the Witchpoint

Exhibited ships are not derelicts so ignored by both Escort Deck and Towbar.

Norby wrote:

QCS wrote:

it did not pick them up to the Escort deck.

Is there something in the Latest.log?
Are you sure you maintained target lock on the ship?
Can you reproduce the problem?

I will try to reproduce it, will let you know. Yes, target lock was active since I watched the distance in the lock cursor. Latest lock did not show something suspicious, only that I targeted and untargeted the ships and they did not have the name "Derelict".

Norby wrote:

QCS wrote:

When flying close, the Towbar picked them up.

Towbar can pick up usable derelict ships also, but this ship will be salvaged in the next dock. This is an useful feature when your deck is full.

Ok, so that's by design. Good to know. But I believe I remember it did not do that in the past, at least not automatically on <100m distance. Didn't try it with bumping though. But I may be totally wrong on that.

Norby wrote:

QCS wrote:

There was an exhibition at the Witchpoint

Exhibited ships are not derelicts so ignored by both Escort Deck and Towbar.

Yes, but legitimate pirate ships which have a pendant in the Exhibition half a system away can also not be picked up (I get the message that's because it is in Exhibition). Other OXPs have this problem too (like Escort Contracts showing two M Compass markers if the escorted mother ship happens to have a pendant in the Exhibition) so I thought that's a common and unresolvable problem with Exhibitions. Is it not?
Anyway when I wrote this sentence above, I was just thinking about the "you can not pick up because it is a ship in exhibition" reasoning, which did not apply.

These seems to be 3 different problems. The compass marker and Towbar-related ones now should be fixed in Gallery 1.21, thanks for spotting, but none of these can cause the deck problem so please report if you can describe the situation where I can reproduce and fix.

Hi Norby,

I would like to propose another feature for the EscortDeck.

My ship is equipped with the additional heat shielding. It seems that NPC ships do not have this.
So when I want to linger around a Space Pizza I have to leave the Star's orbit earlier than my ship needs it. Sunskimming is also quite dangerous with docked ships.
So I would like to propose another type of equipment as extension to the EscortDeck: cooling devices.

Either it could be a fixed installation which increases heat dissipation when docked or a one-use or one-use-then-refill device (refill could cost Witchspace fuel + time + energy, or maybe only buyable in a station) which "sprays" the docked ships with a cooling liquid which immediately dissipates heat from them.