Oolite Bulletins

Trouble with killing the pod, is that the death_actions of the ship will
reward the player for killing the mark, whether he kills the escape pod
(if lauched) or not. (This is what I wanted to avoid by making sure the ship
cannot have an escape pod). Will try real 0.0.!

But the pod is irrelevant then...just the pilot running off and leaving his passengers behind to die.
Kill the abandoned ship and death_actions will still occur.

Works for Victim3 (a "team bus"), but 1st victim is in a single man ship.

Could use your work-round, if I put my victims in 2+ men ships.

Or just tell the player he/she/it does not have a pilotlicence.
(maybe have the victim ask for a berth on the 'general BBS')
...the cobra3 has a copilot's seat that is hardly ever used.

Only I get the feeling this one-man ship is more like a boyracer, that cannot carry a single passenger berth.

Getting on nicely. For playtesting, I've been adding my victims right, by
the witchspace beacon so I know where they are and can test them.

Now I've got ships working, i'm using this code:-

addShipsWithinRadius: victim3 1 wpm 0 0 150 10000

This adds my ship and escorts 150 meters from the beacon in a plane with
the planet an witchspace beacon, somewhere in a 10km radius of your ship. I've tested this and it works.

What I intend to do (if this is valid) is repace the 150 figure with a d_roll.

That way each victim will be somewhere in the system, but you'll have to hunt him down.

How many meters is it from the witchpoint to the station, so I know how big to make my dice range?

Update:

Getting there with the OXP. Currently impelemented and working:-

- 5 interliked missions, set in Galaxy 7
- "Assassins Guild" ranking system alongside the normal "Elite Federation rating"
- 5 new ships.
- 6 hand-coded mission briefings.
- 6 hand-coded mission descriptions.

Untimatley, this version will have 13 missions, about 30 pages of mission information screens and about 20 new ships.

As orginally designed I was going to like_ship to classic elite ships, so the ships would be new in the sense of their sats names, roles and AI, but would use classic elite ships for the graphics.

However, Ramon has been giving me a hand with playtesting and has offered to build and texture me a ship for the last victim. Just seen the first draft and she's a beauty!

I wonder if I can twist his arm into building one for each victim!

He's doing me a few

See the posts under https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?t=2151

If anybody else fancies designing some models & textures, send me an
e-mail at [email protected].

I can do the the shipdata and script. I just need (in folders that I can copy
the other bits that make a ship work) and if you could tell me the <model> name I can cut and past into the script as hopefull(!) ships come in.

I can e-mail anyone who wants a seek preview, the OXP as it currently stands. The OXP contains a readme (which I'm updating as I go alone).

After a whole page of BIG SPOILER WARNINGS, is a breakdown of exctally what the OXP does, so you can see my shopping list if you either look there or read the missiontext!

PS : Ramon's is doing the "Team Bus" and the "Royal Barge". Not telling you anything about these ships to avoid spoilers, but if you read the readme, you'll know what I mean!

Two problems 1) with victim2's escorts (sometimes he has them sometimes not). 2) I don't think the game is "reading" past a point in my shipdata. (This may also have somthing to do with the lack of escorts).

At a certain point in the OXP relatives of your first victim will start taking revenge. The code in the script is working. I'm using:-

{ conditions = (
"mission_assassins equal assassins_STAGE3a",
"galaxy_number equal 6",
"status_string equal STATUS_EXITING_WITCHSPACE"
);
do = ( "checkForShips: victim1",
{ conditions = ( "shipsFound_number equal 0" );
do = ( "addShipsWithinRadius: victim1 5 wpm 0 0 12000 500");
},

This works and adds 5 victim1 ship at the right point. (I'm just testing using victim1, once I get it working the ships added will be revenge1 and
I'll add a dice role condition, so there is just a chance of been attacked whenever you exit hyperspace).

If I test with the next ship in my shipdata (victim2), it works (but no escorts) - grrr. But if I use the next two ships in the list teamdef or revenge1 nothing happens. "teamdef" is the escort of victim2. Revenge1 at the moment is just a copy & past of victim1. If I can get him appearing, i'll do his stats to make him a very nasty fighter.

I'm totally stuck and if anybody wants to PM me their e-mail, I'll e-mail over my OXP with commanders to test the Escorts and the vengence ship. I think it has somthing to do with the game not reading properly past victim2 in my shipdata.

This my shipdata file in full:-

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>victim1</key>
<dict>
<key>like_ship</key>
<string>adder</string>
<key>model</key>
<string>adder_redux.dat</string>
<key>roles</key>
<string>victim1</string>
<key>name</key>
<string>Guild Target : Be Soin - 200C</string>
<key>has escape_pod</key>
<real>0.0</real>
<key>ai_type</key>
<string>route1traderAI.plist</string>
<key>death_actions</key>
<array>
<string>set: mission_assassins assassins_STAGE1a</string>
</array>
</dict>

<key>victim2</key>
<dict>
<key>like_ship</key>
<string>python</string>
<key>model</key>

<string>python_redux.dat</string>
<key>roles</key>
<string>victim2</string>
<key>name</key>
<string>Guild Target : Hockey Team - 5,000C</string>
<key>escorts</key>
<integer>4</integer>
<key>escort-ship</key>
<string>teamdef</string>
<key>forward_weapon_type</key>
<string>WEAPON_BEAM_LASER</string>
<key>has_ecm</key>
<true/>
<key>has escape_pod</key>
<real>0.0<real/>
<key>max_energy</key>
<real>1500</real>
<key>energy_recharge_rate</key>
<real>3.5</real>
<key>max_flight_speed</key>
<real>320</real>
<key>ai_type</key>
<string>route1traderAI.plist</string>
<key>death_actions</key>
<array>
<string>set: mission_assassins assassins_STAGE2b</string>
</array>
</dict>

<key>teamdef</key>
<dict>
<key>like_ship</key>
<string>viper</string>
<key>model</key>
<string>viper_redux.dat</string>
<key>forward_weapon_type</key>
<string>WEAPON_MILITARY_LASER</string>
<key>has_ecm</key>
<true/>
<key>max_energy</key>
<real>300</real>
<key>energy_recharge_rate</key>
<real>5</real>
<key>max_flight_pitch</key>
<real>2</real>
<key>max_flight_roll</key>
<real>3.2</real>
<key>ai_type</key>
<string>escortAI.plist</string>
<key>name</key>
<string>Hockey Team Escort Viper</string>
<key>roles</key>
<string>teamdef</string>
</dict>

<dict>
<key>revenge1</key>
<dict>
<key>like_ship</key>
<string>adder</string>
<key>model</key>
<string>adder_redux.dat</string>
<key>roles</key>
<string>revenge1</string>
<key>name</key>
<string>Clan Soin : Mega Mamba MkI</string>
<key>has escape_pod</key>
<real>0.0</real>
<key>ai_type</key>
<string>route1traderAI.plist</string>
<key>death_actions</key>
<array>
<string>set: mission_assassins assassins_STAGE3b</string>
</array>
</dict>

</dict>
</plist>

Arrrgh!

Found the problem!

I'd my mistake copied an earlier version of a config file to AddOns rather than to the OXP in addons.

So every time I changed the shipdata in the OXP it was being ignored
in favour of the shipdata in the Addons file!!!!!!

Works fine now

Heehee, typical, I clearly remember making the same mistake, thanks to my chaotic way of editing stuff.

So, another mission all but ready for release, yay!

Mission 4 of 15 working. But now need to now toughen up the Soin Clan in their Mega Mambas. They will be prety Mega. Enough energy to make them energy bomb proof, top speed 0f 0.65 and fuel injectors. You'll have to fight not run and I need to write them an A.I. (by cribbing ThargoidAI so that they only attack you).

Then need to do a second wave of the Soin Clan involving the new Clan Leader. He will have a new weapon - the Nova Device. Better have enough fuel to get out of the star system once you kill him. After the "Defend your self from the vengence of Inno Soin and his sisters." mission is complete, will still have 7 more hits to script, plus various iNEWs broadcasts. And I now need to go back and perfect the escort code!

I think I'll be uploading in August.

This is a joint effort with Ramon. He's doing some models, so the OXP will have some new ships as well as "Mega" versions of classic elite ships.

If anybody eles could donate or do some ship models, PM me and I'll send you a description of each new ship.

If it looks like I have enough contributions to make every ship in the OXP have new graphics and models.

The ships in the OXP are all new in terms of their AIs stats and behaviour, they are just "borrowing" the classic elite ship graphics, as I just have no artistic skill.

EG: At the Moment the Soin Clan ships use the mamba model. But if sombody wanted to model a lightning fast intercepter and send me the shipdata, model & texure files, it only takes me 5 mins (once I have the script and ship with borrowed graphics working) to copy and past your shipdata into the OXPs ship data file and change the model from "mamba_redux" to "your_ship_model" and change the name from "Soin Clan : Mega Mamba MkI" to "Soin Clan : YOUR SHIP NAME"

The way I'm doing the OXP means it will work with clasic elite graphics, but can be improved, if people are prepared to donate new ships.

I reckon it will be a month before I perfect my code. Any contributions will be incorperated!

Escorts working!

I've also given all my victims unique AI. Each Victim has 8 unique com-hails, so he will beg / plead / threaten for his life by sending you Comm
hails as he gets more desperate. The hails are unique to each victim.

Good news that you have them working! Pah - they can beg all they want, they're still gonna die !

Reckoned they'd still die. But I thought a few:-

"Please I'm a ship desginer, just let me go and I'll build you a classic."

"No. We've just won the Galactic Cup. Think of our fans!"

"Whatever Don Ilumus is paying you for killing us, we'll double it! Look into your heart assassin!"

etc.

would be rather amusing!

First wave of Soin Sister Revenge Ships finished and scripted!

Working:-

- 4 interliked missions, set in Galaxy 7
- Assassins Guild ranking system.
- 5 new ships.
- 8 hand-coded mission briefings.
- 7 hand-coded mission descriptions.
- 20 new Ship Communications Hails.

Think will be uploading in mid August.