Oolite Bulletins

After accepting the black box mission I was shocked to realize I had to transport it back into the same system instead of just delivering at any main or RRS station. This should be made very clear previously to accepting it, not right afterwards as it can seriously ruin contract plans. Most of the time I have several cargo/parcel contracts which need to fit to each other. Fortunately it seems I had enough time left and was that quick to allow for several jumps into the wrong direction.
Looks like there are other two-way contracts, applies for them as well then.

The RRS discount version of the flight formation computer is not replaced by the non-discount version when bought, is not primable and does not work. The non-discount version does, if bought separately.

Most useful mission is the "transport sensitive package to main station". It doesn't require a move out of the system so doesn't slash with cargo/parcel contracts, grants relatively much reputation and can be completed with basically just fuel injectors. Start with a full tank at the rescue station and run to the station when assassins show up, they're not far apart. Let the vipers deal with the assassins. No pulse laser needed.

Thanks for the report, Anonymissimus . And sorry for not reacting earlier, RL and all . I'll look at the problems reported as soon as I have some spare time. Might take a while though as life's busy at the moment. Keep on reporting, if you find more problems.

Didn't take that long to track the error down .

New version (1.5.3) is up.

* Fixes the flight formation discount bug reported by Anonymissimus.
* Added a couple of "here"s to the mission texts to clarify them. Again reported by Anonymissimus.

The mining outpost frequently warns about "not a good time for docking, someone is coming out" and "beginning launch sequences", but most of the time no ship is coming out anyway. Only a few times something launches. If a rock hermit warns about something launching, it comes out always, though it seems there's a check that it only happens once the player is a little away from the dock. I suspect it may have to do with the miner ships that are frequently lurking around there and dock/undock.

Anonymissimus wrote:

The mining outpost frequently warns about "not a good time for docking, someone is coming out" and "beginning launch sequences", but most of the time no ship is coming out anyway. Only a few times something launches. If a rock hermit warns about something launching, it comes out always, though it seems there's a check that it only happens once the player is a little away from the dock. I suspect it may have to do with the miner ships that are frequently lurking around there and dock/undock.

Don't know if there's much I can do about it. The mining outpost uses the rock hermit AI. Maybe the dock is too small for ships that are about to launch or something. If that's the case, it's somewhat a core problem me thinks. And yes, there are quite a few miners around. And sometimes a couple of pirates too.

The rock hermits actually show the same behaviour, but to a much lesser extent.

You could reduce the number of miner ships there, annoying masslockers. Normally you can't get to the outpost from any direcftion without being masslocked by something peaceful. Hermits have a single worm or mining transporters around, generally.

Anonymissimus wrote:

The rock hermits actually show the same behaviour, but to a much lesser extent.

You could reduce the number of miner ships there, annoying masslockers. Normally you can't get to the outpost from any direcftion without being masslocked by something peaceful. Hermits have a single worm or mining transporters around, generally.

Then again there is a massive asteroid field out there and it's a commercial mining site. It would feel a bit strange to have less miners out there.

New version (1.5.4) is up.

* A missiontext.plist error corrected. Thanks to phkb.
* An unrooted timer error fixed. Again, thanks to phkb.

Hey all,

Not sure if I'm doing something really wrong here, but I'm on the first "black box" mission, and for the life of me, I cannot get the damned thing to scoop. I can normally scoop cargo pods without too much difficulty, but with the black box, no matter where I fly over it, either nothing happens, or I end up destroying it. I've tried about half a dozen times with no luck. My fuel scoops aren't listed as damaged, and I can find it without too much trouble, but I just can't scoop it. Any ideas what might be going wrong?

I'll try disabling all the other OXPs I have just in case something else is interfering, but I'm kind of puzzled!

Cheers,

There is a Scooping Guide but myabe enough if you stop your ship instantly when the scoop icon in your HUD start animating. In this way you leave the job to the scoop which has some pulling power. The extenal view ("v") and arrow keys while caps lock is on can help to see the process.
The box must touch the first half of the bottom of your ship to be scooped else the collision destroy it.

herodotus wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2017 6:08 pm

Any ideas what might be going wrong?

Cargo hold full. D'oh. I really wish it would actually *tell* you that was the problem rather than just letting you fly at the thing like an idiot for half an hour

<grins> The scoop icon shows red when the hold is full.

Thanks for the responses guys. I have another question about the RRS missions - I'm trying to do the derelict rescue and I've been flying for a long time behind a very slow rescue leader in the target system. Unlike the IHTA Escort missions the RRS leader doesn't seem to sync torus drives/use injectors. Is this normal? How long should I be expecting to wait before reaching the derelict normally? I took a quick glance at the code and if I understand correctly it seems like the derelict is added (on average) about 300km from the witchpoint. Flying at 90m/s without Torus/Injectors that's going to mean sitting around for the better part of an hour... is that really right? If so I think I might be giving this missions a miss!

Cheers,

herodotus wrote:

I've been flying for a long time behind a very slow rescue leader in the target system.

That's strange. The default team leader ship for a derelict mission is an Arafura, which has a max flight speed of 300m/s. I guess the only possibility is that one of the other team members max speed is less than 300, but my initial peruse of the data didn't come up with any that are maxed out at 90. Can you confirm what type of ships the team leader and its escorts were?

phkb wrote: ↑Mon Jul 24, 2017 4:07 am

herodotus wrote:

I've been flying for a long time behind a very slow rescue leader in the target system.

That's strange. The default team leader ship for a derelict mission is an Arafura, which has a max flight speed of 300m/s. I guess the only possibility is that one of the other team members max speed is less than 300, but my initial peruse of the data didn't come up with any that are maxed out at 90. Can you confirm what type of ships the team leader and its escorts were?

Yeah, it was Arafura, and I think the escorts where Mambas but I don't remember for sure. It seemed strange. I'll try again when I next get an opportunity to see if I get the same behaviour and report back...