Oolite Bulletins

I have been flying round with this Cargo Shepherd for a while but cannot get the point of it; I think I was sold a busted one.

a) when there are bits of cargo floating around after a pirate attack, I select the Cargo Shepherd by pressing "y", them arm it with "t" then fire it with "M". And it sits there in space being a big magnet. So I go flying around shooting up the pirates and when I'm done, the Cargo Shepherd has attracted nothing. I have to go whizzing round rounding up the cargo & bits of ship plate for myself. Then go and fetch the big magnet.

b) sometimes there is cargo floating near a fuelling station. I launch the Cargo Shepherd and eventually, if I wait long enough, another ship comes along which scoops up the cargo. The magnet certainly does not attract it.

c) sometimes there is cargo sitting lying about in space. So I halt, launch the Cargo Shepherd and go and make a cup of tea, or read a magazine or whatever. I sit there, the magnet sits there nearby and the cargo sits where it does.

I have tried using it at least 8 times but never noticed an effect.

Yes, I have done shift-click when loading the game; other OXPs are working. No, I am not 'bumping' it and deactivating it. I am doing that when reloading it, so it must be active when sitting in space.

Is it me?

Ubuntu 10.04, oolite version 1.75.2 and Cargo Shepherd v1.00

Also installed:
ACS_1.2.oxp
auto_eject.oxp
behemoth 2.5.4.oxp
BountyScannerv2.0.oxp
Cargo Shepherd 1.00.oxp
Cargo_wrecks_teaser 1.6.3.oxp
Commies.oxp
Dictators v1.4.oxp
Energy Equipment 1.11.oxp
Fuel Station 1.32.oxp
Gates 1.12.oxp
Hired Guns 1.25.oxp
IronHide 2.00.oxp
Lave Academy 1.21.oxp
Ore_processor 1.57.oxp
outrider.oxp
RandomHits1.4.5.oxp
Superhubv1.2.oxp
taranis.oxp
Target Autolock Plus 1.12.oxp
Target Reticle 1.2.1.oxp
The Feudal States v1.9.4.oxp
transhab.oxp
YOUR_AD_HERE.oxp
YOUR_AD_HERE_set_A.oxp
YOUR_AD_HERE_set_B.oxp
YOUR_AD_HERE_set_C.oxp
YOUR_AD_HERE_set_D.oxp
YOUR_AD_HERE_set_E.oxp
YOUR_AD_HERE_set_F.oxp

I think the attraction works just very slowly. And as far as I understand the main function of the cargo shepherd is not to work as a magnet anyway, but to work as a marker while you're away (for instance to unload your cargo bay at the main station), in order to allow you to find the place again where all those cargo pods are floating in space. The slow attraction factor is just a small extra gimmick.

Oh yes, it is slow! However, I was watching cargo that I had targeted from a stationary ship; it definitely was not moving.

More info:
I have docked, bought a variety of sorts of cargo, flown out into deep space, launched the Cargo Shepherd, whizzed off 10km and ejected the cargo. It is now being veeeerrrryyyy slllooooowwwwly sucked toward the Cargo Shepherd. So cargo I have bought and ejected myself is picked up by the Chargo Shepherd.

This is to do with that "cargopod role", isn't it?

Hmm. This does not seem like a terribly useful piece of equipment when used in conjunction with Cargo_wrecks_teaser 1.6.3.oxp

SandJ wrote:

This is to do with that "cargopod role", isn't it?

Hmm. This does not seem like a terribly useful piece of equipment when used in conjunction with Cargo_wrecks_teaser 1.6.3.oxp

Yes, the cargo shepherd only recognizes and attracts cargopods which have "cargopod" among their roles. Many of the pods in Cargo&Wrecks don't. This was actually a matter of discussion here on the boards. Personally I think that all cargopods should have "cargopod" among their roles, but Eric Walch, who is the current maintainer of Cargo&Wrecks, disagrees.

If you feel comfortable with poking around in the intestines of an OXP I'd suggest you open Cargo&Wrecks' shipdata.plist and add "cargopod(0)" to the roles-key of all pods that don't have it. (But leave out the alloy.) It does no harm, and will make the cargo shepherd work with all cargopods from C&W. Don't forget to hold down SHIFT while restarting Oolite.

If you're on Windows don't use Notepad for the editing. Wordpad is fine.

Oh, and by the way: before you do the poking, you may consider upgrading C&W to its latest version 1.6.5.

Commander McLane wrote:

If you feel comfortable with poking around in the intestines of an OXP I'd suggest you open Cargo&Wrecks' shipdata.plist and add "cargopod(0)" to the roles-key of all pods that don't have it. (But leave out the alloy.) It does no harm, and will make the cargo shepherd work with all cargopods from C&W. Don't forget to hold down SHIFT while restarting Oolite.

This method would work with current Oolite but will crash when using the C&W with Oolite 1.65. And I want to keep it compatible with the official stable version as long as possible. For detecting a cargopod there is the JS property isCargo. And using a property to recognise stuff is always better than doing it by role.

Eric Walch wrote:

Commander McLane wrote:

If you feel comfortable with poking around in the intestines of an OXP I'd suggest you open Cargo&Wrecks' shipdata.plist and add "cargopod(0)" to the roles-key of all pods that don't have it. (But leave out the alloy.) It does no harm, and will make the cargo shepherd work with all cargopods from C&W. Don't forget to hold down SHIFT while restarting Oolite.

This method would work with current Oolite but will crash when using the C&W with Oolite 1.65.

I guess that SandJ is not using Oolite 1.65, so changing his personal copy will do him no harm.

And for backwards compatibility to 1.65 in general: C&W 1.6.5 would stay backwards compatible with Oolite 1.65 forever. But C&W 1.6.6 (or maybe call it C&W 2.0) doesn't need to. As long as you keep both available each player can choose which one to install. A lot of current OXPs don't work with Oolite 1.65, and I don't see that as an issue.

Commander McLane wrote:

I guess that SandJ is not using Oolite 1.65, so changing his personal copy will do him no harm.

It's working a treat now, thanks.

All I have to do now is resist the temptation to tweak it to pick up asteroid splinters.

Thargoid wrote:

I've just updated it to widen the amount of cargo pods that it will attract.

<thumbs-up smiley goes here>

Oh well. I was going to do something constructive today, like paperwork.