[RELEASE] Rescue Stations 1.2.4 (25 Mar 2012)

[cim]

Introducing RRS Group - the Eight Galaxies' premier rescue, recovery and salvage contractor. Sure, the principle might sound easy - lots of people make a living off derelict spacecraft - but RRS Group is the only operator who'll try to get the recovered ship back to its legal owner in one piece.

RRS Arafura Rescue Boat


Our Arafura Rescue Boats are custom-built at the Lezaer shipyards, and come fully equipped with the latest medical and engineering technology, for an industry-leading 57% live rescue rate. Their four powerful engines mean that we can be first to the scene, before pirates have pulverised the ship and sold its crew as slaves.

RRS Waystation


As well as offering a convenient place to rest and refuel after a long witchspace transit at our Waystations, RRS Group is pleased to offer employment at competitive rates to Commanders as part of our Independent Contractor programme. Simply complete the short background check form next time you visit, and you'll be eligible for a range of short-term contracts, and access to our employee discount scheme.

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Download Rescue Stations 1.2.4
Installation in the usual way - unzip and place the .oxp in your Addons folder.

 RRS Group and the ships are now on the wiki, and there's some additional documentation in the download.

There are currently 6 types of mission available at RRS Waystations, with two or three variations of each. There's a full list of RRS Waystations on the documentation page, but you should find one fairly soon by looking around Corporate States and Democracies. Currently you only need Tier 2 Contractor status to get access to most of the missions (and Tier 1 is sufficient for many), though more missions and variations are planned, and Tier 4 status is needed for a few missions.

Combat difficulty is average: mostly nothing you wouldn't get anyway elsewhere. Beam laser, ECM, etc. probably a good idea. Some of the missions require specific non-combat equipment (or, at least, are considerably easier with it) - the mission page will say what you need.

Oolite 1.76 required. No other OXPs are required ... but:
- Having Talkative Space Compass, MilHud 4000, or another OXP to read full beacon codes is very useful
- Having Asteroid Storm or another asteroid-enhancing OXP installed will make the asteroid-field scenes more visually interesting.
- Ships from various ship OXPs are supported and will show up in various places during missions, if they're available.
- Waystations have spare parts for some pieces of OXP equipment, for sufficiently high-ranking contractors.
- If Snoopers is installed consequences of your actions might make the news occasionally.
- Content from Commies and GalNavy OXPs will be used to add flavour to missions if available

Comments, complaints and bug reports welcomed. (because the missions are randomised, try to give as much information as you can remember with the bug reports, as I probably won't be able to duplicate the exact circumstances)

[Captain Beatnik]

Very nice OXP! Adds a lot of ambience to the game. Good work, cim.

[UK_Eliter]

Cim: this looks great!

Captain Beatnik: I know and like the Adams quote . .

[CommonSenseOTB]

Very very nice cim! Good ideas and screen shots show great promise. I'll be placing this in my addons while testing my hud designs.

[Capt. Murphy]

Excellent, I really like OXP's that add mini-missions. I'll give this a go when I get round to actually playing the game again, rather than tweaking code. Thanks cim.

[Kaks]

Nice! Will do some 'compatibility testing' during the next week!

[JazHaz]

where do the stations spawn? near to constores?

[cim]

where do the stations spawn? near to constores?

If there's one in the system, it'll be within scanner range of the witchpoint beacon. Green/orange on scanner, R on compass.

75% of Corporate States, 50% of Democracies and 25% of Confederacies have one. If you're in the standard Ooniverse, the list of systems might be useful for finding a nearby one.

(If you're in one of those systems, and it's still not showing up, that may be a bug)

[JazHaz]

If there's one in the system, it'll be within scanner range of the witchpoint beacon. Green/orange on scanner, R on compass.

Added the OXP to the OXP List on the Wiki (with link back to this thread), and added the beacon to the beacon list.

[pagroove]

Seems like a new fun way to add flavor to the systems and a new chance to earn money. I'm gonna try it out .

[Wildeblood]

where do the stations spawn? near to constores?

If there's one in the system, it'll be within scanner range of the witchpoint beacon.

Cim, how much editing would be required to change them to either low orbit with the main station, or well past the witchpoint like FTZ or SIRF stations? Is it a matter of changing one line, or is their location thoroughly insinuated throughout the OXP? (I consider stations near the witchpoint to be game-breakers: it contradicts the essential premise the game is based on, that there is a beacon out there for arriving ships to aim at which is a minimum safe distance away from all the stations, so arriving ships don't risk crashing into stations.)

[Cmdr. Maegil]

(I consider stations near the witchpoint to be game-breakers: it contradicts the essential premise the game is based on, that there is a beacon out there for arriving ships to aim at which is a minimum safe distance away from all the stations, so arriving ships don't risk crashing into stations.)

I saw it differently: the whichspace technology is functional, but not fully understood. Thus, the thargoids can ambush in whichspace while humans cannot, and there is an uncertainty in whichspace navigation - ships can't arrive too near gravity holes, and rely on whichspace beacons to navigate.
(This also explains FE2 and FFE, where there are no beacons but ships still have an safety arrival radius proportional to the system's size, up to more than 600AU in multiple systems).

Seen like this, both a commercialization and a militarization of the said beacons' vicinity is only to be expected.

[cim]

If there's one in the system, it'll be within scanner range of the witchpoint beacon.

Cim, how much editing would be required to change them to either low orbit with the main station, or well past the witchpoint like FTZ or SIRF stations? Is it a matter of changing one line, or is their location thoroughly insinuated throughout the OXP?

There are a few missions that involve escorting a ship from the witchpoint back to the waystation. Flying in escort formation for even 50km (at non-torus, non-injector speeds) is fairly dull. If you don't mind either rejecting those missions when they come up or preparing for a very long trip, then you can change:

Code: Select all

rescuestation.position = [15E3,-15E3,0];

to

Code: Select all

rescuestation.position = [15E3,-15E3,system.mainPlanet.position.z-(3*system.mainPlanet.radius)];

in Scripts/rescue_missions.js, to put them in planetary orbit, and everything should continue to work.

[Wildeblood]

Thanks for that. And since it's already Christmas eve in this part of the world, happy Christmas everyone!

[cim]

Cim, how much editing would be required to change them to either low orbit with the main station, or well past the witchpoint like FTZ or SIRF stations? Is it a matter of changing one line, or is their location thoroughly insinuated throughout the OXP?

The next version of Rescue Stations will have the stations moved to a new location more suitable to providing recovery services to all of a system's spacelanes, since I figured out a way* to make long-range escort contracts less dull.

This also makes it possible for the targets in the "salvage run" missions to be less suspiciously (and from a programming perspective, inconveniently) close to the witchpoint.

* Use the sleep-inducer from the docking computer autopilot. Fast (or, at least, the pilot thinks it's fast) in-system transit that doesn't have the major problems of using torus or TAF.