v1.76 'bugfix' causing problems.

[Smivs]

Hi,
I noticed in the release announcement for v1.76 the following line under the 'bugfixes' heading.

Avoid negative cargo capacity under certain conditions, especially in conjunction with passenger cabins.

I think this has completely broken my YellOo Cabs OXP.
The player YellOo Cab is supplied with a passenger berth, but has zero cargo specified. The reason for this was to prevent the passenger berth being sold. With zero cargo specified, selling the passenger berth would not release available cargo space, and the sell option was therefore not offered. This was working well up to now.
With 1.76 however the passenger berth has just disappeared! My existing 'Taxi-driver' save now has no passenger berth, and to check this I just bought a new taxi as well. Despite having a passenger berth specified as Standard Equipment in the shipyard.plist, no passenger berth is present.
Help!

[Cmdr. Maegil]

I noticed in the release announcement for v1.76 the following line under the 'bugfixes' heading.

Avoid negative cargo capacity under certain conditions, especially in conjunction with passenger cabins.

I think this has completely broken my YellOo Cabs OXP.

Translating: "I thought it was an undocumented feature, not a bug!"

[Smivs]

Yup, the bugfix broke the OXP!
I have just released v2.0 of YellOo Cabs, which has resolved the issue. Many thanks to Another_Commander for steering me in the right direction for the fix.

[Kaks]

Ninja'd!

I'd just finished writing the following:

Oopsie! I might have a solution to your problem though: what if you redefine EQ_PASSENGER_BERTH_REMOVAL to be incompatible with EQ_SMIVS_OOTAXI, and define a new EQ_SMIVS_OOTAXI as an invisible piece of equipment that comes as standard with each taxi?

There might be some kinks to iron out with this concept, but at first glance it seems fairly doable!

[Smivs]

Thanks Kaks. I've actually kept it simple as per A_C's suggestion on irc.
If the player sells their berth a console message tells them that the 'special' berth cannot be removed. In fact a shipscript now awards them a new one, and refunds the 100 Credits

[Eldon]

What happens if you sell your passenger berth at a station that has non-standard pricing for equipment, like a navy station? Is there any chance of an exploit where it costs you 50cr to sell the berth and get a 100cr refund when you get it back?

[Smivs]

Yes, I expect so.
Things like this are always going to be a problem where an OXP skews markets and prices I'm afraid. The Q-bomb route to becoming a millionaire is well documented but I don't think it would make sense to buy a YellOo Cab just to make 50Cr a time 'selling' the passenger berth.
It would really be better if the OXPs in question did not trade re-sellable equipment like berths, missiles and mines at a discount.

[JazHaz]

Yes, I expect so.
Things like this are always going to be a problem where an OXP skews markets and prices I'm afraid. The Q-bomb route to becoming a millionaire is well documented but I don't think it would make sense to buy a YellOo Cab just to make 50Cr a time 'selling' the passenger berth.
It would really be better if the OXPs in question did not trade re-sellable equipment like berths, missiles and mines at a discount.

Maybe it would be better to investigate Kaks' solution. If you could get it to work, it would stop the possibility of getting extra credits on selling.

Oopsie! I might have a solution to your problem though: what if you redefine EQ_PASSENGER_BERTH_REMOVAL to be incompatible with EQ_SMIVS_OOTAXI, and define a new EQ_SMIVS_OOTAXI as an invisible piece of equipment that comes as standard with each taxi?

There might be some kinks to iron out with this concept, but at first glance it seems fairly doable!

[Smivs]

Had I seen Kaks' suggestion before releasing the update I might have considered that, but to be honest I think a fix that works well in the normal game should be good enough anyway. Authors shouldn't have to jump through hoops to avoid problems caused by 'features' of other OXPs. The shear number of OXPs available now makes this premise unreasonable. Also I don't see any sense in confusing the issue by releasing yet another version.
As I said I don't consider the possibilty of people exploiting this to be a problem. It's very unlikely that anyone is going to be daft enough to buy a YellOo Cab just to do this, particularly as the OXP at the root of the problem still leaves the Q-bomb and Missiles exploit open, which is far more lucrative anyway.
If people use OXPs which fundamentally change the game, they do so in the full knowledge of this, and are free to exploit any 'features' thus provided or not as they see fit.