Oolite Bulletins

Apologies if these has been answered previously before, I have used the search function but am not getting much joy. During combat and with the opposing ship on bang on target I have noticed that I may get a few hits in before I am being thrown off target, the opposing ship seems to jump a few inches out of target. As an avid Elite player on the BBC, C64 on PC emulated versions and having never experienced this before I am finding this very frustrating. I was just wondering if anyone could shed any light on this. I am running this on OS X 10.6.8
Many thanks for any help you can give.

Hi Shortie and welcome. It may be because the NPC ships don't just sit conveniently in your sights anymore - they dodge around a little.

Re the search function: you may find this helpful in future.

Thank's for your reply El Viejo, much appreciated - I will check out your link re the search function.

Having just played again my issue seems like some kind of bug - it seems something is contantly throwing me off target by about 3 inches of screen space. There does not seem to be any pattern with this and it seems to be a random occurance with differing NPC ships.

Shortie wrote:

... it seems something is contantly throwing me off target by about 3 inches of screen space. There does not seem to be any pattern with this and it seems to be a random occurance with differing NPC ships.

No, that doesn't sound right... which version of Oolite are you running, btw?

1.77

I will re-install and see if that solves the issue.

Hi Shortie, and welcome aboard!

Are you using the keyboard or a joystick/controller when you play?

Hi there and thanks for taking the time to reply. I'm using the keyboard and also using a 'Classic Keyboard' OXP.

Ok.. just wanted to eliminate the possibility that a dicky controller might have been sending spurious short movement signals. I hope the re-install works for you.

Hi, Shortie!

I'm not certain whether this applies to what you're seeing, but Oolite has occasional hiccups, mostly when there is much action, and many new entities are added, which of course happens regularly during battles, when explosion effects and debris and stuff like that are constantly created.

During such a hiccup Oolite is non-responsive for a fraction of a second, but the game simulation actually continues. That means that, if you happened to climb or roll when the hiccup started, your ship continues its movement while the screen is frozen for a fraction of a second. When the hiccup ends, you appear to "jump" to a new position, usually overshooting the movement that you just started by a good amount.

Now, those hiccups are supposed to be less frequent in the 1.77 deployment version than they were in previous versions. What you could do is to press SHIFT-F to display the frame rate Oolite currently runs under. How big is it in the situation you describe? And does it jerk between a reasonable number (at least 60 during smooth gameplay, at least 30 in heated battle situations) and a much lower number when your problem occurs? This would point to either your CPU or your GPU having a hard time, which would most likely be the result of one or more graphics-heavy OXPs giving them too much work.

* deleted embarrassingly stupid remark *

Diziet Sma wrote:

Commander McLane wrote:

What you could do is to press SHIFT-F to display the frame rate Oolite currently runs under.

But first you need to pause the game...

Que? You only needed the pause to alter the now-missing TAF - frame rate needs it not.

El Viejo wrote:

Diziet Sma wrote:

Commander McLane wrote:

What you could do is to press SHIFT-F to display the frame rate Oolite currently runs under.

But first you need to pause the game...

Que? You only needed the pause to alter the now-missing TAF - frame rate needs it not.

Yes, shift-f works during normal play.

Anyone know where I can trade in this brain for a new one? I think it's wearing out.

Shortie wrote:

During combat and with the opposing ship on bang on target I have noticed that I may get a few hits in before I am being thrown off target, the opposing ship seems to jump a few inches out of target.

Huh? I'm also experiencing something similar: when I hit a ship, it sometimes gets "pushed" quickly to one side. I think this happens mostly with pretty small ships, especially with the ... aaawwk can't remember the name, but it's an oxp ship, very small, very fast, very hard to hit (the exhaust seems to be placed a little wrong), seemingly a good energy recharge rate, overall: very nasty.* Looks a little bit like Boba Fett's Ship...

Diziet Sma wrote:

Anyone know where I can trade in this brain for a new one? I think it's wearing out.

LOL same problem here!!

I've thought that the effect was on purpose, like that the small ships are having so little mass that the erm.. "phasers" push them away. But now that I think again, the weapons are lasers and therefore should have no kinetic impact...

*The best way I was able to kill them is firing a Missile on them. This makes them activate their ECM, but at the same time, they stop, so I can get very close and fire a plasma torpedo

EDIT: I've found the ship in the wiki: It's the [wiki]Mugger[/wiki]! Energy recharge rate 10?!? No wonder it's so hard to kill...

GGShinobi wrote:

Shortie wrote:

During combat and with the opposing ship on bang on target I have noticed that I may get a few hits in before I am being thrown off target, the opposing ship seems to jump a few inches out of target.

Huh? I'm also experiencing something similar: when I hit a ship, it sometimes gets "pushed" quickly to one side.

This would be expected, if you happen to destroy a subentity. So it wouldn't be your lasers, but the partial explosion of the ship that pushes the rest of the ship away. Happens for instance if you shoot off one of the nacelles of an Imperial Courier.