Oolite Bulletins

My new OXP can't just be dropped into AddOns like most. It will need people to actually read the instructions. Will this do the trick, or am I still being too subtle?

SERIOUSLY, read this BEFORE installing AI Trading Assistant to your AddOns folder.txt

Make the OXP link only available on your Wiki page, and put the warning/instructions there in red/capitals!

Alternatively, you could call it "Read this for your chance to win $50,000!"


Seriously though, I'd go with EV's suggestion. Hide the link at the bottom, in a much smaller font.

It has nothing to do with subtle or not. Ppl tend to go directly to the download link, quite a few of them won't even read anything (neither on the WIKI, nor readmes or posts on BB) if the name of the OXP sounds interesting and a download is available.

E.g. BGS states the requirement of CCL on its WIKI page, on box.net (only works if preview is enabled or the user is logged in), in the readme and if it's not installed in Latest.log and as onscreen message to check Latest.log. And still the questions will pop up from time to time. Answering these questions is part of releasing OXPs to the public.

Start the oxp with a question on a missionscreen, of which the answer is hidden in the read-me. Wrong choice and the oxp deletes itself. Preferably use a random mix of questions on every start, so they really have to learn it by hart.

e.g.
Q: What must I always do
A: Start reading the read-me

Actually a bad example as people will intuitively know that A is the right choice.

Eric Walch wrote:

Start the oxp with a question on a missionscreen, of which the answer is hidden in the read-me. Wrong choice and the oxp deletes itself.

But only after removing all equipment from the player ship and throwing players credits out of the window

Eric Walch wrote:

Start the oxp with a question on a missionscreen, of which the answer is hidden in the read-me. Wrong choice and the oxp deletes itself. Preferably use a random mix of questions on every start, so they really have to learn it by heart.

e.g.
Q: What must I always do
A: Start reading the read-me

Q: Did you have cargo in your hold?

"What does it mean, did I?"

Could you make it a piece of purchasable equipment, which can't be bought unless the hold is empty? (Not sure whether that's actually feasible or not.) Or alternatively, the trading assistant doesn't enable itself and start tracking until the first occasion when the hold is empty?

JD wrote:

Could you make it a piece of purchasable equipment, which can't be bought unless the hold is empty? (Not sure whether that's actually feasible or not.)

Trading Assistant is purchased equipment, but the data logging runs continuously, so it isn't interrupted if the equipment is damaged.

JD wrote:

Or alternatively, the trading assistant doesn't enable itself and start tracking until the first occasion when the hold is empty?

That was my first thought, but you get these eccentric players who hoard the precious metals and never sell them, so their manifest will never be completely empty.
It's just a matter of selling their hoard, saving their game, installing the OXP, then buying back what they sold; since they'd be buying it at the same price they sold it it wouldn't affect their progress in the game at all. In the end I have to credit people with enough common sense to understand that, I suppose.

Yeah, now that I think about it... I was assuming it would take hundreds of lines of faffing about to idiot-proof it, but it's really only a matter of copying the current manifest into the purchase log, assuming it was bought at the current station and using its prices to pre-set the ledgers... End of thinking out loud.

It's still one-time-only faffing about for the benefit of lazy gits, though, so I'll put it on the list of things to add, but not at the top.

Wildeblood wrote:

It's still one-time-only faffing about for the benefit of lazy gits...

The 'lazy gits', as you call them, are only the end-users... why worry about them, eh?

Wildeblood wrote:

It's still one-time-only faffing about for the benefit of lazy gits, though, so I'll put it on the list of things to add, but not at the top.

Heck.. why bother sanity-checking input, then? It's only those too lazy to double-check their typing who'll be affected.

El Viejo wrote:

Wildeblood wrote:

It's still one-time-only faffing about for the benefit of lazy gits...

The 'lazy gits', as you call them, are only the end-users... why worry about them, eh?

"Software is idiot proof so long as idiots (end-users) don't use it."

Tricky wrote:

"Software is idiot proof so long as idiots (end-users) don't use it."

And you can make it to much idiot proof. I remember a digital tax form were the user was forced to only fill in positive numbers in certain fields. Than they changed the law a bit, with as result that in some occasions the number could become negative. When I called them, they said that they knew the problem, and I should fill in my negative number in an other field that allowed negative numbers. The addition stayed the same, but I now declared a completely wrong point.
Similar happened a year were I had to fill in that my business was a farm! I called the help desk and indeed, they told me that is was written in big letters on a blackboard at their help desk that in occasions similar to mine, an agrarian profession had to be filled in. When I filled in the correct profession it would go wrong further down in the tax form.

So far foolproof forms that restrict your input to 'legal' values.