Oolite Bulletins

 Repair Bots/Ship Repair System

 Aquarian Shipbuilding Corporation

• The ERS doesn't repair the ships' internal systems, but damage to external parts of the ship (aka "Subentities"). We have the hope that this will greatly help our customers to reduce their maintenance overhaul costs.
• The nanobots are only doing the work - they do not integrate themselves into the repaired parts, so the system doesn't need to be recharged.
• Because of this, and in order to reduce their size, the nanobots also don't come with integrated energy cells, like the Repair Bots. The downside of this is that the ship needs to provide them with energy for as long as they operate. Our prototype still requires the energy equivalent to what can be produced by a  Tsierk Letaneya TV101 'Energia' engine unit, but we are confident that we will make great improvements in this area soon. *
• Instead of needing recharges, our nanobots do require the materials needed for repair to be available in the ships' cargo bay. Mostly this means that the ship needs to have alloys available. (If you are skilled or lucky enough, you may even use the hull plating that has just been shot from your ship and which you managed to scoop back in!) In some special cases, other materials might also be required. (e.g. turrets may need an energy source (e.g. radioactives), computers and other equipment, too)
• It is unknown yet whether or not, and if so, how much cargo space the ERS will require for installation. Our technicians are working hard to minimize this, but at the moment it fits only in ships with the approximate size of an Anaconda, requiring 500 units of cargo. ** But hey, we've just started working! Announcing the system already now will raise our value on the market, giving us the refunds needed to finish the development! So don't be shocked, but go buy our shares and become a shareholder of one of the most promising companies of the future!
• The system will be configurable, so that for instance you can prioritize repairs. The default settings will repair damaged turrets first.
• Due to the nature of the equipment, it will only be useful for certain ships***, and will only be offered for purchase if your ship meets the requirements.
• We don't know how much high-tech will be required, yet, but we think that star systems which have access to the Aquarian Shipbuilding Corporations' Repair Bots will also be capable of offering our product once it's ready. ****

• Thargoids'  Repair Bots/Ship Repair System
• The Falcon-S from the Kestrel & Falcon OXP with all it's frangible subentities
• Oolite 1.77's "subentity get hit first-bug" (fixed by cim)

• Thargoids'  Repair Bots/Ship Repair System
• Solonars' [wiki]Turret Toggler[/wiki] (howto remove subentity)
• Eric Walch for helping with HowTo detect that a subentity has been destroyed
• cim, Thargoid, spara, Diziet Sma, Smivs, Wildeblood, Rorschachhamster, Commander McLane, Lone_Wolf, Tricky, ... and many more members of the Oolite-community for countless hints, tips and ideas and helping me understand
• Svengali for his awesome OXPConfig
• Oktis' MinerPod.oxp showed me howto change the cargo (player.ship.manifest)
• Eric Walchs' modifications to Dr. Nil's Ore Processor showed me how to simulate energy usage

• working: does need materials for repairs
• working: need s time and energy for repairs
• limitation: repairs / damage evaluations can't be paused and later resumed yet
• limitation: many planned configuration options not implemented yet
• working with limitations: emergency repair (repairs turrets first) (does this very dumb though, also trying to repair an item which already failed before due to lack of materials)
• working: selective repair
• working: store ERS-data when game is saved!
• working: examine subentity to get estimations on needed time and material
• TODO: many more which I don't remember right now

Smivs wrote:

Will this affect subentities deliberately removed by script?

Eric Walch wrote:

Smivs wrote:

Will this affect subentities deliberately removed by script?

You can't just restore a single subentity. When restoring, first all remaining subs are removed and than all subs are initiallised from scratch. So, any oxp that stores info in subent properties of in its script, will lose that info.

player.ship.subentity[x].script.shipDied = function(whom, why) { ... my code here ... }

• what's the best way to check if such a function already exists? I'd guess if (player.ship.subentity[x].script.shipDied) {...} would do the trick (but haven't tested it yet)
• is it possible to "extend" a function that already exists? That is, keep it's original code and add additional code to it? I'd be very surprised if that was possible, but I ask out of curiosity (if I'm not wrong, Ruby allows something like that?)

• is "shipDied()" only called when the ship dies a "natural" death, or also when it is removed by scripts?
• would it be possible to automatically detect if a certain ship is already doing fancy stuff with subentities. (I'd guess I need to check if subentity.script is empty, if not => fancy stuff)

GGShinobi wrote:

what's the best way to check if such a function already exists? I'd guess if (player.ship.subentity[x].script.shipDied) {...} would do the trick (but haven't tested it yet)

GGShinobi wrote:

is it possible to "extend" a function that already exists? That is, keep it's original code and add additional code to it? I'd be very surprised if that was possible, but I ask out of curiosity (if I'm not wrong, Ruby allows something like that?)

player.ship.subentity[x].script._shipDiedOld = player.ship.subentity[x].script.shipDied;
player.ship.subentity[x].script.shipDied = function() {
  // stuff to run before original
  this._shipDiedOld();
  // stuff to run after original
}

GGShinobi wrote:

is "shipDied()" only called when the ship dies a "natural" death, or also when it is removed by scripts?

GGShinobi wrote:

would it be possible to automatically detect if a certain ship is already doing fancy stuff with subentities. (I'd guess I need to check if subentity.script is empty, if not => fancy stuff)

cim wrote:

It might be safer to make a list of ships which have frangible subentities but don't do anything else with them and only allow the system for ships on that list.

// TODO:
//   - check ship.script for presence of variable "GGIndustries_ERS_compatible"
//     - if present, use it's value as reference: allow ERS only if "true".
//     - if not present, use whitelist: allow ERS only for ships that are listed
//     - check for presence: at startup, playerBoughtNewShip, ...?

cim wrote:

The equipment will be removed, but event handlers which might normally fire when equipment is removed will not happen. So, if state needs to be changed when equipment is removed or damaged, you need to check for that event handler as well as the equipment-related ones.

Diziet Sma wrote:

Very interesting project.. those Falcon repair bills were getting a bit much, eh?

cim wrote:

It might be safer to make a list of ships which have frangible subentities but don't do anything else with them and only allow the system for ships on that list.

GGShinobi wrote:

What would be the best way to identify a ship for the purpose of creating a whitelist? ship.name?