Oolite Bulletins

Hello everyone,

I've been whizzing around Galaxy 4 for quite a while now and I've completed the Love Cats mission.

I was then hoping to start the Deposed mission but I've not seen anything to indicate that the mission has started. I have around 2600 kills so am over the 1700 required for the mission.

I've looked through some old threads that mention the Deposed mission but I can't find anything on how it starts.

I'm using Oolite v1.76 and have Deposed 1.34 installed.

Any help would be great, thanks.

Hi Hamishthecat, and welcome to the friendliest board this side of Riedquat.
I can't help with the mission I'm afraid, but I would urge you to upgrade to v1.77 - much improved over 1.76.1.

Thanks Smivs.

I think i'll stick with 1.76 for now. I struggle seeing off other ships when a number of them attack me as it is - judging by some threads on here, v1.77 is even harder.

Hamishthecat wrote:

I think i'll stick with 1.76 for now. I struggle seeing off other ships when a number of them attack me as it is - judging by some threads on here, v1.77 is even harder.

Try it, you can always go back to 1.76 if necessary... and welcome aboard!

Have a look at the mission variables section of your saved file: what are the various mission_dep* values?

But don't upgrade to 1.77 if you are using a PPC Mac to play. Incompatible

Yes, Mac OSX Tiger support is dropped starting with 1.77.

Deposed is still powered by a legacy script. The only criterium for mission start is the mission score. With your score, you must have had a tarting screen. Or you missed it, or there is an incompatibility somewhere. Not all oxp's respect other missionscreens.

As Cim hinted you should look into the save file with a text editor. That gives a clue about the status of the mission variables belonging to deposed. Probably there is already a place you need to go to.

Hi everyone,

Thank you for the info. I've had a look in my save file and it says the following:

mission_deposed</key>
<string>PART1_4</string>
<key>mission_deposed_started</key>
<string>YES</string>

So I assume that means I've started the mission. I'm not sure what to do next though - maybe I'll fly around a bit more and see if anything happens.

Hamishthecat wrote:

So I assume that means I've started the mission. I'm not sure what to do next though - maybe I'll fly around a bit more and see if anything happens.

Yes ... looks like you've already done the first bit of it, in fact. Is there a mission_depask key?

You not only started the mission, but already played part1_1 until 1_3

The last message was:

---iNews Flash!!!

Former President of Bien Absconds With Over A Billion!

Ruben Drile, the tyrannical former President of Bien, was deposed in a popular uprising three weeks ago. A detailed accounting of Bien government reserves has revealed that some 1.2 billion credits were transferred by Drile off-world prior during his bloody reign. Drile has escaped from Bien. His current location is unknown. A Galactic Police spokesdroid says all efforts are being made to track Drile down. They have identified the ship that transported Drile off Bien. The commander has no prior record of illegal activity. The Galactic Police are hoping to speak to the commander soon.

In related news, Bien declared bankruptcy yesterday and is seeking financial aid from the Galactic Bank. Authorities fear the system will slip back into anarchy.

---Details at 10 on iNews!!!

And in 20% of the systems you should get the next message. If not, there must be a strange thing happening.

One hint for this mission: Try to stay clean! You can do this mission as offender, but at two crucial points during the mission, your status is checked and if clean at that moment, there will be extra hints by the police in the follow-up screens. If not, you have to figure out some clues yourself.

That's really strange - I don't remember that message at all.

I am clean at the moment but have been an offender recently. Maybe that's affected things.

I'll fly to a few more planets and hopefully get another update.

EDIT:

I've just looked in the save file and found the depask bit. It says...

mission_depask</key>
<string>COPS</string>
<key>mission_depbien</key>
<string>BUGGERED</string>

That doesn't sound too good to me.

That COPS value means someone has screwed your mission. With that value, your last screen was:

---INCOMING GalCop MESSAGE

Commander, we are aware of your role in Ruben Drile's escape from Bien. Report to the Galactic Police offices at Dicebe immediately.

---MESSAGE ENDS.

And it gave you two choices. On both choices the COPS value would have changed. This means that you launched without making a choice, or another oxp did overwrite your mission screen and thereby preventing you from making a choice. Although we have since Oolite 1.74 an foolproof way to show mission screens on a "missionOpportunity", some coders refuse to use this method and just create a missionscreen without checking if one is on display. And because "Deposed.oxp" is still in legacy code, it is much more difficult to make it foolproof against this kind of external influences.

For now it would be best to completely delete the line containing "<key>mission_deposed</key>" and the next "<string>PART1_4</string>" line. That way the code thinks the mission had never started and will start all over at the beginning.
Read elsewhere how to edit your save game. Not all text editors can be used as some add additional code.

Thanks Eric, that's great. I'll give that a go.

Just one more thing. Do I need to delete all the references to the deposed mission in my save file as I still have the following in it:

<key>mission_depask</key>
<string>COPS</string>
<key>mission_depbien</key>
<string>BUGGERED</string>

Or will this get overwritten when the mission starts?

You can delete it to be on the safe side, but all needed variables should initialise correctly when the above mentioned lead variable is missing.