[Release] Market inquirer

[Thargoid]

My Planetary Compass OXP may help a bit too. But the naming of the buoy is down to the OXP adding them, as most of the additional stations wouldn't normally come with a buoy.

It sounds like that OXP is just using the default main station one without tweaking its name or beacon code. Hence the confusion and duplication. But the adjustment can quite easily be done in script, it'd perhaps be a good improvement suggestion.

[spara]

Stations for extra planets does displayname the beacons, but does not change the beacon code. I've been happily using updating TSC, which is a derivate of the original TSC. These oxps show the displayname of the station and work nicely with the sfep oxp.

MilHud overrides the beacon code of a list of stations and their beacon when it starts. Sfep oxp has been released after MilHud, so it does not have those station in it's list. As a result only the beacon code is shown, which I have not set.

I'll make a change to the sfep oxp some time in the future to make it work with MilHud. Meanwhile, TSC or updating TSC are your best friend .

[DaveG]

MilHud overrides the beacon code of a list of stations and their beacon when it starts. Sfep oxp has been released after MilHud, so it does not have those station in it's list. As a result only the beacon code is shown, which I have not set.

In which case, I assume just installing TSC won't help, and I need to remove MilHUD? (I'll try anyway!) If this is the case, any quick recommendations for a similar HUD?!

Dave

[Norby]

I can't get a radar lock on nav buoys if they are too far away.

[wiki]Telescope[/wiki] show all buoys in your IFF sacnner and put target lock box with the name of the target around far targets.
But far stations without beaconcode is not shown by default to do not reveal mission secrets, so please try it and report Telecope was helpful to you in this case or not.

[DaveG]

well, I'm a happy commander!

Tried TSC with MilHUD, and true to form, MilHUD did the announcements, using a generic beacon code. So swapped out MilHUD for aadHUD, and everything worked. However, I didn't like the new HUD as much, as the ASC sat on top of my missile pylons, and I liked the way the whole scanner was differently coloured, depending upon my status.

So I thought I'd have a go at tinkering with the script of MilHUD to disable the announcements, and after lots of reading through and checking, a one line blank out did the job! All is good!

Thanks everyone for the guidance.

Dave

Oh, and I have the telescope OXP - it wasn't doing anything to help in this case!

[spara]

So I thought I'd have a go at tinkering with the script of MilHUD to disable the announcements, and after lots of reading through and checking, a one line blank out did the job! All is good!

That's cool. Glad you got it sorted. Oh, and welcome to the dark side .

[DaveG]

thanks spara, and trust me - blanking out a line is probably about my limit! More 'gloomy side' I think!

[spara]

Since the use of mission screens in-flight is not desired, I took another approach with this one. I have a new version under development that will be quite different. For in-flight distances, use updating tsc. For in-flight markets, I managed to create a cool hack that I have not seen around before. You need an asc equipment and then you need to cycle to a station with a beacon. Station buoy will also do. Now open up f8 market screen and be surprised .

It works so that when you're in-flight and open up the market screen, it checks you compass target and if it's a station, it temporarily changes the system name to the station name and market to the compass target market. System name and market data are restored immediately after the market screen is shown.

If there's some obvious problem here or something breaks badly, please let me know. I seriously tried to think of possible problems, but did not find any actual ones. In practice the main station market gets overwritten by the oxp station market while the player switches to the market screen, so if there's an oxp out there that tries to alter the main station market exactly that same moment, then that change will reset. System name also gets overwritten by the station name, but that will be very brief too, from guiScreenWillChange to guiScreenChanged. The only case I could think of was an oxp waiting for a market change using a framecallback. I'm not aware of such an oxp.

The in-game rationalization is of course that the beacon it self contains the market data, as well as station name.

Download here: market inquirer 1.7 wip1

[spara]

After a fair amount of testing, the new version seems to be working ok. New version (1.7) is available from the wiki.

To get rid of in-flight mission screens, the primable equipment has been removed and is replaced with the integration of ASC and built-in Market Screen (f8).

* To view markets in-flight, select the station with ASC and view the market in Market Screen (f8).
* To view distances in-flight, use the Updating TSC oxp.
* Interfaces while docked are untouched and work as before.

[Keeper]

Since the use of mission screens in-flight is not desired, I took another approach with this one. I have a new version under development that will be quite different. For in-flight distances, use updating tsc.

I suspect in-flight distances is a great candidate for using the new multi-function displays in 1.79, when you're ready to make a 1.79 version! (For that matter, I also can envision a look-it-up-when-I-want-to In-System Taxi board that can be brought up on demand, using the multi-function displays.)

[SirArian]

Great work on this OXP, Spara! I actually just found it a little while ago, but it is very useful! Honestly, though, I don't think the newest version actually improves it. If anything, it makes it less useful, at least the way that I use it. For me it has to be able to show all of the station markets at the same time, so that I can compare prices across all of them. I understand your reasoning behind it, and appreciate the work you have put into it, but I think I'll stay with version 1.6 for now.

[spara]

Thanks for the positive feedback SirArian . You're right of course. The newest version downgrades the usability. On the other hand developers of the core game have stated that there are bugs in the implementation of mission screens in-flight. Rather nasty bugs I assume as it's a very rare case that the devs say "don't use the feature" rather than "will be fixed".

So the new version follows* the oxp guidelines set by the devs and as such is the preferred one. The link to the older version is still there for those who want it, but has been tagged to be potentially buggy due to the use of in-flight mission screens.

*with the exception that it's potentially a game balance breaker to show the market of an oxp station without actually requiring you to go there.

[cim]

Thanks for the positive feedback SirArian . You're right of course. The newest version downgrades the usability. On the other hand developers of the core game have stated that there are bugs in the implementation of mission screens in-flight. Rather nasty bugs I assume as it's a very rare case that the devs say "don't use the feature" rather than "will be fixed".

More that "if you do come across a bug with this, we won't be fixing it". I'm aware of at least two, but they might not affect this particular usage. As Keeper says, MFDs should be a much better way to display this sort of information, once we release a version which supports them.

*with the exception that it's potentially a game balance breaker to show the market of an oxp station without actually requiring you to go there

While I've separately written some tips on how to consider game balance in an OXP, that's not something which the guidelines do or should cover. I wouldn't personally consider remote in-system viewing of market prices to be significant for game balance at all, though I know others disagree on that.

[spara]

More that "if you do come across a bug with this, we won't be fixing it". I'm aware of at least two, but they might not affect this particular usage. As Keeper says, MFDs should be a much better way to display this sort of information, once we release a version which supports them.

If I recall it right, mission screen overlays won't come back after pause and something problematic with the docking computer. Was there something else? I'll better start testing mfds and see how they work. By the look of it, they'll be well suited for linking with the asc and showing the distances, but for comparing markets they might not do the job as there is a lot of information to be shown.

...though I know others disagree on that.

That we can always count on. Regardless of the oxp .

[spara]

Sorry for all the hassle guys. I overreacted a bit. Back to just one version of the oxp. If those mission screens cause trouble then we'll see if something should be done about them. After all in this case they are really useful. Version 1.8 has the mission screens of 1.6 and the upgrades of 1.7

* in-flight primable equipment is back.
* f8 market switch is left in. when in-flight, select an inquirer station with asc and see the market in f8 screen.
* tidied tabulated printing.