[RELEASE] Towbar OXP v1.0

Discussion and information relevant to creating special missions, new ships, skins etc.

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ZygoUgo
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Re: [RELEASE] Towbar OXP v0.7

Post by ZygoUgo »

As a bonus of buying the licence you are entered on to a register (theoretically) and are therefore visible for hire.
This would mean that now and then a mission to collect and return a ship to a certain station is offered.
One variation would be that the owner has a friend/s guarding the vessel from scavengers, so you would be paid to collect the vessel and return it to wherever the owner has ended up, most likely just the main station but sometimes elsewhere due to business or other occurance. This would likely be a larger vessel with much expensive cargo that would be lost to the insurance vultures.
Another would be an emergency call out for an unguarded vessel, presumably with something valuable or sentimental on board. This would be a high paying rush job (torus + injector all the way to be the first) at which other tow capable vessels would also hurry, with a chance that the craft has already been destroyed for remaining cargo. This ship would likely be any size and you could be returning anything from a wedding ring (or other species ceremonial symbol),passenger who's capsule is trapped amongst internal damage(possible thankful payout, lucky if they're rich!), to a child/pet/life-long-family-droid that was hiding or trapped outside of the escape capsule during the panic of attack.
These would usually be offered in the current or the next system, but rare and extremely well paid long hauls are possible for those who's sentimental value is *for X reason* the ship itself.

Sorry for throwing ideas at you :)
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Norby
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Re: [RELEASE] Towbar OXP v0.7

Post by Norby »

Svengali and cim: your remarks and CCL source helped a lot to make the right aligned rotating ship model. :)

DaddyHoggy: thank you for the clearing and ideas. Towbar breaking done, licensing started.

Disembodied: I missed Dredger salvaging, thank you. The autopilot way used in [EliteWiki] DSD is nice for ships with many working parts, but my usual way to make derelict ships from pirates result ships with heavy damages which must be towed.
The payment for the ship in a Dredger is 1% of the mass in kg which is surprisingly equal with the new hull costs in [wiki]Towbar[/wiki] v0.7.
Cargo in DSD is assigned randomly up to the maxCargo with max.60Cr/t so a Python can give max. 6000Cr, but the one-shot salvage droid costs 1850Cr. Towbar give less cargo assuming many of them destroyed in combat but pay for equipments also. All in all the average payments are the same.
Your other ideas are good also, placed into my todo.

ZygoUgo: thank you for all ideas. A simple licensing will be in the next version, missions and complex license handling will come up later.
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Re: [RELEASE] Towbar OXP v0.7

Post by DaddyHoggy »

Well Done Norby! :)
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Re: [RELEASE] Towbar OXP v0.8

Post by Norby »

Now v0.8 is out:
- Can break the towbar and the towed ship during steering.
- Leave alloys, cargo and equipments when moving.
- Salvager License, tax system and reputation counted.
- Towbar Stabilizer, Repair Bot and Towbar Compatible Injectors added.

Please read the details in the [EliteWiki] wiki.
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Re: [RELEASE] Towbar OXP v0.8

Post by DaddyHoggy »

Norby wrote:
Now v0.8 is out:
- Can break the towbar and the towed ship during steering.
- Leave alloys, cargo and equipments when moving.
- Salvager License, tax system and reputation counted.
- Towbar Stabilizer, Repair Bot and Towbar Compatible Injectors added.

Please read the details in the [EliteWiki] wiki.
Nice tweaks. Well done.
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Re: [RELEASE] Towbar OXP v0.8

Post by Griff »

wow Norby you work fast! well done on the oxp it's coming along great! :D
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Re: [RELEASE] Towbar OXP v0.8

Post by Norby »

Griff wrote:
wow Norby you work fast!
Thank you! OXP making seems to be more easy after a few months of experience: [wiki]Telescope[/wiki] 1.0 needed 4 months but [wiki]Towbar[/wiki] 0.8 maded in one week because used up lots of programming tricks what I found out in the previous works.

Mission making probably need more time due to I do not maded any yet, so if anybody would like to make some Towing Missions or help to make then please write me.

I need feedbacks from the users about the new handicaps and license system, I hope the risk/reward ratio is ok now but please confirm or traverse.
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Re: [RELEASE] Towbar OXP v0.7

Post by Commander McLane »

Disembodied wrote:
There might be some ideas there you'd like ... one which does occur is that salvaged ships - or at least those towed in by unlicensed salvagers, to borrow ZygoUgo's suggestion - can't be taken to the main station (too many awkward questions, all those insurance papers, you'd have to prove that you weren't responsible for the pilot ejecting, etc.). You could have salvage stations, or dockable ships, where an unlicensed player has to take their salvage, and there might not be one in every system
A [wiki]Salvage Gang[/wiki] springs to mind. :wink:

I wouldn't mind having them used as a hub for towing salvages ships to. It's what they're meant to be anyway. :D

Great OXP'ing, by the way. We've been struggling with the salvaging-by-towing idea for years (when I joined the boards in 2006 it had already been discussed more than once), but it hadn't been technically viable for a long time. It's great to see that old concept finally coming to fruition. :D
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Re: [RELEASE] Towbar OXP v0.7

Post by Norby »

Commander McLane wrote:
It's great to see that old concept finally coming to fruition. :D
Thank you for the honour and mentioning the Salvage Gang.
In the next version the Gang will not charge any commission due to the local processing and to compensate the low alloy prices.
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Re: [RELEASE] Towbar OXP v0.7

Post by Switeck »

Disembodied wrote:
Incidentally, Norby, have you seen the salvage process at work in the [wiki]Deep Space Dredger[/wiki] OXP?
Successfully salvaging anything using DSD OXP's salvage missiles is bloody hard! You have to escort the not-dodging, not injecting derelict through 2 possibly rather large pirate groups...not counting whatever else was already there along the way!

In short, it's an Escort Mission.
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Re: [RELEASE] Towbar OXP v0.9

Post by Norby »

Towbar 0.9 is ready with lots of polishment: salvager rankings, new equipments and the first (most simple) mission is arrived. Details in the [EliteWiki] wiki.
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Re: [RELEASE] Towbar OXP v0.9

Post by Corny »

I wanted to make a demo video out of it since I think your OXP sounds pretty amazing. I got a rescue mission straight away and I got told that the derelict in question is marked with a "T" on the Advanced Space Compass.
However, there's no T on the compass. :(
You can watch me being confused here: http://youtu.be/IEmf36drjro
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Re: [RELEASE] Towbar OXP v0.9

Post by Norby »

Thank you for the video, great idea! It is clearly show that the target ship is not in your scanner after undock so can not spawned at all. Due to it is working on all of my test system I guess the source of the problem is in your machine, for example a conflict with another oxp.

You can test it if make an empty install with Towbar oxp only (or use my way: rename the AddOns folder to AddOnsx then make an empty AddOns folder and copy the Towbar oxp into, after the test you can rename AddOns to AddOnsTest and AddOnsx back to AddOns, but hold down the Shift key when start the game after each rename).

Maybe your Latest.log file contain lines with errors or warnings right after undock which can help, please send me these. My LogEvents oxp can produce more info into the log.
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Re: [RELEASE] Towbar OXP v0.9

Post by Corny »

Hey Norby,
I didn't find anything in the latest.log, otherwise I had posted it of course. Guess I'll try to nail down the OXP in question tomorrow.
Thinking about it, I remember having a similar problem with the Random Hits-OXP and the same OXP setup, so it's probably not your fault at all. Maybe I can find out what causes it with your LogEvents-OXP.

I'm going to do a proper video about it when it's working. More questions until then: if I understood it correctly, the towbar is there permanently, even if you're not towing a ship. Is that intended that way? If yes, is it intended to stay like this? I'd prefer it to be retractable, maybe via the equipment buttons?
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Towbar

Post by Cody »

You could perhaps go hi-tech and use a tractor beam, Norby.
I would advise stilts for the quagmires, and camels for the snowy hills
And any survivors, their debts I will certainly pay. There's always a way!
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