Oolite Bulletins

Hi,

I am playing oolite 1.76. on my Mac. yesterday, during travelling through space, all of a sudden my weapon system, laser and missiles were deactivateted.
This happened during a journay. I have no idea how. It is very annoying, having no defence at all.
I also tried different ships. It is the same with every ship I buy. My guess is it must have something to do with my commander settings.

Any idea what happenet and how I get my weapons back?

Cheers

Manfred

Hi Manfred, welcome to the boards! It sounds like you have inadvertently turned your weapons off … this is a safety feature, designed to prevent accidental weapons fire during e.g. docking. The default key for this is - (minus symbol/hyphen: your keyboard may vary). There's a complete list of controls at [wiki]Oolite Keyboard Controls[/wiki] - the one you're looking for is Toggle Weapons On/Off.

Ideally, I think, there should be some large, persistent symbol on the HUD to tell the player that weapons are OFF ...

Disembodied wrote:

Ideally, I think, there should be some large, persistent symbol on the HUD to tell the player that weapons are OFF ...

There is the entire phrase "Weapons systems offline" pasted on the HUD when weapons are off. The point here is that we probably have a bug that keeps weapons off when the player changes ship. I think weapons should be one of the things that get reset back to normal (i.e. on) when this happens.

another_commander wrote:

There is the entire phrase "Weapons systems offline" pasted on the HUD when weapons are off. The point here is that we probably have a bug that keeps weapons off when the player changes ship. I think weapons should be one of the things that get reset back to normal (i.e. on) when this happens.

But it doesn't persist. Maybe you missed the message for some reason, or maybe you just forgot that you safed your weapons when you docked last time and now here you are launching again, possibly days later, with your weapons still off. It should be one of those things you check, of course, at each launch, but I think it would be helpful to put a big, persistent "WEAPONS OFFLINE" reminder somewhere.

No, it persists. The phrase is copied as a message on the screen (and that disappears) and it also becomes part of the HUD for as long as the weapons are off.

another_commander wrote:

No, it persists. The phrase is copied as a message on the screen (and that disappears) and it also becomes part of the HUD for as long as the weapons are off.

You're right, so it does - down by the ASC, in my case … this shows how often I safe my weapons! I'll have to get into the habit if we're going to have stricter docking protocols, in the fussier systems at least …

(Mind you, something so important should probably be more prominent - or at least flash on and off … I've just demonstrated that it's possible for a slack and inattentive pilot to miss it completely …)

another_commander wrote:

The point here is that we probably have a bug that keeps weapons off when the player changes ship. I think weapons should be one of the things that get reset back to normal (i.e. on) when this happens.

Fixed.

Disembodied wrote:

Mind you, something so important should probably be more prominent

Quite a few OXP HUDs place it just below the crosshair centre, which seems a good place for it.

cim wrote:

Quite a few OXP HUDs place it just below the crosshair centre, which seems a good place for it.

Very true ... sounds like I should upgrade my HUD!

mgo wrote:

Hi,

I am playing oolite 1.76. on my Mac.
Cheers

Manfred

Hi mgo and welcome. It sounds like the others have tackled your problem, but it's worth asking - why are you still on 1.76? The current version is 1.77.1 and is much improved over the older versions.

mho wrote:

....I am playing oolite 1.76. on my Mac.

As Smivs writes: there is a much nicer version. And the mac has an update feature. Just select 'search for updates' from the Oolite menu.

Disembodied wrote:

… this shows how often I safe my weapons! I'll have to get into the habit if we're going to have stricter docking protocols...

Disabling my weapons is anathema to me - but as Big D says, I suppose I'll have to get used to it. <wanders off, grumbling>

Thanks a lot.

It is the minus Symbol. I found it and was able to travel with alll my defences online again.

Concerning version number: Our household is still on System 10.5.8 OSX. We are running thre Macs on the sytem and a change means a lot of work and investments in new software and the lot. I am anything but keen on that, this is the reason why Iam still on the older Version.

Or does 1.77 run on OSX 10.5.8....?


Cheers Manfred

mgo wrote:

Or does 1.77 run on OSX 10.5.8....?

I think this is current (from the 1.77 release notes), but a Mac expert would know:

Oolite now requires an Intel processor and Mac OS X 10.5 or later

Cody wrote:

Disembodied wrote:

… this shows how often I safe my weapons! I'll have to get into the habit if we're going to have stricter docking protocols...

Disabling my weapons is anathema to me - but as Big D says, I suppose I'll have to get used to it. <wanders off, grumbling>

I have never 'safed' my weapons - I don't know about getting used to it - I'll have to find out how to do it!

Smivs wrote:

I have never 'safed' my weapons

This is the other problem: the usage of 'safe', 'safed', or 'safing' - I'm very dubious about the latter two. <chortles>