Oolite Bulletins

When I stop accelerating, my ship comes to a stop. When a ship breaks up in front of me (can't figure out why they do that ) the cargo pods keep zooming along and I need to use fuel injection to catch up with them.

Should they not ultimately come to a stop, or at least slow down?

Incidentally it seems to me that in v1.80 cargopods zoom around faster than they used to.

Ships are powered with non-Newtonian drives, cargopods aren't. Your ship's engines grip the fabric of spacetime, dragging it in the front and squirting it out the back, resulting in the wakes of disturbed spacetime that you see emerging from the nacelles (well, actually you're seeing Cherenkov radiation from virtual particles that are briefly travelling faster than light in the local medium, but poh-TAY-toh, poh-TAH-toh ). Once ejected from a ship's drive bubble, though, cargopods and wreckage are purely Newtonian and ballistic.

I have noticed that also but when I chase the pods, they will randomly change directions making the scoop a space rodeo. Sometimes I just cannot catch them even on injectors. that is what makes life interesting out here in the outback of space.

@disembodied

Nice one! A superb explanation possibly deserving a noobel prize.

@Yah-Ta-Hey

I don't know if the cargopods change direction or I do, chasing them down. Like you say, it's a space rodeo. However I think that they are in fact Newtonian but I come at each one from a different direction.

davcefai wrote:

Incidentally it seems to me that in v1.80 cargopods zoom around faster than they used to.

Yes. They pick up the momentum from their former ship more reliably now.

Yah-Ta-Hey wrote:

I have noticed that also but when I chase the pods, they will randomly change directions making the scoop a space rodeo.

It's not random - your scoop is attempting to capture the pod, which changes its velocity. If you approach it at the wrong angle or speed, though, you can end up adding to rather than subtracting from its velocity, and slingshot it clear. Once your scoop activates, slow down and avoid sharp turns if possible.

Thanks for the clarification... that certainly makes sense.

cim wrote:

Once your scoop activates, slow down and avoid sharp turns if possible.

Even with 1.77.1, this was my normal approach.. the scoop seemed to have a much better chance of "grabbing" the pod, if I did so.

cim wrote:

…If you approach it at the wrong angle or speed, though, you can end up adding to rather than subtracting from its velocity, and slingshot it clear.

Killing enemies with cargo by this slingshot mechanism is mentioned before by several players. Although nobody could proof with a screenshot, that he killed a pirate that way.

You can certainly slingshot pods around, but as for aiming one effectively... it'd need perfect timing and luck, I reckon.

or a large bunch of pirates to aim at....

You've a better chance dropping a LOT of pods than trying to use the scoop to aim one at a pirate. But as far as I know, you're not allowed to drop pods while injecting faster than normal max speed.

Disembodied wrote:

Ships are powered with non-Newtonian drives, cargopods aren't. Your ship's engines grip the fabric of spacetime, dragging it in the front and squirting it out the back, resulting in the wakes of disturbed spacetime that you see emerging from the nacelles (well, actually you're seeing Cherenkov radiation from virtual particles that are briefly travelling faster than light in the local medium, but poh-TAY-toh, poh-TAH-toh ). Once ejected from a ship's drive bubble, though, cargopods and wreckage are purely Newtonian and ballistic.

The physics seem to be good (at least it sounds good to me!) but is there a way to calm it down a bit? I tend to play Oolite in short sessions slotted in between family, work and other stuff and while it is often very therapeutic to take out my stress on a lonely python or two, rounding up all the cargo afterwards can be very time consuming as I chase around after them. More often than not I end up ignoring anything moving at a high velocity - in game it wouldn't make much sense to do this, but I just don't have the (real) time to maximise the profits from my moments of piracy ... it seemed easier first time round in Elite (or perhaps I just didn't have kids then)

It won't do much about the high-speed pods, but you might be in the market for the [wiki]Cargo Shepherd OXP[/wiki] ...

Disembodied wrote:

It won't do much about the high-speed pods, but you might be in the market for the [wiki]Cargo Shepherd OXP[/wiki] ...

Heh.. every time I see a reference to that, it reminds me of the Commander (forget who) who tweaked his to make it a bit stronger and attract more objects.. only to discover he'd created a mini black hole..