Arrivals and departures

[phkb]

Thanks, cim! Here's another technical question, though. I'm creating ships one of two ways: either via the stations launchShipWithRole, or with the systems addShips function. This is working fine, except that, when I create ships using "addShips", sometimes ships who have a destination system somewhere else will just turn around and try to dock with the station again, rather than jumping out to their destination. I'm assuming that I'm missing a step somewhere when I create the ships with addShips, but I can't for the life of me figure out where! Is there a command I can give the ship to say, "start heading for your destination system"?

[another_commander]

Is there a command I can give the ship to say, "start heading for your destination system"?

Would something like ship.exitSystem(DestinationSystemID) work for what you want to do? Note, the ship needs to have enough fuel to reach the designated destination and be far away enough from the main station for the command to trigger successfully.

[cim]

I'm assuming that I'm missing a step somewhere when I create the ships with addShips, but I can't for the life of me figure out where! Is there a command I can give the ship to say, "start heading for your destination system"?

What role/AI of ships is this happening to?

A few ideas:

• Are you setting home system to the current system?
• I assume you're using the [shipkey] roles to add the ships in the first place: if so, are you then setting the primary role, AI script, and so on?
• Are you making sure the ships have enough fuel on board to make at least one jump towards their destination?
• If traders, are you giving them cargo?

A useful trick for working out why NPCs are doing what they're doing - at least, if it's got a new AI. Target the ship, then in the debug console:

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PS.target.AIScript.oolite_priorityai.setParameter("oolite_flag_behaviourLogging",true);
PS.target.AIScript.oolite_priorityai.reconsiderNow(); // or just wait for the next normal reconsideration

You'll get messages to the debug console and the Latest.log that will let you identify which branches and behaviours in the AI were executed (you'll need to have the AI script open to make sense of it). That should tell you which conditions are unexpectedly true / unexpectedly false, which should help.

[phkb]

Thanks cim and another_commander. I wasn't setting the fuel value, so that might have been the problem. I'll report back if that doesn't fix the issue.

[phkb]

Technical question: When a ship group docks with a station, does the leader always dock first?

Also:

If it's using JS AI and intends to dock, asking the AI controller for controller.getParameter("oolite_selectedStation") will tell you where, at least for core AIs.

How do I access the controller for a ship with JS AI? I've tried these variations without success.

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var ctl = ship.AIScript.oolite_priorityai.controller;
var ctl = worldScripts["oolite-libPriorityAI"].PriorityAIController(ship);

[cim]

Technical question: When a ship group docks with a station, does the leader always dock first?

If it's an escort group, then the escorts won't request clearance until the leader has entered the docking approach pattern. If it's a normal group, it depends on the group AI: the group leader is likely to be the first to request clearance but if there's already a queue they might not be the first to dock.

Even in the escort group case, if the group leader were to be interrupted while docking and cancel its approach, it might then end up behind its former escorts in the docking queue. Extremely unlikely, but not impossible in the core game without player intervention.

Another detail is that the way core game NPC escort contracts work is that they're "to aegis". Once the freighter starts docking, the escorts are released from its escort group and become individual ships. Usually they'll dock next anyway, but if there was an outbound freighter looking for escorts, some of them might join it without docking.

The controller is at

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ship.AIScript.oolite_priorityai

[phkb]

The controller is at

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ship.AIScript.oolite_priorityai

I've tried everything, but I can't seem to get a connection to the controller. Here's my code.

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	var ships = system.shipsWithPrimaryRole("trader");
	for (var i = 0; i < ships.length; i++) {
		log(this.name, "checking ship " + ships[i]);
		if (ships[i].AIScript != "oolite-nullAI.js") {
			log(this.name, ships[i].AIScript.name);
			if (ships[i].AIScript.oolite_priorityai) {
				var ctl = ships[i].AIScript.oolite_priorityai;
				var stn = ctl.getParameter("oolite_selectedStation");
				log(this.name, "result: " + stn);
			}
		}
	}

I'd expect at least one of the traders in the system to be heading for a station somewhere, or at least to get a blank value in the "stn" variable, but I never get the "Result" line in the log. I removed all OXP ships, so I only have core ships. All I get is this:

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13:08:23.973 [StationDockControl]: checking ship [Ship "Cobra Mark I" position: (17094.4, -65303.9, 447890) scanClass: CLASS_NEUTRAL status: STATUS_IN_FLIGHT]
13:08:23.973 [StationDockControl]: Oolite Trader AI
13:08:23.973 [StationDockControl]: checking ship [Ship "Moray Star Boat" position: (-1450.88, -36299.3, 397332) scanClass: CLASS_NEUTRAL status: STATUS_IN_FLIGHT]
13:08:23.973 [StationDockControl]: Oolite Trader AI
13:08:23.973 [StationDockControl]: checking ship [Ship "Moray Medical Boat" position: (-14943.8, 19470.3, 346846) scanClass: CLASS_NEUTRAL status: STATUS_IN_FLIGHT]
13:08:23.973 [StationDockControl]: Oolite Trader AI

This indicates that the ships[i].AIScript.oolite_priorityai is always null or undefined. What am I doing wrong?

[cim]

What am I doing wrong?

You might be checking too soon, depending on where you run that code. The AI controller is initialised in the aiStarted event in the ship's AI script. That doesn't happen until after the shipSpawned event, which only occurs on the next frame of the simulation after the ship is added.

The oolite_selectedStation parameter then won't be populated until the AI has evaluated its priorities at least once, which to avoid having every AI in the system try to do this on the same frame will happen at a randomised time, possibly up to a second later.

The code itself is fine - I pasted it into the debug console on a new game and got lines like

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07:23:29.125 [oolite-debug-console]: checking ship [Ship "Boa" position: (-34027.6, 17387.1, 190453) scanClass: CLASS_NEUTRAL status: STATUS_IN_FLIGHT]
07:23:29.125 [oolite-debug-console]: Oolite Trader AI
07:23:29.125 [oolite-debug-console]: result: [Station "Coriolis Station" "Coriolis Station" position: (-49474.3, 60752.2, 427652) scanClass: CLASS_STATION status: STATUS_ACTIVE]

[phkb]

D'oh! Had the code in the startUpComplete!

Thanks cim.

[phkb]

Another technical question: How do I create a ship (via addShips or launchShipsWithRole) with a specific entityPersonality?

Perrhaps some context... I'm trying to create a ship that looks exactly like the one seen in the dock list. I'm using modelPersonality to control what the ship variant looks like on the mission screen, and I'd like to transfer that same look into a real ship. Is that possible?

[Norby]

I'm using modelPersonality to control what the ship variant looks like on the mission screen, and I'd like to transfer that same look into a real ship. Is that possible?

I am missing the personality parameter also from addShips long time ago, but regardless a possible improvement in trunk this is not in 1.80.

The only workaround what I can imagine is in Respray for Griffs which replace the whole outlook using setMaterials and contain a setDecal function to restore shader uniforms. You must give fix colors to the shaders in uniforms instead of entityPersonality and randomUnitVector to get the same ship.

This is a massive work due to the materials section in shipdata.plist is different for almost all ships and probably will not work for oxp ships what you are not verified. So I think a request for a personality parameter in addShips would be much better.

[phkb]

So I think a request for a personality parameter in addShips would be much better.

Well, that's annoying. I was hoping for a 1.80 release...

I can still do a 1.80 release with a caveat - ships will probably get an automatic respray on launch. What do people think? Immersion killer? Spells the end this this project?

To the devs, what's the chance of getting the ability to set the entitypersonality when creating ships, or a writable "entityPersonality" property in 1.81?

[cim]

To the devs, what's the chance of getting the ability to set the entitypersonality when creating ships

Difficult. Most of the ship adding functions at least potentially add multiple ships, so adding per-ship customisations to them isn't straightforward in terms of syntax. There are also a lot of different ship adding functions, and this isn't the only "on initialisation" customisation which has been requested, so this feels like a larger project.

or a writable "entityPersonality" property in 1.81?

Straightforward enough to implement in theory - but I vaguely remember there being some reason it couldn't/shouldn't be done, which is why "create with personality" is an option for mission screens, rather than just making the entityPersonality writable in the first place and letting people update it on mission.displayModel. I'll look into it.

[Norby]

ships will probably get an automatic respray on launch. What do people think? Immersion killer?

No imho. EscortDeck has the same problem but nobody complained yet. Just a speciality of Ooniverse either the reason is a free respray in each dock or some kind of camofluage to forget the questionable actions happened last time in the deep space.

potentially add multiple ships

I think to a new array-type parameter of addShips after the existing ones. If this personality array is smaller than the number of the added ships then others can get random numbers.

there being some reason it couldn't/shouldn't be done

Personality should be read-only imho after a ship is created but a way would be good to set it at creation or right after.

[phkb]

No imho. EscortDeck has the same problem but nobody complained yet. Just a speciality of Ooniverse either the reason is a free respray in each dock or some kind of camofluage to forget the questionable actions happened last time in the deep space.

I'm glad you think so -- I've come a bit too far to turn back now!