Oolite Bulletins

I'm pleased to announce the beta release of "Smugglers - The Galactic Underworld".

This OXP aims to broaden the scope and appeal of illegal goods by expanding what goods are illegal, making it far more variable. So food might be declared illegal on one planet, computers on another. These things might change as well, so computers might be illegal for a few months, and then conditions are lifted and they are back to normal again.

To help traders to work around these import restrictions some new equipment is available: smuggling compartments, phase scanners, fake import permits, Rock Hermit waypoints, plus more. Rock Hermits now play a bigger role by hosting a Black Market where some of these things can be purchased, and where special cargo contracts can be undertaken.

You also have the chance to bribe docking officials if your cargo is discovered.

Rather than make this post mega-long, there is more information in the "readme.txt" file within the package. There's more details on this wiki page:  Smugglers - The Galactic Underworld

This OXP is in Beta for the time being, so I'm looking for some willing testers to get stuck in and see if everything is working OK. I'm also looking for more illegal goods descriptions for various government types. The more the merrier!

Questions, comments, suggestions, and error reports welcome!

You can download this OXP through the download manager in the game or from the following links:
Download OXZ version 1.4.1 here: Smugglers.oxz.
Download OXP (in zip) version 1.4.1 here: Smugglers.zip

With thanks to Layne, Stormrider, Norby, cim, Diziet Sma, Cody, and all the people on the BB who offered suggestions and ideas to make this OXP as good as it could be.

Huzzah. Now, who'll be the first commander to dump a cargo at the first sign of an Imperial blockade?

OK, version 0.1.1 has just been released, and it it highly recommended that you upgrade to this new version. One of the bug fixes is pretty critical.

In this version:

• Tech levels on all displays were showing 1 lower that actual.
• Attempting to bribe a dock master to relabel cargo when you don't have any cargo that can be relabeled would put the game into a locked state.
• Spelling corrections.

Nice
gave it a quick go last night and liked what I saw. will see how it goes with all the features.

Probably a 'Mac only' bug.
planetinfo.plist is missing a ";" Seems to stop the info being reloaded from saves.
Change to and all's well

Thanks for that! Yes, it does appear to be Mac-only. I'll hold off posting another update so soon, so for any Mac users out there, the fix is one missing semi-colon. I'll post the fixed version in the next day or so anyway.

Edit: OK new version is up.
Version 0.1.2
- Added missing semi-colon to planetinfo.plist.
- Found additional spot where techlevel was showing 1 lower than actual.
- Fixed issue where phase scans for TL 1 systems would not show up in the list of discovered phase scans.

A couple of questions on cross-oxp compatibility:

1. I know that Illegal Goods Tweak has been patched such that it only handles Slaves while Smugglers OXP is installed, but do you know if the bribing functionality of this OXP overwrites the bribing of IGT? If not, does that mean that you'll be prompted to offer a bribe twice, once by IGT and once by Smugglers?

2. Does Smugglers OXP play nicely with New Cargoes? I know that that OXP has a system of legal permits and such for carrying controlled goods, but as far as I know those permits were made with the assumption that the same three goods would be legal everywhere. Do these permits now only take effect if the cargo you're carrying happens to be controlled, or do they not do anything at all?

Thanks in advance for your time.

Harootune wrote:

1. I know that Illegal Goods Tweak has been patched such that it only handles Slaves while Smugglers OXP is installed, but do you know if the bribing functionality of this OXP overwrites the bribing of IGT? If not, does that mean that you'll be prompted to offer a bribe twice, once by IGT and once by Smugglers?

Yes, I might have to rethink this mechanism. I'll get back to you.

Harootune wrote:

2. Does Smugglers OXP play nicely with New Cargoes? I know that that OXP has a system of legal permits and such for carrying controlled goods, but as far as I know those permits were made with the assumption that the same three goods would be legal everywhere. Do these permits now only take effect if the cargo you're carrying happens to be controlled, or do they not do anything at all?

At the moment I've flagged New Cargoes as being incompatible with Smugglers, at least until I've been able to assess the impact of allowing both to be active at the same time.

Haven't played quite enough with the OXP to really provide in-depth feedback, but I really felt like giving some general feedback on my experience so far.

I'm really, really enjoying the work you've done here. Almost immediately, it's gotten a place in my mind alongside things like the Ore Processor - an OXP feature, but one I could never play without. As someone who doesn't use any OXP stations besides retextures, I'm particularly happy that it's put so much life into Rock Hermits. They're worth much more than just some easy trade profit!

I completely understand the problems there'd be in making this work correctly with New Cargoes. While I love that OXP, as well, I'd say this adds so much interesting opportunity to trading (through other means) that I can happily play without that excellent OXP without feeling like I'm giving much up.

I have done one bit of testing myself that you might be interested in, though it's a very specific compatibility-related test. I assigned equipment space values (for use with Ngalo's excellent Equipment Space WIP) and, via a test commander, tried all purchasing/equipment sale possibilities with what's added by this OXP, as well as some combinations involving typical iron-ass setups. It probably doesn't matter for most people, but I found no obvious conflicts between the two OXPs. I'm not sure if there was even a possibility of such a conflict occurring, but it did make me feel better.

Keep on keeping on with this OXP, phkb, it's pure gold!

Thanks for the feedback, Harootune!

A technical question: I'm trying to test the damaged status of the smuggling compartment, but I can't seem to set the status to "EQUIPMENT_DAMAGED". I run this code:

Code: Select all

		player.ship.setEquipmentStatus("EQ_SMUGGLING_COMPARTMENT_20", "EQUIPMENT_DAMAGED");
		log(this.name, "is damaged = " + player.ship.equipmentStatus("EQ_SMUGGLING_COMPARTMENT_20"));

but the log just says "is damaged = EQUIPMENT_OK". I have an "equipmentDamaged" worldScript which is firing OK.

For reference, the definition looks like this:

Code: Select all

   (
      4,
      58340,
      "Smuggling Compartment (20t)",
      "EQ_SMUGGLING_COMPARTMENT_20",
      "Scanner resistant smuggling compartment (20t capacity).",
       {
	   "available_to_all" = yes;
	   "available_to_NPCs" = no;
	   "available_to_player" = yes;
	   "condition_script" = "smugglers_conditions.js";
	   "damage_probability" = 1.0;
	   "fast_affinity_defensive" = no;
	   "fast_affinity_offensive" = no;
	   "portable_between_ships" = no;
	   "requires_cargo_space" = 20;
	   "requires_clean" = no;
	   "requires_empty_pylon" = no;
	   "requires_free_passenger_berth" = no;
	   "requires_full_fuel" = no;
	   "requires_mounted_pylon" = no;
	   "requires_non_full_fuel" = no;
	   "strict_mode_only" = no;
	   "strict_mode_compatible" = no;
	   "visible" = yes; // listed on the F5F5 screen.          
       }
    ),

Nevermind, my bad. OXP conflict. Return to your homes, nothing to see here.

I too like this a lot, I'm so glad that someone has done it.

In playing it I've come across the following problems, bugs even:

1. If I have the destination system for goods with a ban, but take a wormhole made by another ship to another system, that system will adopt the ban status for the goods. Does this only if the ban system is my destination. Does this if goods are in normal hold or smugglers hold.

2. Can purchase Rock hermit locations even if have no credits available. I'm assuming I've got them, they disappear as if bought. Not tried with the phase data. Edit: Just tested and I can buy phase data without any cash.

3. If cargo hold is full, cannot move gem-stones & precious metals back to my safe, need 1TC hold space available. (could be viewed as a feature in that they are hidden in a cargo container that needs to be unloaded - however I can add more directly with the buy or move function).

4. Small conflict with a home made OXP that might affect similar ones if made. I have expanded the trade-goods.plist to have many more goods, (seems to be compatible with the OXP functions such as hiding in the smuggling compartment), however as there can be more goods available for purchase than fit on a page the buy cargo directly into smuggling compartment only shows the goods from a point in the middle to last.

I also have a couple of thoughts:

1. The time shown to install the compartment, show as 1s. I think showing 6.42hrs, the time for a 1Tc which is the price shown would be better (less confusing).
2. A list of purchased rock hermit locations would be nice - I assume I cannot buy ones I already have.

I'll keep on trying to break it and let you know what I find .

Thanks for the bug reports. New version is on the way!

OK, version 0.2.0 is now available. Bug fixes galore!
- Made the price of RH waypoints, fake permits and phase scans related to the station price factor.
- Bribing the same station multiple times will increase the required amount of the bribe (by 10 or 20 percent each time).
- Added the last successful bribe amount to the screen where you enter a bribe amount.
- Reduced the police vessel detection range for the phase scanner, as their ships wouldn't have the same range as the main station.
- Main station market quantity of illegal goods under contract now set to zero (so, when arriving short, the player can't just buy the difference, launch and redock to complete the contract).
- Fixed issue where you could purchase anything from the Black Market, regardless of how much credit you have.
- Limited smuggling compartment options to standard commodities only.
- Fixed issue where wrong illegal goods were being picked up if the player followed another ship through a wormhole.
- Rebalanced prices for precious metals and gem stones.
- Damaged smuggling compartments and phase scanners can now be repaired, and better handling of damaged equipment in general.
- Fixed issue where phase scanner would not show up for purchase anywhere.
- Fixed issue where having 0t available space would not allow transfer of precious metals from smuggling compartment to standard hold.
- Added a new item to the Illegal Goods interface screen that lists all purchased Rock Hermit waypoints.
- Fixed issue with tech upgrades, where the option to purchase new ones was always available, no matter how many times you purchased it.
- Adjusted the price of the tech upgrade.
- Bug fixes.

Version 0.3.0 is now available:
In this version:

• Tweaks to the minimum tech level for purchasing smuggling equipment items.
• Further adjustments to precious metals and gem stones illegal notifications for better economic balance.
• Added overlay background images to various interface screens.
• Smuggling compartment repair costs now linked to size of compartment.
• Arriving in a system where you have a permit but no cargo for that permit will no longer remove the permit.
• Routine to create new illegal goods will now exclude the current system, to prevent the issue where the engine understands a good is illegal, but the game interface doesn't.
• Added extra checks to the docking process to ensure a good that the engine understands is illegal is also marked as illegal on the market screen before penalising the player.
• Added police ship models to all the after-dock screens.

Links in the first post.

Edit: Aaaand, that version lasted 15 minutes. A new record. I mangled the manifest file in version 0.3.0. Version 0.3.1 fixes that. No other changes.

Coming along nicely! I like the new screen overlays for the interfaces and there seems to be a lot of new in-game reasons for classes of goods being outlawed. Very fun to read.