Oolite Bulletins

I had an idea the other day (this tends to illicit in people who know me an instinctive reaction of "Dear God, NO!"

Anyhow I was chasing after a Krait that kept zipping off at injector speed as soon as I opened fire upon it (pesky varmint).
Anyhow whilst engaging in the practice of trying to hold the ship in the targets whilst holding "i" for injector and then trying to press "a" to open fire whilst hoping that the krait doesn't move (as I struggle to my left hand to span between "i" and "a") I was thinking......
Damn it - why haven't I got three hands?
No better still - what if we had an add on to the fuel injector system - Fuel Injector Chase Control.
Once locked on and selected this could be used to apply fuel injector continuously until the target ship is within a preset minimum distance at which point it would temporarily cease, if the target ship then exceeds a maximum distance this would cause the fuel injector to fire up again.
Of course if the ship is no longer within scanner range this function would automatically cease (if it out-runs you or is destroyed).
In some ways this idea is borne out of some of the same frustrations which inspired my tractor beam idea.
Can I ask peoples thoughts on 2 things please.
Firstly and thoughts on the above idea.
Secondly - am I doing something wrong when trying to gun down a ship that won't stand up and fight as it seems to be incredibly difficult sometimes - so I'm sure that I must be doing something wrong, what do other Commanders do when this scenario arises?

Thanks for humouring me (I know I'm like Emmett Brown - but without the scientist bit)

Damocles Edge wrote: ↑Thu Jul 26, 2018 7:28 pm

I struggle to my left hand to span between "i" and "a"

I edited my oolite.app/Resources/Config/keyconfig.plist file and changed the fire key to space.
The "Fuel Injector Chase Control" is not a bad idea, just we have no direct "ignite injectors" function at OXP side. There are workarounds but with noticeable drawbacks.

1. Changing the velocity of the ship and deduct some fuel: Q-Charger. But velocity manipulation can result strange "slide" effects, more noticeable at higher speeds. Not a big problem at the current 2x speed but at 7x it could be serious.

2. Position updates in each frame, so as many micro-teleports in each seconds as your FPS is: Torus To Sun.
Drawbacks: shaking sky, engine trails in the aft view will get left behind you, chance to cross objects without detection like laser beams or missiles.

3. Raise the standard maxspeed of the ship to the injector speed and deduct fuel over normal speed. Give different feeling than injectors due to the speedup from 1x to 7x need much more time (linear increase instead of boost effect). Not implemented in any OXP so far.

Moreover only the core injectors can change the engine trail to purple.

Damocles Edge wrote: ↑Thu Jul 26, 2018 7:28 pm

trying to gun down a ship that won't stand up and fight as it seems to be incredibly difficult sometimes

If you think a SniperLock is too much then Laser Cannons can help: fire is slow but powerful which is good against agile targets.
An I-Missile is an easy but costly solution.
Another way is to delegate the job to faster-than-you Escorts or Fighters.

Well, that was kind of fun! Here's an OXP ready for the weekend.

First, a bit of a spiel...

[Cue cinematic of a Cobra Mark III shooting past a station on injectors, together with majestic, uplifting music]

Xenon Industries is proud to introduce the new Fuel Injection Cruise Control. Have you ever found yourself wanting to engage your fuel injections, and then do something else important, like steer your ship or shoot at pirates, or even just go and make a coffee or answer the phone? Well, now you can! The Fuel Injection Cruise Control allows you to engage your injectors in a similar way to engaging your Torus drive - turn it on and walk away.

Available at any TL11 system for just 1150cr. You'll need to have fuel injectors installed.

After purchasing the equipment, you simply need to prime the equipment (using the "Shift-N" on your pilot command console), then activate it by pressing the "n" key. De-activate it by pressing the "n" key again. Your ship must be running at full speed in order to engage the cruise control.

A couple of important notes. The cruise control will automatically turn off in any of the following scenarios:
- The Torus drive is engaged.
- The normal injectors key is pressed.
- The pilot manually reduces speed.
- The ship runs out of fuel.

Xenon Industries: making the Galaxy a friendlier place since 3109.

[Cinematic ends with a sunrise over a ringed planet, music ends]

Download v0.4: FuelInjectionCruiseControl.oxz

(I called it a Cruise Control, rather than Chase Control, because it just seemed easier to leave out all the target acquisition and checking logic. Turn it on when you want. Turn it off when you want. Easy.)

For reference, I utilized method 1 from Norby's suggestions, but I think I've avoided the slide issue. Also, better strap in when you engage it - the jump to injector speed is quite sharp! I might look at making this slightly less neck-snapping in future.

Thoughts, comments, suggestions and bug reports welcome, as always. I'll put a version in the download manager shortly, if it all proves to be working OK.

Nice work! A few suggestions for the next release:
- A feedback message when attempt to activate it during torus travel.
- A conflict_oxps tag with oolite.oxp.CommonSenseOTB.Q-Charger into manifest.

New features could be:
- Auto adjust speed to the target if locked. Useful when follow an escaping slower ship, prevent constant outrun.
- Re-engage when injector button released if FICC was turned on when injector key was pressed. This allow to use the injector button to approach a slower target a bit, then keep the distance when released.
- Auto engage mode when speed reach the maximum. Could be turn on/off with the mode key of the equipment. Player still can set 99% to get normal speed, more easy than prime and activate it, especially in combat.

Thanks, Norby. There's some great suggestions there.

Didn't realise there was a conflict with Q-Charger. Honestly I haven't looked too much into that OXP, so I'm not exactly sure how it operates. I'll see if I can make it co-exist before drawing a hard line on it.

Not sure about the "auto engage on max speed" one, though. I would imagine it would need a whole bunch of exclusions on when it shouldn't happen, otherwise things like accelerating to max speed when docking could end badly! Maybe a red alert thing only, and not within scanner range of a dockable.

Anyway, thanks for the suggestions.

Damocles Edge wrote: ↑Thu Jul 26, 2018 7:28 pm

Anyhow whilst engaging in the practice of trying to hold the ship in the targets whilst holding "i" for injector and then trying to press "a" to open fire whilst hoping that the krait doesn't move (as I struggle to my left hand to span between "i" and "a") I was thinking......
Damn it - why haven't I got three hands?

Just mentioning it, I have created an OXP called Dangerous Keyconfig which changes the game shortcuts and make similar to Elite Dangerous (handy if you play both games and don't want to go insane). I personally those shortcuts are much better than the default ones since the most important ones are located much closer together. Tab is injectors, w and s throttle, a and d yaw and x fires lasers (though I much prefer to use mouse for that as well as for roll and pitch).

Crikey phkb - that was lightning fast.
Can I ask, are you really professor Xavier?

You must be tapping into my mind and seeing my thoughts as I have them to get an oxp out this fast

I will play test today and report back later.

Thank you again

Norby wrote: ↑Thu Jul 26, 2018 10:52 pm

If you think a SniperLock is too much then Laser Cannons can help: fire is slow but powerful which is good against agile targets.
An I-Missile is an easy but costly solution.
Another way is to delegate the job to faster-than-you Escorts or Fighters.

Thank you for the advice Norby.
I may give Q-Charger a try at a later stage (once the conflict you describe has been resolved), but Q-Charger looks very promising. I must confess that I had previously dismissed Q-Charger prematurely after reading only as far as "The Q-Charger provides a boost in speed when at maximum throttle at the cost of some fuel and energy.". My mind read this (at the first time of reading) as fuel injection with energy loss and up-front cost of 10k.
If I could make a suggestion for the wiki page please, it would be to add (preferably in the opening description) that the Q-Charger uses significantly less fuel than injectors.

I already use Laser Cannons and Escort Deck (just for Salvaging ships - but I take your comment onboard concerning additional firepower of escorts).
I will try taking a look at Sniper Lock and I Missile oxps - my thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

On a related note, I have found that Kraits seem to behave at times differently to other ships.
I have found that on quite a number of occasions Kraits will turn and flee under injectors until they are out of scanner range. Using torus drive to catch them up sometimes results in the krait either moving quite slowly or being stationary, in these circumstances (or indeed when chasing any ship that is using injectors) I will move to around 200m proximity in order to let fuel collector hack the fuel tank of the ship in order to boost my own fuel and more importantly attempt to empty the tank of the other ship so that it cannot inject away. For some reason Kraits that have injected away out of scanner range, then slowed or stopped seem impervious to the fuel collector (almost like they have no fuel) but will then inject away as soon as I open fire.
I have only seen this scenario occur with Kraits - which leads me to believe that it may be unique to that ship.

Thanks again.

gsagostinho wrote: ↑Sat Jul 28, 2018 1:25 am

Just mentioning it, I have created an OXP called Dangerous Keyconfig which changes the game shortcuts and make similar to Elite Dangerous (handy if you play both games and don't want to go insane). I personally those shortcuts are much better than the default ones since the most important ones are located much closer together. Tab is injectors, w and s throttle, a and d yaw and x fires lasers (though I much prefer to use mouse for that as well as for roll and pitch).

I may try that out, although I have to confess to being a little sceptical - not of the oxp, but of my ability (or lack of) to change from keyboard controls which are ingrained in my mind

Cheers for the advice.

Finally got around to trying out FICC oxp.
Seems to work okay at present apart from a small snag with Surjectors oxp https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?f= ... 6&p=254217.
Surjectors should take 1/25 th of fuel and drain the shields when injectors are applied with weapons offline. This occurs if manually activating injectors whilst weapons are offline but not if activating FICC (it instead drains fuel as if weapons were online).

EDIT: - I have noticed that post installing FICC that I am getting no corolis station traffic control info via F4



If it's of any help I can forward Latest.log (which is 1mb as I'm now using logevents)


I would also echo the thoughts of Norby concerning future development features.

Damocles Edge wrote:

Seems to work okay at present apart from a small snag with Surjectors oxp

I should have known there'd be more incompatibilities - injectors are one of the things everyone likes to tinker with!

Anyway, I'll look at making this compatible.

As for SDC - that is really weird, if there is indeed some link between the two. Theoretically they should have nothing to do with each other. I might need your latest.log file to see what might be going on.

phkb wrote: ↑Sat Jul 28, 2018 12:17 am

Didn't realise there was a conflict with Q-Charger.

Not a big one, regardless of both write the same velocity value, your framecallback will win over the timer in Q-Charger. But FICC makes Q-Charger obsolete, this is why I suggest the conflict flag.

phkb wrote: ↑Sat Jul 28, 2018 12:17 am

accelerating to max speed when docking could end badly!

A pilot who used feature a few times will not press full throttle when facing to the dock. The Q-Charger already use this method, I played enough with this and I never seen any problem.

phkb wrote: ↑Sat Jul 28, 2018 12:17 am

Maybe a red alert thing only, and not within scanner range of a dockable.

None of these are my taste. I guess if implemented then you will get request for configurable options where possible to turn these off.

phkb wrote: ↑Sun Jul 29, 2018 4:28 am

As for SDC - that is really weird, if there is indeed some link between the two. Theoretically they should have nothing to do with each other. I might need your latest.log file to see what might be going on.

It may possibly be down to another oxp, I had noted that around the time I installed Equipment By Ship Class oxp that SDC would not give any destination in the station traffic control listing (everything else - just not the destination of any ship or the option to leave dock before / after that ship).
After installing FICC, it refused to give any SDC info from either F4 menu or MFD.
I'll send a drop box link for my save game, latest.log and previous.log files.

Thank you

OK, version 0.2 of the Fuel Injection Cruise Control OXP is now available at the link above. I've added a new option to auto-engage the cruise control when you hit maximum speed. You can turn this on and off using the mode key (normally the "b" key) of the prime-able equipment item. If you have the Library OXP installed, you can add some safety switches to this mode, disabling it during red alert and during docking. I've also made it Surjector and Q-Charger compatible.

If no issues are found in this version, I'll add it to the download manager. I might also get a forum admin person to switch this thread into the OXP area.

[Edit] I hope no one managed to download version 0.2, as there were a couple of egregious errors in it. Version 0.3 is now available which fixes those things, and also makes the acceleration up to injector speed happen in a less neck-snapping manner, more like normal injectors.

I like the new version, thank you!
Notices:
- The auto-engange flag is lost after launch or load game (and boring to set it again ).
- Using Library config is a good way, auto-engange could be an option also.
- The acceleration restarts at every injector keypress and release over maxSpeed.
- A bonus that FICC actually reach 8x speed, see in Combat MFD. Maybe with Military Fuel Injectors only.
- An "else" in line 253 could save a nanosecond?