Oolite Bulletins

[RELEASE] Auto S.O.S. 1.0


FE Shipyards

Once in a while, we at FE Shipyards like to give you, our valued customer, a gift.

(you'll agree that 150 cr is a gift?)

This season, our gift to you is a simple transponder that will automatically broadcast an S.O.S. distress signal when your ship comes under direct attack or Red Alert condition - and... 'S.O.S.' does mean *help*, doesn't it?

[Always three French hens, sometimes four colly birds, and even, occasionally, a partridge in a pear tree - but definitely no doves!]

Download Auto S.O.S. HERE

or find it in the Equipment section of Oolite's in-game Expansions Manager.

We wish you Happy - and much safer - Cruising!

D.R. of X.
(FE Shipyards tech. dir.)

Interesting addition to the OXP corpus!

1) It is guaranteed to help - or just to attract attention (which is what a modern SOS message does)?

2) Do the effects extend beyond the 25km radius of the scanner?

Seems to work quite nicely, here with a npc-dom's role applied...

cbr wrote: ↑Fri Dec 09, 2022 12:16 pm

Seems to work quite nicely, here with a npc-dom's role applied...

Super shot, cbr!

Yes, I'll say it works - often perhaps a little too well: if the miscreant is particularly nasty, and gets off lots of good shots on your hull, on every 'hit' another bird is loosed at his position. In those situations the scanner is swimming in 'French hens' - and the miscreant's position is is just a mass of purple.

Usually it's fun to stick around and watch the battle - but sometimes, as above, it's safer just to scoot out of there on O-drive and leave them to it!

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Fri Dec 09, 2022 8:56 am

Interesting addition to the OXP corpus!

1) It is guaranteed to help - or just to attract attention (which is what a modern SOS message does)?

2) Do the effects extend beyond the 25km radius of the scanner?

1. No, it is absolutely guaranteed to help. If you try it - go to Riedquat and cruise the Lane - you'll see what I mean.

2. If friendly vessels beyond scanner range can hear your S.O.S. then I suppose we could say the effects extend. But the transponder's role is to respond to direct threats and attacks - thus all of the 'action' generally happens very close to your ship.

[RELEASE] Auto S.O.S. 1.1

CHANGES

• The role of the 'three French hens' that arrive close by after entering Red Alert condition has been changed to "interceptor" - which means that they will more than likely be the faster and better-armed Viper II models.
• To avoid flooding the scanner with purple during particularly hairy encounters, a limit of 7 (seven) has been set on the total number of hens that come to your aid on every Red Alert. So that's the three interceptor French hens, and then a maximum of four police hens to 'turn up' near or at the attacker's actual position when he scores laser hits or fires a missile at you.

Drive safe!

D.R. of X.

What happens when the threat is neutralized, do they go back to the station? should they?

That would certainly be the most realistic - I'm not sure what the police-AI script says... should really peruse it more closely. The police and interceptors must have a 'default behaviour'. Maybe it's just to continue to patrol the Lane.