Oolite Bulletins

So I now have enough money to get an upgrade for Cobra 3. I've previously used the Python ET Special - the nice looking one - as it can have all the goodies and has lots of cargo space. When browsing ships for purchase on gal2 tech level 15 wordl, I was amazed to see Military Stringrays for sale. I had completely forgotten that I had installed this addon, because not one Stingray has spawned in space!

What variables in the OXP or code in the main game control what ships spawn? I do remember Stingrays spawning in earlier versions of Oolite, long long time ago.

p.s. looking at the ship stats, the Stingray does feel like a solid upgrade for the get-more-kills - oriented pilot

Assuming the mod you're using is the one found here:  Military Stingray Mk. II, then spawning is controlled via the "roles" key in the shipdata. For the standard stingray, this is Which means: there is a 0.1% chance of it spawning as a scavenger; there's a 0.1% chance of it spawning as a pirate; and a 0.1% chance of it spawning as a trader.

I'm pretty sure the 0.1 numbers are taken as a relative ratio to everything else that might spawn in those roles.

So if you have a few 3rd party ships...it lowers the odds of seeing the Military Stingray quite considerably, especially if any of the 3rd party ships use numbers greater than 1 on similar roles.