Oolite Bulletins

Posted: **Fri Apr 19, 2024 3:31 am**

As Cholly observed elsewhere, I've had an unpublished MFD lurking in my AddOns. It's a fairly simple one: It lists all navigation beacons you can see with your Space Compass, in order of closest to you. It looks like this:

In this example, my space compass is currently targeting the Nuit Station.

The idea for this was to just list the beacons - that's it. Nothing fancy. There are a couple of options in Library Config: you can change the display units, and choose whether you just see ships/stations.

Edit to add: Cost is 50cr, and the ASC is a requirement. Purchase in any TL8+ system.

You can download this from here for now: NavigationBeaconsMFD.oxz

Let me know of any issues. Comments and feedback welcome! If there are no burning issues discovered, I'll put it in the DM in a few days.

Posted: **Fri Apr 19, 2024 11:20 am**

phkb wrote: ↑Fri Apr 19, 2024 3:31 am
As Cholly observed elsewhere, I've had an unpublished MFD lurking in my AddOns. It's a fairly simple one: It lists all navigation beacons you can see with your Space Compass, in order of closest to you. It looks like this:

In this example, my space compass is currently targeting the Nuit Station.

The idea for this was to just list the beacons - that's it. Nothing fancy. There are a couple of options in Library Config: you can change the display units, and choose whether you just see ships/stations.

You can download this from here for now: NavigationBeaconsMFD.oxz

Let me know of any issues. Comments and feedback welcome! If there are no burning issues discovered, I'll put it in the DM in a few days.

Thanks for this!

Is it designed for players - or more for developers/playtesters and thus a bit of a cheat for players?

And, I wonder, Vanilla Oolite presumably just has 3 beacons: Station, Witchpoint & possibly the Rock Hermit (does it actually have a beacon in Vanilla?).

But with OXPs, what is the greatest possible number of beacons?

Maybe 15 or so for stations (for a wealthy Corporate with a naval base: Main Orbital, Superhub, Nuit, Nephthys, SothisTC, RSS, Constore, Taxi Galactica, GN SecCom, SIRF, + 5 other planets), + 3 RHs + RingRacer + Leviathan Platform = 20!

Posted: **Fri Apr 19, 2024 11:26 am**

It’s designed for players. It’s not a cheat, because the information is available by cycling targets on your space compass.

In a base game, yes, not many beacons in play, so the list won’t be a long one in that mode.

Maximum number of beacons? Not sure actually. Probably not a number you’d want to explore really - when there are that many beacons, space starts to feel very busy and full.

Posted: **Fri Apr 19, 2024 2:57 pm**

On loading..

"NavigationBeaconsMFD.oxz" does not have a valid manifest.plist and could not be loaded

From the log.

Code: Select all

[plist.parse.failed]: Failed to parse AddOns/NavigationBeaconsMFD.oxz/manifest.plist as a property list.
Parse failed at line 8 (char 319) - unexpected character (wanted ';' or '}')

Needs a semicolon at end of information_url line. Inserted. Works.

Posted: **Fri Apr 19, 2024 10:58 pm**

Aw, dang it!

But that’s why we test, people!

Note to self: Don’t add code just before uploading, without testing it.

Posted: **Sat Apr 20, 2024 6:27 am**

phkb wrote: ↑Fri Apr 19, 2024 10:58 pm
Aw, dang it!

But that’s why we test, people!

Note to self: Don’t add code just before uploading, without testing it.

cim created some scripts that could be run for basic tests and zipping: https://github.com/cim--/oxp-build-scripts
I intended to work further on them but did not get very far: https://github.com/HiranChaudhuri/Jellyfish

Posted: **Tue May 07, 2024 6:14 pm**

I'm seeing some entities listed on this MFD at zero distance soon after jumping into a system. For example, a few systems ago there was an RSS satellite which was listed at zero and c.250k, in another system I've a fuelStation satellite listed at zero and 259.5km.

The 'extra' listing is not on the scanner (edit:sometimes it is briefly) or telescope. It stays at zero when I've moved away from the witchpoint. I believe the phantom is exorcised by toggling the ASC, though I've not played much this last week, so haven't seen it often enough to be sure.

Screenshot oolite-042.png

This does~~n't~~ survive a save in flight. I see nothing obvious in the log.
(edit: I have a save in flight where this manifests, but oddly, not on every load.)

(edit:update)
This is tied in with telescope's "visual target" and may be a telescope/ASC clash. I have that set to "weapons off". The phantom vanishes with weapons on if I change target and/or move. It returns with weapons off when I target anything that can appear on ASC and move a bit. It re-occurs with different targets. FWIW the phantom appears also on the ASC at a few metres away tied to PS position/orientation.

Posted: **Thu May 09, 2024 10:31 am**

MrFlibble wrote: ↑Tue May 07, 2024 6:14 pm
This is tied in with telescope's "visual target" and may be a telescope/ASC clash. I have that set to "weapons off". The phantom vanishes with weapons on if I change target and/or move. It returns with weapons off when I target anything that can appear on ASC and move a bit. It re-occurs with different targets. FWIW the phantom appears also on the ASC at a few metres away tied to PS position/orientation.

This definitely seems to be related to Telescope - I certainly can't reproduce the effect on my setup, but I don't normally use Telescope. If I get some time I'll dig into what Telescope might be doing in this instance. Thanks for the expanded report, though - will definitely help me isolate the problematic code faster!

Posted: **Fri May 10, 2024 2:24 pm**

I've posted further observations re: phantoms in the Telescope thread here.

Posted: **Mon May 20, 2024 7:04 am**

Wiki page now up

The icons/quick facts section is included and seems correct to me, but is currently "blanked out".

Posted: **Sun May 26, 2024 7:16 am**

phkb wrote: ↑Thu May 09, 2024 10:31 am
This definitely seems to be related to Telescope ...

Relax, you don't need to dive into Telescope. The problem arises from $findShipsWithBeacons() including the player's ship's visual target in the list it returns. It's created w/ system.addVisualEffect (which copies beaconCode), not system.addShips but gets included in your system.filteredEntities call because _beacons() lets it through.

Adding the test !entity.isVisualEffect should stop it. If you want to include planets & moons, you can test entity.radius , as the orbs have that property but ships do not, or .scanClass === "CLASS_NO_DRAW".

There is another problem though, EscortDeck. All these ships have beacons and are close to player & thus flood the MFD's output. Some escort properties:

Code: Select all

AI: "EscortDeck_AI.plist"
beaconCode: "E0 Adder Escort"
beaconLabel: "E"
escortGroup: [OOShipGroup "escort group", 1 ships, leader: <ShipEntity 0x5bd7de10>{"Adder Escort"}]

There's also towbar:

Code: Select all

  ws.$TowbarShip.beaconCode = "D"; //Derelict
  ws.$TowbarShip.beaconLabel = "Derelict "+ws.$TowbarShip.displayName.replace("Derelict ",""); //Derelict

Plus anarchies, curse_of_the_black_sunspot, farplanets, galcopmissions, in-system_taxi, galacticalmanac (many ships), planetary_compass (planets & moons), rockhermitbeacons, satellites, ship_storage_helper, smugglers, sotl_exploration, starsystemlaneindicator, thecollector, tracker & yah, which all assign beaconCode and/or beaconLabel. This is not an exhaustive list, as I've yet to update my local copy of all the oxz files from the new site - my internet is that bad! (had to show off my oxz friendly search in a debug console coming soon

)

Perhaps using system.entitiesWithScanClass instead of system.filteredEntities would be simpler. If you only want buoys, system.entitiesWithScanClass('CLASS_BUOY', player.ship) gives you a distance sorted list. Same w/ CLASS_STATION; you'd just have to merge the 2 lists. You'd have time as entitiesWithScanClass is much faster than filteredEntities . If, however, you'd like to include any ships with beacons, well, nevermind.

P.S. I would have chimed in earlier but I'm not receiving any email notification except for private messages.

Posted: **Sun May 26, 2024 7:37 am**

cag wrote: ↑Sun May 26, 2024 7:16 am
Relax....

P.S. I would have chimed in earlier but I'm not receiving any email notification except for private messages.

Good to see you back!

1) should this OXP be classified as a "cheat" for the moment?
2) your email notifications should be "settable" on this new Bulletin Board via the User Control Panel or some such

Posted: **Sun May 26, 2024 12:47 pm**

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Sun May 26, 2024 7:37 am
2) your email notifications should be "settable" on this new Bulletin Board via the User Control Panel or some such

For those who searched about email notifications:
User Control Panel -> Board Preferences -> Edit Notification Options

Posted: **Sun May 26, 2024 2:55 pm**

OK, thanks to MrFlibble and cag, I've got a fix in place that should eliminate the Telescope visual targets from showing up in the list of beacons. I'm planning on a big update day tomorrow, so I'll get it in the DM then.

Posted: **Sun May 26, 2024 9:46 pm**

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Sun May 26, 2024 7:37 am
1) should this OXP be classified as a "cheat" for the moment?

Good question. Vanila Oolite has the ASC; this just makes it more legible. I don't think providing the distances is a cheat by itself; more info but not really actionable.

However, if you opt for the extended option, which gives you more entities than the compass, that's different. If a ship is just outside scannerRange, you won't know it's there in the vanila game but it'll be top of the MFD. You can figure out direction using the compass (right?), and gain better tactical intelligence (situational awareness?whatever).

So, ... it depends. A purist may insist it is 'cheating' but really, if it's an enemy hunting you, you'll probably be dead before you figure out the direction anyway. Me, I'd flee in a random direction and if the distance decreases, run the other way! I can live with cheating.

Oolite Bulletins

Navigation Beacons MFD

Navigation Beacons MFD

Re: Navigation Beacons MFD

Re: Navigation Beacons MFD

Re: Navigation Beacons MFD

Re: Navigation Beacons MFD

Re: Navigation Beacons MFD

Re: Navigation Beacons MFD

Re: Navigation Beacons MFD

Re: Navigation Beacons MFD

Re: Navigation Beacons MFD

Re: Navigation Beacons MFD

Re: Navigation Beacons MFD

Re: Navigation Beacons MFD

Re: Navigation Beacons MFD

Re: Navigation Beacons MFD