Oolite Bulletins

Posted: **Sat Mar 24, 2007 4:41 pm**

The Assassins Guild OXP – Version 1.3

This version of the OXP is 17 years old and was written for Oolite 1.65. It will not work on modern Oolite. I am re-writing the OXZ for a modern release (hopefully complete by September 2024). You shouldn't attempt to play the old version, as many of the ships and stations are completely broken and much of the script either won't run at all or won't run properly. When the new version is out, I'll start a new thread for the Rebooted version.

(Updated to V1.3 on 1st September 2007)

(By "LittleBear")

(New & Guest Ships by Ramon, Griff, Selezen, Murgh, Wombat, Wyvern & Giles)

(Player ship external views by Commander McLane)

(Mission Clash prevention code by Commander Eric Walsh)

(Text Adventure Location descriptions by Captain Hesperus & LittleBear)

Categories : Missions, NPC Ships, Player Ships, Stations, Weapons, Equipment, Planets.

Download Link : Download Assassins V1.3 here

UPDATE (again) : V1.3 is now on the Wiki. (Follow the link above). 1.3 will still work on 1.65 of Oolite, but now works properly on version 1.69.1. It also includes Eric's mission screen clash prevention code. So you can play Assassins Military and Thargoid Wars all at the same time (if you like). If you do have Thargoid Wars or Military installed, make sure you are using the lastest vesion. The old versions will clash with Assassins (and a lot of other mission OXPs). The latest versions of these OXPs are also on the Wiki and are linked on the Assassins page.

Version 1.2 This fixes the bug with the Gavition Missile and improves some of the AIs and code generally. Davcefai PMed me the list of texture files as they appear on Unix. I've gone through the OXP and cross checked the case. This version shouldn't therefore crash Unix with a case sensitivity bug! 1.2 has a fix over 1.1. I'd missed one of the texture files (beatletext.png rather than beatletext.PNG). You won't notice any difference between 1.1 and 1.2 on Windows or the Mac, but this version should finally squash the case sensititity bug on Unix!

Main Features : 21 Missions (including 2 secret missions), over 30 new NPC ships, 3 new player ships, 6 new weapons (1 can be used by the player), a new item of Player equipment, extra stations (some stations can be destroyed, one can be explored on foot whilst docked), new hails, new Characters, new multi-planet systems, new NPC powers, a Galaxy 7 News service, scripted events / NPC battles, an Assassins Guild Ranking, changing Systems data (player and NPC actions change the Universe!) and over 50 Mission Briefing Screens.

Summary : This multi-feature OXP rewrites Galaxy 7 adding numerous features including individual characters, interacting NPC powers, systems controlled by NPC powers, detailed system descriptions, new stations, new scripted ships appearing at the modified systems, some systems gain moons, extra planets & gas giants and a News Service helps keep the player up to date with galactic events. Details of a few of the ships added and some of the powers that exist in Galaxy 7 can be foundon the Wiki here.

Update Notes
-----------------

Due to the size of the project, Assassins was in Beta for some time. This is the final version. A full readme is included, which you should read before playing. Save files work on all versions of Assassins. This update completely rewrites the “Civil War” missions (and adds 5 new missions in the process). Simply install this version of Assassins in your AddOns folder (overwriting the old version).

If you have started playing Assassins, have you seen a news broadcast mentioning a raid by the police on “Heretic Shipyards”? If you have not, then there is no need to do anything other than install this version. If you have, then you will either need to use the Commander including in the download, or edit your save file to reset the OXP to this point. The readme gives instructions on how to do this. You only have to change two numbers!

Background
---------------

In seedy space bars from Riedquat to Atoresra, hardened killers gather to drink fermented vegetable products and tell tales of blood-curdling terror.

At such gatherings, stories are swapped of a sinister organization known as "The Assassins Guild". This semi-mythical association is said to operate in Galaxy 7. A killer who can secure membership of "The Brotherhood" can expect huge rewards, and the most unpleasant consequences for failure.

No self-respecting "laser for hire" should miss an opportunity to impress "The Guildmaster".

Installing & playing
------------------------

To play the OXP, unzip the download file. This will create a folder "AssassinsV1". Open this folder and you will see a folder named "Assassins.oxp" and a readme. Move the Assassins.oxp folder to AddOns. Keep the readme somewhere safe!

The first event will happen when you are docked at any main station in Galaxy 7 and have more than 200 kills. No Assassins mission or event can trigger without the player having a particular kill count. This is done to make the OXP playable by any Commander. If you are a noob with a weedy ship, you won't be set upon (yet) by an army of nasties. You'll just be asked to take some of the easy hits until you have an Iron Ass. If you are an old-hand then the more difficult missions will come up quickly, though you still need to do the easy hits first in order to build up your status with the Guild.

The kill count requirement for Assassins missions is spaced roughly every 200 - 300 kills from 200 onwards. If you installed with 3,000+ kills, you would meet the kill count for all events. Once kill count is met, a new event will happen once you have made a certain number of hyperspace jumps, provided you completed the previous mission.

When the name "Agent Wombat" means something to you, you will have seen everything the OXP does.

Hang out in Galaxy 7, going about your ordinary Oolite business, and things will start happening to you...

(sorry about the long post, I'm preparing a wiki and Oosat2 entry that'll go up once a few Commanders confirm this version works ok).

It's a big rewite to feature "The Dreadnaught", "The Plasma Sentry" and of course the Text Adventure I did with Captain H. Hope you like it.

Posted: **Sat Mar 24, 2007 7:04 pm**

fermented vegetable products

how quaint...
yer showin' your dirt, mudboy.
Myself, I likes to nurse a destillate of fermented poet's milk and our engineer -the furry lobstoid over there next to the Maga-blunt dispenser- swears by homogenised trumbleshakes. These are amongst the more innocent beverages available at a dive like this.
Here!
Have a Bovine Blood Transfusion on me, a real treat for a kid with mud still clinging to his boots.
The old, toothless spacer winks at you and turns to the insectoid next to him.
It has only two arms left, and now appears humanoid. Maybe he was brutally disfigured by xenophobes, maybe he's a spy...

Posted: **Sat Mar 24, 2007 7:20 pm**

So does this version have a working Death Burger?

Posted: **Sat Mar 24, 2007 7:29 pm**

Burger is replaced by a terrifying Dreadnought.

Posted: **Sat Mar 24, 2007 7:51 pm**

Red Dwarf Refence. The Missile required to destroy the Dreadnaught however uses the "trumble inside" guidence system. (Obtained in the Text adventure) - Heretic refernce!

Posted: **Sat Mar 24, 2007 7:57 pm**

I'd just downloaded this and managed to get a Boa fire a graviton missile at me. Bug?

Posted: **Sat Mar 24, 2007 8:03 pm**

Arrgh! It is a bug!

The Gravition Missile is harmless to anything except the Dreadnaught. (So if a boa fired one it you, the trumble inside will just go round and round making no attempt to intercept you as you are not a Dreadnaught!)

But NPCs ain't meant to have them. Thought setting available to all to no would stop this. <have another look at equipment.plist>

Hmm:- In equipment.plist I have set:-

Code: Select all

<key>available_to_all</key>
<false/>

How did an NPC Boa get hold of one?

Heres the full plist:-

Code: Select all

<dict>
<array>
<integer>19</integer>
<integer>0</integer>
<string>Graviton Missile</string>
<string>EQ_GRAV_MISSILE</string>
<string>Releases a massive burst of graviton radiation, overloading shield generators with catastrophic results for the target. Guidance is provided by a trained trumble. Immune to any known ECM or EMP defence, the range of the weapon is limited to 5km by the visual acuity of the average trumble. When fired the trumble pilot will guide the missile towards the nearest Balrog Class Dreadnaught at 0.2 LM.</string>
<dict>
<key>available_to_all</key>
<false/>
</dict>
</array>

As the Rebel Outpost is the only entity at tech level 19, you should only be able to buy one here, and NCPs shoudn't be able to equip them at all.

(won't effect gameplay much. Just means occasionally when an NPC fires a missile at you, it goes round and round and fails to aquire you!)

EDIT: Think I know how to fix this. ATM the Graviton entry in shipdata includes the role "missile", so may be chosen as a missile when an NPC fires one. If I set it to missile(0.00001) then it won't be.

I'll fix this oddity for V.1.1 but if you want to make a change to V1 to fix it, then open up shipdata. The first entry in shipdata is the Gravition Missile. Look at the key role. Add (0.00001) after missile.

Posted: **Sun Mar 25, 2007 7:19 am**

Congratulations for the team finishing this monster-OXP!

(Though it's too demanding for my truly ancient machine

)

Posted: **Sun Mar 25, 2007 6:54 pm**

'J Cuba you are rated as novice'

Posted: **Sun Mar 25, 2007 7:37 pm**

I've seen the Balrog on the Start screen.

Griff and LittleBear, you rock!

Captain Hesperus

Posted: **Sun Mar 25, 2007 8:26 pm**

Captain Hesperus wrote:
I've seen the Balrog on the Start screen.

But did it or did it not have wings?

Posted: **Sun Mar 25, 2007 8:40 pm**

LittleBear,

Could you be more specific about editing the graviton missile key role please? (preferably the exact syntax of the modified line)

I've had 2 fired at me so far, both by Boas near a Black Monk Monastery. The problems they cause are:

1. Until you realise that it is "only" a graviton missile it distracts you, possibly at a crucial moment.

2. The missile flies towards the planet and, whenever it is in range, mass-locks your hyperspeed drive.

Posted: **Sun Mar 25, 2007 8:58 pm**

Sorry, will fix this for V1.1.

(When I wrote it I was figuring that it would be on the player's pylon after completing the text adventure and then only untill the player fired it at the Dreadnaught. For it to appear generaly in the game is a bug.

)

To manualy fix it for V1.0:-

1) Go to the OXP Config directroy.

2) Open Shipdata.plist (using notepad or other text editor)

It should look somthing like this:-

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> 
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd"> 
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>

<!-- Entry for the Special Graviton Missile -->

<key>graviton</key>
<dict>
	<key>like_ship</key>
	<string>ecm-proof-missile</string>
	<key>scanner_range</key>
	<real>5000</real>
	<key>ai_type</key>
	<string>gravmissileAI.plist</string>
	<key>max_energy</key>
	<real>2000</real>
	<key>energy_recharge_rate</key>
	<real>9</real>
	<key>max_flight_pitch</key>
	<real>5</real>
	<key>max_flight_roll</key>
	<real>5</real>
	<key>max_flight_speed</key>
	<real>200</real>
	<key>name</key>
	<string>Graviton Missile</string>
	<key>roles</key>
	<string>missile EQ_GRAV_MISSILE</string>
	<key>weapon_energy</key>
	<real>999999999</real>
	</dict>

<!-- The Mission Ships, Support Ships, Stations appearing in OXPed Systems & Player Ships -->

[rest of shipdata here]

See how it says:-

Code: Select all

<key>roles</key> 
<string>missile EQ_GRAV_MISSILE</string>

This is where I made a mistake!

Need to change this so it now says:-

Code: Select all

<key>roles</key>
<string>missile(0.0001) EQ_GRAV_MISSILE</string>

That should fix it!

Sorry about being crap about fixing OXP errors, just that the Big A has PMed me with som e texture fixes (dosent effect how Assassins plays ATM but are usefull future profing fixes), so I'll do one big bug fix in A1.1. Also need you guys to tell me that the text adventure and other Assassins improvements are working ok on your systems!

)

@JC "The Guild welcomes you as a novice Assassin"

Posted: **Mon Mar 26, 2007 7:25 pm**

Uhhhmm, LittleBear, I'm presently docked at Ensoonve (G2) and I've come across a Nemesis for sale. Is this normal?

Captain Hesperus

Posted: **Mon Mar 26, 2007 7:46 pm**

Yeah. The Nemesis, Mongoose Fighter and Vintage Adder are available to the player. (These ships being non-uber). None of the other OXP ships are as thery're way too powerful or one-offs.

You won't however see NPC versions of these ships unless you are in G7 doing the mission in which they feature, or are at a Galaxy 7 system where they are set to appear. EG you'll see the Dictatorship Navy ships if you are at that planet.

EDIT : As a bonus feature, if you complete all the assassins missions then some of the OXP ships are "unlocked" and you may see them appearing (v.rare) as pirates, police and trade ships in any Galaxy, but only when the OXP is completed.

Oolite Bulletins

The Assassins Guild OXP (Non-Functional 2007 Version)

The Assassins Guild OXP (Non-Functional 2007 Version)