Oolite Bulletins

Ive been playing for a while, and I quite often end up coming out of a fight with a photon torpedo or 2 circling me in my supercobra.

It would be nice if either they would hit me, or I could kill them. I am not a good enough pilot normally to be able to get lined up and shoot them with a laser, and they cannot be ecmmed. I can inject away, but then, if I hang about somewhere else for long enough they travel half way across the system and follow me about again.

I know that you can mount rear plasma, or get a cloaking device, but somehow neither seem really right. I guess the bottom line is that I would prefer missiles to have a reasonable chance of hitting you, and then give up, maybe run out of fuel? I see in the oxp they have 30 fuel, which I think is used for their injectors? Maybe they could be given loads of injector fuel, but a tiny normal speed, so they stay still and you can get them once they are out of juice? Or maybe I should just get more elite and shoot them at full speed while they spiral towards me

They do die eventually – specifically, at the next five-second update after travelling 30 km, as per these lines in missileAI.plist and hardMissileAI.plist: If you feel like improving the intercept logic, be my guest. ;-)

i haven't managed to shoot them as they spiral in, especially as they seem to use your line of travel or view as the center point. however, i did find out that if you put something between them and you, that will take care of it nicely. space stations are pretty good. ^^

Ahruman wrote:

They do die eventually – specifically, at the next five-second update after travelling 30 km, as per these lines in missileAI.plist and hardMissileAI.plist:

Code: Select all

UPDATE = ("setDesiredRangeTo: 30000.0", checkDistanceTravelled, "setDesiredRangeTo: 25.0", "pauseAI: 5.0");
GONE_BEYOND_RANGE = ("setStateTo: EXPLODE");

If you feel like improving the intercept logic, be my guest.

Well, I have added to the ShipEntity trackPrimaryTarget and missileTrackPrimaryTarget, so that it is more like ballTrackLeading target, leading the target. Im not actually too surehow photon torpedos work, they seemed to get more lethal after i changed trackPrimaryTarget, but maybe im going mad.

Is that a change you are interested in seeing or should I keep it to myself?
It is a bit dubious weather missiles ought to be able to get data like target speed -- i guess even now a decent doppler rader should at least give relative speeds, so its not completely outrageous.

Ive also thought about proximity fuses for missiles (not in the forward direction though, or you will never get a direct hit) -- opinions ?

Note to self, read code you are talking about before posting