Oolite Bulletins

There is something I have seen a few times too many, and do not understand. I approach a station, go by the nav buoy not to look too suspicious, and then, out of the station comes a small ship, and crashes straight into the buoy.

It is such a small target, that I would think any pilot could tilt the ship a little bit one way or the other, and avoid it. So it must be on purpose. Usually it is the ship that suffers greatly, and the buoy doesn't even get a good scratch.

So, what is going on? Is the local Al-Q trying to test their suicide bombers before sending them for a real mission. Sounds stupid enough that they might try something like this. Or do those ships have a pilot (alive) at all?

Eternally conefused about the mysteries of space...

- Heikki III

Not only that, but pirates that attempt to ram you with the injectors burning.

The Kamikaze Syndrome, along with flying tight circles in empty space, and stalling in front of a station docking port must be some kind of space crazy the NPCs suffer from time to time.

It's the Riedquat ale!

Worse still in TNK they ram you up the exhaust pipe just as you are launching from the Coriolis, and you just hope you remembered to save!

I do sometimes wonder what the AI is up to. Last night I followed a Gecko (offender) which seemed to be flying towards the planet in formation with a Cobra Mk I (clean). Kept going dead straight, ignored me flying close past it, and only eventually opened fire on the Cobra after about five minutes. Then there are the ships that seem to be attacking you but don't actually open fire...

I think I got challenged to a fight by a Krait yesterday. We were both inside the station's sphere of influence when he turned red and started flying out of the protective zone. I figured he was asking me to step outside to settle things like men. Alas, we got outside, he didn't throw a punch so I opted to cruise off to join in a firefight I saw in the distance.

In the same session I ended up in Witchspace where 3 Thargoids were attacking a Moray. And who did the Moray attack? Me. Clearly the most threatening target in that situation. He did thank me after I cleared out the Thargoids though - despite him pounding the life out of me whilst I was scraping the Thargoids off his back. Which was nice.

You boys ever heard about space psychosis?

Well, it's real!

@ Helvellyn: A way to debug "what the AI is up to" is to pause the game and press '0' (zero) for an entity-dump. In your logfile you'll then find a list of all entities currently present in your system. For every entity it then gives you its current AI and the AI-status it's currently in. That can be very helpful.

Or you can enter the following line at the end of your keyconfig.plist, just before the ending closing brace: (you can set it to any unused key, "H" is just an example). Whenever you press the defined key, a dump of the currently targetted entity's status will be appended to the game's log. If there is no targetted entity at that moment, the player's status will be appended instead. This way, you can see any entity's AI state at the moment you took the snapshot.

This works only in the newer versions (1.69 and above I think).

Cmdr Wyvern wrote:

Not only that, but pirates that attempt to ram you with the injectors burning.

Yeah, I was going to start a thread about that. So very annoying! I'm entirely kitted out (as the Brits would say) and I even got a Naval Energy Unit, but if one of those crazies crashes into me with injectors on, it's "Press space commander".

It always happens, of course, when you've killed 10-12 pirates, scooped up so much swag your holds are full, are out of witchspace fuel and are almost at the station.

Two things to try when they go Kamikaze. Cut speed to half power, get them in your sights, and:

- Hammer on them with your laser. If you get in some good direct hits, it'll often scare them enough to turn and run away.

- Launch a missile, esp. a hardhead. It tends to scare them out of the Kamikaze run. Sometimes you might score a hit if they're close enough when you let it fly.

Good tips. Lately when they go into that "mode" I ignore them and go after other ships or collect booty. They go off and do their own thing - on their own, they won't crash into you, which means they're not really suicidal.

They don't do much damage, just taking potshots now and then as they sweep by you.

Once they've had enough of that or have exhausted their fuel, it's time to move in for the kill. Every once in a while, they'll hit the injectors again and turn tail, running away. This seems to be most common in Fer-de-Lances.

wo things to try when they go Kamikaze. Cut speed to half power, get them in your sights, and:
....
- Launch a missile, esp. a hardhead. It tends to scare them out of the Kamikaze run. Sometimes you might score a hit if they're close enough when you let it fly.

I think the kamikaze if they are low on energy. So launching a missile helps as they have no power left for a ECM.

It also help to have a havy ship. I fly a boa class cruiser. It is not so agile as a cobra but withstands much more impact. When my shields are on full power it withstands a crash with a krait flying at full speed. But it is the total speed that counts. You can't control the other speed, but you can slow down yours.
A boa class cruiser also withstands a missile if hit from behind and shields are at full power (and with having military shields of couse)

I find pirates only go Al-QuOoida when I try to wfi away and they follow me. Basically, when I cut the power, they don't...

Interesting - I also have a Boa Class Cruiser and I can't withstand the impact of any ship, no matter how small, when he's got his fuel injectors on.

Without fuel injectors, I've rammed Kraits, Sidewinders, Asps and Morays without significant damage to myself. I even rammed a Python once, but that was probably as big as I could go.

I have all enhancements - extra energy unit, shield boosters, etc. so you're saying the only difference is that I'm flying into him at full speed myself? That the combo of him with fuel injectors and me at maximum speed is too much? If so, that's good to know!

They aren't committing suicide, it's just their lovely, furry pets had chewed through the braking thruster relays and had then shorted out the cockpit viewscreens. It's what comes of not properly caring for your Trumbles.....

Captain Hesperus
"Cute and fluffy travelling companion for sale, anyone?"