UPDATED OXPS: Lave 1.70 & transports 2.45(new)

[Kaks]

Here's the new version of transports.oxp - updated for 1.71-trunk : transports v2.45

So far Lave.oxp doesn't seem to need any changes.

[Ark]

oh boy!!!!
That was fast

By the way why you did not use oosat1 for the larger oxps?

[Commander Mysenses]

I got a bit confused up there ^^^.
Is this working with v.171? (I'm using build 1544)

Because the Woma escort Asps are just stationary, and wildly tumbling on the spot. You can shoot 'em up without any response (which is an easy way to bump up my rating, but hardly cricket). Had several encounters with 'em now, doing their crazy dance on the spot... the tanker has long gone.

Would be nice if the tanker was dockable too... handy fuel stop.
Blowing them up should be a bit more spectacular too.
And shouldn't you be able to find them on the sun to witchpoint run? (I guess NPCs just don't do that though).

[Kaks]

Indeed, it's meant to be working in 1.71.

Unfortunately the escorts are still prone to spinning in place, as Eric said:

Code: Select all

There is a bug in the AI scripting of default escorts. After the second attack round they end up in a AI-state without update state. I send this bug already some time ago to the Berlios bug site.

That bug hasn't yet been fixed in trunk.


The Woma transports and cruise ships only travel between witch point and main planet. Other oxps can provide you with traffic to & from the sun, though, if that's what you're after!

In updating these oxps, I just wanted to remove the bugs that prevented them from working properly together, and to update the scripting engine to javascript. There are still a couple of things to do there, including adding a pirate-victim-roles.plist, but I got 'a bit' distracted.

Apart from RL (I haven't got a huge amount of free time anymore), there's still quite a lot of 'orphaned' oxp that can't be played in 1.70 (& before, but that's another matter) which I'm halfway to get working - the swift, and the ixian oxps are the two most complete, plus I need to make asteroid storm 1.71 proof.

In other words, I'll have a look at what I can do, but don't expect anything too soon!

There's already a couple of oxps that use the woma for their nefarious purposes, so there's nothing to stop you from creating a 'realistic woma' oxp and beat me to the punch! You could borrow Eric Walch's code from UPS's 'bonus ships' to transfer fuel between woma and your ship even without docking....

[another_commander]

Unfortunately the escorts are still prone to spinning in place, as Eric said:

Code: Select all

There is a bug in the AI scripting of default escorts. After the second attack round they end up in a AI-state without update state. I send this bug already some time ago to the Berlios bug site.

That bug hasn't yet been fixed in trunk.

I am not so sure this is the same bug we are seeing here. On SVN 1413, I tried to address the situation Eric reported by updating the BEGIN_BUSINESS escort AI state to look like this:

Code: Select all

"BEGIN_BUSINESS" = {
		"LAUNCHED OKAY" = ("setStateTo: CLEAR_STATION");
        ATTACKED = (setTargetToPrimaryAggressor, "setAITo: interceptAI.plist");
        ENTER = (escortCheckMother); 
        EXIT = ();
		ESCORTING = ("setDesiredRangeTo: 0.0", "setStateTo: FLYING_ESCORT");
        "NOT_ESCORTING" = ("setStateTo: LOOK_FOR_BUSINESS");
        UPDATE = (escortCheckMother, "pauseAI: 7.5"); 
    }; 

Also from the Berlios bugtracker:

As per Eric's analysis on the forum, sometimes escorts seem to fall in a state of idleness after an attack. The cause of this has been found to be that they go into the BEGIN_BUSINESS state, which does not have an UPDATE method defined. In SVN 1413, the escortAI.plist has been updated as follows for the ESCORTING and UPDATE methods:
1) ESCORTING = ("setDesiredRangeTo: 0.0", "setStateTo: FLYING_ESCORT");
and
2) UPDATE = (escortCheckMother, "pauseAI: 7.5");

This seems to work without side effects so far. Escorts will attempt to look for mothership when the AI requests an UPDATE and, if accepted, they will enter FLYING_ESCORT state, which is the state they should be in for normal flight. They no longer hang about doing nothing, even if the player attacks multiple times switching on/off the cloaking device...

I think that the bug reported in this thread is AI related, but probably not exactly the same as above. In any case, I would be grateful if someone with a solid understanding of the AI (Eric, I'm looking at you ) can confirm that at least the aobve BEGIN_BUSINESS updates are indeed correct. All the tests I have run on it have not indicated a problem, but that of course doesn't mean that it is completely failproof.

[another_commander]

Anyway, the solution for the Woma Escorts problem reported above is to open womaEscortAI.plist and replace all occurences of scanForNearestShipWithRole with scanForNearestShipHavingRole in the ESCORT_ANOUNCEMENT and FIND_MOTHER methods.

The issue here is that scanForNearestShipWithRole:woma will scan for ships having the specified role (woma) as primary, while we really want to scan for ships that have the role "woma" in their roleset, primary or not.

I tested it (briefly) and found Woma Escorts that not only followed their mom nicely, but responded fiercely to my attack too

[Kaks]

Nice! Pretty busy in RL at the moment, but will update transports asap!

[Eric Walch]

I wasn't following this topic. I see the problems as a lot of tiny things that add up. for 1.69 I already changed a lot on the woma on my computer.

I noticed that the liners and fuelships are flying with an exact copy of the route1traderAI.plist of Oolite 1.55 with the addition of a targetCommsMessage. In 1.65 the route1traderAI was Improved and the new transports shoud also get this new traderAI. (the current route1traderAI makes it less likely that the trader hits system objects and only docks at the main station). This means that the fuel ship with right AI should not react any different than any other normal trader.

There is also a problem with the speed. The fuel tanker has a to low maximum speed. Escorts can't fly that slow and the escorts are a little tumbling while following the mother. This can be solved by raising the maximum speed from 100 to 200. Or alternatively: raise the cruise speed in the AI. Now a trader flies at 50% of the maximum, but for the tanker you can raise that to 80 or 100%

Than the deploy escorts bug: 1.70 is not able to deploy escorts with traders. So attacking the mother does not alert the escorts. This is a general bug of 1.70 and fixed for 1.71 (as an addition I put a "groupAttackTarget" in my AI in addition to "deployEscorts".

Than there is a bug that makes that escorts are sometimes not following their mother but switch to route1patrol. That is an internal bug that was introduced in 1.69 or 1.68. But these escorts are not hanging around.

---
Escorts hanging around idle is an escortAI bug that must have been present for ages, at least since 1.55

When flying escort and the mother or one of the escorts gets attacked, the escorts are set to an interceptAI.plist with the attacker as target. But when returning from the interceptAI, a RESTART message makes that they jump into an other escort state. I never figured out why the restart message was there. But the problem is that it now is escorting in an other state. This state has no UPDATE message. They do react on an second attack but when returning from the interceptAI there is no update message to tell them what to do now. The changes I suggested and Another_Commander is quoting are correct in my opinion. I made the changes already before 1.70 came out. Since then the are active for escorts on my computer without any problems.

--
And as last there is a command "setUpEscorts" in the AI. Sometimes this gives problems. Without the command Oolite decides if it needs escorts. So most of the times it does not get them. But when it has been awarded escorts by the system, the "setUpEscorts" just adds 4 new ones in space. The surplus is not accepted by mom and also changes to route1patrolAI. "setUpEscorts" should check and set the internal "escortsAreSetup" flag.
--

To the womeEscortAI.; I don't think it needs a special AI. When the escort bugs in Oolite are solved, a default escortAI will work. Switching to an AI with a single 1.70 only command, is not advisable as it limits the use to 1.70 only

[Micha]

I've just been coming across the Woma escorts bug in 2.45 of the Transports OXP.

Just implemented another_commander's suggested fix and will see how it goes.

As Kaks seems to be pretty busy, should this simple fix be documented on the Wiki until an updated OXP is released?

[Micha]

Ok, the fix appears to have the escorts keep up with the Fuel Transport, but they're still behaving oddly. They fly for a bit, spin for a bit, fly a bit more, etc.

[Cholmondely]

Would there be point in updating this?

Lave is the System where we begin the standard game... and we already have the Academy!

Lave is the system where HIMSN is based (and we have the ships and textures)

We have DAJT's monument (untouched since 2006)!

We have Stranger's new planet texture!

Could we put together a new Lave.OXP which would combine the above with this OXP (Single Moon - with the Empress's palace?), instructor & trainees & advertising droids?

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

1) Would we really need to bother updating the instructors/trinkets etc? It would make sense that they use clunky-looking ships.

2) Would we want some new Lave-specific ads? (The only part I could meaningfully contribute to at the moment)

3) Could we tweak the monument in any way to make it interact with the player?

4) Would it make sense to add a HIMSN naval base?

5) Some sort of traffic between planet/naval base and the Moon Palace?

6) Would we want a Lave which is limited to just the one sun, one planet and the one peculiar moon (as in the Lore)? Or would we want a more complex solar system?

7) Add some more orbital stations? And maybe some sort of interaction with the player?
1) On starting. Say two starting missions, one for a law-abiding player and another for someone less scrupulous?
2) On returning, presumably with a better equipped ship?

• Is there anything else we might wish to add to the mix?
_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Lave OXPs
* Lave OXP: single "fake" moon, restaurant ships, instructor & trinkets, advertising droid, Lave bumped from TL5 to TL8
* Lave Academy
* Monument: either close to sun or in orbit around planet depending on sun distance
* FPO Lave: new Lave texture for v.1.90
* PSLave (Planet Scanner) & Far Planets create other planets in the Lave System
* Lave is Earth: A_C_'s planetary texture demonstration

Lave Lore sources (contradictory!)
* Dark Wheel
* Imprint
* Drew's Oolite novels
* Selezen's work - see Lave page on wiki
* Rough Guide (Disembodied)

Personally I'd vote for Disembodied's interpretation (he's the only one still regularly with us!), and try and fit in the others if they work with the Rough Guide.

[Cholmondely]

Would there be point in updating this?

Lave is the System where we begin the standard game... and we already have the Academy!

Lave is the system where HIMSN is based (and we have the ships and textures)

We have DAJT's monument (untouched since 2006)!

We have Stranger's new planet texture!

Could we put together a new Lave.OXP which would combine the above with this OXP (Single Moon - with the Empress's palace?), instructor & trainees & advertising droids?

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

1) Would we really need to bother updating the instructors/trinkets etc? It would make sense that they use clunky-looking ships.

2) Would we want some new Lave-specific ads? (The only part I could meaningfully contribute to at the moment)

3) Could we tweak the monument in any way to make it interact with the player?

4) Would it make sense to add a HIMSN naval base?

5) Some sort of traffic between planet/naval base and the Moon Palace? A space port image and interaction on Moon Landings? A space port image for landing on Lave itself?

6) Would we want a Lave which is limited to just the one sun, one planet and the one peculiar moon (as in the Lore)? Or would we want a more complex solar system?

7) Add some more orbital stations? And maybe some sort of interaction with the player?
1) On starting. Say two starting missions, one for a law-abiding player and another for someone less scrupulous?
2) On returning, presumably with a better equipped ship?

• Is there anything else we might wish to add to the mix?
_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Lave OXPs
* Lave OXP: single "fake" moon, restaurant ships, instructor & trinkets, advertising droid, Lave bumped from TL5 to TL8
* Lave Academy
* Monument: either close to sun or in orbit around planet depending on sun distance
* FPO Lave: new Lave texture for v.1.90
* PSLave (Planet Scanner) & Far Planets create other planets in the Lave System
* Lave is Earth: A_C_'s planetary texture demonstration

Lave Lore sources (contradictory!)
* Dark Wheel
* Imprint
* Drew's Oolite novels
* Selezen's work - see Lave page on wiki
* Rough Guide (Disembodied)

Personally I'd vote for Disembodied's interpretation (he's the only one still regularly with us!), and try and fit in the others if they work with the Rough Guide.

Just found this (response to Cultist's 2010 ideas for improving Oolite):

From reading planet descriptions many are "colonised" with human colonists?
Maybe some wars of independence from natives?Or something between these lines

There are a lot of planets suffering from "civil wars"... perhaps some of these are between natives and pockets of colonists.

As a remake of Elite, Oolite has taken the -- necessarily -- simplistic original background to the game. While some OXPs can flesh this out a little, most of the work really has to be performed by the player's imagination!

For most of the inhabitants of the oooniverse, life is probably fairly backwards and/or oppressive, not to say brutal and short. The Galactic Co-Operative means very little to the serfs tilling the fields of a Poor Agricultural Feudal planet, or the mind-numbed drones of an Industrial Dictatorship, or the Corporate wage-slaves. We, the pilots, are the lucky ones. We're out, and free: and, shameful to admit, we don't really care about the suffering billions toiling away at the bottom of all those gravity wells. A two-line description tells us all we want to know about them, their planets and their lives.

The Co-Operative is for our benefit, largely, as long as we keep the wealth flowing between the worlds, and filling the pockets of the rich and powerful who dominate the various polities. There must be peasants, cold and hungry, who look up at night to the wormholes blossoming open against the stars, who see us as little high-riding tin gods, unshackled, uncaring, doing whatever we please. Probably, they envy us. Probably, many of them hate us, too. But what's that to us? Open a wormhole: fly away.

I go by the fiction that mentions that the GalCop central government is based on Lave Coriolis One and that the most famous (in fact the only mentioned) space flight school is there.

Lave is still a backwater. That's probably why the central authority is there, on Coriolis One, along with the Flight School. You can't put something like that in a powerful system: none of the other powerful systems would agree to it. Lave has "compromise" written all over it.

[Cholmondely]

Permission to update Murgh's .oxp's

... of course you may feel totally free to update any of the old OXPs or otherwise make use of the old scraps if they can still hold appeal. It would be very cool for me if something from so long ago could even in a small part manage to survive through the ages, along with the simple and brilliant concept of Oolite...

[Cholmondely]

If/when this is eventually updated and posted to the in-game Expansions Manager, it would be nice to include a fuller entry for the P.A.D. from the Library OXP!

The current entry:

Seat of the Galactic Co-operative of Worlds.
Part of the Old Worlds.
Located in the south-west of Galaxy 1.

There are no entries for any other star systems in the P.A.D.

[montana05]

If/when this is eventually updated and posted to the in-game Expansions Manager, it would be nice to include a fuller entry for the P.A.D. from the Library OXP!

The current entry:

Seat of the Galactic Co-operative of Worlds.
Part of the Old Worlds.
Located in the south-west of Galaxy 1.

There are no entries for any other star systems in the P.A.D.

I totally forgot about P.A.D. and I can't remember any OXP creating data for it. However, it wouldn't take much time and this package is just too good to remain forgotten and unused.