Oolite Bulletins

Sometimes in the heat of battle, it's hard to tell the difference between the pirates (who I'm trying to kill) and the freighter escorts (that I'm trying to help). If one of the escort ships has become an offender in the middle of the fight, then I tend to fire on it.

Is there some way that an escort ship could identify itself if I accidentally fire on it by sending me a message to say "Hey, I'm with the convoy"?

Well there is...

but you need some pretty big logic to tell, if player is not intending to fire at the escorts... you cant just presume the player to be a good guy..

As it is, the Escort ship will treat the player as hostile if fired upon by the player.

if police is in the area, they will also mark you for the offense..

a good way however would be to have the targeting box turn red.. that should not be to hard todo code-wise.. but its up to the developers.. since i dont think this is possible via java scripting.

if it where The DTP Design Agency would immediately make IFF (identify freind or foe) equipment... i might be able to pull that off in a slightly another way.

However the best solution is that escorts do not get offender status in the first place... and I think this problem is might being adressed when we get a new release...

my method would involve checking your legal rating, if you are clean, or a low end offender, the escort will send the message.. if not it just takes you for another pirate, and attacks you...

but i´m pretty much busy atm with other things, the outline for this would be

if players target is a ship with the role escort, and said ships attacker is the player, send the message once or twice only if player is a low end offender or clean...

But the escort ship still might treat the player as hostile, despite this...
since the AI of the escort ship is natively scripted, and cannot be overridden until the next test release...

But again, the best solution would be that the escort was not an offender in the first place... i believe this to be a little error that is the shipdata.plist file where the escort ships has pirate AI... to start with... i often come across pythons and boas with escorts that has offender tags..

just be weary of mambas, sidewinders and cobra mk 1s... the Mamba is designated Mamba-Escort.. while you can leave the sidewinders be until you see them firering at you.. they are not that much of a hazzle, if they indeed are a pirate... then they only carry a pulse laser, and the sidewinder has no missiles... just like the mamba.

If you are protecting an Anaconda... note that these only have Cobra MK 1s as escorts.