Oolite Bulletins

In version 1.71.2, I was jumped by a pack of four - A Python, two Sidewinders, and an Excalibur. The Excalibur is the fastest, so I locked onto him first and let him have a burst from my laser. He breaks off, hits the injectors, and to my surprise drops a ticking q-bomb in his wake!
I disengage, turn 180 and hit the injectors just as the q-bomb detonated, killing the last three pirates.

Fair warning, fellow Commanders, pirates drop q-bombs now.

pirates drop q-bombs now

That was not the sort of news I wanted to hear. Haven't been game to use one of those since my last devastating effort.

Yes, that was already possible with oolite 1.65. But when you don't document it, it will not likely be used. Only recently this feature was discovered by ship designers. Regenerates spawns those q-bombs as part of their death actions. Probably that should be rewritten also (LB?). Deploying such a heavy weapon after death does not make much sense.

It only for works for the lizards at Gezeri. When they are threatened, they just explode. For some reason evolution gave these creatures a higher chance of survival. And his main predator, the Gezerian hawk, lost all ability to fly because they grew to heavy. All his feathers evolved into a heavy bomb proof shell. Now the hawk is to heavy to catch any other prey than the exploding lizards.

Ahh, you misunderstood, guys. It wasn't a death action.
The Excal wasn't killed. He was running away on injectors when he dropped the bomb, damaged but still very much alive.

Cmdr Wyvern wrote:

Ahh, you misunderstood, guys. It wasn't a death action.
The Excal wasn't killed. He was running away on injectors when he dropped the bomb, damaged but still very much alive.

I was drawing attention to another example, which is a death action (and a nonsensical one, I would agree with Eric). And as the first (and last) thing you see is a rapidly expanding purple sphere directly in front of you (presuming you were using your front lasers), there isn't time to about-face and get out of the way even with injectors.

It's a no-way-out "game over and press space bar commander" moment, which is highly frustrating, especially if it comes after a good in-system run of kills and cargo since you last saved.

The actions in your example at least makes some logical sense, mine don't...

IIRC, you don't get a message warning for Q-bombs. Could this not be implemented? If missiles trigger a warning noise and console log, then Q-bombs definitely should!

You don't get a message warning about q-bombs, true, but they have a distinctive IFF blip on your scanner before they go off, a red/yellow flashing.

Maybe in the near future, an updated missile analyzer can detect q-bombs and flash a warning message.

Some of the marks in Random Hits drop q-bombs as a death action, but I tend to take targets at medium to long ranges, something which gives me plenty of room to escape q-bombs. I like to use the mil laser's range to my advantage and snipe.
As a heavy fighter, my Dragon is fast but not very agile, and not too well suited for the close range turning dogfights nippier ships excel at.

Wiggy wrote:

IIRC, you don't get a message warning for Q-bombs. Could this not be implemented? If missiles trigger a warning noise and console log, then Q-bombs definitely should!

This is because the ignition of a missile is so fierce that standard detection equipment can pick this up. A mine however is just ejected. This is a much more silent technic that most ships are not able to detect.

Just don't fly to close behind ships that are known to have a q-bomb on board.

Anyway, this was discussed a couple of years ago.

https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?t=2364

We all agreed about a warning for Q-Mines.

Hang on but can't q-bombs be detected by your standard radar? Or is that another type of butt deplyed weapon?

ClymAngus wrote:

Hang on but can't q-bombs be detected by your standard radar?

Yes. To repeat, they show as a red/yellow flashing blip on your scanner prior to detonating.

Or is that another type of butt deplyed weapon?

Yes.

Eric Walch wrote:

Just don't fly to close behind ships that are known to have a q-bomb on board.

Easier said than done. How do you know they've got a q-bomb until they drop it?

I've just collected the bounty on a couple of contract killings that I took on from the seedy bars (Random Hits OXP), both of which dropped q-bombs just before they exploded. I did get an on-screen warning that a q-bomb had been detected and the red-yellow flashing blip on the scanner.

Thankfully, a SuperCobra with injectors can outrun the blast wave...

Some of the Random Hits victims drop q-bombs as scripted death actions.

I started the thread about a ship that dropped a q-bomb, not as a script or death action. You know how pirates will shoot a missile at you when you've lasered their shields down. The pirate I spoke of dropped the mine instead of a missile.

The random hits victims will sometimes drop mines as a death_action, but they also sometimes drop a mine when alive if they decide to flee. They only do it when fleeing (and only sometimes then) to avoid blowing themselves up!. They also react to mines dropped by the player or NPCs and jump out / light up injectors, as I'd set their AIs to be very defensive towards mines.

If you give any ship, the has_energy_bomb key, there is a chance it will drop a mine when its AI does a performFlee. If you wanted to have a ship use a mine under certain condition (eg when on energy low or when first making an attack - or whatever really) you can do this with ejectSpecifcItem. Should also though tell it to set its deployed mine as a target in AI and set a desiredRange to somthing safe like 25km so it also gets out of dodge and doesn't get blown up by its own mine!