Odd messages

[JohnnyBoy]

I've been getting odd messages shortly after witching into a system. No sooner have I arrived, when I'm told to "Guard your mating traditions, human snail goat".

I'd expect such nonsense from the Thargoids, but there are no Thargoids on my scanner, nor is there any green laser fire between the W beacon and the planet.

Anyone know what might be happening? Could I be picking up such messages during the journey through witchspace?

[Eric Walch]

I've been getting odd messages shortly after witching into a system. No sooI'd expect such nonsense from the Thargoids, but there are no Thargoids on my scanner, nor is there any green laser fire between the W beacon and the planet.

It are thargoids. Some kind of messages are broadcasted beyond scanner range. Thargoids have special powers you know.

[Commander McLane]

But I can't remember it happening pre-1.71. And it happens quite a lot in 1.71.2. So I would call it a bug.

[Thargoid]

I guess it will also depend on the OXPs installed, as one or two of them have a little bit of sloppy scripting in terms of messaging in places (not just Thargoid communications too).

Some of the OXPs are post 1.71 only.

[Commander McLane]

That's possible. I think I'll do a little bug-hunting in the Thargoid-related OXPs I've installed.

(BUG-hunting in THARGOID-OXPs! That sounds insane! )

[Eric Walch]

That's possible. I think I'll do a little bug-hunting in the Thargoid-related OXPs I've installed.

(BUG-hunting in THARGOID-OXPs! That sounds insane! )

OK, it's a bug, but I think it is solved by now. What's happening: In pre 1.71 the curses were broadcasted by the ships AI. That did a range check so the player never got the message when out of scanner range.

In 1.71 the oolite thargoids send it with an JS script: "player.commsMessage()". This broadcast is always received by the player no matter what distance. Therefor all thargoid messages are received, and also some of newer oxp's.

1.72 will have a "ship.commsMessage()". This uses the range check and will exactly work like the old AI command. With 1.72 this will be right again for the internal ships, just the oxp ships will need new coding for that. Currently in my oxp's I use a custom rangecheck "ship <-> player" to prevent broadcasting this message from to far away.
"player.commsMessage()" just means that player is broadcasting (even when the command is in an other ships code) so it is logical the player also received this message always.

[Commander McLane]

Ah! Thanks for the explanation.