Dredger Trader-Bug (AddOn)

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Hi,

a few hours ago I was so stupid to exchange my Boa Class Cruiser for a Dredger Trader. I thought it was a good idea, because the BCC doesn't have enough energy to fuel military lasers, thus a fight with many pirates is practically suicide, as after some time the BCC still has shields, but no energy at all...attempting to do anything then will just blow up the ship.

Since I am only playing for a few days, I didn't want to leave Galaxy 2 for the naval energy unit mission, but go to Zaria first. Thus, the Dredger, as it came with such an energy unit, appeared to be a good choice.

However, now I am suffering a really horrible Dredger Trader-Bug: When shot at, it appears that the shield which is being hit is not determined correctly. I had many situations when ships where in my sights behind me, they would hit the front shield...and vice versa. This makes it practically impossible to do proper evasives.

Furthermore, when flying the Dredger Trader, the forward view displays a gray 1-pixel line from lower right to a point somewhat below the laser sights. What's that?!?

Anyway...with the BCC I almost thought the enemy ships were unable to hit me...and the Dredger is being hit much more often. My suggestion, even if the bugs are fixed: If in doubt, rather buy the BCC!

On the good side: The DT really has a much better energy replenishment, and the shields often are only scratched slightly when ramming enemy ships.

Screet, wondering if he should revert to his old saved game before the ship-change

[Commander McLane]

the BCC doesn't have enough energy to fuel military lasers

Impossible. Lasers don't use energy. Only the cloaking device uses energy, and you shouldn't even have that yet in Galaxy 2. (Probably some other devices use energy as well, but those you shouldn't have at all.)

thus a fight with many pirates is practically suicide, as after some time the BCC still has shields, but no energy at all...

This is impossible under normal circumstances, and surely a symptom of a buggy OXP (see my other post).

However, now I am suffering a really horrible Dredger Trader-Bug: When shot at, it appears that the shield which is being hit is not determined correctly. I had many situations when ships where in my sights behind me, they would hit the front shield...and vice versa. This makes it practically impossible to do proper evasives. ... Anyway...with the BCC I almost thought the enemy ships were unable to hit me...and the Dredger is being hit much more often.

What do you expect if you fly a giant ship? Of course it is easier to hit a carrier than a speedboat. Common sense could have told you that before you bought a monstrum.

Furthermore, when flying the Dredger Trader, the forward view displays a gray 1-pixel line from lower right to a point somewhat below the laser sights. What's that?!?

I would guess it's part of the ship's hull obscuring part of the view out of your window. Again, what do you expect if you fly a monstrum? Probably it's also result of a poor choice of viewpoints in the OXP you got the dredger from, which would just be another bug.

Screet, wondering if he should revert to his old saved game before the ship-change.

Yes, you should, as of my other post.

[JensAyton]

Impossible. Lasers don't use energy. Only the cloaking device uses energy, and you shouldn't even have that yet in Galaxy 2. (Probably some other devices use energy as well, but those you shouldn't have at all.)

Care for a little Wagar wager? :-)

The laser does in fact use energy, but on most ships the recharge rate is so high it’s not noticeable. The other primary energy drain is shield recharging. If you fire the lasers continually while the shields are charging, charging will take longer.

[Eric Walch]

thus a fight with many pirates is practically suicide, as after some time the BCC still has shields, but no energy at all...

This is impossible under normal circumstances, and surely a symptom of a buggy OXP (see my other post).

It should be possible. Shields draw energy from the energy banks. When this happens faster than bank regeneration it can happen. It only becomes less likely with all energy units fitted.

However, now I am suffering a really horrible Dredger Trader-Bug: When shot at, it appears that the shield which is being hit is not determined correctly.

I am not sure if this is a bug. It sometimes happens to my boa also. When shot frontal the laser still can hit the back of the ship. The other way round it is less likely. But all depends on the ships shape. It is less likely to happen with a ship that has its broadest point in the middle.

Furthermore, when flying the Dredger Trader, the forward view displays a gray 1-pixel line from lower right to a point somewhat below the laser sights. What's that?!?

That's a real bug in the ship design. Somehow the texture doesn't fit right and leaving this trail of pixels at the right side. Now the viewpoint is from just within the ship. I put it yesterday 2 meters higher. Than you look from just outside. The drawback is than that you really look up the ships nose that is blocking part of your view. When looking from within the code makes it does not display the ship.

I also noticed with this ship how expensive it could be. I never flew with it but when I tried to buy one yesterday, I couldn't afford it as it did cost 5,000,000 credits. (so I hacked a saved file for testing purposes). I noticed before that they are sometimes exceptional expensive, but when looking at the defined base price it is the same as a boa. The DT however can have a big amount of additional equipment pre-installed when on sale. I think this extra stuff makes the price for all ships quite high. Better buy a empty ship and buy & install the stuff yourself.

[Commander McLane]

Impossible. Lasers don't use energy. Only the cloaking device uses energy, and you shouldn't even have that yet in Galaxy 2. (Probably some other devices use energy as well, but those you shouldn't have at all.)

Care for a little Wagar wager?

The laser does in fact use energy, but on most ships the recharge rate is so high it’s not noticeable. The other primary energy drain is shield recharging. If you fire the lasers continually while the shields are charging, charging will take longer.

Who was it who said that every day there is something new to learn? Seems to have been right.

Anyway, just gave myself a BCC and did a small test. Even with continuous military laser fire in all four directions I couldn't bring down the ship's energy the least little bit. The recharge rate of 3.2 is fully sufficient to feed a military laser. There is only a constant flickering at the maximum power. So still, in order to overconsume the ship's energy, something else must eat it (which no player in Galaxy 2 is supposed to have, except for running buggy OXPs).

[Lestradae]

Erm, concerning @Commander McLane's "see my other thread" topic:

The Dredger Trader is actually not from Realistic Shipyards, it' s from Dredgers 2.0.

The Deep Space Dredger from RS is a different entity, that one's only "bug" (not one, actually, intended feature) is that it is about as maneuverable as an asteroid ...



L

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Anyway, just gave myself a BCC and did a small test. Even with continuous military laser fire in all four directions I couldn't bring down the ship's energy the least little bit. The recharge rate of 3.2 is fully sufficient to feed a military laser. There is only a constant flickering at the maximum power. So still, in order to overconsume the ship's energy, something else must eat it (which no player in Galaxy 2 is supposed to have, except for running buggy OXPs).

The funny thing is, that I went from Python to BCC very early in the game, OXPs haven't been that much of interest to me at that point, as all was new. I began putting in more stuff later (as I couldn't have switched to that Dredger Trader otherwise).

The first two times that thing with the energy on the BCC happened to me, I indeed thought that I might have been hit by some kind of mine or missile that would drain my ships energy, an idea that I later left.

On that BCC there has neither been naval energy unit (still did not fly the mission and it happened when I couldn't even get my hands on one by buying a ship with it, that came later) nor the cloaking device, which I still do not have.

However, what did happen to me in many of those occasions is, that I did fight pretty many pirates. Thus, both front and aft shields were scratched, but not down and I was constantly switching between front and aft lasers in order to have one cool down while being able to continue firing. The very big drain, of course, came from me having to extensively use ECM as some hardened missiles were fired at me. I then learned that it's sometimes more energy efficient to let a missile hit me instead of trying to bring it down. All the above stuff really does add pretty much stress to the energy banks and then you can easily see how the military laser does affect the banks. Indeed, when I was playing Elite, I was often using missiles against enemies just for one thing: To make them use their ECM and thus run out of energy. Truthfully, the only missiles I've fired in Oolite are the salvage ones - which indeed always delivered random messages why they couldn't work (which might be the best thing about them, as such a thing could otherwise cause heavy imbalance, even though the idea is tempting).

Concerning the BCC energy drain: I even had it a few times that I stopped firing, just pursuing an enemy ship (they stop evasive and stop firing, maybe aft lasers should be standard and AIs trained to use it)...and I would not even see anything of recharge being added to my banks, sometimes not even seing ANY energy displayed there at all. In such a case, a single attempt to shoot would destroy my own ship.

In the forums I've read about someone who had fought a thargoid (was it warship or some other?) and got multiple times the bounty, as every time he hit it, he got a reward, but it took many hits until the ship went down. Someone said it probably had less than 0 energy. I wonder if there is something related, as thargoids apparently also use ECM and have powerful lasers. Maybe there is a timing problem that can cause a ship to go below 0 without hitting 0 when multiple energy drain factors happen at the same time.

I just had reported a similar thing concerning the fuel scoop - with one ton of cargo free and flying over multiple scoopable things at once, you get many things at once scooped. That's fine, but that way I managed to get more cargo aboard than my ship can load yesterday. Obviously the check is a little bit early there, thus allowing two (or more?) tons being checked as "can be scooped" even though they together would not fit into the ship.

Concerning the shipyards, I would be pretty happy if a restricted version would be done for it, so that I could stick to ships that better fit into the game and leave the StarTrek/StarWars stuff outside. I really like the general idea and - probably due to bugs with some other addon - it does also have some nice "misbehaviours":
- I now have much more daring hostile encounters, even though I believe that there are far too many pirate capital ship around. Especially the condors seem almost all to have deserted into piracy. Yesterday I got intercepted by two condors, two Kestrels and many minor ships...and when I got them all, another Condor came in, before I was finished recharging and when I didn't have any fuel left...the incredible missile volleys of that condor got me, as permanent ECM was possible, but pretty futile due to the massive amount of missiles. Another encounter even had Constrictor together with Wolf and minor ships against me...that soon becomes pretty tough, even when the Constrictor in it's mission was very easy to shoot.
- The massive income due to rock hermits is practically shut down, the compass helper addon even often fails to report rock hermits now. Additionally, before those addons, I've never even encountered stuff like an abandoned rock hermit...such things really add up to the game. I even crashed my ship in an attempt to move into the now rotating asteroids damaged dock, in the hope that such a thing could work with much luck.
- The shipyards do double the amount of goods of the systems main station in a price range that is very close, often equal to the main station. Since everyone who has moved beyond Cobra to Python, Boa or something like that knows that a station is probably too heavily restricted in the amount of goods it would buy or sell, this does reduce the effect without overdoing it. Indeed I was faster making credits with the BCC without those addons than with the DT and those AddOns installed.
- Some ships appear a bit too tiny to me, however, fighting ships where parts can be shot off appears pretty realistic and often leads to enemy ships that won't be able to hurt me much (because I crippled them) but which are almost impossible to finish, as the laser most often just goes right through their hull without doing additional damage. Firefly is probably the best (annoying) example, while the Kestrel is a little more fun. I found out that the best way to deal with such ships is to ram them. When they are crippled, they often won't even scratch my shields.
- Pilots of very powerful ships like Wolf and Mussurana apparently also know about ramming capabilities of their ships, increasing danger for me in a nice way, so that I won't get overconfident.

Anyway...one thing I surely won't like to remove is the "Deep Space Pirates" (spelling?) because it creates a feeling that pretty much matches the original Elite feeling. I do leave the lanes because that's now an easy way to find/fight pirates without having to hit injectors in order to get away from non-hostile ships on the lane.

Also...I don't know where that came from, but it was REALLY fun: many custom painted ships, especially stuff like Gecko, Krait, ... from a pirate gang called "Tigers". That really felt very good to the game, and it was sometimes pretty tough - even in a stable system they would expect me at the jump point, in highly impressive numbers.

Concerning the stuff about selecting a really big ship: Yes, I already expected the BCC to be hit much more often, however it appears to me that the BCC is even hit less likely than my old CM3. With the DT it's probably more realistic, however, it's also the first ship where I saw the problem of hitting the shields on the other side of the ship...and that's a massive tradeoff there.

The ramming capabilities of the DT seem to be even higher than with the BCC and I really like what I saw until now concerning such things, as the program does take the speed of both ships (or ship and asteroid) very well into account, giving experiences from a little "bang" with almost no damage to everyone up to a DT that's squished on an asteroid when the speed was too high Whoever wrote that code - it really feels fitting for the game!

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[Commander McLane]

First of all apologies to Lestradae. If the Dredger Trader is not from RS, its design flaws are obviously not RS' fault. (I just tend to assume that every ship in the game comes from RS, if a player has it installed. Wasn't that the original purpose of the OXP?)

On that BCC there has neither been naval energy unit (still did not fly the mission and it happened when I couldn't even get my hands on one by buying a ship with it, that came later).

True, the installation of one of the energy units would make a big difference. In my short test I did have a Naval Energy Unit installed, so the result was probably different to what you had at that point.

The very big drain, of course, came from me having to extensively use ECM as some hardened missiles were fired at me.

Ah, another point I didn't consider. Yes, the drain from repeatedly firing the ECM is indeed considerable on almost any ship. And indeed I remember from playtesting with weaker ships that you can almost commit suicide with just hitting 'E' constantly. The ECM will, however, automatically shut down if you are down to one energy bank. So you can't go the full way to killing yourself with your own ECM.

I then learned that it's sometimes more energy efficient to let a missile hit me instead of trying to bring it down.

Have you considered running away from it as an alternative? Requires fuel injectors, though, which don't drain you energy (although they do drain you fuel).

Truthfully, the only missiles I've fired in Oolite are the salvage ones - which indeed always delivered random messages why they couldn't work (which might be the best thing about them, as such a thing could otherwise cause heavy imbalance, even though the idea is tempting).

Note that the salvage missiles only work on special shipwrecks that have been placed by the dredger.oxp. They do not work on any ship that was wrecked in front of your eyes. (I think the latest version of dredgers.oxp marks the salvagable ships in a special way. And I also tend to think that this behaviour is documented in dredger.oxp's readMe.)

Concerning the BCC energy drain: I even had it a few times that I stopped firing, just pursuing an enemy ship (they stop evasive and stop firing, maybe aft lasers should be standard and AIs trained to use it)...and I would not even see anything of recharge being added to my banks, sometimes not even seing ANY energy displayed there at all. In such a case, a single attempt to shoot would destroy my own ship.

Energy is constantly being replenished. The two different energy units increase only the rate of replenishment. If the energy unit installed on your ship would be damaged during a fight, the recharge rate would of course drop down to the default. However, critical systems are recharged first. And the most critical systems in a fight are your shields. So, as long as your shields are depleted, all available energy recharge goes into them. Therefore you wouldn't see an increase in your ship's main energy bars until your shields are full again.

In the forums I've read about someone who had fought a thargoid (was it warship or some other?) and got multiple times the bounty, as every time he hit it, he got a reward, but it took many hits until the ship went down. Someone said it probably had less than 0 energy. I wonder if there is something related, as thargoids apparently also use ECM and have powerful lasers. Maybe there is a timing problem that can cause a ship to go below 0 without hitting 0 when multiple energy drain factors happen at the same time.

According to the code wizards this bug hes been fixed.

I just had reported a similar thing concerning the fuel scoop - with one ton of cargo free and flying over multiple scoopable things at once, you get many things at once scooped. That's fine, but that way I managed to get more cargo aboard than my ship can load yesterday. Obviously the check is a little bit early there, thus allowing two (or more?) tons being checked as "can be scooped" even though they together would not fit into the ship.

Yes, this is a well-known issue. Just consider yourself lucky to be able to scoop an extra ton.

Concerning the shipyards, I would be pretty happy if a restricted version would be done for it, so that I could stick to ships that better fit into the game and leave the StarTrek/StarWars stuff outside. I really like the general idea and - probably due to bugs with some other addon - it does also have some nice "misbehaviours":

Do you know that you don't need RS to get greater variety in ships? You can just as easily download and install just those extra ship OXPs you want. The choice is yours. Just scroll through the list, click on the nice looking ships and then click on the download link. Of course many ships come in packs, so if you like ship A you would also get ship B and C along with it. But packs tend to be balanced and themed, so chances are that if you like one member of a pack, you will like the others too. There is no guarantee that the list is complete, so it is worthwhile to check out the OXP page as well and have a look at all short descriptions which are preceeded by the word 'ship'. Or scroll down to the Ships and Ship variants section of the 'order by category' part.

Concerning the stuff about selecting a really big ship: Yes, I already expected the BCC to be hit much more often, however it appears to me that the BCC is even hit less likely than my old CM3.

The BCC actually isn't bigger than a Cobra III (people--myself included--tend to underestimate a Cobra's size). The real difference is its shape.

With the DT it's probably more realistic, however, it's also the first ship where I saw the problem of hitting the shields on the other side of the ship...and that's a massive tradeoff there.

Believe me, during playtesting I've had that with almost any ship. Myself I am flying an Imperial Courier, and I see my not-on-the-enemie's-side shield hit quite regularly.

[Eric Walch]

Anyway...one thing I surely won't like to remove is the "Deep Space Pirates" (spelling?) because it creates a feeling that pretty much matches the original Elite feeling. I do leave the lanes because that's now an easy way to find/fight pirates without having to hit injectors in order to get away from non-hostile ships on the lane.

This oxp was intended to drive ships back into the space lane again. Probably the "outer lane" is still not unsafe enough for some pilots. It randomly adds clouds of up to 8 pirate ships. And often one of them also has escorts so there are sometimes even more. That should be enough to keep "normal" pilots away.

Also...I don't know where that came from, but it was REALLY fun: many custom painted ships, especially stuff like Gecko, Krait, ... from a pirate gang called "Tigers". That really felt very good to the game, and it was sometimes pretty tough - even in a stable system they would expect me at the jump point, in highly impressive numbers.

They are from hotrods.oxp I think the ships designs came from A_H, and Kaks gave them an addition script with hotrods that made them act this way.

Energy is constantly being replenished..... However, critical systems are recharged first. And the most critical systems in a fight are your shields. So, as long as your shields are depleted, all available energy recharge goes into them. Therefore you wouldn't see an increase in your ship's main energy bars until your shields are full again.

That is what the player mostly sees. But the energy units really only give their energy to the banks. From programming point of view this is also the easiest to program: On every update the banks are replenished first based on the available energy units. In the same update shields are replenished and the banks are depleted with the same amount. The net result for the energy banks could be a lowering until all shields are full. But that you only will see with some ships when they don't have energy units.

The BCC actually isn't bigger than a Cobra III (people--myself included--tend to underestimate a Cobra's size). The real difference is its shape.

Add me also to that list of miss believers on size. It is very difficult to recognise he real size of a ship. For the new buoyRepair.oxp I added a boa and an anaconda to the system that are doubled in size. They have a double length compared to the regular ones and only dock at the GRS station. But when looking at it I don't easy recognise this double size, even when I know it. Same for the cobra size: Its probably the fact that you know it has a low cargo capacity that makes you think it is also much smaller than a BCC.

- The massive income due to rock hermits is practically shut down, the compass helper addon even often fails to report rock hermits now.

That probably means it are not real rock hermits but just rocks imitating them. The helper is programmed to only recognise the real ones and those added by pirate_coves.oxp.
I have never downloaded nor seen RS so I can't really comment on it, but I always have the feeling it is overdoing it a lot. The beauty of individual oxp's is that you can design the universe to your own taste and computer capacity. That goes better when adding the individual oxp's that are bundled in RS instead of the bundle as a whole.

Note that the salvage missiles only work on special shipwrecks that have been placed by the dredger.oxp. They do not work on any ship that was wrecked in front of your eyes. (I think the latest version of dredgers.oxp marks the salvagable ships in a special way. And I also tend to think that this behaviour is documented in dredger.oxp's readMe.)

It is documented, but you also know there are probably less than 10 people around that reads them. When I was working on the scripting of the dredger it was you that pointed me on the existence of an other larger dredger package of Sabre. I think you even mailed me the package. That package included the DT. When working on the package, the idea of salvaging was launched. This package of Sabre also includes a missile and a shuttle, all in a consistent design. I didn't want to remove anything so I also let the DT in. Sabre gave also a link to even more designs of him but I stayed with this, internally consistent, package.
But when you read the documentation, you'll see that, when employed right, the missiles lead to even more pirate combat. I order to collect the salvage fee you must defeat two pirate waves that try to shoot down your salvaged ship before it can safely dock.

[Commander McLane]

When I was working on the scripting of the dredger it was you that pointed me on the existence of an other larger dredger package of Sabre. I think you even mailed me the package. That package included the DT.

Yes, I remember. But this only means that I somehow had it in my folder where I store all Oolite downloads. Which only means that at some point I downloaded the OXP, not that I actually have it installed, nor that I ever intended to install it, nor that I've opened it and know its contents.

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I then learned that it's sometimes more energy efficient to let a missile hit me instead of trying to bring it down.

Have you considered running away from it as an alternative? Requires fuel injectors, though, which don't drain you energy (although they do drain you fuel).

Yes, but only with fugitive Condors whom's first target I was

Truthfully, the only missiles I've fired in Oolite are the salvage ones - which indeed always delivered random messages why they couldn't work (which might be the best thing about them, as such a thing could otherwise cause heavy imbalance, even though the idea is tempting).

Note that the salvage missiles only work on special shipwrecks that have been placed by the dredger.oxp. They do not work on any ship that was wrecked in front of your eyes. (I think the latest version of dredgers.oxp marks the salvagable ships in a special way. And I also tend to think that this behaviour is documented in dredger.oxp's readMe.)

That's quite funny! Before your post, I went to weapons trading instead, buying and selling Q-Bombs. I've only seen one derelict python until then...and wasn't able to do anything about that ship due to the massive pirate presence around...but few hours after your post I did get the message, that derelict vessels were in the system - and switchted back to salvage missiles. Few jumps later, I again had that message, got two pythons at once through to the dredger...for a lousy 2.5K per ship. Q-Bomb trading provides far more income...and with that little amount of money for derelicts, the missiles really could work on any abandoned ship.

Stupid me was annoyed at the triple cost for new salvage missiles at the Dredger...stupid, because on the way back to the station I encountered 3 derelict Cobras. Went back to the Dredger and didn't engage the sluggish auto pilot...bad decision. Obviously the Dredger did turn while I attempted to dock.

After all, I don't need the money...I even buy Salvage Bonds...so I now continue with the salvage missiles

Concerning the stuff about selecting a really big ship: Yes, I already expected the BCC to be hit much more often, however it appears to me that the BCC is even hit less likely than my old CM3.

The BCC actually isn't bigger than a Cobra III (people--myself included--tend to underestimate a Cobra's size). The real difference is its shape.

That quite astonished me...until I went very close behind a CM3...

I wonder if the program could get something like an auto-scale for ship models. Few minutes ago I found out, that my Merlin, which can carry 25TC, is about the size of one cargo container. No wonder that bumbing into a Thargon (Thargoid robot fighter) did not destroy the target, but sent my ship spinning around for some seconds. Firefly, Kestrel and many other ships appear also similar in size...as if they were part of a nibblonian battle fleet

With the DT it's probably more realistic, however, it's also the first ship where I saw the problem of hitting the shields on the other side of the ship...and that's a massive tradeoff there.

Believe me, during playtesting I've had that with almost any ship. Myself I am flying an Imperial Courier, and I see my not-on-the-enemie's-side shield hit quite regularly.

I later observed that it was almost always a Wolf that would do that to my shields...maybe some special of that ship as it fires multiple lasers at once when an NPC is behind the controls.

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This oxp was intended to drive ships back into the space lane again. Probably the "outer lane" is still not unsafe enough for some pilots. It randomly adds clouds of up to 8 pirate ships. And often one of them also has escorts so there are sometimes even more. That should be enough to keep "normal" pilots away.

My guess is that it's up to triple that amount...and, yes, I like that AddOn because of that behaviour. That is exactly what lures me away from the trading lanes. Maybe my ship should have a matching repaint ... or pirates should flee at the sight of my ship approaching ("Oh, no, it's YOU!")...funny thing is, that they more often complain that their ships are soooo expensive when I shoot em up

- The massive income due to rock hermits is practically shut down, the compass helper addon even often fails to report rock hermits now.

That probably means it are not real rock hermits but just rocks imitating them. The helper is programmed to only recognise the real ones and those added by pirate_coves.oxp.

I don't even have pirate coves installed. However, those hermits did not have a nav beacon...and I often see pirates waiting around hermits, even when they do have beacons. Furthermore, I crashed two times while attempting to dock at a "Rock Hermit" without beacon, even though I was sure that I had a perfect approach. Maybe I should stop my behaviour of maximum speed docking (or even using the injectors while docking)

I have never downloaded nor seen RS so I can't really comment on it, but I always have the feeling it is overdoing it a lot. The beauty of individual oxp's is that you can design the universe to your own taste and computer capacity. That goes better when adding the individual oxp's that are bundled in RS instead of the bundle as a whole.

The overdoing...count me in, however, I leave it installed. I like the shipyards and I am really afraid of the work to find all those nice ship packs and install them manually. I just wish there was a little bit more restricted version of RS available.

It is documented, but you also know there are probably less than 10 people around that reads them. When I was working on the scripting of

Guilty...however, I really did read some of those readme files...and there wasn't anything of interest in them, which is the reason why I stopped reading them.

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[Commander McLane]

That's quite funny! Before your post, I went to weapons trading instead, buying and selling Q-Bombs.

It is certainly a bug that this is even possible. My guess is that you are buying them on a main station, and selling them on some shipyard with an insanely high equipment_price_factor? The engine should make that impossible, by limiting the resell-values to something reasonable.

I wonder if the program could get something like an auto-scale for ship models.

Well, there is always the documentation. In this case, the Wiki ship pages. Each entry is supposed to have (and most do have) a small table with the ship's stats, for instance its size.

Few minutes ago I found out, that my Merlin, which can carry 25TC, is about the size of one cargo container.

Which shows that the ship's designer didn't think it out properly. Either he made the model too small, or he made the specs to big. (Therefore I would personally not install Merlin.oxp. And if I wanted to, I would make the ship more sensible either in size or in stats.)

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That's quite funny! Before your post, I went to weapons trading instead, buying and selling Q-Bombs.

It is certainly a bug that this is even possible. My guess is that you are buying them on a main station, and selling them on some shipyard with an insanely high equipment_price_factor? The engine should make that impossible, by limiting the resell-values to something reasonable.

No, buy them where it's cheap....that's typically 250 Credits below stations normal, sometimes half the stations normal price.

Concerning a full payload of Computers and Machines, it's still less than a single "common" flight but can be a nice-add on to its profits, if you do want some other ship.

The restriction does work for the Churchill, that much I can say. They have insanely high prices there, but the resale value is about that of a common station.

Concerning money...I really don't understand it sometimes. Shortly ago I made almost 150K Credits plus, even though I had spent quite something on maintenance and a few energy bombs, but I did only occasionally use that 25T hold for trading, didn't do weapons trading....but I did have quite some fights and the profit from selling pirates cargo might explain. With a cargo ship like BCC, I was making that much in 90-120 minutes, though

I wonder if the program could get something like an auto-scale for ship models.

Well, there is always the documentation. In this case, the Wiki ship pages. Each entry is supposed to have (and most do have) a small table with the ship's stats, for instance its size.

I did check those sometimes, but honestly, never for size I even wish the ship-resellers would tell me more than how it looks, how fast it is and how much cargo it can hold, because the turn rates do have quite some effect. With BCC and DT it usually was best just to run over the small ships, instead of attempting to shoot them up. With Merlin that attempt would be suicidal, however, aiming is so much easier and I've got the impression that I need far less hits in order to blow something up.

Indeed I would have expected ships with multiple front lasers would behave in such a way, but when I tested this on a few models, I did not find such an effect (probably I did not test well enough?). For those ships, I also only could buy ONE front laser...and had only ONE laser beam visible, while NPCs to get multiple beams out of them.

Few minutes ago I found out, that my Merlin, which can carry 25TC, is about the size of one cargo container.

Which shows that the ship's designer didn't think it out properly. Either he made the model too small, or he made the specs to big. (Therefore I would personally not install Merlin.oxp. And if I wanted to, I would make the ship more sensible either in size or in stats.)

Hmmm....is there a how-to in order to do that? I really do like the look of that ship...and I would rather have it take more fire due to size than to have rammed Thargons send me spinning around It really feels like it could make "splash" anytime and I end up, smashed on the window of one of the "normal" size ships.

The REALLY strange thing, though, is that I still have the impression that the same laser on different ships has much different fire power?!? Maybe the agility of the ship does allow me to hit that much better...but an adder typically only survives 1-2 seconds when exposed to laser fire, that appears MUCH too low.

Screet

[Commander McLane]

With Merlin ... aiming is so much easier and I've got the impression that I need far less hits in order to blow something up.

You may be right here, and it is directly related to the size of the ship. You will have noticed that you can see your own laser emerging from the bottom of the screen and then end in the crosshairs. Why is that so? Because your viewpoint is above the laser-exit point of your ship. As your view and the laser both are pointed exactly forward, they actually never meet. They are parallel. Your crosshairs, however, are centred for your viewpoint. Which means that the point where your laser hits your target it always a little below the actual centre of your crosshairs. If your target is exactly in the centrepoint of your crosshairs, chances are that you won't hit it, but fire below its belly. Of course the difference is the greater, the more off viewpoint and laser-exit poit are. Which in most cases is directly related to your ship's size.

So, if you were aiming for the exact centre of your crosshairs, you would have missed a distant and not too large target with a big ship, but probably would still hit it with a small ship. That's all.

The only thing that is required in training, is to get used to the specific offset of your current ship.

Indeed I would have expected ships with multiple front lasers would behave in such a way, but when I tested this on a few models, I did not find such an effect (probably I did not test well enough?). For those ships, I also only could buy ONE front laser...and had only ONE laser beam visible, while NPCs to get multiple beams out of them.

This is a limitation of the game engine. Player ships can't have multiple lasers. Only NPCs can.

Few minutes ago I found out, that my Merlin, which can carry 25TC, is about the size of one cargo container.

Which shows that the ship's designer didn't think it out properly. Either he made the model too small, or he made the specs to big. (Therefore I would personally not install Merlin.oxp. And if I wanted to, I would make the ship more sensible either in size or in stats.)

Hmmm....is there a how-to in order to do that? I really do like the look of that ship...and I would rather have it take more fire due to size than to have rammed Thargons send me spinning around It really feels like it could make "splash" anytime and I end up, smashed on the window of one of the "normal" size ships.

If you are talking about adjusting the ship's specs, the how-to is: open its shipdata.plist and adjust according to your needs (documentation of the keys in the wiki).

If it's about resizing the ship, it's not quite that easy. You would need to convert its dat-file to a readable format for the 3d-modelling application of your choice, resize the ship, and convert it back.

If you're on a Mac, it is a little easier: there is DryDock, a small application written by Ahruman, which allows you to inspect Oolite's ships by opening their dat-files. It's very basic, but it features a resize-option, and can re-save directly as dat-file. Problem is that the wiki stills seems to be down, so I can't give you a download link.

The REALLY strange thing, though, is that I still have the impression that the same laser on different ships has much different fire power?!? Maybe the agility of the ship does allow me to hit that much better...but an adder typically only survives 1-2 seconds when exposed to laser fire, that appears MUCH too low.

That depends solely on the energy of your target. Laser hits reduce the energy of the ship (NPCs don't actually have shields, so from the first strike your laser eats their energy banks). An Adder has comparably little energy, so it dies quickly.