Oolite Bulletins

Can anyone help me with the Nova mission?

I think I have all qualifications. I have over 2200 kills, a galactic hyperdrive and I'm in galaxy 4. I'd expect the Nova mission to have kicked in by now, but no. I've been tooling around for quite a while (enough time to get myself a nice Tiger with all the bits and bobs). I've completed the first two, Constrictor and Thargoid plans.

Still no sign of the bugger.

Do you need to be deadly for the mission to kick in? (2560 kills)

Thanks.

You need more than 6 jumps in that galaxy to activate the Nova mission.

I know. I must have done about a hundred by now.

Old Parishioner wrote:

I know. I must have done about a hundred by now.

Yes, but a lot of the new equipment could spoil the mission. e.g. the mission starts with a fuel leakage forcing the player to refuel. Normally the player does it at the main station were he receives the first briefing. With fuelpods, constores and or fuel stations, the player might just refuel there and pass the system without docking. But the system will have turned into a nova so on next entering there will not be a main station. So the player still has a clue he missed the mission.

In your case you probably have not fulfilled the last thing that leads to an offer. Naming it would be a spoiler. Only thing I can say: prepare your ship already for the next galaxy.

Thanks for the response. I think I've prepared for the next galaxy, but your observations have given me a clue.

Maybe my fuel collector or something is preventing the mission??

Don't know.

Still, thanks for the help.

Old Parishioner wrote:

Thanks for the response. I think I've prepared for the next galaxy, but your observations have given me a clue.

Maybe my fuel collector or something is preventing the mission??

Don't know.

I've been for a long time in that galaxy, also equipped with a galactic hyperdrive, but it did not become active. I've done some other oxp mission which forced me to jump out, though. Next visit was through Cataclysm and thus very short...maybe I should have stayed longer that time.

However, during the first visit, I neither had fuel stations nor fuel collector installed. Maybe something else needs to match?

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Old Parishioner wrote:

Thanks for the response. I think I've prepared for the next galaxy,

To make sure the mission is still pending, open your save file with a text editor and do a search for the word nova. You should find something like: <key>mission_novacount</key> and the next line gives a number of jumps in G4.
You should not find <key>mission_nova</key>. When you do, it means that the mission was already triggered but you didn't dock in the system.

If it has, I take it it's childs play to reset?

Basically, if you get a fuel leak and go to the main station to refuel, you will be offered the nova mission. If you dock anywhere else, refuel and leave the system without docking with the main station, you won't be offered any mission.

edit:thargoid, the nova count should still go up by one for every hyperjump inside the fourth galaxy... very strange...

There's a few extra things we haven't done in the nova mission that we can do for the future: we can blow external fuel tanks, if they're there, and we could create an extra mission screen that asks the player to go to the main station if they dock anywhere else inside the nova system... we can also make sure that the leak happens again and again when undocking from any OXP station, with an extra message saying that maybe they could repair the fuel subsystem in the main station.

Thargoid wrote:

Hmm, I seem to have a Nova count of zero, a Gal drive and no other Nova mission variables in my save file, and yet I've been bouncing around in G4 for ages and no mission.

Strange as oolite increments the nova_counter on every jump in G4.

There are two G4 mission oxp that do reset this counter to zero as long as those missions are running: deposes.oxp and lovecats.oxp. When those missions are ready or when the oxp is removed, the counter should start to increase again.

Maybe there is still an other oxp that resets the counter? Or one of the above missions is started but never ended and the oxp is left in place?

Thargoid wrote:

Personally I'd say that's getting too unrealistic and rather pointless, especially given people can just go off-road and use the torus drive anyway.

That's precisely why we refrained from blowing up the external tanks! The whole nova mission is centered around the somewhat claustrophobic(!) idea that the player is stuck in the system and really, really wants to leave the system NOW(edit:I had to disable farsun in the nova system because the original would move the nova too far away for the mission to be still meaningful!), but we don't quite want to force people down that path if they're really not that confortable with the idea.
People carrying fuel tanks don't seem to like being stuck anywhere...

The broadcast message is a good idea, but we'd have to penalise the player who bails out after reading it ('coward! how could you leave the system just like that!' etc..) which might not be everybody's cup of tea either...

Kaks wrote:

That's precisely why we refrained from blowing up the external tanks! The whole nova mission is centered around the somewhat claustrophobic(!) idea that the player is stuck in the system and really, really wants to leave the system NOW, but we don't quite want to force people down that path if they're really not that confortable with the idea. People carrying fuel tanks don't seem to like being stuck anywhere...

I wonder if that would make any difference at all! If there's a fuel leak, it doesn't seal itself as the wiki suggests, but does stay until docked and new fuel is bought! It's possible to get new fuel at the sun, but it also does instantly leak, thus I guess any fuel from fuel tanks would also just leak away, however, I have never tried that.

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