Hired Guns OXP

[Thargoid]

OXP now updated to work fully with v1.73. Download from the link in the first post, or from the sig links below.

[Thargoid]

This OXP has just had a small tweak up to v1.22.

Now the scripting is compatible with the Constrictor mission, in that if a player escort disposes of the rogue then the mission doesn't get broken as a result and the player still gets the glory.

Everything else is the same as before - so if you've already done that mission no need to update from v1.20

[Thargoid]

Now updated to v1.23. Just a minor scripting adjustment which will prevent the escort ships from attacking derelicts or ships whose crew have taken to the escape pods.

Should help with salvage and fuel gathering expeditions

Download from the first post in the thread, or the links below.

[JazHaz]

Now updated to v1.23.

Download from the first post in the thread, or the links below.

The download link still says v1.21. Is that right?

[Thargoid]

The download link still says v1.21. Is that right?

The link is right, I just forgot to change the name (which I have done now).

[Zireael]

There's a bug in Hired Guns.
One, one of my escorts crashes every time into a Fuel Station I'm in.
Two, after I target an escort with STE, its scanner lollipop goes gray (like unpowered craft), but it's still moving and working normally.

[Thargoid]

1) It's not a bug - it's an AI limitation which there's nothing much doable via OXP.
2) What the hell's STE? The escorts are actually scanClass ROCK, you'll notice that they don't mass lock you. Not sure why their changed scanner lollipop is getting reverted though.

Editted to add - scanner targetting enhancement?

As I said it's just because for some reason the lollipop is being reverted. It won't make any difference to the Escort itself, it'll just have a white flag instead of a yellow one until you dock or witchspace jump.

[Zireael]

1) It's not a bug - it's an AI limitation which there's nothing much doable via OXP.
2) What the hell's STE? The escorts are actually scanClass ROCK, you'll notice that they don't mass lock you. Not sure why their changed scanner lollipop is getting reverted though.

Editted to add - scanner targetting enhancement?

As I said it's just because for some reason the lollipop is being reverted. It won't make any difference to the Escort itself, it'll just have a white flag instead of a yellow one until you dock or witchspace jump.

Yeah, this. I know it's more of a quirk, but maybe the lollipop could stay yellow? And (I know it's been asked) why do the escorts don't have legal rating? I think they should have the same rating as the player.

[Thargoid]

Same reason as above - as far as the game is concerned they're mobile and aggressive rocks. To have legal status, they would have to be ships, at which point they would mass-lock you and it gets rather irritating.

As to the scanner colour, in theory they should stay yellow. I'm not sure why they're reverting, will need to look into that. But it's a minor cosmetic thing.

[Switeck]

Same reason as above - as far as the game is concerned they're mobile and aggressive rocks.

And considering many of the kills I've seen them get comes from ramming, they impact like rocks as well.

[Eric Walch]

There's a bug in Hired Guns.
One, one of my escorts crashes every time into a Fuel Station I'm in.
Two, after I target an escort with STE, its scanner lollipop goes gray (like unpowered craft), but it's still moving and working normally.

1) It's not a bug - it's an AI limitation which there's nothing much doable via OXP.

Its partly an oxp bug. Oolite uses a pre-collision warning system to avoid such collisions. However, things of class cargo are excluded from this warning as cargo is thought to be stupid . In trunk this has been changed to objects without a pilot being stupid. It was mainly mend to give escape-pods such warnings so they could better avoid flying into their mother shortly after launch.
Explicit adding pilots to your hired guns by defining characters, might help in 1.75. (Oolite won't add pilots to cargo object by default).

Tests with trunk show that that escorts are slightly better in avoiding obstacles than 1.74. Specific when the obstacle is a station like this example.

[Thargoid]

The escorts are class rock, not class cargo?

[Kaks]

Clearly, rocks are much cleverer than cargo!

Similar principle applies: if it's not a 'proper' ship, Oolite never sent a warning to it supposedly non-existent AI.
For 1.75, Oolite will just check to see if it's got a crew or not. So if the rock or cargo is piloted, things should look a bit better for collision avoidance purposes.

By the way, there'll be a new ship property in 1.75 too: thing.isPiloted will return true if that particular thing has got a crew, regardless of its class.

[Zireael]

Clearly, rocks are much cleverer than cargo!



Similar principle applies: if it's not a 'proper' ship, Oolite never sent a warning to it supposedly non-existent AI.

For 1.75, Oolite will just check to see if it's got a crew or not. So if the rock or cargo is piloted, things should look a bit better for collision avoidance purposes.



By the way, there'll be a new ship property in 1.75 too: thing.isPiloted will return true if that particular thing has got a crew, regardless of its class.

Was this property implemented in latest nightly?

A little question to the OXP author: why not make the escort's lollipop something else than yellow? I don't know... looks at the Wiki... yellow/magenta (magenta being the color the police on intercept use)... My fingers tend to twitch when I see a yellow lollipop on my scanner!

[Kaks]

It was implemented in trunk before the 16th of November 2010...