Oolite Bulletins

The NavalEnergyUnit can be purchased from shipyards (once you've completed the appropriate mission), but if you have previously purchased the ExtraEnergyUnit for your ship, then the NEU becomes unavailable.

So the procedure would be:
1. buy whatever ship you're admiring without an ExtraEnergyUnit installed
2. don't buy an ExtraEnergyUnit (which will prevent subsequent purchase of the NEU)
3. go to TL..14 or TL..15
4. then buy the NEU

I am downloading 1.73.4 now; don't know what the arrangements are with that release, but for 1.73.3 the above applies.

Good point about the extra energy unit! That's indeed been the case since at least 1.65 and afaik it should always be the case in future releases too. Those two types of energy units are incompatible with each other, and having one installed will prevent the other one from being offered.

Let's hope that next time anyone is stuck - unable to buy a naval energy unit - any of us will remember to ask if they've got an extra energy unit installed...

Thanks Zbond-Zbond!

Zbond-Zbond wrote:

The NavalEnergyUnit can be purchased from shipyards (once you've completed the appropriate mission), but if you have previously purchased the ExtraEnergyUnit for your ship, then the NEU becomes unavailable.

So the procedure would be:
1. buy whatever ship you're admiring without an ExtraEnergyUnit installed
2. don't buy an ExtraEnergyUnit (which will prevent subsequent purchase of the NEU)
3. go to TL..14 or TL..15
4. then buy the NEU

I am downloading 1.73.4 now; don't know what the arrangements are with that release, but for 1.73.3 the above applies.

Hmm, that explains much.

The whole point of the Naval Energy Unit is that it performs better than the Extra Energy Unit would. It used to be that one could buy the NEU after already having an EEU.

Thanks for sharing the information.

Hmm. I wonder whether we (read: someone else than me!) could make a change in trunk, so that the NEU will be buyable, but automatically remove the EEU, and vice versa? Would make much more sense IMO.

Commander McLane wrote:

Hmm. I wonder whether we (read: someone else than me!) could make a change in trunk, so that the NEU will be buyable, but automatically remove the EEU, and vice versa? Would make much more sense IMO.

Looking back in the versions I see that this bug (incompatibility with EEU) was introduced in the equipment.plist of Oolite 1.70.

IIRC it was actually introduced as a bugfix, to prevent the player from having both (see release notes of 1.71, with a reference to bug #13507).

But still, availability plus automatic removal of the other energy unit would be the best and most logical solution.

<shameless plug>In the meantime, you could sell your EEU first through sell_equipment.oxp.</shameless plug>

Good lord, it was me who fixed it! I am indeed getting forgetful in my dotage!

So something must have happened, since the behaviour has changed from what was described in the bugfix:

EEU should be incompatible with NEU, but not vice-versa. I'll have a look, and re-fix it with plenty of comments in the code, so hopefully it won't be un-fixed again!

I've re-fixed it, and put a huge 'warning, do not touch this fix' sign on it.
Hopefully it'll stay fixed this time.