Oolite Bulletins

I sometimes wonder while I'm out hunting...when I ID someone, would that make me show up red on their scanner?

Similarly, what actions do AI ships have to take to show up red on mine?

i believe they have to actively target you to turn up red. Offenders and Fugitives can fly around quite placidly and won't turn red unless you attack them, eg.

In immersion mode again, I imagine a difference between using the ident system to IFF a ship, and locking-on with a missile, which is an act of aggression. How it actually works in the game engine is a mystery to me.

I think you only turn red if you launch a missile at, or cause damage to the ship.

This is one of the differences between player and NPCs. The NPCs realize the hostility of the player only the moment they have taken laser damage or a missile or mine launched at them. The player gets earlier warning of the intentions of other ships, as they turn red on the scanner before actually engaging in hostilities.

As for when an NPC turns red, that is pretty simple: An NPC is hostile when it exhibits any of the following behaviors:
BEHAVIOUR_ATTACK_TARGET
BEHAVIOUR_ATTACK_FLY_TO_TARGET
BEHAVIOUR_ATTACK_FLY_FROM_TARGET
BEHAVIOUR_RUNNING_DEFENSE
BEHAVIOUR_FLEE_TARGET
BEHAVIOUR_ATTACK_FLY_TO_TARGET_SIX
BEHAVIOUR_ATTACK_FLY_TO_TARGET_TWELVE

Strictly, you don't turn red as the NPC doesn't (strictly) have a scanner. It's a computer program and as such doesn't have eyes.
But that's boring, so let's assume it's a real entity with a scanner and you go red on it's scanner when you decide to attack it. It knows this because it's telepathic. Ah but that means it's the scanner that's telepathic. Some sort of radar/brain cyborg mutant thing. Man, this game's good!

In my mind (such as it is, lol), when you "R" Ident a ship, you're doing nothing scanning/reading the ship's ID beacon. To all intents and purposes you'd never know someone was doing this to you, they'd never know you were doing it to them, and why should it matter, it's a harmless action.
If you're ship's sensors register a radar lock tho, that's hostil action and that's when someone turns red. i imagine the guy's locked my up to track my ship and be ready to launch a missle when he chooses.
(or SHE chooses, let's not be sexist.)

Killer Wolf wrote:

In my mind (such as it is, lol), when you "R" Ident a ship, you're doing nothing scanning/reading the ship's ID beacon. To all intents and purposes you'd never know someone was doing this to you, they'd never know you were doing it to them, and why should it matter, it's a harmless action.
If you're ship's sensors register a radar lock tho, that's hostil action and that's when someone turns red. i imagine the guy's locked my up to track my ship and be ready to launch a missle when he chooses.
(or SHE chooses, let's not be sexist.)

That's how I had it pegged in my mind. *dust self down* *pat self on back* *job well done*. Of course, it falls down because some ships don't have missiles.. but but .. maybe they have lock they just don't have the pylons to fire anything.

So...

<immersion mode>
I consider myself a good citizen in my ooniverse. I try to keep a clean legal rating. I certainly don't want to be flying around terrorizing other pilots just because I want to know who they are.
</immersion mode>

Strictly speaking then, an AI ship shouldn't show up hostile until they score a hit on me, but even then I'd still consider 'warning' shots to be a hostile act and punishable by death.

This opens up some possibilities - I wonder if the AI could recognise a warning shot from the player and dump cargo in response (or turn and dispence mercilless laser fire)...but then this would be more immersive if combined with a ship to ship comms system to allow any pirates to announce their theats - a "stand and deliver" message if you will.

A ship to ship comms would also need a "Oh shit I'm sorry, I didn't mean to fire on you" message, just to try and calm the waters...

I'm rambling, and I really should be getting to work...

Bugbear1973 wrote:

but then this would be more immersive if combined with a ship to ship comms system to allow any pirates to announce their theats - a "stand and deliver" message if you will.

Dennis Moore.

One ton of Lupins!

Vaztr wrote:

One ton of Lupins!

Wouldn't that come under Luxuries? Or perhaps Narcotics, depending on species....

Bugbear1973 wrote:

This opens up some possibilities - I wonder if the AI could recognise a warning shot from the player and dump cargo in response (or turn and dispence mercilless laser fire)...but then this would be more immersive if combined with a ship to ship comms system to allow any pirates to announce their theats - a "stand and deliver" message if you will.

This is how Hacker Vipers from the Anarchies OXP react: At first they aggress you, and once they start taking hits they plead for mercy and offer to give up the position of their home base. Admittedly, the comms system only works one-way with those. But it shows there is merit to the idea.

Bugbear1973 wrote:

Strictly speaking then, an AI ship shouldn't show up hostile until they score a hit on me, but even then I'd still consider 'warning' shots to be a hostile act and punishable by death.

There is an element of this in the game mechanics.

While you can identify a ship as hostile even before it has fired a shot, police ships or hunters in the vicinity will only detect an attack and come to your help once a shot has hit you. Note: it is not enough that your opponent fired at you and missed, but he has to actually hit you.