Oolite Bulletins

I've had this happen to me on about half a dozen occasions now:
I leave the station, jump out and find myself with an Offender tag.

Not normally one prone to check my legal status first thing after arriving in a new system, I only started noticing this when I got attacked by police for no good reason. Another one was really funny: I got ambushed in an anarchy, and quickly torn to shreds. My escape capsule ends up at a space bar, where the local patrons, taking great offense at my Offender status, immediately form an angry mob and chase me back to the hangar, giving me no choice but to jump into my ship and flee the premises. then politely wait while my insurance claim is processed and my replacement ship is kitted out to match the specifications of the old one, before forcing me to flee the premises.

I'm not doing anything that I know of to get this tag.
However, I've recently installed Anarchies, which makes it harder to get rid of your criminal record just by jumping. Is it possible that I've always been doing the thing that makes me an offender, but never noticed before because it got cleared by one jump?

Question still remains though: What possible criminal activity am I engaging in by leaving the station and jumping out?
Jumping too close to the station?
Not clearing the approach lane quickly enough?
Having hidden contraband on board that's so hidden it doesn't even show up on my manifest?

The last one might well be the case!

A few times I cleverly managed not to notice I had scooped up some narcotics (never firearms, I believe) from a pirate or two, went back to resupply fuel & missiles without going to the trading screen, and on leaving the station suddenly became an offender, for no apparent reason...

I swear I never saw those narcotics, officer!

Kaks wrote:

I swear I never saw those narcotics, officer!

'It crawled into my hand, honest'... to quote a good album title.

I tacked that last bit on as a joke. I am well aware of the "scooped & forgot about it" trap; I've done that enough times. So when I say "doesn't show up on my manifest" it means that I've checked the manifest, and it contains nothing but legal cargo. Unless there's something besides slaves, drugs and guns that has become illegal without me noticing it.

CheeseRedux wrote:

Unless there's something besides slaves, drugs and guns that has become illegal without me noticing it.

I think furs are also illegal at some systems.

Sarin wrote:

CheeseRedux wrote:

Unless there's something besides slaves, drugs and guns that has become illegal without me noticing it.

I think furs are also illegal at some systems.

An unlikely culprit. For one, I've never heard of illegal fur outside of Frontier. Furthermore, furs are one of the two main commodities for a trader (the other one being computers). That means a trader will always leave the station with as much furs as possible, or none at all.

My mystery offenses are not easily reproduceable: I can load a save with a Clean commander, launch, jump out and find myself an Offender. Reloading the same save game, followed by doing the exact same thing (as far as I can tell) can easily result in no Offender status.

What ship are you flying? This is a very long shot but i seem to remember that hitting the station while docking can be an offence or taken as an attack on the station?

Perhaps your ship is 'touching' the sides as you depart? May happen if you have a non-core ship...just a thought.

Does the problem appear also without OXPs? I have never seen it reported before.

I've not tried it without OXPs, no. As I'm not able to reproduce the thing, I've tried to avoid spending too much time on it. All I can say is that every time I've inadvertently become Offender, reloading and going through the exact same procedures fails to produce the same results.

Technical question: Do you become Offender the moment you have a bounty, or is there a threshold?
As in Bounty 0 = Clean, Bounty 0.0000000000001 = Offender contrasted with Bounty 0 = Clean, Bounty 0.5 = Clean, Bounty 1 = Offender?
(I've obviously just pulled the numbers out of the air, but you get my point.)

I'm asking because the only thing I have recently installed that should mess with legal status is Anarchies. Is it possible that I'm making some very minor infraction out of old habit, so minor that it used to be cleared with one jump, but now compounds?

The bounties are rounded, so bounty of 0.4999Cr results in clean status, while bounty of 0.5Cr results in offender status.

One question: How did you install Oolite? Are you on Ubuntu 10.04 and use the broken 1.19.3 GNUstep or you installed the game from the autopackage? This is not applicable of course, if you are on Windows.

I think CheeseRedux is a Windows user. I only mention this as, could there be a link?

Ah, that piece of basic information. I keep forgetting it may matter.
Win XP. So no Ubuntu trouble here.

I've only just recently upgraded from 1.73.4 to 1.74.2.


So does the rounding thing mean that my Anarchies theory might be possible? I'm still at a loss as to what I've been doing. I've tried all sorts of stuff with a Commander that just dropped from Offender to Clean, like sitting right outside the station for ages, completely ignoring the warnings to get out of there. No dice.

Smivs wrote:

I think CheeseRedux is a Windows user. I only mention this as, could there be a link?

No. No link. Absolutely no link.
For the record, I am in G1, and don't have TD installed.

Well, not that it's been used a lot, but OXP makers can decide which items are illegal using illegal_goods.plist, maybe one of the oxps you installed does just that... if that's the case the readme is usually kind enough to let you know, though!

CheeseRedux wrote:

Smivs wrote:

I think CheeseRedux is a Windows user. I only mention this as, could there be a link?

No. No link. Absolutely no link.
For the record, I am in G1, and don't have TD installed.

OK. I just wondered as you've found problems in some of your OXPs whether a more subtle problem of this type may be affecting your status.
Being a Windows user won't make you an Offender but a broken OXP might.