Oolite Bulletins

I've just splattered a dozen or so nasties who gave me a bit of a hammering, that damaged my navigation indicator and naval energy unit, anyway I have to make a couple of hops (saving each time) to find a high enough tech system for repairs and get to a tech 12, all I'm offered is an extra energy unit, which I buy, but that's no good to me really, how do I get another naval energy unit? I've saved the last game undeer a different commander name so I still have the damaged naval unit on the previous save.

TGHC wrote:

I've just splattered a dozen or so nasties who gave me a bit of a hammering, that damaged my navigation indicator and naval energy unit, anyway I have to make a couple of hops (saving each time) to find a high enough tech system for repairs and get to a tech 12, all I'm offered is an extra energy unit, which I buy, but that's no good to me really, how do I get another naval energy unit? I've saved the last game undeer a different commander name so I still have the damaged naval unit on the previous save.

From what I read elsewhere on the bb, tech 13+ is needed for repair and 15 is needed to buy. Another option is repair bots (OXP).

Gimi wrote:

From what I read elsewhere on the bb, tech 13+ is needed for repair and 14 is needed to reliably buy.

Small correction. This also means that you may be lucky to get it on TL 13 sometimes. But TL 12 definitely isn't enough.

Commander McLane wrote:

Gimi wrote:

From what I read elsewhere on the bb, tech 13+ is needed for repair and 14 is needed to reliably buy.

Small correction. This also means that you may be lucky to get it on TL 13 sometimes. But TL 12 definitely isn't enough.

Thank you for putting me right.
I knew I had read about this before, and just searched the forums for the answer. Never been exposed to this predicament myself.

Gimi wrote:

Never been exposed to this predicament myself.

I have… the NEU is expensive kit to repair… 25k, I think. Just don’t get your cloaking device damaged.

Just wondering - What does the cloaking device do? Make the enemy unable to target your ship?

curtsibling wrote:

Just wondering - What does the cloaking device do? Make the enemy unable to target your ship?

Any missiles that are locked on you lose their locks and explode. Any ships that are hostile, stop being hostile (and often remain non-hostile when you decloak again, which seems a bit odd to me).

Regarding TGHC and the fact that he purchased a EEU when he couldn't get his NEU fixed: what will this do to the chances of repairing the NEU? Will it be offered for repair, and will this repair remove the EEU? Or will he have to buy a new NEU?

Disembodied wrote:

curtsibling wrote:

Just wondering - What does the cloaking device do?

Any missiles that are locked on you lose their locks and explode.

I'm not certain that's 100%... in immersion mode, I'll swear it doesn't work occasionly.
Same as my hardhead missiles... I'll swear that very occasionly they get ECM'd.

El Viejo wrote:

Disembodied wrote:

curtsibling wrote:

Just wondering - What does the cloaking device do?

Any missiles that are locked on you lose their locks and explode.

I'm not certain that's 100%... in immersion mode, I'll swear it doesn't work occasionly.
Same as my hardhead missiles... I'll swear that very occasionly they get ECM'd.

Me too...I'm sure I've had missiles 'ignore' the fact I'm cloaked.
ECM is not 100%, but neither are hardheads...it cuts both ways. more

El Viejo wrote:

Same as my hardhead missiles... I'll swear that very occasionly they get ECM'd.

Hardheads can definitely be ECM'd – it's always worth giving it a go if you've got the energy. I've never seen a missile ignore a cloak altogether, although I have seen a few missiles take their own sweet time in deciding to go "phut".

Disembodied wrote:

Regarding TGHC and the fact that he purchased a EEU when he couldn't get his NEU fixed: what will this do to the chances of repairing the NEU? Will it be offered for repair, and will this repair remove the EEU? Or will he have to buy a new NEU?

Always a bad choice to purchase a EEU in such occasions. Most Oolite ships -probably all- have no space to hold 2 different energy units. So, in order to mount a EEU, the work crew has to first remove the remaining parts of the NEU. But, that means that there is nothing to repair left.
The only thing a captain than can do is to buy a complete new one. It will cost you the full price and you can only do it at the highest t ech levels.

Thargoid wrote:

As to the response of a missile to a cloak, it depends on the missile's AI, specifically its response on loosing lock as noted. It could be made to do almost anything except keep a lock on the player ship (other than cheating with js).

I have once written a missile AI that remembers the position were the target cloaked and than flew to that position to explode. It can kill a target that didn't move after cloaking, but as soon as the target had moved a bit, the distance to the explosion is already to large to do real damage.

Eric Walch wrote:

Disembodied wrote:

Regarding TGHC and the fact that he purchased a EEU when he couldn't get his NEU fixed: what will this do to the chances of repairing the NEU? Will it be offered for repair, and will this repair remove the EEU? Or will he have to buy a new NEU?

Always a bad choice to purchase a EEU in such occasions. Most Oolite ships -probably all- have no space to hold 2 different energy units. So, in order to mount a EEU, the work crew has to first remove the remaining parts of the NEU. But, that means that there is nothing to repair left.
The only thing a captain than can do is to buy a complete new one. It will cost you the full price and you can only do it at the highest t ech levels.

Thargoid wrote:

As to the response of a missile to a cloak, it depends on the missile's AI, specifically its response on loosing lock as noted. It could be made to do almost anything except keep a lock on the player ship (other than cheating with js).

I have once written a missile AI that remembers the position were the target cloaked and than flew to that position to explode. It can kill a target that didn't move after cloaking, but as soon as the target had moved a bit, the distance to the explosion is already to large to do real damage.

So maybe not allow to buy EEU in such a case? Is that doable?

Zireal: It's doable but extremely unhelpful. No-one is forced to purchase a working EEU. It's there as an option. The standard recharge rate is too slow to cope with fully kitted out ships. Being able to buy an EEU when the NEU is broken came as a result of bug reports 2 years ago: players with broken NEUs were stuck with no supplementary energy unit at all until they could reach a planet with a high enough tech level.

And Eric: the EEU is bought at a discount: the value of the broken NEU (however small) is taken into account, and when repurchasing the NEU, the value of the currently installed EEU is also taken into account.

Systems where you can repair NEUs are few and far between, and having a working EEU is far better than having a non working anything else.
Nobody is forcing anybody to swap/keep anything at the moment: it's far better to leave the decision of what to do to each commander, rather than forcing them to go half way across the galaxy with a tragically underpowered iron ass every time their NEU breaks.

Eric Walch wrote:

I have once written a missile AI that remembers the position were the target cloaked and than flew to that position to explode. It can kill a target that didn't move after cloaking, but as soon as the target had moved a bit, the distance to the explosion is already to large to do real damage.

Eric, is this available anywhere to download? I'd like to add it into my game, i'm not that keen on having missiles just explode when they loose sight of their target (plus if you could add code so they re-acquired you as a target if you de-cloak and they're still around i might go so far as to W00T!!11oneoneeleven right here on this very forum)