Oolite Bulletins

Anybody had any joy completing this mission in Oolite?

Yeah, I think so...

Anyway, I visited a planet and Captain Curruthers asked me to seek and destroy the Constrictor.

I set my hyperspace to Usqurave, the nearest Tech Level 13 system, since I wanted to get my hands on these new afterburner things. Since I'm currently a fugitive I dispatched everything in site, including all the cops. When I docked I got the debrief message saying there will always be a place for me in the space navy.

However whilst I targetted everything in site to check what it was none of them came up as a Constrictor. Most ships I didn't get to do a visual ID on, since I blew them up from pretty far away.

I thought that I was supposed to get something for completing the Constrictor mission... Oh well.

Maybe the 'prize' was the cargo from the destroyed constrictor..?

Whilst completing said mission in other versions of og. Elite when i visited other planets within 7lyr of the galactic hyper-drive destination I was greeted with messages about the Constrictors possible whereabouts.
This does not appear to be implemented in Oolite.

The reward for the constrictor mission is a 5000 cr prize and 256 kills added to your total, plus any loot you picked up on the way.

jonnycuba wrote:

Whilst completing said mission in other versions of og. Elite when i visited other planets within 7lyr of the galactic hyper-drive destination I was greeted with messages about the Constrictors possible whereabouts.
This does not appear to be implemented in Oolite.

It's implemented (has been since v1.01).

In galaxy 1 you get messages (at the bottom of the Planet Data screen) at Xeer and Reesdice (planets mentioned in the briefing), and at Arexe.

In Galaxy 1 you get messages at planets close to the constrictor's location.

I just got the debrief message without destroying any ships! (maybe this should be in bug section). I was flying between the planets you mentioned docked @ Xeer & was greeted with same message as Stevesims

perhaps someone else destroyed the constrictor for you. it could be possible that it was jumped by a bunch of pirates i suppose..

jonnycuba wrote:

I just got the debrief message without destroying any ships! (maybe this should be in bug section). I was flying between the planets you mentioned docked @ Xeer & was greeted with same message as Stevesims

I can't seem to reproduce this at the moment.

If you have copies of saved games before and after this happens, could you mail them to me?

Sorry, I didn't keep a copy of my saved commander file...

One other thing. As I mentioned above I literally just got the briefing, flew to the next planet, blowing up everything in site, and then got the "well done" message. I didn't see any of the other messages giving clues as to the Constrictor's whereabouts. Having looked at the mission script and comparing it to the dumped galaxy map and system list it didn't seem that the mission had worked properly. If I read the script right I wasn't at the right system number for the Constrictor to be present. In fact I've never visited that planet.

As I also mentioned this happened twice - I reloaded my commander after I got the "well done" message because I didn't notice any kind of reward and wanted to see if I could actually spot the constrictor, which I didn't manage to do.

Now it's possible that I don't understand the script properly. It's also possible that, as capnhack suggested, that pirates destroyed the constrictor. However this shouldn't be very likely - otherwise this mission is just a bit too easy...

The thing is the only thing that can set the mission_conhunt variable to CONSTRICTOR_DESTROYED is the constrictor exploding (it's one of its death_actions).

The constrictor shouldn't have exploded in galaxy one, it shouldn't even have been there to be destroyed (it's in galaxy two).

There's a bug here somewhere, I'm working on it.

This was tricksy.

It was a bug alright, but the script was fine.

What was happening was that after the mission screen displayed the constrictor, that ship was placed in the recycling area for ships (Oolite does this to conserve time and memory recycling objects when it can). Then later the ship is recycled as (say) a Mamba. But when it's reused I forgot to remove the previously existing script actions from the ship. So when the Mamba (or whatever) gets blown up, the script actions execute, setting the mission_conhunt variable to CONSTRICTOR_DESTROYED. And you gets your reward.

The clue to getting this was:

stevesims wrote:

blowing up everything in site

The bug only occurs if you play on from the mission briefing and the reused constrictor happens to get blown up. If you save and relaunch the game after the briefing, the bug won't occur, which is why I couldn't find it!

Anyhoo, it's now fixed in v1.14, which I'll put up for testing now.

In case it wasn't clear I'm in galaxy 2, and was there when I got the Constrictor briefing. I had to do a galaxy jump because I got stuck out in the middle of nowhere from a Witch-Space engine failure (or was it a Thargoid attack?) and didn't have enough fuel to jump to another system. Galactic hyperdrive was my only option.

It may, or may not, be relevant that I had started the expansion mission and was attempting to make my way to the destination planet when I jumped galaxies. Since I haven't jumped all the way back to galaxy 1 it's still in progress.

Finally I have one minor criticism either of the Constrictor mission, or of the ratings system... I got the Constrictor mission just as I became Dangerous. When I docked and got the "well done" message I had become Deadly. A reward of 256 kill points almost doubled my total, and it seems a little too generous to me.

BTW where was my "Right on commander!" message on my 256th kill?

Thanks, I think I've nailed this now (v1.14).

stevesims wrote:

BTW where was my "Right on commander!" message on my 256th kill?

It was there, but may have got smothered by other messages.

aegidian wrote:

Thanks, I think I've nailed this now (v1.14).

stevesims wrote:

BTW where was my "Right on commander!" message on my 256th kill?

It was there, but may have got smothered by other messages.

Ah - since I tend to target everything with a missile but blow it up with a laser I get a bounty notification and a target lost with every kill, so yes, it wouldn't surprise me if a "Right on commander!" got smothered... I guess I'll just have to look closely when I get up to 768 kills.

It might be an idea to make the "Right on commander!" message the last one that turns up on a kill...

stevesims wrote:

It might be an idea to make the "Right on commander!" message the last one that turns up on a kill...

Good point, and just four lines to implement a 0.2s delay before sending the message, which should make it the last one even if you lose the target, shoot a bit of wreckage, and overheat your laser all at the same time. (v1.15)

Now that the ship recycling bug has been fixed that prevented me from genuinely completing the Constrictor mission I think it's time for me to edit my commander file and do the mission properly.

So if I'm being honest I need to reduce my kills count by 256, my cash by 50000 (with decimal adjustment) and get rid of the mission_conhunt entry right?