New ship self-destructs...

I've started work on a small TC (with no claims to be able to finish it, but who knows), and I've run into a strange and irritating effect.

There exists a basic ship (at the moment the only buyable one), and that ship has a built-in ejection system. A single hidden outfit that combines an escape pod and an autoeject. Under the combat mechanics, testing this system repeatedly is almost unavoidable...

The escape pod ejects properly, the default 'you have ejected' message is shown, and the player starts up, in the initial system, with what looks like the right ship. And then explodes immediately. Without triggering the escape pod again.

Does anyone know what might do this?

Your ships have no hit points.

I assume you're joking...

In any case, they certainly do have hitpoints, though no shields.

The Industriallist, on Feb 12 2006, 08:17 AM, said:

In any case, they certainly do have hitpoints, though no shields.View Post

He wasn't joking- that's your problem. There is a rather nasty bug in Nova, wherein the ship created when you use an escape pod has exactly the same quantity of armor as it has shields. If it officially has 100 armor and 10 shields, it will start with 10/100 armor, and be disabled. If it has 10 armor and 100 shields, it will have 100/10 armor, and will be able to take far more armor damage than it should. And as you have found, if it has 0 shields, it will start with 0 armor, and be dead. The effect only lasts until the player lands, but that is more than long enough to cause major problems when ship 128 doesn't have shields.

This is a hold-over from EV/O, where armor and shields weren't kept track of quite seperately. Unfortunately, it does not affect the Nova scenario, so it probably won't get fixed. The best work-around I have found is to have ship 128 have as much shield energy as it should have shields, and start a mission using the OnPurchase field (which is fired when you use an escape pod). That mission should be auto-aborting, and in its OnAbort field it should change you to a version of ship 128 that has the correct values for both shields and armor.
The current values for the shields and armor will not be properly reset when the ship is changed (if ship 128 has 100 shields and 100 armor, and the new ship has 0 shields and 100 armor, what the player will end up in will have 100/0 shields and 100/100 armor), but everything will return to normal as soon as the player lands on a planet. This isn't pretty, but it does work.

Edwards

This post has been edited by Edwards : 12 February 2006 - 03:14 PM

Edwards, on Feb 12 2006, 02:11 PM, said:

He wasn't joking- that's your problem. There is a rather nasty bug in Nova, wherein the ship created when you use an escape pod has exactly the same quantity of armor as it has shields. If it officially has 100 armor and 10 shields, it will start with 10/100 armor, and be disabled. If it has 10 armor and 100 shields, it will have 100/10 armor, and will be able to take far more armor damage than it should. And as you have found, if it has 0 shields, it will start with 0 armor, and be dead. The effect only lasts until the player lands, but that is more than long enough to cause major problems when ship 128 doesn't have shields.

This is a hold-over from EV/O, where armor and shields weren't kept track of quite seperately. Unfortunately, it does not affect the Nova scenario, so it probably won't get fixed. The best work-around I have found is to have ship 128 have as much shield energy as it should have shields, and start a mission using the OnPurchase field (which is fired when you use an escape pod). That mission should be auto-aborting, and in its OnAbort field it should change you to a version of ship 128 that has the correct values for both shields and armor.
The current values for the shields and armor will not be properly reset when the ship is changed (if ship 128 has 100 shields and 100 armor, and the new ship has 0 shields and 100 armor, what the player will end up in will have 100/0 shields and 100/100 armor), but everything will return to normal as soon as the player lands on a planet. This isn't pretty, but it does work.

Edwards
View Post

I've never heard of this bug, has it ever been officially reported (sent to pipeline, ect)? If not I'd be happy to report it to the beta list for you.

Ragashingo, on Feb 13 2006, 12:45 PM, said:

I've never heard of this bug, has it ever been officially reported (sent to pipeline, ect)? If not I'd be happy to report it to the beta list for you.View Post

I don't think I ever did so, so why not? It just might end up on the "list of things to fix".

Edwards

Edwards, on Feb 13 2006, 08:13 PM, said:

I don't think I ever did so, so why not? It just might end up on the "list of things to fix".

Edwards
View Post

Reported! I'll let you know if anything become of it.

mcb says:

Quote

Sound be easy to fix, thanks for the heads up.

While a fix isn't 100% certain it seems pretty likely.