I've never been able to get ships in my plug-in-progress to offer missions--more specifically, the ships don't even show up to offer the missions. There's a step that I'm missing, but I dunno what it is.

Here's an typical scenario, a mission called "Fetch Ming' (say): I want a ship, the Valiant, to hail Player. Upon response, passenger Ming asks to be ferried by Player to planet Mongo. The mission is available at any non-pirate stellar; return destination is any Rebellion stellar; the mission is available through a ship; the random factor is 100%. Combat rating and legal status do not apply. The cargo (Ming) is set to be picked up at the mission start and dropped off at the return destination. The pers involved, the Valiant, lists 'Fetch Ming' as the LinkMission; the LinkSyst is 'any non-pirate stellar'; the MissionBit here is the same as the AvailBitSet of 'Fetch Ming' (in this case, 126...which really is set, by way of the previous mission). The Valiant pers is to be deactivated after Player accepts the LinkMission.

And that's all I know. The Valiant never does show up in the plug. I offer a bottle of fine Arcturian ale to anyone who can help solve this. Thanks.

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PlanetPhil
friend to those who need no friends
enemy to those who have no enemies

Përs always have a 5% chance of appearing in any system any one time. I'm not sure how randomization applies to this, perhaps it governs the percent of appearances the përs will offer the missions, that's what I'd imagine, anyway. This 5% rule is a problem with përs available missions. Anyway, the solution is: to get the mission, just try a long of systems or the same system many times. About 20 times, should, in all likelihood get you one appearance of your përs. OR you could make 20 identical or similar përs who all offer the same mission. That should give you an average of 100% chance of being offered that mission once in each system. But that's not a certainty, just an average.

Bubbles

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Bubbles wrote:
Përs always have a 5% chance of appearing in any system any one time. I'm not sure how randomization applies to this, perhaps it governs the percent of appearances the përs will offer the missions, that's what I'd imagine, anyway. This 5% rule is a problem with përs available missions. Anyway, the solution is: to get the mission, just try a long of systems or the same system many times...

I wasn't at all sure how the 5% factor would affect things, but you've made it very clear. Thanks! I think I'll save the 'përs available format' for other, more standalone missions (as opposed to this one, which is part of a chain). One bottle of Arcturian ale is yours.

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PlanetPhil
friend to those who need no friends
enemy to those who have no enemies

Missions like this are hard to test at the best of times - if you really need to do so, the best you can do is to take out all the other pers ships*, or set them so that they can't appear in the system where you're going to be testing your new pers ship and misn. Then you enter a pilot and take off and land about twenty times till the ******* turns up.

Certainly not the sort of mission to go in a string - although it could start one off as a kind of rare bonus for a lucky player. Of course, if the data you're running with has a couple of hundred pers ships already (as both EV and EVO do), the chances of running across a mission carrying ship are fairly small. Another option is to make multiple copies of a ship which all offer the same mission (if they're all set never to appear again once their mission's been done, this shouldn't mess with the player's head too much) - however this will only increase a negligibly small probability.

• To the best of my knowledge, the 5% business works like this - there is a 5% chance that EV will place a pers ship in a system when the player arrives or takes off, if that 5% happens, then EV goes through all pers ships and picks a single eligible one at random to be placed. Thus there should rarely be more than one pers ship around at once, if it's possible at all (I don't know how subsequent appearances by pers ships work, but they certainly happen - anyone else been saved by the ol' U.E.S. Incontrovertible?)

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... you wonder if their eating of the eels isn't a little too overt ...

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Peter Cartwright wrote:
Missions like this are hard to test at the best of times - if you really need to do so, the best you can do is to take out all the other pers ships, or set them so that they can't appear in the system where you're going to be testing your new pers ship and misn. Then you enter a pilot and take off and land about twenty times till the ******* turns up.*

And who has time for that...

**

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Certainly not the sort of mission to go in a string - although it could start one off as a kind of rare bonus for a lucky player...

**

Peter I think is right. But i have to say that I have never seen the Incontrovertible. And I've had voinians up to the earlobes.

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Three years and my pizza still isn't here.

Maybe I should call.

Maybe the Incontrovertible is just me then - the reason it got so heavily tooled up in later versions is that in early alpha it would appear out of nowhere at the most amazingly convenient times, often saving me from a horde of Voinians.

Please note: the U.E.S. Incontrovertible does not, of course, exist. It was destroyed a long time ago, and it would be impossible for a destroyer to carry so many weapons anyway. If you've seen it - you were hallucinating

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... you wonder if their eating of the eels isn't a little too overt ...

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Peter Cartwright wrote:
(I don't know how subsequent appearances by pers ships work, but they certainly happen - anyone else been saved by the ol' U.E.S. Incontrovertible?)

The Incontrovertible only shows up for me in these condidions; I'm in the middle of Azdgari space, with a Voinian Freighter in that grim battle, I had barely escaped with my life thank _Syntax for hyperdrive.

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OpenGL Avara!

AIM: EVAndrewM

I admit it, my room is a chaotic disaster area.

"You believe what's written in that thing?! I was probably drunk at the time."
-Matt Burch

(This message has been edited by Andrew M (edited 04-04-2000).)