A technical question.

Hey all.

I've come here with a bit of a technical dilemma... I don't particularly need, but would greatly like it if I could affect ship attributes based on what system they are currently in. From what I've gathered, you need at least one cron to grant the attribute modifier outfit, and of course, the outfit.

The outfit will decrease turning and speed to some degree due to the murkiness of a nebula surrounding the system, as well as add a nice red tint to the ship to match the background. All I need now is to be able to add it when you enter the system, and remove it when you leave. As for background information; this will apply to several systems surrounding the one, but not the central system.

I make it sound simple, but I'm having trouble figuring it out. Thoughts? I could try the nebula trick, but that only works once per pilot start, and they may be going into the system frequently.

~ SP

I'm thinking you might need a couple of missions, instead of a cron.

First mission: Activated via the OnStart field of the char resource. Invisible with a special ship to be observed in any murky nebula system. (Systs would need an appropriate govt). OnShipDone would Gxxx the outfit and Sxxx a second mission. (You may also need to force abort (Axxx) the mission here as well).

Second mission: Also invisible with a special ship to be observed in any system except a murky nebula. OnShipDone would Dxxx the outfit and Sxxx the first mission. (Axxx if necessary).

I suppose the drawback here might be that there is always a mission running, using up one of the possible 16.

slouch, on Sep 23 2004, 03:58 PM, said:

I'm thinking you might need a couple of missions, instead of a cron.

First mission: Activated via the OnStart field of the char resource. Invisible with a special ship to be observed in any murky nebula system. (Systs would need an appropriate govt). OnShipDone would Gxxx the outfit and Sxxx a second mission. (You may also need to force abort (Axxx) the mission here as well).

Second mission: Also invisible with a special ship to be observed in any system except a murky nebula. OnShipDone would Dxxx the outfit and Sxxx the first mission. (Axxx if necessary).

I suppose the drawback here might be that there is always a mission running, using up one of the possible 16.
View Post

Ooh, that's a good starting point... Unfortunately, I'd need one of these missions to be entered into the queue, in order to put a special ship in each murky system directly surrounding the one central system... But still, very doable, depending on where the person is.

Once I observe the special ship, using the specialship done field, I can abort all missions that give the outfit, and activate all the conceivable missions that remove it. Once one of the special ships from the removal missions is viewed, I activate the nearby 'giving' missions.

This will require careful structuring of the systems (so as to not allow the number of systems you can leave by to exceed say 13... in order to leave at least some missions available), but this way could definitely work. Another problem that is raised by this system is at what point the outfit takes effect. If it is effective immediately, there won't be a problem, but if there is a few-second lag, it will be disappointing visually.

But if the outfit becomes effective after you leave the current system, there could be large problems... Especially if they happen to land, giving them the outfit before they jump out.

I'll play with this a bit, thanks for the idea, slouch!

If anyone has any other ideas, post away!

~ SpacePirate

You might beable to do it using the OnExplore field in the nebu resource. When the person enters the nebu it will grant the outfit then you could use a cron to get rid of the outfit.

Just a interesting little extra, the nebula crap might not go away as soon as you exit the system/nebula it might stick around for acouple of days or until you get it removed at an outfiter.

- forget it. Thought you wished to change the AI ships and not the player's ship -

This post has been edited by Zacha Pedro : 24 September 2004 - 02:04 AM

Yeah, the number of entry and exit points for the nebula would need to be limited. For some reason when I wrote my first reply, I was thinking that the SpecialShipSystem worked like the AuxShipSystem. For example, a value of 10000 would make the special ship appear in all systems of a particular govt. But of course, it doesn't work that way. Nova will pick a single system to put the ship in.

I would think 4-6 entry/exit points (missions) would be reasonable. Whether it works out really depends on your overall scenario and the pilot's playing style. I've seen my girlfriend play Nova and routinely have about a dozen active ferry/delivery type missions.

yandiyen, on Sep 24 2004, 01:17 AM, said:

You might beable to do it using the OnExplore field in the nebu resource. When the person enters the nebu it will grant the outfit then you could use a cron to get rid of the outfit.

Just a interesting little extra, the nebula crap might not go away as soon as you exit the system/nebula it might stick around for acouple of days or until you get it removed at an outfiter.
View Post

I'm fairly positive that the OnExplore field only happens once per pilot, and the information is evaluated whenever a pilot is loaded, or the player wanders into a nebula for the first time. Anyone care to prove me wrong?

I don't know about proof, but I do know how it works. When you start a new pilot, and you hit the nebula the first time, onExplore is evaluated. Each additional time you hit the nebula, nothing happens. Now, close the pilot and reopen it. onExplore for all the nebulas you've explored previously is evaluated again, except it's done immediately upon entering the game. Kind of stupid, really.

Edit: on review, you said exactly the same thing but differently. Go you.

This post has been edited by Masamune : 24 September 2004 - 04:17 PM