Formerly a rant, turned OMG WTF LOL, turned bummer

orca, that link to the SS site isn't working. I didn't realize this just now, so I think you know about this, but it irks me that when no one is posting on the boards, I can no longer just go to the SS homepage and stare at something for five minutes like I normally do.

The board software move (UBB->IPB) broke ALL old links: an "http:"" (quote included) has been added at the beginning and a " at the end. Therefore, copy the link, paste it in the adress bar of a new browser window, paste, and remove the extra stuff. Done.

It's actually a bug in the new website, the link to the SS site hasn't changed in a long, long time. We're (read: Orca) working on it.

Anyway, the original method we had for doing the rotating systems in SS was to have the same planet, linked to multiple systems, which rotate via crons and visbits. Other than not being able to use the planets as a random destination, it worked great but for one obscure yet major flaw: When you restart, you always start in the first system that has an instance of the planet in question- not where the planet last was. So, you could easily end up stranded on the wrong side of the solar system.

This could have been fixed by doubling the number of crons- you'd have "repair" crons fire that move the player back to the proper location. However, when you restart the game, the time doesn't advance and crons don't fire when you first start up, so the player would have to either manually activate a repair mission, or jump somewhere, and I felt both were unacceptable for something that should be invisible. Again, this could be fixed if you used missions, given to you by invisible ships that show up 100% of the time. Again, this has issues, since you can only guarantee 8 per's in a system, which would effectively limit us to 8 systems in the rotation. And so on and so forth. In any case, it all becomes resource prohibitive- we're already running out of crons just with all the era control, mass system, reactors, special stuff, etc, that's already in there.

BTW, I keep forgetting to test this, but the cron limit is 256, not 512, right? Anybody know for sure off-hand? If we have 512, then I actually have some breathing room, and we might be able to discuss putting rotation back in.

There are other methods of making a syst move that avoids some of these issues, but all the methods I know create even bigger problems. The major alternative is to make multiple instances of the same planet, ie different spobs, and put one in each location. This is OK, except for the fact that you lose the ability to do any meaningful mission targetting, period, since now you can't even use the SpobID selector, unless you know EXACTLY where the planet is going to be at the time of the mission. This would be OK if you only used moving planets on a very small scale- but in the case of SS (or any Solar System/dynamic system setup), it would be impossible, as there's no way to fully guarantee the position of a planet by the time you get there- particularly for Mercury.

If we have 512 crons, I am going to try and test a variation of Neb's finding that resource ID matters. Before, it was the first instance of the system that contained the planet. If I alter that, it just might work. I'll test it anyway (while I test the limit) and post my findings.

This post has been edited by Masamune : 04 November 2004 - 11:30 AM

Edit: Sorry, was having internet issues

This post has been edited by Masamune : 04 November 2004 - 11:19 AM

Sorry about the multiple posts... Apparently I could send but not recieve, and I kept trying to get it to go through while I was tinkering with my Airport card and network settings!

This post has been edited by Masamune : 04 November 2004 - 11:30 AM

Dude, that was pretty weird. How did you manage three same posts (the maximum I've seen being 2 )?

Good to hear orca's dealing with the website.

Last time I heard, it was 512 maximum (and I found another mention by SP here)

I can confirm the 512 cron limit as well. I used 333 in my EVC ship hangar project, and 477 for the EVO hangar. All fired without any problems.

Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap, holy crap.... OMG WTF LOL.

I just confirmed two things. Yes, it is 512 crons, thank you guys! I don't know where I got the 256 number, I think I was having trouble with the mass system due to an out of bound resID, and for some reason linked it to crons after I confirmed it was an outfit... Anyway, that's wonderful.

But even more wonderful- we can do rotating systems! By putting the system with the planet reference as the SECOND instance of the system, when you restart, you show up at the right planet! I confirmed the earlier behavior as well, and the new behavior! HOLY CRAP W00T. SS will once again have a dynamic universe! Go us!

Nice going, Charlie. Heck, I almost wish I could implement that stuff into Arpia 2, but the problem is that it would be kinda strange to have one small set of systems rotating when the others of the novaverse don't
Saddens me that I'm making Arpia so "small" (though I personally think that for the moment 3 storylines in parallel on top of the Nova ones is enough for the moment)

Edit: hey, you'd better change the title of the topic now that you're feeling "LOL WTF OMG"

This post has been edited by Pace (haldora) : 04 November 2004 - 01:17 PM

Ah, parallel storylines... welcome to my convoluted world. I wasn't aware Arpia was taking that route.

Anyway, I feel much better now, I'm in control. W00, erh, cough, ahem. Steady now. In other good news, I figured out a way (which should have been immediately obvious the first time around) to drastically cut down the number of crons needed to make this work. Instead of 1 cron for each position in the orbit, I only need to set up a binary counter. This is a big help, since, for example, Uranus has 64 locations that make up it's orbit. I could easily cut this down to 6 crons instead of 64, since 2^6 = 64. This actual makes everything more straightforward, except it makes it harder to actually locate the planet, and the visbit strings are going to be hellish! Well, time to rebuild the universe, for the third time...

I posted an example of how to do this here: www.mazca.com/sephilsaga/Rotating Systems Example.sit

It has some wierd one-way link stuff left in, but you can watch 2 planets rotate around 3 systems, takeoff, land, restart, etc. There remains the issue where you can takeoff from the planet and find it missing- it moves out from under you. I consider this a minor annoyance, as it simply means you have to jump back to where you were. However, this occurs consistently, and is never going to really screw the player. Also, note that this occurs much, much more often in this example than it would in a real plug, as the planets move more seldomly.

This post has been edited by Masamune : 04 November 2004 - 02:21 PM

I like it. Definitely a cool feature. (copies the link to this topic and posts it in the EVN:Genesis TC forums)

Yeah, about Arpia, well I've decided that since the three storylines happen in the Agency, why not make them evolve in parallel? So I've got a plan with every mission number and what you'll find for it in the Regular, Shadow and Public storylines. Looks pretty cool as it is (hehehehe )
Plus thanks to this I get the impression I'll be able to contain the three storylines in less mďsn slots than originally planned, which leaves space for additional features (haha, didn't see that one coming, did you?)

Oh, and, I love the new title

Masamune, on Nov 4 2004, 05:19 PM, said:

But even more wonderful- we can do rotating systems! By putting the system with the planet reference as the SECOND instance of the system, when you restart, you show up at the right planet! I confirmed the earlier behavior as well, and the new behavior! HOLY CRAP W00T. SS will once again have a dynamic universe! Go us!
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So does that mean that you have two systems for each position? Ie, with Uranus having 64 positions, does that take 128 systems?

Yeah, it does mean that. However, systs are something you have in abundance (2000+), so it's not a big issue, AND you get to brag about your inflated system count!

systs are especially abundant for us, considering the universe size. It's probably half the size of EVC's or smaller, or was last I checked.

Hmm...Charlie, I could help you out on the Visbit strings. I'll post something on the dev board.

tries to comprehend what the size will be

@_@

Oh well, I still await the release of the plug. Glad to see that rotating systems will be back.

You have abundancy. We're running out fast. Installments seem increasingly likely, and it'll probably be me who has to tease the mess apart. Life is hell. Save that I just finished exams. I hate exams.

Just tell me if you require help with the Galaxy and mission parts Aelran. I'll be glad to do more of the coding.

Well, it turns out I was wrong after all. After some more testing, it turns out that my fix doesn't work after all. It works for as long as Nova is running (which is an improvement) but if you quit completely and restart, you end up back in the first system where the spob is supposed to be. I didn't check a full-quit situation before, I didn't think there'd be any difference between it and a pilot file swap and reload.

So, the rotating systs are dead again... bummer! I did a lot of work already on those darn things!

Edit: I can't duplicate any of my claims of improvement, except for if the pilot file is reloaded, not swapped. Possibly, in my haste and glee, this is all I tested, which apparently also holds a lesson: If you open the pilot file you already have open, it isn't equivalent to a full restart or if you open another pilot, then reopen your original.

I'm feeling more stupid all the time, because, as I'm beginning to recall, this is exactly what used to happen. It's just been so long I thought I had something new. In any case, the plug I UL'd may still be interesting, if only to explore what happens and see it for yourself.

This post has been edited by Masamune : 08 November 2004 - 01:33 PM

I don't suppose you have any way to give a player a mission in space which doesn't require hailing?

If you did, it would be incredibly simple.

I think I have a way to do what Aelran is asking. Mission A automatically starts. Mission A is a silent mission that has a ShipGoal of observe. OnShipDone, start Mission A and Mission B. Mission B is the mission that Aelran wants.