Mission ships not showing up

any suggestions?

Hello all,

I have a problem making a mission work and I was wondering if anyone has any ideas how to fix it.

This is a mission offered by a përs. The situation is: the character is being taken through Fed space by another ship. Mid journey, the ship is waylaid by pirates and when the captain of the ship is hurt, the player is forced, under fire, to pilot it to safety at the nearest inhabited stellar: Altia.

So once the player accepts the mission he's transfered to Altair: n135

Put in charge of the ship: h802

And the ship name is changed to match the name of the përs: t532

The pirates are called up by a silent mission which has already been running since the end of the last mission.

The problem is the pirates wont show up. The player is transfered to Altair but finds the system dead empty. Sometimes a ship or two jumps in, but usually there's nothing. If I land on Alt, the uninhabited spob in the system, and blast off again, the ships show up.

I guess the program doesn't fully create the destination system until the player absquatulates from a stellar, to use the word from the EVN Bible, or jumps in.

I've also tried making this ships appear as 100% likelihood përss, which encounters the same problem.

Anyone have any ideas for work-arounds?

I've isolated the mission in a plug, but the upload feature isn't working for me right now so I'll have to do that later.

This post has been edited by Bubbles : 22 February 2007 - 12:35 PM

To upload you'll need to zip the plug first and if the zip file is under 100k then you can upload it.

Instead of using a mission that's already running, try starting the pirates mission when the player accepts the pers mission and set the pirates to 'follow the player around'.

Thanks but I'm afraid the 'follow the player' tag doesn't fix the behavior. Of course this was the first way I tried to put the mission together. The ships don't show up after the system transfer. The pirates only show up directly if the ship stays in the same system.

I have another idea I'm going to try with a custom version of the Altair system, but I think it's a mediocre work-around, so if anyone has any other ideas I'd love to hear them.

I've now uploaded a sample version of the mission for anyone who wants to play with the resources themselves. To experience the disappointment of the mission not working yet, you'll have to start a new pilot and hail The Magic Dragon.

Problem_Misn.zip (6.5K)
Number of downloads: 3

This post has been edited by Bubbles : 23 February 2007 - 04:04 PM

Ah, I see the problem. You're right, using nxxx doesn't count as 'entering a system' and Nova can only spawn ships in the middle of a system when you enter it. After that the only way it can make new ships is to have them enter from hyperspace. Doesn't make quite as much sense in the context of your mission but it's the best you can do. The only other alternative makes even less sense.
It's a nice mission, btw, great writing. I see you've taken advantage of the fact that you retain the same shield/armour level from your old ship when you swap ships like that ;). Oh, and 'losing' only has one 'o'.

@guy, on Feb 23 2007, 11:18 PM, said in Mission ships not showing up:

Nova can only spawn ships in the middle of a system when you enter it. After that the only way it can make new ships is to have them enter from hyperspace.
It's a nice mission, btw, great writing. I see you've taken advantage of the fact that you retain the same shield/armour level from your old ship when you swap ships like that . Oh, and 'losing' only has one 'o'.

The problem is: Nova wont spawn any mission ships or pers in the system until the player lands or jumps in, so even the 'jump in after a delay' tag doesn't do the job. So far, the only way I've found that gets close to what want is the a different version of the system populated exclusively by pirates. They jump in very slowly, though, and I haven't been able to test it properly because I'm having trouble making that system appear correctly.

This is the first action the player sees, so it's important that it work. I may have to rewrite the mission. Maybe the player has to jump back from Tenetria, for instance... it'd be a shame though, because any work-around will undermine the urgency. (There are also issues with refueling, etc.)

Thanks for the good word about the writing, btw. Glad you like. 'Loosing' => 'losing' fixed.

@bubbles, on Feb 24 2007, 01:15 PM, said in Mission ships not showing up:

The problem is: Nova wont spawn any mission ships or pers in the system until the player lands or jumps in, so even the 'jump in after a delay' tag doesn't do the job.

Really? I just changed the ship start to 'jump in after a delay' and it worked fine. Though by the time it jumps in the player will be just about to jump out.

Actually, here's an idea. Require the player to land somewhere first (explain as having to drop off the player's current ship somewhere, or something like that) and then while landed do the system and ship change before finally qxxxing the player back into space. This ought to allow the pirate ship to be spawned immediately in the system.

This post has been edited by Guy : 23 February 2007 - 08:36 PM

Quote

I just changed the ship start to 'jump in after a delay' and it worked fine.

This has never worked for me. Are you sure it wasn't just a random pirate. I think I gave all the mission ships in that sample plug unique subtitles for easy ID.

@guy, on Feb 24 2007, 01:29 AM, said in Mission ships not showing up:

Actually, here's an idea. Require the player to land somewhere first

In any case, I think you've go the best solution there. Nothing is perfect (for instance I don't really want the player in the pilot's seat of this ship before he arrives in Altair), but this is the least troublesome. It even solves a couple of problems: I'll pass the player through a crippled version of the starbridge so I can choose shield and armour levels. This will even let me put the player just where I want him in Altair, so he's far enough out that he can't just make a dash for the port.

Thanks for helping me figure this out. I may be back. I've had problems with other pers offered missions as well...

This post has been edited by Bubbles : 23 February 2007 - 09:23 PM

@bubbles, on Feb 24 2007, 03:07 PM, said in Mission ships not showing up:

This has never worked for me. Are you sure it wasn't just a random pirate. I think I gave all the mission ships in that sample plug unique subtitles for easy ID.

Yeah, it was called This Ship or something like that.

@bubbles, on Feb 24 2007, 03:07 PM, said in Mission ships not showing up:

(for instance I don't really want the player in the pilot's seat of this ship before he arrives in Altair)

You wouldn't have to do that, just wait until the player lands before doing the ship swap.

I didn't have a chance to test the mission again with 'ships jump in after a delay' before my hard drive died a few days ago. It's strange, I'm certain I tested the mission with that option. Maybe I didn't wait long enough for them to jump in? Anyway, I'll see in a couple of weeks.

Happily, I'd safely backed up all my important data. I only lost an hours' work or so, and all my previous versions. I'll have to put MC/Resedit work on hold for a few weeks while I get a new disc, but I've plenty more writing to do anyway. I've bought a notebook and I'm trying to compose the old fashioned way, with pen and paper. It's disconcerting.

When I swap the player's ship is a story-telling issue. That's a judgement call I'll have to make.