Looking for help with ship availability

I'm trying to set it up so that

A: A ship will become available after a cron sets b800.
B: A news story accociated with the cron will display for 10 days and then stop appearing.

The ship appears in the shipyard when the cron HASN'T occured, though, and the news story keeps appearing after the cron expires. I think that the fact that the tech level is set for the ship is causing it to appear all of the time whether the bit is set or not, but setting the tech level to -1 doesn't change anything. Please Help!

@shlimazel, on Sep 3 2007, 02:08 PM, said in Looking for help with ship availability:

I'm trying to set it up so that

A: A ship will become available after a cron sets b800.
B: A news story accociated with the cron will display for 10 days and then stop appearing.

The ship appears in the shipyard when the cron HASN'T occured, though, and the news story keeps appearing after the cron expires. I think that the fact that the tech level is set for the ship is causing it to appear all of the time whether the bit is set or not, but setting the tech level to -1 doesn't change anything. Please Help!

Try setting the flag "Does not appear in shipyard when availability is false". As to the crรถn, I can't help.

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Try setting the flag "Does not appear in shipyard when availability is false". As to the crรถn, I can't help.

smacks forehead Would you believe that I COMPLETELY MISSED that flag!?!?! Thanks.

Hehe. I just remembered that because I just fixed the exact same problem in Nebula. I guess great minds think (or go blank) alike.

Actually, I was gonna say the same thing, even though I've never had the problem before ๐Ÿ˜‰ Do I smell a 'greater' mind? jk jk. Have you made the mission availability to start and end with the cron, ex - mission is activated by b1 which is activated by cron1. Cron1 ends, however, b1 would still be active, right? Or.... hmm... what I'm trying to say is do you have !b1 in the On End field?

Crons are... buggy. What are your holdoffs and duration set to?

The word you were looking for was 'confusing', Guy. Buggy's close enough though.

Nah, I don't find them confusing. Except when I make a cron that falls into the buggy categories without realising it.

(attachment=4492:Picture_7.png)

Here's a screenshot of my cron setup.

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Or.... hmm... what I'm trying to say is do you have !b1 in the On End field?

Can I smack my forhead any harder...? I guess that might just do it. Thanks.

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Hehe. I just remembered that because I just fixed the exact same problem in Nebula. I guess great minds think (or go blank) alike.

Trust me, you'll be happy you gave me a boost when you see what you helped me create ๐Ÿ™‚

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Nah, I don't find them confusing. Except when I make a cron that falls into the buggy categories without realising it.

I think they're fun! I like being able to set things to happen of their own accord after X amount of time.

Actually, that won't work. b800 is setting the availability of the ship. If I clear that bit it's

"Sorry, we cancelled the production of that fantastic, top of the line ship! Whoops!"

heads roll

But....Hmm. Maybe I'll use the bits to start and stop the cron and contribute to activate the ship.

{edit}
Looks like that should work. All right! throws party

This post has been edited by Shlimazel : 04 September 2007 - 09:23 AM

!bxxx doesn't clear it. ^bxxx clears it. It would be a test expression and not a set expression, so the signs function slighty diffirently.

This post has been edited by Cosmic_Nusiance : 04 September 2007 - 10:44 AM

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!bxxx doesn't clear it. ^bxxx clears it. It would be a sest expression and not a set expression, so the signs function slighty diffirently.

Changed it, thanks. I didn't realize it would work differently.

Whoa whoa, careful what symbols you're throwing around there guys. The operator for "not" is "!" and is the same for both test and set. Would be unnecessarily confusing otherwise. "^" is the "toggle" operator for set expressions, which will set it to the opposite of whatever it was before. Read the bible, m'kay? ๐Ÿ˜‰

Anyway, on to the crons. The setup you show there is one of the buggy types. What happens in this case is the cron never actually terminates, which would explain why the news story keeps appearing. You can check the state of your crons in your pilot log. See here for info on the types of setup that work and the types that don't.

This post has been edited by Guy : 04 September 2007 - 04:34 PM

What I meant was that ^bxxx would clear it if it was already set (which for his purpose was correct), but you are correct.

Correction is the sincerest form of... never mind.

Aw, don't leave me hanging like that ๐Ÿ˜›

This post has been edited by Guy : 04 September 2007 - 04:59 PM

Okay, here's the line from the pilotlog that addresses the cron.

128 - durationCounter: -13 holdoffCounter: 0

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What I meant was that ^bxxx would clear it if it was already set (which for his purpose was correct), but you are correct.

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The operator for "not" is "!" and is the same for both test and set. Would be unnecessarily confusing otherwise. "^" is the "toggle" operator for set expressions, which will set it to the opposite of whatever it was before

Okay so... Do I use !b800 or ^b800?

@shlimazel, on Sep 5 2007, 11:13 AM, said in Looking for help with ship availability:

Okay, here's the line from the pilotlog that addresses the cron.

128 - durationCounter: -13 holdoffCounter: 0
Okay so... Do I use !b800 or ^b800?

!b800.

@shlimazel, on Sep 6 2007, 03:13 AM, said in Looking for help with ship availability:

128 - durationCounter: -13 holdoffCounter: 0

Yeah, note the duration counter - it's not supposed to go negative. That's just going to keep decreasing and never actually terminate.

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!b800.

Okay, thanks.

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Yeah, note the duration counter - it's not supposed to go negative. That's just going to keep decreasing and never actually terminate.

Uhh.... I'll take your word for it ๐Ÿ˜‰

Always take Guy's word for it; he's usually right. Usually.