Gerbil servitude Continues unabated.

apricotslice · Post by **apricotslice** » Wed, 15. Mar 06, 14:39

News flash from the Apricot Mapping Service :

It appears that Gerbil Servitude, at long last, has come to an end.

Long kept prisoner in small boxes without windows and used in ships as navigation aids, Gerbils may at last be seeing freedom from servitude.

1.4 patch testing :

Sat for a long time in seta in my home sector and didnt lose a single trader ship.

Ran Ore Belt in my souped up M6, north gate to pirate base to west gate at 472 speed on 10 seta. Result, highly enjoyable trip with not even a hint of collisions likely. (previously scared the sh.t out of you, and guarenteed colision if the target was blocked by a roid when you turned the auto-pillok on !)

Tentative conclusion :

THE AUTO-PILOT WORKS !!!!!

*Crowd goes wild*

Other observations :

On a quickstart game, the universe has gotten dramatically more hostile. I lost a Falcon almost as soon as the game started, in a sector which before the install was clear of enemies. Nova group of pirates got it and I hadnt previously seen a pirate Nova in 4 game days.

A Nova bailed for me almost immediately. Never happened before. I was so surprised I kept shooting him too long. Claimed him, but not much hull left.

Universe is suddenly full of traders and civilians again ! Yay !!!

Had Xenon in sectors a long way from their sectors for the first time in the game. Only seen them on normal or x-treme starts before. Now also in quickstart.

I've still got some things to test, but wont have a chance for a day or 2 as the real-world (cough) is about to intrude on game time.

But so far, I'm very happy with the new patch.

esd · Post by **esd** » Wed, 15. Mar 06, 14:44

So does this mean that you won't be calling it the Auto-Pillock anymore?

apricotslice · Post by **apricotslice** » Wed, 15. Mar 06, 14:48

esd wrote:So does this mean that you won't be calling it the Auto-Pillock anymore?

I very much hope so

I have a few tests to do yet. There is a mammoth test to try that pre-1.4 is always fatal. Also a souped up Merc test in Ore belt that is also usually fatal to try.

But so far, so good

Whats been implemented in 1.4 is significantly better than 1.3.2beta, and is very reminisent of X2 1.4 in the way it behaves.

jlehtone · Post by **jlehtone** » Wed, 15. Mar 06, 14:53

apricotslice wrote:Long kept prisoner in small boxes without windows and used in ships as navigation aids, Gerbils may at last be seeing freedom from servitude.

How sad. The sudden loss of importance may make them more disoriented than usual. I suggest a diet heavy on proteins. They (Teladi) say that processed swamp plants have particularly good selection of proteins.

I used pliers to disconnect those small boxes a long time ago. Manual docking at 500 never fails; shields do.

But the news are encouraging. Now I may dare to get a second ship.

Hasn't every patch restored the civilian traffic? For a moment that is.

apricotslice · Post by **apricotslice** » Wed, 15. Mar 06, 14:57

For anyone wondering what on earth we are talking about, read here :

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=121168

flagg209 · Post by **flagg209** » Wed, 15. Mar 06, 15:15

Thanks for posting the back story - I was laughing my but off!

Freeholder · Post by **Freeholder** » Thu, 16. Mar 06, 01:07

Remotely on topic.....

Apricotslice's use of "Pillock" deserves an honorable mention as the only useage of an English word that has caused me to reference a dictionary.

moggy2 · Post by **moggy2** » Thu, 16. Mar 06, 06:14

apricotslice wrote:News flash from the Apricot Mapping Service :

It appears that Gerbil Servitude, at long last, has come to an end.

Long kept prisoner in small boxes without windows and used in ships as navigation aids, Gerbils may at last be seeing freedom from servitude.
...

for a moment I thought this was going to be about the ones powering the Egosoft Servers...

Armegeddon · Post by **Armegeddon** » Thu, 16. Mar 06, 06:27

As slow as the forums have been for me today, I thought all the Egosoft gerbils had gone on strike to play the patch.

hst · Post by **hst** » Thu, 16. Mar 06, 10:50

From what I've seen so far the "auto-pillock" still applies, at least in the bigger ships.

I set my Elephant to move itself close to a solar plant for refuelling and realised just in time that it was going to try and fly right through the station. "Boing!" and one third of the shield gone.

Then I went for a drive in my Dragon. The Dragon autopilot would avoid the centre of an asteroid at the last moment and then try and dive right back into it again.

The autopilot seems to be okay on M3 ships, but Ihaven't played for long yet.

mad_axeman · Post by **mad_axeman** » Thu, 16. Mar 06, 12:28

The 1.4 auto-pillok tried to deliver me safely to the docking ports of a Solar Power Plant in my M3 last night by trying to take me through the circular disc of solar panels, so I reckon that the Gerbils are out of their boxes, but still learning.

apricotslice · Post by **apricotslice** » Thu, 16. Mar 06, 12:40

I'm inclined to agree. I spoke too soon.

After running the game all day today unattended as a test, the log is full of destroyed ships, only 1 of which has a valid reason and it hit the complex hub.

I'm inclined to think that ships are now obsolete in the game. All you need is a couple of decent complexes and a lasertower deployment script.

Other than that, you have your personal ship and thats it.

The only way to survive is 10gj shields.

Jakesnake5 · Post by **Jakesnake5** » Thu, 16. Mar 06, 13:32

Something I noticed, is SETA buggers the AP.

thetack · Post by **thetack** » Thu, 16. Mar 06, 14:01

news flah from argon prime

after loosing face with argon kind the gerbils have signed an aliance with the xenon and declared all out war on all argon ships.

why else do the xenon pick out my buster from the mass of teladi ships in scale platte i ask you.

ps watch those gerbils one bit me badly when i fell a sleep on the floor while my girlfreinds gerbiles where on the loose,

The NME · Post by **The NME** » Thu, 16. Mar 06, 14:39

Are you sure it's gerbils?

Could they be Douglas Adams' Mice running experiments on us again?
Testing our reactions to frustration & annoyance?

jlehtone · Post by **jlehtone** » Sat, 18. Mar 06, 19:28

Whatever they are, I'm on war against them.

Even Mi-Ton is a nice chap when compared to these devious creatures.

I admit that it was my own folly. Told Jaguar Vanguard to move from EQdock of Ianamus Zura to Trading dock while I was at the shipyard. Even I have trouble manually docking at Teladi/Argon Trade docks. No wonder that the Trading Dock adeptly killed the better half of my fleet.

Worst thing, I did notice too late. Had done something of value. I cannot live without my Jag

apricotslice · Post by **apricotslice** » Sun, 19. Mar 06, 02:09

Reluctantly, I ahve to admit that gerbil servitude is still with us.

True, they now have some windows to look out of, but given their eyesight is limited, this isnt helping much.

There are still too many ships being lost for no apparent reason.

I ahve once again grounded my fleets. Fortunately, NPC traders are back, so I'm making some money where before I wasnt.

jlehtone · Post by **jlehtone** » Sun, 19. Mar 06, 16:15

No apparent reason and not even a message. A (badly damaged) Harrier claimed in Ore Belt was on orders to dock at Yard in AP. I hurried to CBSE to not to be in sector too long. The last time I looked at the sector map of OB, the Harrier was bout to enter the North gate (which I have not yet found) to cross the HoL (which I have never visited either). The Harrier exists no more, and there is no message about its destruction either. Cest la vie.

I was looking the details of my only remote trader entering the sector I was in. The "Task" in there was rapidly flipping through:

Code: Select all

Checking collision with (shipname)
No colliding objects

before it changed to "Landing at ...". Real scary.

egamadeus · Post by **egamadeus** » Mon, 20. Mar 06, 10:07

Well, I was thinking about posting saying that I have not yet had a problem with the auto-pilot, but I was doing a simple trade run, auto-piloting to a station with SETA on, and BOOM!

I am dead, and a lovely freighter fly's past...

(I can't afford good shields or to repair this ship yet)

and now that I think about it I have had several NPC ships bump into me.

hmmm, I am not sure what to do keep my ships flying or ground them, and build stations...

any suggestions?

egamadeus

edit: Oh YAY, i just CTDed, this is fun!

apricotslice · Post by **apricotslice** » Mon, 20. Mar 06, 12:55

I've just changed the subject line for the thread.

I definitely spoke too soon.

I just had a brand new Centaur, modded for 3x1gj shields get destroyed by my complex hub the first time I docked it there to get e-cells.

All the extra sheilding did was damage the hub's shields more than usual.

Thats it. ALL ships are grounded until further notice.

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

Gerbil servitude Continues unabated.

Gerbil servitude Continues unabated.

Re: Gerbil servitude at an end ?

Re: Gerbil servitude at an end ?