Detector (Finds Abandoned Ships, Tunings, Hidden Objects) [TC][AP][ALP]

[DrBullwinkle]

Lets say I jumped in to an UFJD sector & got a beep, then found out that the beep was for a nividium rock cluster.
So this means, that there are no any abandoned ships of Tuning in that sector ?

Yes.

In other words, we don't get beeping for Nividium or Tuning if there is an abandoned ship in the sector ?
Great...time yo hunt some random tunings....

You can only find one thing at a time, right? Find the abandoned ship, then claim it. If there is something else, then Detector will begin ticking again. If there is a tuning crate, then find that and claim it.

If the ticking continues, then it means that there is another tuning crate or Nividium in the sector.

I could make different sounds or change the subtitle for different objects, but that would not be as much fun, would it? Part of the point of Detector is that you don't know exactly what kind of "bonus" object is in the sector until you find it.

I can understand the desire for a menu. Although editing a t file is a 30-second task, I can see that you might want to turn on Nividium detection only when you are actively mining (for example).

Also, remember that t file changes are updated immediately in the game. So you can Alt-Tab out from your game, change the t file, then return to the game. It is almost as quick as using a menu. (I will get around to adding a menu eventually.)


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[Klord]

@DrBullwinkle - Understood....!!!
All these troubles due to my lack of English fluency. Apology for any inconvenience. & keep the good work up. Thank you...

[TomRobinson]

@TomRobinson: Use Windows Explorer to navigate to your t folder (addon\t if AP). Then open the t file with notepad (or any other text editor). I hope that is enough information to help you.

If it is not, then perhaps you can tell me what you are trying to do, and maybe I can help more.

.

Sorted now thanks, I just wanted to turn the dectector for nvidium and abandoned ships off.

Great script,

Tom

Edit: so i changed the t file to disable on both abandoned ships and nvidium but it still clicks for abandoned ships (havent tested nvidium)

Do i need to run anything in the script editor or will it only update for a new game?

[Klord]

Edit: so i changed the t file to disable on both abandoned ships and nvidium but it still clicks for abandoned ships (havent tested nvidium)

Do i need to run anything in the script editor or will it only update for a new game?

I dont think that there will be many abandoned ships. So just ignore it. After all, they are also money. Think...what if its a Khak corvette ? wow...

[DrBullwinkle]

Sorted now thanks, I just wanted to turn the dectector for nvidium and abandoned ships off.

Great script

Excellent!

i changed the t file to disable on both abandoned ships and nvidium but it still clicks for abandoned ships

Be sure that you changed the correct t file. If you play the game in English, then the correct t file is 8552-L044.xml. (The -L099 file is only there to give you a visual reference when you are looking for the correct t file.)

Changes to the t file should update almost immediately. There is no need to start a new game. (You should not even have to reload a saved game.)



@Klord: No problem. If it was not clear to you, then it is probably not clear to another player. Therefore, I welcome the question and the feedback.

At least one other player said that X3 (and the forum) helped him to improve his English.

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[T3Lunaris]

I do not understand how you could do this. Do you change ships? Detector only works on the playership (the ship that you are currently piloting).

correct I point one ship in the direction that I get a ping from and then transport to another ship and head in the direction that the ping was coming from until it stops at which point I reorient until I find the signal again,then I call in another ship and repeat the process, what I am trying to do is determine general signal area (since Aldrin is a BIG place) by seeing where all the ship noses are pointing (kinda like triangulation but on a much bigger scale)

Use one ship with Detector. (Preferably a fast scout.)

I was using a kestrel I had modified with a top speed of over 3Km/s (as in 3000+ m/s) to try and find it

Also, Detector will sometimes point at the nearest object (if there is more than one). If you change ships, it is possible that two ships might detect two different objects, which would be very confusing!

Nope just the one ship.


anyway I finally used the ship finding script to locate it and it was over 600 Km from where I was and was not even in the general area I was searching, (I have the save file from before I used the ship spotting script if you want it to help you fine tune the detector.)

also after looking at how the script was written I see that it is indeed like sonar however what I meant was that it would always ping no matter which way you pointed the ship, and would get faster or slower depending on your distance from it, or even better give it a double ping when you finally orient in the right direction.

[DrBullwinkle]

what I meant was that it would always ping no matter which way you pointed the ship, and would get faster or slower depending on your distance from it

That is the way that Detector works.

Ticks change to pings when your ship is pointed in the correct direction.

Ticks/pings are closer together when you approach the object.

From your description, it sounds as though your troubles came from trying to "outsmart" Detector, rather than just using it as intended. At 3,000 mps, you would have found the abandoned ship in under five minutes by just following the pings. No SETA required.

Moral of the story: Don't use SETA (other than for straight-line bursts of travel) and don't try to use multiple ships.

It will be much easier next time you try it, right?

• (As you say, you can always run lib.bw.detector.count from the Script Editor to locate every ship in the universe, but that is not as much fun as using Detector as intended.)

[TomRobinson]

Sorted now thanks, I just wanted to turn the dectector for nvidium and abandoned ships off.

Great script

Excellent!

i changed the t file to disable on both abandoned ships and nvidium but it still clicks for abandoned ships

Be sure that you changed the correct t file. If you play the game in English, then the correct t file is 8552-L044.xml. (The -L099 file is only there to give you a visual reference when you are looking for the correct t file.)

Changes to the t file should update almost immediately. There is no need to start a new game. (You should not even have to reload a saved game.)



@Klord: No problem. If it was not clear to you, then it is probably not clear to another player. Therefore, I welcome the question and the feedback.

At least one other player said that X3 (and the forum) helped him to improve his English.

.

Ahh ok this was the problem, Thanks man.

Edit: hmm now its not beeping at all. I used EJ's find ware script to locate the pandora tunings out of interest as I wasnt getting anything on UJD sectors and its not picking up anything.

Any ideas?

Thanks Tom

Edit 2: so jumped out of my elephant into an M3 and it started working.. Very strange

[T3Lunaris]

That is the way that Detector works

oh....I didn't realize that, I just assumed the click was there to let you know that there was an object in system, I didn't realize that it actually did go faster depending on how close you were. I also had problems hearing the click over the music in aldrin although I was also listening to the TV and my speakers aren't all that great so it was probably more just my situation.

[DrBullwinkle]

Probably.

Also, the ticks are the same sound that SETA uses, which is another reason why SETA can be confusing (if you are traveling in the wrong direction).

However, the goal is to "hunt" for a direction until you hear the pings, then follow the pings.

• Volume turned up on the music and listening to TV at the same time... it reminds me of Commander Data.
  
  
  [ external image ]

[jack775544]

@T3Lunaris Here is a tutorial for triangulation written by Spychotic. It was made for the Balance of Power plot for TC but the theory is exactly same. (In fact, detector is partially based off the device in that plot.)

[DrBullwinkle]

You don't need to triangulate with Detector. In fact, as T3lunaris discovered, attempting to do so is probably counter-productive.

Also, to achieve effective triangulation at the 600 km distance would require placing your ships a couple of hundred km apart. It is simply not worth the effort, even if it did work.

In other words: Don't try to triangulate. Use Detector as intended and it will lead you straight to your targets.

[Klord]

@Klord: No problem. If it was not clear to you, then it is probably not clear to another player. Therefore, I welcome the question and the feedback.

At least one other player said that X3 (and the forum) helped him to improve his English.

.

Count me in that group....

Edit: hmm now its not beeping at all. I used EJ's find ware script to locate the pandora tunings out of interest as I wasnt getting anything on UJD sectors and its not picking up anything.

Any ideas?

Im having the same...problem & my thread just got banned.

[DrBullwinkle]

Im having the same...problem & my thread just got banned.

Your thread was locked because it was in the Universe forum and was all about scripts.

From your description in your locked thread, it sounds as though you have not found any tuning crates yet. The odds are that you will have to jump to Undefined Space 50 times before you find a tuning crate. Perhaps more.

If you go to Undefined Space and find a tuning crate, but Detector does not detect it, THEN tell me, because that should not happen!



@TomRobinson: I missed your edit because there were already new posts in the thread.

Make sure that Detector is "On" in the Aritificial Life settings, and make sure that you edited 8552-L044.xml correctly. If you edited it incorrectly, then you may have to reinstall the script in order to restore the 8552 file. You can install over the previous installation if you like (or remove then install again).

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[Klord]

Your thread was locked because it was in the Universe forum and was all about scripts.

From your description in your locked thread, it sounds as though you have not found any tuning crates yet. The odds are that you will have to jump to Undefined Space 50 times before you find a tuning crate. Perhaps more.

If you go to Undefined Space and find a tuning crate, but Detector does not detect it, THEN tell me, because that should not happen!

Roger that commander....
& about the thread...after all moderators got to do something special in the forum. No offense to anyone.

Edit -

Volume turned up on the music and "listening" to TV at the same time... it reminds me of Commander Data.

You should get a radio..... (just kidding)

[Ovni]

Oooh, very nice mod. I was brainstorming a similar idea a while ago, now I get to see if it's actually fun!

It seems to me it should fix partially the X series problem of not having any motivation to go explore outside the ecliptic, most of the time. The detector can partially play the role of the cave entrance or hint of a jungle over the horizon that makes exploration so compelling in games like Minecraft.

[DrBullwinkle]

Yep, that's the plan.



Update
Thanks to T3Lunaris for sending me his very unusual saved game. It led to improvements in the detection system at long range, and fixed a rare bug when a target object is near the outer edge of the sector.

v1.07: Better detection at very large distances (T3Lunaris).


History

• v1.07 (2012-09-07)
  Improved detection at long range:
  - Added two more sounds to better indicate correct direction.
  - Added subtitle text: Type of Object / Approximate Range / Direction Quality (Cool, Warm, Hot)
  - Frequency of ticks/pings now varies at "Power of 2" distances (Means easier detection in very large sectors).
  - Fixed a rare bug when a target object is near the outer edge of the sector.
  - Another bug fix to lib.bw.detector.count for better compatibility with ASS-AP.

[Charon_A]

I'm back after having some time off the X3. Glad to see that you're keeping up the good work, Dr BW!
Started new game with XRM, and of course had to install latest detector.

My findings:
1. Subtitles are great! But there's a little problem: it reports Nividium as a ship in KE. I remember we had a similar problem some time ago - script was not pinging on the Nv rocks in KE. Seems to be the same cause, probably need to check for one more Nv type
2. Detector keeps pinging while I am docked. Would be nice to stop it while the ship is in the dock.

[DrBullwinkle]

Good catches, Charon. Thanks!


Update

Detector
v1.08: More accurate subtitles for asteroids and large rocks.
No detection while docked.



History

• v1.08 (2012-09-10)
  - Improved subtitle accuracy for asteroids and some rock sizes. (Charon_A)
  - Detector is now turned off when docked.

[Ovni]

So, I tried it, and while overall it's pretty nifty, there are several annoyances:

- It should just turn off when you've targeted the abandoned ship. Yes stop beeping, I'm staring at it!

- Ditto if you're super-close, being parked next to it or in my spacesuit going to claim it, please stop beeping .

- In SETA it just drives me insane as it beeps at an accelerated interval, you might wanna take it into account (if at all possible)

- The AL plugin seems to turn itself back on whenever I enter a sector. And I'd really, really appreciate a hotkey to turn the detector on/off, as it sounds like something I'm gonna do quite often.

- Lastly I'm not made up my mind about that yet, but it seems to detect objects from an infinite distance? If so capping the range to a (pretty large) distance might be better, so that instead of being nagged you kind of have the impression of searching for stuff.