2019-12-18 Asteroid, Harvester, System Resource Search, Morale Penalty

[Haxus]

Asteroid
I'm in my system, within 200K meters of an asteroid and it doesn't show up either as a command target, or even on the Fire Control terminal of my ship. How am I supposed to protect my world if I can't attack an incoming asteroid?

Fixed numerous problems here.

• Asteroid will now show up on the unit list for Attack and Follow orders.
  
• NPCs will now attack and follow asteroids in response to mission orders.
  
• Asteroids are now considered to be enemies.
  
• Fire Control console now targets asteroids.
  
• Fire control reticle now shows weapon range and range to target when target is out of range.
  

Harvester
When I send on of my harvester ships to run a harvesting cycle on a target, it occasionally gets trapped in an endless loop.

If the next harvesting pulse from a ship/stations harvesting bay is set to exceed the harvesting quantity threshold, it won't take the in the resources from that pulse. This means the ship never exceeds the threshold and the ship gets trapped in an infinite harvesting loop, that it only exits when the fuel threshold is met.

Changed harvest function to trim the amount harvested so that it will fit.

System Resource And Or
When search for resources, ticking more than one will make search fuction try to find systems with both of these resources at desired Q in one system. Function has "AND" logic instead of "OR", so there is no point in ticking all resources and setting high desired Q. Would be nice to have switch for that logic.

Added option to treat the resources checked as an AND list or an OR list.

System Resource Search Bug
When search for resources with high desired Q set, function will show systems that do not have such resources or even systems where they dont exist.

Example: find Antiflux particles minimum Q250. Function shows 2 systems. One of them has antiflux but much lower than set quality. Second system does not have rings at all.

Fixed.

System Resource Search Vegetation
There is "Atmosphere Density" in list but no "Vegetation density", which is more important

Fixed missing vegation density in resource search table.

Atmosphere Density searches for Q of atmosphere. The commodity name doesn't work well there.

City Report Population
Report +/- numbers for population changes.

Population section of city report now shows + and - numbers next to those things that changed the population.

Morale Penalty
The morale penalty should maybe include the number of whatever it is they want... so like "4 additional retail stores wanted"

Adjusted morale penalty so that it is not capped at -2 for buildings that are wanted. The morale penalty is the number of buildings wanted.

University Patent
If you set a university to limit 1 patent, it keeps making them.

University will now stop making patents when a limit is set. The limit number has no effect since patents are limitless once you have them. The process stops if the patent being researched already exists in the building's local patent library at the minimum Q specified.

System Scan Doesn't Match
Scan reports do not match some systems actual contents.

Some systems were generated using an old system. They are grandfathered in an exceptions file. That exceptions file was updated. Scan reports should match now.

After the contents of those old systems decay due to abandonment, they get regenerated using the current system. A number of old systems must have decayed, as revealed by the reduced size of the exceptions file.

After the universe is reset, this issue will disappear entirely.

[Celarious]

Good job on the asteroid fixes! Would've been pretty scary being next to one and not being able to attack it in any way

Edit: 

City Report Population
Report +/- numbers for population changes.

Population section of city report now shows + and - numbers next to those things that changed the population.

Just wanted to say this is also amazing! Always wanted something like this in the old cities where only morale would be shown as affecting pop

[Haxus]

Warning. When following Attack and Follow orders with an asteroid as the target, my crew has crashed into the asteroid more than once. I am working on the pilot.

[Vectorus]

Interesting! I flew through an asteroid without harm in a ship the other day...but if that was a fluke I'm glad I found out before the next encounter.

Ability to tractor asteroids to a halt would be good. An easier win as a reward for empires that have really invested in getting high technology.

[Snowmantis]

Ability to tractor asteroids to a halt would be good. An easier win as a reward for empires that have really invested in getting high technology.

The following probably should go into the ideas section, but will post here for pure topical commentary purposes.

Mmmm.. Tractorbeaming the asteroid to a stable/orbital position would be cool, even better if part of the reward is that the asteroid had a limited amount of hard to get material that could be mined by a ship. 

In the case of a asteroid destruction perhaps an artifact from a "Forgotten Empire" remains in orbit for a period of time waiting to be manually retrieved.

Maybe the destruction leaves a few strange remnants of its origin in the form of a few Preons  (randomized sun locations) to perhaps advance the story in the future when the player finds a ringworld.

[Vectorus]

I do really like the idea of an asteroid having some mineable resources or even some intriguing artefacts. Their arrival in every new system can't be a coincidence after all...just who is out there trying to destroy us?

Perhaps they should even become immobilized and colonizable like a moon once towed into orbit.

[Haxus]

Later...

Crew Attacks Asteroid By Ramming
My crew dived the ship into multiple asteroids while executing Attack, Plunder and Follow orders. This is going to make somebody mad.

Made some changes to NPCs:

• Stopped navigator from placing a waypoint on the asteroid. This confused the pilot and he crashed.
  
• Changed pilot's target nav location relative to the asteroid.
  

I was only testing the effect of the plunder order, because the asteroid showed up on the list of potential targets. Asteroids can't really be plundered. First try crashed the server. Now the server doesn't crash. Crew just follows the asteroid closely.

Officer Attack Asteroids
Officer in command does not go after asteroids that he detects, like he would enemy spacecraft.

NPC officer will now order an attack on asteroids that are detected in sensor range, in Berserk, Attack, Defend Area, and Defend Self postures. Defend Self is treated differently from spacecraft that are detected. In the case of asteroids, the officer attacks it without waiting for it to attack first.

[Haxus]

The changes today make finding/hunting/killing asteroids a million times easier. You can just be the captain and issue orders. Ho hum.

I suppose the fun part will be in the preparation. The asteroid arrives like a downhill freight train with no brakes. If you aren't ready when it arrives...

[Celarious]

The changes today make finding/hunting/killing asteroids a million times easier. You can just be the captain and issue orders. Ho hum.

I suppose the fun part will be in the preparation. The asteroid arrives like a downhill freight train with no brakes. If you aren't ready when it arrives...

I think this is good for a new player, especially since they might not know how to manually fire at targets or might only be relying on a military weapon system on the ground

[Haxus]

this is good for a new player

I agree. It should be easy if you get to the point of having a spacecraft with weapons and a crew in that first week. That was the point after all, to give new players a reason to get into space quickly.

The biggest asteroid only has 4,000hp. It doesn't take much gunfire to crack it.

relying on a military weapon system on the ground

That will always prove to be a failed strategy.

I think that no ground based weapon system developed in the first week could possibly have enough range to do more than crack the asteroid at the last minute. Then it is simply reduced from a world ending event to an extinction event.