I'm working on making the code governing the convoys efficient enough to run on the production server. It would be helpful to have some people running around the test server. For those who don't know or remember how to do this, just put "test:" before your username when you log in (without the quotes of course).

There's a half-working escort mission available in stations the convoys spawn from as well. You can play with that, though I already know most of what's wrong with it right now.

OK, boss.

Da. 1337.

It would seem that the station guard in Sedina L2 is just docking, undocking, and redocking.

They do that when they're damaged. And unfortunately, the bots often damage themselves while undocking ;)

Well... I would call the test a success:) Deliverator had no apparent trouble keeping up. On the other hand, there is obviously more work to do on making the convoys go where you'd expect and not disappear:)

The escort mission actually worked a bit better than I expected, though it is certainly nowhere near done.

Thanks in advance for the escort missions, that fits really well with my char. I was gonna start escorting the tradebots just for the hell of it, now I can get paid at the same time :D

If you go through a wormhole just before a convoy does, it never comes out the other side :/

If you go back you see the escorts and tradeships flying all over the place, then some warping, flying all over, warping, etc. Never does seem to come out the other side.

This happened at the Sedina-Odia wormhole at approximately 19:40-19:45 EST

If you go through a wormhole ahead of a convoy, the convoy insta-warps to its destination. Convoys also appear to avoid storms magically. And if you lose a convoy, you get the message "The convoy you were guarding has bene destroyed. No reward for you. (change this text)" every time you warp. Forever.

Oh, yeah. I warped milliseconds ahead of the moth i was supposed to be guarding, and it told me that i had lost the convoy. then it told me that the convoy had reached its destination and to dock for a reward. the escort warthog kept flying, so i decided to follow him around. he got ANNIHILATED by a tunguska convoy (he was inuebis).

Needless to say, the convoys attacknig each other is probably the coolest behavior yet to be seen in game. The part with the moth disappearing isn't.

So can we just have a big war between corporations? That would be awesome!

Once the convoy warps out of its originating system, it disappears.
In-system it seems you can follow them.

If you shoot a bot that has ammo, it does not know to disengage when it runs out. It keeps trying to line up a shot on you. Forever.

The Centaurs and Behemoths can't aim their flares and screamers for crap. Better give them seeking missiles or AGT weaps. Or they'll die like flies. Centurions that had flares couldn't aim either. I say give them popcorn guns and the same AI as the Hive Guardians.

Group convoy missions are broken.

That's all I have to report.

Don't be modest LeberMac. Tell them the full story.

Leber got a little buddy. One of the centurion guardians tried to kill him, ran out of ammo, and started following him around everwhere. It made me realize how easy it would probably be to put in NPC escorts...

Oh yeah, that's the other bug. Convoy escorts don't really do much. If you shoot the convoy, the escorts don't shoot back (at least, they didn't for me). The escorts only shoot back if you shoot them [the escorts] themselves...

when you attack the convoy the escorts do not attack you to save the ship

however rocket centaurs and screamer moths are pretty sweet and they pay out excellent cargos!

LOL Yeah my "pet centurion". I was going to pet it and stroke it and name it "George". However, he was already named "Ostella-Ro Slick" or something.

Agreed rogue, attacking the behemoths did not trigger any aggression from the vults or Centaurs escorting them.

Although the behemoths whirled around in "Hippo twirling in mudpit" fashion and fired off some screamers at me. Missed by, well, several capship lengths. Even after I had stopped. So I think they'd better have swarms or mines or somethin.

what's the good word on things development crew? 'nother round of testing req'd?

Moths and centaurs don't even fire rockets any more. They just sit there.

where can one meet them?

Maybe they turned things off on the test server.

hmm. they should be around convoy-ing...

maybe we scared them off the other day a1k0n when you bombed them and I stole the goods