Well anyhow, those durned satellites sure take a lot out of a guy. Sheesh! Lots of bugs, tricky, and new code to be written. But they now (basically) work and I think at some point in the recent future it will be easy to direct them to fire upon the player. Doesn't make it impossible to explore a planet, but it sure makes it annoying!
@p
Right now I'm working more on the court system. I got the basic system in place and it should be ok, but I still need to handle court summons, and actually appearing in court. As with all things, we start very simple, the simplest model imaginable which in this case is 1) shoot an NPC ship 2) they escape and file charges 3) you recieve a court summons 4) you show up and pay a fine, or you get additional warnings (raising the fines each time) and finally branded as an outlaw. Later on we'll have to work out different penalties, in particular "outlaw" status is too strong at first, instead I think you'll first be upgraded to miscreant, and then only after multiple offences face outlaw charges.
@p
The funny thing is, since the NPC has to escape to file complaints, the charges only count if the NPC escapes so you can never be charged with the more serious offence of shooting an NPC down.
@p
Oh yes, and I had the absolutely coolest idea yet on how the minor gods and so forth are going to work. This one is really unbelievably cool. So simple, yet so... mmm. You'll just have to see!
2005-01-29