Oolite: misjumpier

[Wildeblood]

Currently witchspace jumps have no role in game play: every jump is the same as every other; mis-jumps happen rarely and completely randomly. The suggestion here is to make jumps a part of game strategy by increasing the probability of mis-jumps proportionally with jump distance, and decreasing the probability of mis-jumps for pilots with previous experience of long jumps.

Huh?

If a player makes a series of jumps: 1ly, 1ly, 1ly, 1ly, 1ly, 1ly, 7ly, they should be almost certain of having a mis-jump on that seventh jump because it's much longer than what they are used to.

Contrarily, if a player makes a series of jumps: 7ly, 7ly, 7ly, 7ly, 7ly, 7ly, 1ly, they should be almost certain of not having a mis-jump on that seventh jump because they have plenty of experience in interstellar flight, and it's much shorter than their average jump.

So, this would need to record a rolling average of the player's last few jump distances and for each jump compare average jump length - this jump length and use the result to bias the probability of a scripted mis-jump.

Waddayafink?

[Smivs]

Currently witchspace jumps have no role in game play: every jump is the same as every other; mis-jumps happen rarely and completely randomly. The suggestion here is to make jumps a part of game strategy by increasing the probability of mis-jumps proportionally with jump distance, and decreasing the probability of mis-jumps for pilots with previous experience of long jumps.

Not so random - ship condition plays a key part in causing mis-jumps and normal jumping causes the ship to deteriorate already, so the more you jump the more likely you are to experience a mis-jump. I don't think jump distance is (or should be) a factor, and experience is irrelevant - it is the ship which mis-jumps and pilot experience again is not (and should not) be a factor, except that a more experienced pilot is more likely to have a well-maintained ship and is therefore less likely to experience a mis-jump.
Having said all that, I do agree that jumps are a bit samey and boring most of the time. If we wanted more variety or 'chance' in these, perhaps a better way would be to add random mis-jumps that don't leave you in witchspace but instead leave you in a different system to your chosen destination. That could be fun

[ffutures]

The problem with the original idea is that if you're trying to follow a minimum time route you are likely to do a lot of short jumps with only the occasional long one, which means that someone who does a lot of cargo and parcel deliveries (e.g. an experienced pilot) is going to have more misjumps than say someone who is just jumping backwards and forwards between a high tech and a low tech system, a typical newbie way of raising cash.

I should add that there is already a misjump add-on - Interstellar Tweaks, which I thoroughly recommend because it really does make you think carefully before every jump. It makes misjumps more common and adds various interesting failure modes including coming out of hyperspace a long way away from the Witch point, witchspace sickness (the more jumps you make without docking, the more likely this is), coming out VERY close to a sun (which may possibly be caused by a combination of this and Distant Suns, rather than a deliberate "feature"), and in a couple of cases dying instantly at the end of a jump, which I suspect may be an extreme case of the Distant Suns problem caused by coming out inside the implosion depth of a star... Unfortunately I've never thought to look at the log when that happens, next time I really must. There may be others I haven't encountered yet.

Re jumping to a different system - misjumps always seem to come out between the origin and target system; you'd think there'd be an occasional over-run that dumps you out a light year or two beyond the target system!

[Cody]

Re jumping to a different system - misjumps always seem to come out between the origin and target system; you'd think there'd be an occasional over-run that dumps you out a light year or two beyond the target system!

Cheyd's EWI had some unusual side effects along those lines, as I recall.

[Lazarus]

Re jumping to a different system - misjumps always seem to come out between the origin and target system; you'd think there'd be an occasional over-run that dumps you out a light year or two beyond the target system!

Or maybe even going backwards depending on just how rusty the witchdrive is...

[ffutures]

Re jumping to a different system - misjumps always seem to come out between the origin and target system; you'd think there'd be an occasional over-run that dumps you out a light year or two beyond the target system!

Or maybe even going backwards depending on just how rusty the witchdrive is...

I'd have no problems with that.

[Rorschachhamster]

I remember the misjumps in the Traveller RPG... you could go end quite a way of from your intented target. I found this link.
If you translated this to the Oolite Universe, you could even go as far as 49 LY... maybe even an unintentional Galaxy swap? This would probably mess with a lot of missions, of course.

There was some discussion somewhere here about how broken doing jumps greater than 7 LY would be - maybe smaller witchdrives (maybe with a short range of only 2 LY, even?) would be a fun addition to the Ooniverse? Especially regarding the new functionality in the galactic chart. How feasible would that be?
Is it even possible?

[ralph_hh]

Currently witchspace jumps have no role in game play: every jump is the same as every other; mis-jumps happen rarely and completely randomly. The suggestion here is to make jumps a part of game strategy by increasing the probability of mis-jumps proportionally with jump distance, and decreasing the probability of mis-jumps for pilots with previous experience of long jumps.

What's the point of a misjump in a 6.8LY jump? There is no more fuel left to go anywhere, no chance to refuel or scoop, so you will end up quitting the game anyway. - I remember from my Elite times, in a misjump, I always checked if the remaining fuel range is enough for the next available planet first, to see if it makes sense to fight at all.

I've killed 1400 or so but experience only one misjump so far - righ in the beginning, when joung Jameson with a pulse laser was definately not ready for this. Obviously the chance is very very small. To be honest, I don't miss it. The thargoid attack by random hits OXP was far mor fun. If I need excitement, I go to Anarchy systems.

[Cody]

There is no more fuel left to go anywhere, no chance to refuel or scoop, so you will end up quitting the game anyway.

That ain't necessarily so!

[ralph_hh]

No? Please enlighten me..

If the chance of a misjump shall be increased with the distance, please do not try to explain, that there is enough fuel after a 2ly jump, that's not the question here...

[Cody]

No? Please enlighten me...

If you should find yourself in interstellar space without enough fuel to escape, do not despair - carry on splashing Thargoids, and keep your eyes peeled.

[ralph_hh]

OK, then no spolier
So far I did this just once, you remember the horrible sniping experience. I collected 10t of the small ships, but did not try to burn them in my engines
I jumped around the hyperspace for a while, as I've seen something grey in the scanner during the fight. Couldn't relocate it though, I had no bearings.

[Wildeblood]

I jumped around the hyperspace for a while, as I've seen something grey in the scanner during the fight. Couldn't relocate it though, I had no bearings.

Right, you've just evoked one of my pet peeves: why does the compass not work in interstellar space? Why can't ships or stations in interstellar space have beacons?

[ralph_hh]

Well...because it's interstellar space??
There is no star, no planet, no station, so nothing for the ships "compass" to indicate. there is no station, there is nothing, so who should put a beacon there and why? And... where??? There is no fix point.

[Wildeblood]

But even if you do put a station there, you can't put a beacon on it, and that's just wrong.