Oolite 2: ship balance, starting conditions and death knells

[Disembodied]

Moderator: Split from Looking ahead.

Still on the economic side of things, a significant change could be made to the player's starting ship. In Elite, we started with a Cobra III because it was all we were ever going to have; in Oolite though we already have a major game-change, in that we can buy different ships. I think it would make sense to bump the starting player down to a much smaller ship – probably an Adder. This would greatly extend the active role of money in the game, and provide the player with many more decisions to make, e.g. should I buy the shield booster for the Adder, or just keep saving for the next ship upgrade? Should I upgrade now to a Cobra Mk I, or save up for a Moray? The Cobra Mk I can carry more cargo but the Moray's a better fighter ... and so on. (There might need to be a bit of rebalancing of ship stats and prices, if creating a longer career path is thought worthwhile.)

Alternatively, the game could start with the player, without a ship, in a reasonably well-stocked shipyard with a decent amount of cash to spend (although probably not enough for a brand-new Cobra III, IMO). The player could then choose from a range of ships, with various advantages and disadvantages, e.g.

• a brand-new Adder with nothing left over for any extras (advantage: service and running costs are low, resale is good; disadvantage: it's an unmodified Adder)
• a second-hand Adder (advantage: there's enough cash left over for some extra bits of basic kit; disadvantage: it's still an Adder, the resale is lower and the running and service costs are higher)
• a somewhat beat-up Moray (advantage: you can fight in it a bit, and it carries a little more cargo; disadvantage: cargo capacity is limited, resale is pretty poor and service and running costs are quite steep)
• a very second-hand Cobra I (advantage: it's a halfway decent trading ship, and there's just enough for a cargo bay extension; disadvantage: it's seriously unreliable, with high running costs and erratic performance, and the resale is terrible)

[Commander McLane]

Still on the economic side of things, a significant change could be made to the player's starting ship.

I think that's a thought worth pursuing. I also like the idea of having choices with various advantages and disadvantages.

However, I think the Adder is just too poor to be a choice for anybody but the most masochistic players. Let's face it, almost any possible career path in the beginning of the game requires you to carry cargo, be it as a trader or a bounty hunter and scavenger. And the Adder's cargo capacity of 2TC is just too poor to get a new player anywhere before he'll give up on the game. If we would raise its capacity to 5TC (like NPC Adders for some unbeknownst-to-me reason already have), there would at least be some perspective of actually making money, and the new Jameson could even choose to install a passenger berth after a while (which would have to be enabled in shipyard.plist as well; currently it isn't).

[Smivs]

Still on the economic side of things, a significant change could be made to the player's starting ship.

This is an idea I mooted some time ago It is definitely worth consideration.

[Disembodied]

I think that's a thought worth pursuing. I also like the idea of having choices with various advantages and disadvantages.

However, I think the Adder is just too poor to be a choice for anybody but the most masochistic players. Let's face it, almost any possible career path in the beginning of the game requires you to carry cargo, be it as a trader or a bounty hunter and scavenger. And the Adder's cargo capacity of 2TC is just too poor to get a new player anywhere before he'll give up on the game. If we would raise its capacity to 5TC (like NPC Adders for some unbeknownst-to-me reason already have), there would at least be some perspective of actually making money, and the new Jameson could even choose to install a passenger berth after a while (which would have to be enabled in shipyard.plist as well; currently it isn't).

You're right, the Adder as currently listed is too small. I'd support upgrading it to 5TC, and/or (probably and) bringing in Frontier-style parcel shipments that don't take up any cargo space via the F8-F8 screen. It's something more for starting players to do, and there's always the chance of lucking out and finding a nice little chain of them. I wouldn't make them pay terribly well, but something is better than nothing.

@ Smivs: great minds think alike and all that – although I'm probably just parroting back your original idea!

[lohwengk]

Still on the economic side of things, a significant change could be made to the player's starting ship.

I think that's a thought worth pursuing. I also like the idea of having choices with various advantages and disadvantages.

However, I think the Adder is just too poor to be a choice for anybody but the most masochistic players. Let's face it, almost any possible career path in the beginning of the game requires you to carry cargo, be it as a trader or a bounty hunter and scavenger. And the Adder's cargo capacity of 2TC is just too poor to get a new player anywhere before he'll give up on the game. If we would raise its capacity to 5TC (like NPC Adders for some unbeknownst-to-me reason already have), there would at least be some perspective of actually making money, and the new Jameson could even choose to install a passenger berth after a while (which would have to be enabled in shipyard.plist as well; currently it isn't).

We could always warn the player. Something like:
- Normal mode (Cobra Mk 3)
- Easy mode (Moray - bounty hunting)
- Easy mode (Cobra Mk 1 - trader)
- Hard mode
- Are you *masochistic*??? mode - (Adder)

We might even expand the basic shipset. Maybe bring in the 3 Neolite OXPs, all the extra core ship variants, e.g. Cobra Rapier, Super Cobra, Asp Explorer, Python Class Cruiser, Boa Clipper, etc.

[Commander McLane]

We might even expand the basic shipset. Maybe bring in the 3 Neolite OXPs, all the extra core ship variants, e.g. Cobra Rapier, Super Cobra, Asp Explorer, Python Class Cruiser, Boa Clipper, etc.

I'm quite sure we won't do that. The basic shipset is the basic shipset. It's a coherent set of ships which is part of the vanilla game. All the rest is OXPs.

For Oolite 2 the basic shipset will be the Griff set, as Ahruman already has pointed out. So you don't need to think about the unspectacular ships which are the basic set of Oolite 1.7x. But I don't think that more ships than those currently present in vanilla Oolite will be included. The player is still free to customize Oolite by adding more ships (the point of having OXPs/OXZs, especially if it comes to ships, is to let the player decide what they want and what they don't want). The core game shouldn't give options which rely on the presence of an expansion which may or may not be installed.

[Switeck]

However, I think the Adder is just too poor to be a choice for anybody but the most masochistic players. ...the Adder's cargo capacity of 2TC is just too poor... If we would raise its capacity to 5TC (like NPC Adders ...have), there would at least be some perspective of actually making money, and the new Jameson could even choose to install a passenger berth after a while

In my mod, I figured out how to give the Adder a Large Cargo Bay (LCB) that increased its initial capacity from 2 TC to 5 TC. Wasn't very "large", but I did it to match what the NPC Adders had. Also I added the passenger berth as a possible equipment for the player Adder, though of course it could only be equipped if you got the LCB.

A simple solution is to make the old Cobra 3 start just 1 optional start, with the Cobra 1 and Adder being alternate "harder mode" starts. No other things would need to be changed to represent these increases in difficulty, since just getting to the point of buying a Cobra 3 (or more expensive) ship will take an agonizingly long time unless you use money-making OXPs. It does help that even with small cargo capacity that you can buy/sell considerable amounts of Gold/Plat/Gems.

My "Broke Adder" start is reserved for those who enjoy prolonging the starting pains.

[Disembodied]

A simple solution is to make the old Cobra 3 start just 1 optional start, with the Cobra 1 and Adder being alternate "harder mode" starts. No other things would need to be changed to represent these increases in difficulty, since just getting to the point of buying a Cobra 3 (or more expensive) ship will take an agonizingly long time unless you use money-making OXPs. It does help that even with small cargo capacity that you can buy/sell considerable amounts of Gold/Plat/Gems.

My "Broke Adder" start is reserved for those who enjoy prolonging the starting pains.

I'm not sure ... I think it's a mistake to give the player such a great ship as a Cobra III right from the start. It only makes sense if you're not able to change ships. In a game where the player can change ships, it would be better to reprice certain upgrades and ship types, and build in a few more non-cargo-related money-making opportunities like parcel transport, to create a reasonably smooth progress route for the player to go from timid Jameson to badass veteran. Finally being able to command your own Cobra III should be a major achievement, not something you get from the start. It means breaking an established Elite tradition but I think there are very good game-related reasons for making the break.

All other games that allow player progress and development have this arc. Frontier put you in an Eagle; Escape Velocity starts you off in a shuttlecraft; umpteen RPGs get going with the player wearing a string vest and carrying a pointed stick (if they're lucky). An Adder, with a few modifications, is a good little ship. It's jump-capable, there's room for a bit of cargo, and people are always looking for someone to take some packet or other a few systems away.

With another tweak to in-game behaviour, it could be made a lot more survivable, too. Pirates (I think) already have a chance to abort an attack if you eject cargo: if that was made more consistent/reliable, then a player who got jumped by pirates they couldn't handle could at least have a chance of escaping with their ship, if not their cargo and dignity, intact. And it would make sense: pirates don't want to blow ships up, and scoop what survives; they'd much rather frighten you into dropping your cargo undamaged, and see you scoot off to hopefully get some more which they can try to steal as well. So early encounters with pirates could be more often humiliating than fatal – spurring the player onwards and upwards until they can start to exact a bit of revenge themselves.

I recently started a new pilot, and sold my Cobra III and bought an Adder with many trimmings. I've managed to beat several pirate packs in it, even if firing my military laser does tend to drain the energy banks at an alarming rate. It's small and nippy and a bugger to hit.

[Killer Wolf]

"Are you *masochistic*??? mode - (Adder)"

how about an orbital shuttle instead

i'm totally against anything but Griff's as the basic set. As McL rightly points out anything else is OXP, and even if a couple come close to the quality none match the consistent theme and feel of Griff's and would stick out like a sore paw, i feel.

[Smivs]

i'm totally against anything but Griff's as the basic set. As McL rightly points out anything else is OXP, and even if a couple come close to the quality none match the consistent theme and feel of Griff's and would stick out like a sore paw, i feel.

Overlooking the fact that (currently) Griff's ships are OXP, I fear that this is the death-knell for OXP ships in general. The fact is very few people have the skill, knowledge and ability to come close to that high standard. We should accept that when Oolite 2 does come along, new ships that "match the consistent theme and feel of Griff's" will not feature heavily in the OXZs available.

[Gimi]

i'm totally against anything but Griff's as the basic set. As McL rightly points out anything else is OXP, and even if a couple come close to the quality none match the consistent theme and feel of Griff's and would stick out like a sore paw, i feel.

Overlooking the fact that (currently) Griff's ships are OXP, I fear that this is the death-knell for OXP ships in general. The fact is very few people have the skill, knowledge and ability to come close to that high standard. We should accept that when Oolite 2 does come along, new ships that "match the consistent theme and feel of Griff's" will not feature heavily in the OXZs available.

However, with some good tutorials and maybe even by planning for it in the design, doing things similar to what Dertien has done with Griff's ships, should make the ships more accessible for modification.

[Griff]

Plus, i think that the devs are planning an overhaul of the 'Materials' system so loads more effects will be available just with a bit of texture painting and some lines of code in the shipdata.plist, there won't be any need for shader writing or complex stuff like that to get the effects from my shipset on your own oxz ships (and it's only the shaders that really help my stuff work, take them away and the ships are really dull and drab)

[Selezen]

I hope so - one of the reasons I shelved working on the Dream Team set was that Griff and Simon B were producing work that was head and shoulders above what I was doing, and my texturing was nowhere near the sort of quality that others were pumping out. Shaders are currently above my level and I have no time (there's that word again) to learn a new method...

[Switeck]

I'm not sure ... I think it's a mistake to give the player such a great ship as a Cobra III right from the start. It only makes sense if you're not able to change ships. ... It means breaking an established Elite tradition but I think there are very good game-related reasons for making the break.

Tradition is hard to break, so as a compromise...you can start in a Cobra 3, but it was bought on credit.
...Done in such a way you will be forced to pay off the loan for it before equipping it, such as a semi-high interest rate -- though nothing like the Black Monks usury. So maybe about 100-500 credits per jump on a loan of 50,000 credits?

As for how great the player's Cobra 3 is...how about increasing its cost and/or reducing its max speed to 0.30 LM?

[Commander McLane]

Overlooking the fact that (currently) Griff's ships are OXP...

Yes, you may overlook that, because we're talking about Oolite 2.0 here:

There will also be more player-visible changes than in 1.76. In particular, the graphics will be almost completely replaced (primarily based on Griff’s ships – his forum title stopped being honorary in late 2009).

So the basic set in Oolite 2 will be based on (not identical to) Griff's ships. (In all preliminarity, as Ahruman wrote.)