Split: Difficulty for new players

[Diziet Sma]

G'day, Falcon777, and welcome aboard!

I agree with Smivs.. you have some interesting suggestions, and I too like the 'increasing safety-net' idea. If you look through this thread (if you haven't already) and the last 6 months or so of the "Progress" thread, you'll see that some quite significant changes to pirate and police behaviour will be happening in the next version of Oolite. In fact, if you install a "Trunk Nightly Build" (the development version which will ultimately become the next release), you can see how things are progressing in that regard for yourself.

[Falcon777]

G'day to you as well (I live in the U.S., but I can pretend for the moment that I know how to speak with a British accent). I completely read through this thread to make sure that no one else had the same idea as I did. I also noticed how there was a massive jump from when the thread had last been posted in (something like February), so I wasn't sure how many changes had been made since then. I'm currently playing in 1.77, which I presume is the most updated version as of yet.

[Cody]

I'm currently playing in 1.77, which I presume is the most updated version as of yet.

Oolite 1.77.1 is the latest deployment version (you may already have that, of course).

[Diziet Sma]

G'day to you as well (I live in the U.S., but I can pretend for the moment that I know how to speak with a British accent).

Well, in my case, that would be an Aussie accent.. (I don't think Brits use "G'day" as a general greeting)

For further clarification to what Cody said, when 1.77.1 is finished bugfixing, it will become the next 'stable' release, and renamed 1.78.. (stable refers to the feature-set, not how 'wobbly' it is) "Trunk", or 1.79, on the other hand, is one step beyond 1.78, where new features are being added and tested as we speak. When released, it will go through a further period of testing/bugfixing as well, after which it will become the next stable release, 1.80.

However, for those wanting to see where Oolite is going, Trunk nightly builds can be downloaded (so called because they are constantly being updated) which can be installed alongside your regular 1.77.1 game. They are not guaranteed to work correctly on any given day (problems are usually fixed rapidly however) but they are usually stable enough (in the 'wobbly' sense this time) that some of us, such as Cody and myself, tend to use them for most of our gameplay.

If you want to see what Oolite looks like on the bleeding-edge of feature development, Trunk is where you go.

[Cody]

<mutters something about 'colonials' - wanders off, singing a Who classic>

[Diziet Sma]

<mutters something about 'colonials' - wanders off, singing a Who classic>

Meh.. you exported all your best talent to Australia as prisoners.. the Empire's been in a tailspin ever since..

[Cody]

<mutters something about 'colonials' - wanders off, singing a Who classic>

Meh.. you exported all your best talent to Australia as prisoners...

Yeah... if only we had exported all the hairdressers and lawyers instead.

[cim]

If a system has less pirate activity because of greater police patrolling, shouldn't the police be capable of providing a larger area where they will come to you aid? This always seemed odd to me.

The restriction on that is in two parts.
1) The number of ships needed to continuously patrol a volume of space goes up with the cube of the radius of that volume. Even with the significantly increased number of police ships available to a Corporate State, it's still not possible to patrol that much larger an area than in a Multi-Gov. What they are able to do - and you'll see this much more in the next version - is put more patrols (and bigger patrols) on the space lanes to deter and intercept pirates.
2) The alternative to patrolling is scan-and-dispatch. A Viper - lets assume a low- or mid- tech system which doesn't have access to Interceptors - has a top speed of 320m/s. To fly from one end of the existing relatively small aegis to the other will take five minutes; to launch a fresh ship to respond to events at the edge will take at least two minutes. That's relatively manageable - so long as the ship being attacked can continue to fly towards the station, attacking pirates are not going to have time to destroy it, scoop the cargo, and escape before the Vipers show up. Triple the aegis radius and it takes five minutes or more for the Vipers to reach a ship at the edge, and that's far too slow.

It might be possible to have a larger aegis in systems which have Interceptors, though, since they have fuel injectors and can reach ten times the speed of a Viper. The station scanners would need an upgrade to actually pick out targets for them, but that's probably manageable. I'll have a closer look at that one when I get a moment.

Another option, though harder to code certain subtleties, would be to add more stations to the more secure systems, and let them each have a protected aegis. The combined protection would make much more space around the planet safe.

By adding more and more ships outside the space lanes

Again the problem with this is that space is big. It wouldn't be so bad if the player didn't have the torus drive - you could have pirates hanging out a little off the spacelane, and if the player (or a freighter, especially) tried to go around then they could intercept them at conventional speeds. As it is, you need the pirates to already be where the player is going, which means adding perhaps a hundred extra pirate packs (or more) - maybe five hundred extra ships - to the system, just on the off-chance that the player heads off-lane in that direction ... which then raises the question: if there's that many extra pirates in this system, why are they all hanging out nowhere near the trade routes?

Elite, and the Deep Space Pirates OXP, cheat and just create pirates as needed where the player is.

So perhaps what's actually needed is a way for pirates to intercept a player who is using the torus drive. Given just how fast that goes - 32 times normal speed - that's a difficult problem to solve. Ideas on how to intercept an off-lane player, without either magically adding pirates in the right place, or preemptively adding ridiculous numbers of pirates, would be very welcome.

[nightly builds] are not guaranteed to work correctly on any given day (problems are usually fixed rapidly however)

Problems which prevent us from testing what we're currently working on are fixed rapidly. The run up to 1.77 had planets as white spheres for months, though, and other cosmetic bugs can hang around for a while too.

We're very grateful to our brave test pilots but those wishing to join them should be very aware of what they're getting in to - keeping good backups is essential but may not be enough, since while we guarantee that a later version will load save games from an earlier version, we don't guarantee that an earlier version will load save games from a later version without data loss.

[Falcon777]

If a system has less pirate activity because of greater police patrolling, shouldn't the police be capable of providing a larger area where they will come to you aid? This always seemed odd to me.

The restriction on that is in two parts.
1) The number of ships needed to continuously patrol a volume of space goes up with the cube of the radius of that volume. Even with the significantly increased number of police ships available to a Corporate State, it's still not possible to patrol that much larger an area than in a Multi-Gov. What they are able to do - and you'll see this much more in the next version - is put more patrols (and bigger patrols) on the space lanes to deter and intercept pirates.
2) The alternative to patrolling is scan-and-dispatch. A Viper - lets assume a low- or mid- tech system which doesn't have access to Interceptors - has a top speed of 320m/s. To fly from one end of the existing relatively small aegis to the other will take five minutes; to launch a fresh ship to respond to events at the edge will take at least two minutes. That's relatively manageable - so long as the ship being attacked can continue to fly towards the station, attacking pirates are not going to have time to destroy it, scoop the cargo, and escape before the Vipers show up. Triple the aegis radius and it takes five minutes or more for the Vipers to reach a ship at the edge, and that's far too slow.

It might be possible to have a larger aegis in systems which have Interceptors, though, since they have fuel injectors and can reach ten times the speed of a Viper. The station scanners would need an upgrade to actually pick out targets for them, but that's probably manageable. I'll have a closer look at that one when I get a moment.

Another option, though harder to code certain subtleties, would be to add more stations to the more secure systems, and let them each have a protected aegis. The combined protection would make much more space around the planet safe.

By adding more and more ships outside the space lanes

Again the problem with this is that space is big. It wouldn't be so bad if the player didn't have the torus drive - you could have pirates hanging out a little off the spacelane, and if the player (or a freighter, especially) tried to go around then they could intercept them at conventional speeds. As it is, you need the pirates to already be where the player is going, which means adding perhaps a hundred extra pirate packs (or more) - maybe five hundred extra ships - to the system, just on the off-chance that the player heads off-lane in that direction ... which then raises the question: if there's that many extra pirates in this system, why are they all hanging out nowhere near the trade routes?

Elite, and the Deep Space Pirates OXP, cheat and just create pirates as needed where the player is.

So perhaps what's actually needed is a way for pirates to intercept a player who is using the torus drive. Given just how fast that goes - 32 times normal speed - that's a difficult problem to solve. Ideas on how to intercept an off-lane player, without either magically adding pirates in the right place, or preemptively adding ridiculous numbers of pirates, would be very welcome.

My idea is definitely completely based upon scan and dispatch. With a larger radius of influence (and much greater number of vipers), the police in a democracy or corporate state would be able to provide and simulate the greater safety that those kinds of systems ought to have based upon the fluff within the original manual. The larger space lanes helps out with the idea of a greater number of pirates, but the problem I have with pirates and traders only existing within the space lanes is that it's illogical. Any trader ought to be able to recognize how there's only pirates within the lanes, and thus all traders would start making arcs towards the main station instead of going on a straight line. Pirates would subsequently start going outside of the lanes in order to catch the traders, and thus you have larger space lanes.

However, this seems to deviate from what I would think would be the attitude of pirates: they are raiders. Raiders need a place to call home, AWAY from the authorities. This is partly simulated by the pirate coves oxp, though that's still more of a trap springing sort of thing rather than a home base for pirates. If all systems had pirate coves like that, but existed quite a ways outside of the space lanes, then you'd get pirate traffic within the lanes while having pirates in a likely area outside of the lanes for them to be, namely between the lanes and their lairs. A powerful player could possibly try to raid the lairs (or you could even have special police/navy missions for this sort of thing).

Drat, I've run out of time and need to get ready for church. In any case, I hope these ideas at least spark some interest.

[cim]

but the problem I have with pirates and traders only existing within the space lanes is that it's illogical. Any trader ought to be able to recognize how there's only pirates within the lanes, and thus all traders would start making arcs towards the main station instead of going on a straight line. Pirates would subsequently start going outside of the lanes in order to catch the traders, and thus you have larger space lanes.

I think of it in a slightly different way: space is huge, and patrolling a volume of space is very tricky. Patrolling a linear route requires far fewer ships. So the police (and some of the bounty hunters) patrol on the obvious linear route between the planet and the witchpoint because there's not the resources to do more and picking that route makes it easy for people to follow it in. The traders then stick to this route because that's where the protection is, and the pirates have to raid that route - despite the patrols - because that's where the traders are. (And in a high-government system, the patrols will in the next version be frequent enough that piracy is quite difficult)

Most traders are flying quite slow ships so if they go off lane they're out of protection and could be intercepted easily by a faster pirate pack. The next version you might see a few faster lone trade ships going a little further off-lane, though, especially if they have reason not to want to run into a patrol either.

A powerful player could possibly try to raid the lairs

You might find the first few pages of this thread interesting. Essentially the problem is that there are no weapons in Oolite suitable for defending a large stationary installation other than defense ships, and not always then - so you'd quickly find pirate lairs being destroyed by high-speed Q-bombs (or worse, "farmed" for kills, as is easy enough to do with Pirate Coves if you have a few military lasers) ... and if the player can do it solo, why wouldn't the police do the same in the systems where they have the numbers?

So, the safest place to put the pirate base is the planet (or someone else's planet - launch from an Anarchy planet, jump to witchspace, raid another system, jump home). That will be in the next version. The pirates do end up in a wider band around the spacelane as a result, as they may be heading for the witchpoint from having orbited the planet a bit first.

[Cody]

Ideas on how to intercept an off-lane player, without either magically adding pirates in the right place, or preemptively adding ridiculous numbers of pirates, would be very welcome.

Tough one! <wanders off, pondering Thargoid warships automagically jumping off-lane players>

[Commander McLane]

A warm welcome from me as well, Falcon777!

That's some very good ideas and observations you're offering. Getting some input and perspective from a fresh player is what we need, because for the veterans it's difficult to pretend to be fresh again.

I'd like to add another angle to the points raised so far. I don't know whether you have noticed, but there is in fact a difference in safety between the different political systems, as far as the number of police ships patrolling the lanes (outside the aegis, because the patrol ships inside the aegis are a different matter; they exist everywhere) is concerned: in Corporate States, in the unexpanded game there are up to eight (I believe), while in Anarchies and Feudals there are zero. So in the higher up systems there is a chance that police will assist you out on the lane, while in the dangerous systems you can be sure to be on your own.

Still, you're right that the police presence even in the higher up systems isn't overwhelming. Eight Vipers placed on the average lane length of 600,000 meters means 75,000 meters per Viper, which translates into three scanner radii. It gets better with shorter lanes, and worse with the really long lanes of 900,000 meters. And of course the Vipers are not stretched out perfectly at any given time, so at times they will be very close to each other, and most of the lane will be unattended.

This is not the only issue, however. The other issue is that a single Viper is pretty useless against a pirate pack, even if it comes to your aid. The Viper may manage to draw the attention (and the fire) of all pirate ships to itself, thereby enabling you to make a run. But it doesn't really stand a chance to eliminate the pack. And its next colleague is likely too far away to assist. This wouldn't change if Vipers were to be dispatched from somewhere. The only way would be to drastically increase their number. Flood the lane with Vipers, until each one of them is in scanner range of at least one, if not two others at any given time. This would potentially mean a lot more entities per system, with the expectable effects on the frame rate.

[metatheurgist]

That is one thing I really enjoy about having the Galactic Navy OXP. Those worlds that have a military presence are nice and safe, with a patrolling behemoth and frigate and viper squad positioned at the witch space exit. It's a nice surprise when you enter space in a patrolled world with pirates on your tail to immediately get backup.

[Diziet Sma]

It's a nice surprise when you enter space in a patrolled world with pirates on your tail to immediately get backup.

And a not-so-nice surprise when you emerge from witchspace with a less-than-pristine criminal record yourself.. Thank Giles for injectors!

[Falcon777]

I also use the galactic navy oxp, which frankly is absolutely amazing . It really adds to the atmosphere, especially when I get sucked into witchspace by thargoids: I don't have to worry about my python not being a superior fighting craft (even if it is iron assed), I can just prime my extra fuel tanks on my pylons and ignite the fuel injectors until I'm clear of the horde, then hyperspace over to the planet that I was originally going to. The additional presence, and space station, at Isonar is pretty cool too (yes, I know there are other seccoms, but the Isonar-Ensorius run is a really good one ).

And yes, before I installed the navy oxp I did see more patrols, though it didn't really matter to me as I went off the lanes just to avoid traffic in general (polic, trader, pirate, they're all getting in the way of my profits, darnit! lol ).

The idea with the larger safety net definitely doesn't require a vast number of patrolling vipers. Rather, the number of vipers docked at the main station would increase dramatically as you go up the rankings of system safety. With greater numbers of vipers at their command, the police would then be able to provide a larger area where they could come to the aid of ships "near" the main station. Given how small this safe area is to begin with (denoted by the large S on your hud), it seems...somewhat...reasonable to double that distance with each increased system rank (though, of course, exact distances would need to be worked out to make the whole system reasonable). If it was exactly double each time and the current range was the range for an anarchy system, then...a corporate state would have an area where the police would dispatch vipers to help you out should you be attacked and have a clean rating...128 times larger than what it currently is. That might be a bit much, or it might not. I don't know exact sizes of what I'm working with here. The democracy would have one 64 times as large, the confederacy 32 times, the communist state 16 times, dictatorship 8 times, multi-gov 4 times, and feudal 2 times.

hmmmm....I don't know. What do you all think? Would a response area that large be too much? Not enough? I guess when you think about it, it'll still take a normal viper quite a while to reach that edge from the main station, so a new player would still have to be flying for a while to reach true safety. Perhaps the greater advantage of a larger safe area would be that the police would be responding to npc traders as well, thus possibly giving you the chance to pawn your pirates off on them, though that would probably depend upon police behavior.

Meh, it's just an idea.