Constrictor Mission

[Commander McLane]

Just to clarify a little: Yes, the Constrictor is added at the witchpoint. Yes, it is simply called "Constrictor" (think about it for a minute: if you were stealing a space ship/car/motorbike, would you mark it as "stolen" in big letters on its numberplate? Wouldn't that look a tiny little bit suspicious, in case the police would stop you?). No, it isn't accompanied by any other ship. Yes, you can capture its pilot. No, you won't be able to do that every time, because escape-pod-ejection of NPCs is generally a little random in Oolite. And no, it doesn't carry any specific cargo; whether it releases pods when destroyed, and what is in these pods, is again subject to random only.

[maik]

I've been spending days now cruising around galaxy #2 (I was already there when the constrictor mission started) and have not come across a single hint about its whereabouts.

Just to keep my sanity: hints would appear on the planet description screen ('7' key), right? Would they also appear if I select a planet outside my fuel perimeter on the second '6'-key screen (the galaxy overview) and then press '7'?

Cheers,
-Maik

[snork]

There would appear the message for the current planet.
So if your current planet has no message, then no message nowhere on F6F6->F7 screen.

Did your mission not start with something "...stolen from the shipyards at planet-name" ?
At that planet, you should get a message in F7, telling you where to go next.

[maik]

Ok, thanks for clarifying. The mission did start with "...stolen at planet X" but I remember reading that the mission starts in galaxy #1 while I was already in galaxy #2 so didn't pay much attention to the planet's name... Hope that doesn't mean I cannot complete the mission anymore :s

Cheers,
-Maik

[Disembodied]

Ok, thanks for clarifying. The mission did start with "...stolen at planet X" but I remember reading that the mission starts in galaxy #1 while I was already in galaxy #2 so didn't pay much attention to the planet's name... Hope that doesn't mean I cannot complete the mission anymore :s

Cheers,
-Maik

No, you should be all right. I didn't start the Constrictor mission until I was already in Galaxy 2, and I found him eventually. Check out some of the systems in the top right quadrant of the map (i.e. visit them, and look to see if you get any clues on the F7 screen when you're there).

[maik]

Great, finally found it, thanks!

I was surprised it didn't put up much of a fight though. It fired one missile (destroyed by my ECM) and kept on fleeing when I shot a few rounds at it (military laser). After some iterations of hit and flee it came back, firing at me but missing. Eventually it took enough hits to explode, the pirate tried to escape but I collected his capsule and delivered him to the planet.

I was even more surprised to see that my number of kills received a bump of 256 for this. Not well balanced in my humble opinion, 10 would have been more than enough considering it was easy prey...

Now looking for the next mission :)

Cheers,
-Maik

[Gimi]

Great, finally found it, thanks!

I was surprised it didn't put up much of a fight though. It fired one missile (destroyed by my ECM) and kept on fleeing when I shot a few rounds at it (military laser). After some iterations of hit and flee it came back, firing at me but missing. Eventually it took enough hits to explode, the pirate tried to escape but I collected his capsule and delivered him to the planet.

Cheers,
-Maik

I have to agree with this account. Just finished the mission and the Constrictor is far to easy to beat. I vividly remember the mission on my C64, and it consisted of a long and protracted dog fight where I pounded the Constrictors shields again and again. (I actually replayed it several times because I liked the dog fight). In my view Injectors have made this mission to easy. Any way to beef up the constrictors shields and make the whole thing more of a dog fight as in the original.

[allikat]

Oooh, I wouldn't know... I did that mission in a python with injectors... that darned ship just plain outran the interceptor missiles I sent its' way. I actually managed to keep up by using the torus drive when they were off my screen...
Got him in the end, but kept the rest of my missiles, and used the laser.

[Gimi]

Oooh, I wouldn't know... I did that mission in a python with injectors... that darned ship just plain outran the interceptor missiles I sent its' way. I actually managed to keep up by using the torus drive when they were off my screen...
Got him in the end, but kept the rest of my missiles, and used the laser.

Yep, did the same to me, and I used the Torus drive and/or injectors to catch up. My point is that there was never really any dog fight. It became a game of "inject" - fire "torus" - fire - "inject" and so on, that was over far to quickly.

[Diziet Sma]

I too, was expecting a hellacious dogfight of the kind I had on the C-64, and was disappointed with the fight in Oolite.. don't recall now if I even used injectors or not..

[Commander McLane]

I think the Constrictor was such a formidable opponent in 8-bit Elite, because it was the first (and probably only) NPC you ever encountered which had a military laser. And this was quite a challenge if you only ever had fought pirates with pulse or beam lasers.

My one distinct memory of the fight on the C64 (and probably on the Atari ST as well) is that the Constrictor matched my firing rate. We were really exchanging shots one to one, unlike all other ships. So my energy vanished just as fast as his, unlike all other ships.

In Oolite, things are different. You can encounter equally hard opponents way before you get the Constrictor mission. Therefore it is not so exceptional anymore, and you may feel underwhelmed.

[Kaks]

If people are feeling really strongly about it, I suppose we can beef up the Constrictor... in 1.74 we can add all sort of equipment to it, in order to make it more of a challenge for the player.

If we want to be 'evil', in 1.74 we could give the constrictor an infinitely resupplied amount of missiles, or - more of a sensible approach, for a given definition of sensible - we could have it match the player's equipment, missiles and lasers (we can now find out which lasers are installed on a ship via js & use that to select the appropriate constrictor).

Any opinions?

[Disembodied]

How about giving it a q-bomb, and the smarts to use it properly (i.e. drop it near the player and run away) if/when the circumstances warrant? And make all its missiles hardheads.

We have to be careful, though, not to define "challenging" as "challenging for a long-time Ooliteer in a tricked-out killer ship", i.e. "all-but-unbeatable for a moderately-equipped Cobra III". It is still a pretty early mission in anyone's career.

[ADCK]

Hmm, I like the idea of making them match the player.

Perhaps give it a cloaking device or some unique equipment like a super-military laser that never overheats?

[another_commander]

If people are feeling really strongly about it, I suppose we can beef up the Constrictor... in 1.74 we can add all sort of equipment to it, in order to make it more of a challenge for the player.

If we want to be 'evil', in 1.74 we could give the constrictor an infinitely resupplied amount of missiles, or - more of a sensible approach, for a given definition of sensible - we could have it match the player's equipment, missiles and lasers (we can now find out which lasers are installed on a ship via js & use that to select the appropriate constrictor).

Any opinions?

I don't think that an unlimited supply of missiles is a good solution for the Constrictor. If you are dogfighting it and see it launching a missile for the 42nd time, won't you be a bit annoyed?

Matching player's equipment: I don't think that this is the way either. I believe that the Constrictor should carry as minimum a front military laser and maybe one or two missiles more, though. To beef it up, we could maybe add a rear military laser as well, so that it shoots the player even when player is on its six.

I am not sure whether we check anywhere that the player is using military lasers against it. If not, we should somehow make it invulnerable to any other type of laser, since it is specifically stated in the mission briefing that military lasers are required for its shields.

Applying the two points above should be sufficient in my opinion, and it should also be consistent with the contents of the mission briefing. We don't want to make the mission impossible, just tough enough.