Antiubericity

[Thargoid]

I'm not sure I'd fully agree with that. Having written several mission OXPs now, I must say that I don't strongly consider what ship the player is flying. I normally test them using a Cobbie3, but beyond that I figure if the player has installed a stronger ship to fly, that's their affair and their game choice. Having them use a Caddie/Imp Courier/Vortex/Death Star doesn't really bother me at all, and certainly wouldn't stop me writing missions. Of course if it would have, I wouldn't have written the Vortex.

Out of interest, some OXP download stats:

Caddy - 300 downloads since I've been temporarily housing it on my box.net. Plus of course shedloads more from it's true home.
Vortex - 235 downloads since release.

Stealth - 437 downloads since release.
TCAT - 533 downloads since release.

Of course there is some correlation with release date and download count, but broadly speaking the downloads are at a similar rate I would say.

[Mauiby de Fug]

I'm curious - which ships are considered "uber"?

[Smivs]

I'm curious - which ships are considered "uber"?

Here's a few.

[Okti]

Definetly Vortex is one of them,


My favorite ship since OXP is released,

Only there is a bug which I could not identify about cargo handling.


Okti

[Thargoid]

And one I couldn't reproduce (unless you mean about illegal substances stored in non-active bays not getting sniffed by GalCop, which is a feature not a bug), which makes fixing it a tad tricky

[CheeseRedux]

And one I couldn't reproduce (unless you mean about illegal substances stored in non-active bays not getting sniffed by GalCop, which is a feature not a bug), which makes fixing it a tad tricky

Are we talking about the mysteriously reappearing cargo upon reload thing here?
If so, I'm a bit baffled that you couldn't reproduce it, as the thing was 100% consistent in my tests, and I gave step-by-step instructions on how it appeared.

[Thargoid]

If we are then I couldn't reproduce it as that's the first I know of that one, at least that I can recall.

That would just be mission variables getting out of synch with the manifest, and shouldn't be too bad to track. And 1.75 should again make it easier with the game save JS event.

Editted to add - just found your original report - I'll test it next week when I get some time. Blame the divergence away about talking about graphics cards, and also my jetlag at the time.

[CheeseRedux]

Editted to add - just found your original report - I'll test it next week when I get some time. Blame the divergence away about talking about graphics cards, and also my jetlag at the time.

Ah, good. I was just about to point you in that direction. Yes, the whole thing was a bit muddled with my graphics issue (which I still don't understand, but at least it's solved).

[curtsibling]

Not wishing to blindly wade into an already healthy debate - But using a ship that might be seen as "uber" is really up to the user.

Some players enjoy the feeling of being a hardcore pilot with most of their kills in a CobraIII, but others enjoy saving for a killer OXP
battleship like a Imp Courier or Vortex. It should be down to what is fun - Not some spectral idea of what constitutes the "Elite Spirit".

I think OXP stats should not be capped, as it means a certain mindset is being enforced on everyone. At the cost of good gameplay.
Also, "caps" would restrict mods. The choice for strict canon or "uber" fun should be left firmly in the hands of the individual...

Just my 0.2 credit's worth!

And the easiest way is not to install the OXP of said ship of course. BUT, if a mission OXP writer has spent months carefully crafting an mission based on specs of various good and very good ships to create a well balanced, playable OXP and somebody builds or installs SuperUberMk4 and nothing in the OXP presents a problem to it then that'll be the end of mission writing for the OXPer (to the detriment to everybody else) and pointless for the player who will have a shallow victory over the OXP...

Completely agree. Ships that verge on the cheat zone are not my cup of tea at all.
All that can be enhanced are aspects such as energy and speed, roll and missile capacity. The ship could perhaps
be made invincible, but who really would want to play that way? As you said, it would be hollow and pointless...

While seriously uber and cheat ships are up the player's choice, I think having tough or powerful ships like
the Vortex is a good thing, as they are rare and give a player a goal to save up for. Who doen't want to
fly into a pirate-heavy system with a powerful battleship?

But most ships, no matter how seemingly hard-assed, still are limited by the same lasers as everone else.
And a group of six pirates could kill an ubership as quickly as any other. It's down to the pilot. Also installing
the OXPs like "Renegades" will certainly show the pilot of a super-vessel that he is merely mortal after all!

I just think the more masochist and seasoned maniac pilots who want to play in a shield-free Adder should
not enforce their philosophy on players who are fun-orientated. It's not like Oolite is an online game. None
of the veteran pros are ever going to meet Commander Noobster in his enhanced Pwnt MkII cheatship!

[curtsibling]

And let's not forget, the player might be able to get his hands on an iron-ass Imp Courier and cause some havoc...

But so can the pirates and hunters!

[curtsibling]

Would you buy the hottest, fastest, sexiest looking sports car on the planet if you knew it didn't have a reverse gear and had to be pushed backwards if needed?

Such purposeful crippling to offset other stuff isn't realistic, and as KW says not many people want it.

I agree - Crippling the ships is allowing the "Uber Player" and his philosophy to rule the show.

People need to have choice and be allow to mess about with their ship upgrades.

Otherwise new bloods to the game will be scared off by too much "hardcore".

[Smivs]

Hardly a solution, but when an 'uber-ship' is introduced, NPC variants should be introduced as well, to maintain some sort of balance. Almost by definition uber-ships should be quite rare, and so should the NPC equivalent.
I don't know how many people download uber-ship OXPs, or why. Do you download them to buy one, or just to have them in your Ooniverse?
Personally, I have Contractor installed (no surprise there, as it's my OXP), but have no intention of buying one, as I'm more than happy with my Clipper, but I like to look out for them, and when one appears (about every three months), it's always nice to go and 'have a look'. It's a bit like cruising the motorways and occassionally spotting a Lambo or Aston amongst all the Fords and Toyotas. Ooooooh, tasty!
As far as the game goes, being too Uber soon gets boring (oh well, that's another ten pirates dispached without a scratch on the hull...ho, hum) and for me at least all the fun goes.
If you want to restore some balance, there's always Tough Guys of course. I'm currently working on an evolution of that, by the way...watch out for 'Tough Guys, Apocalypse', coming soon. (Apologies for the plug).

[Cody]

If you want to restore some balance, there's always Tough Guys of course. I'm currently working on an evolution of that, by the way...watch out for 'Tough Guys, Apocalypse', coming soon.

I look forward to that, Smivs.

[Ganelon]

I don't know how many people download uber-ship OXPs, or why. Do you download them to buy one, or just to have them in your Ooniverse?

I install ships and ship sets mostly just to see them in the game. It adds variety, and for being realistic, there should be some ships in the spacelanes that you just wouldn't want to tangle with. I've only actually tried flying comparatively few of them, and I have to like a ship a lot for it to be something where I'll make a savegame branch so I can go back to it when I'm in the mood. But it's more fun to see a variety of ships and to sometimes have to go "what the heck is that?"

If they seem to show up too often, just edit the file to make them more rare. I feel that the majority of ships one meets should be the basic defaults, though I tend to prefer the Griff versions.

[Mauiby de Fug]

I suspect that I err on the side of more "uber" than many other commanders. I currently fly a Caddy Omega, and have formally owned a SuperCobra.

That said, I tried a Tiger once, as I wanted a non-turreted ship to participate in a Royal Tournament in The Feudal States, and really didn't like it. It's faster, more agile, and bigger/equal cargo space than the other two, but it felt... wrong...

I don't quite see why everything should be limited to exactly the same or similar specs as the older ships, though. Technology improves over time, and it seems logical to me that therefore ship building would improve too. I agree that there should be some form of balance, but my tipping point is probably further up the scale than others.

I vaguely recall commenting in some topic a while ago that 0.45 LM would be the limit of ships in my universe. I've clearly relaxed my limit since then - I've put ships such as the Merlin and Morrigan in my universe (though I would never wish to fly one - they're mainly to look at and for a bit of variation). Though I wince looking at the Morrigan's stats, so I clearly have some restrictions, even if I'm not too clear on where my line is.

I definitely agree that powerful ships like these should be rare, and that they should be available to NPCs as well. When I get round to it, I might want to tweak the probabilities of some of them, so that they appear a bit more frequently. I've had the Vortex and Contractor in my Ooniverse for ages now, and have never seen one crawling the space lanes. I think I've only seen one (maybe two) other Cadddies, too. Whereas there are a fair few SuperCobras around. And 'tis fun to take on a ship every now and then which can give me a run for my money - the joys of being a fairly experienced pilot.

One thing I like is that some of these are added to the police force, too. Killer Wolf has done this with his Vampires, for example, and this makes GalCop far more worrisome to me when I lose my Clean record. I'm currently playing Assassins in Galaxy 7, and am now finding a use for my cloaking device - cloak when in the station's aegis to allow me to dock in one piece, rather than in a dozen!

Skimming down that link that Smivs posted, one thing that jumps out at me is the prices - they seem remarkably varied and haphazard! The other is that it has incorrect data for the Caddy and ships such as the Merlin and Swift are missing from it.