Well Known Wingmen (Wingpersons)

[Thargoid]

It's actually possible (indeed fairly simple) to transfer the fuel and damage (and indeed now pylon weaponry and equipment, but that wasn't when the OXP was written) between "old" and "new" escorts across a witchspace jump just by storing and re-applying it.

But I always considered damage as being regenerating anyway (as the players does) and fuel would be replenished when the player did theirs.

As you say, HG is a fairly small and simple OXP and I didn't go to the lengths of making such complexity. But it wouldn't be too difficult to do, especially now with the enhanced capabilities of JS.

Oh and you are entirely correct concerning long trips as long as you don't go to a main station. Again that's by design, and is part of the contract. Save Anywhere I don't recall if I worked around or not (I know I did in PlanetFall, not sure about HG), but again it can be done although I'm not sure if SA is currently functional or not?

[Ganelon]

I just tested to see what it did with SA. There's no announcement that the escorts have left, but they're gone when you restore from a game saved via SA. It's ok to just dock at places other then the main station, I've done that before and found the escorts still waiting outside when I came out.

I'm using SA 3.1 and HG 1.23 under Oolite 1.74.2 and they all seem to play together fine.

Personally, I think if a player wants to push their luck with a long mission and no saves, let them. If they make a pretty CR off it, fine and well. It'd be the exception, not the rule.

I don't know how complex it's actually desirable to make an OXP like this. If it loads the recognisable ship of the "well known wingperson" (WKWP?), and even just does current escort behaviour, that's quite a good illusion right there. Personalities has quite a bit of dialog, but it's kind of intended I think to draw a player's attention to the fact that there's something unusual about the ship, so they'll ID and realise it is a personality. That's already rather a given if the player has deliberately hired a WKWP.

I hadn't looked over the coding to Personalities before, since any sort of AI personality, the illusion is pretty well shot once you've seen the code. I've been over HG a bit, since I've already tinkered with some changes to that for nefarious purposes.

[Bugbear]

I had an idea similar to the Well Known Wingmen concept...so in the spirit of thread hijacking, I'll plunge on...

This is another one of those "not sure how possible" type ideas. Picture the following...

You're on a bounty hunter flight through an anarchy system, you come up against a furball and receive a distress call. Being the good samaritan that you are, you respond and with deadly efficiency, introduce the no-good pirates to the wonders of hard vaccuum.

At this point, the status switches from red to yellow, and the hapless trader sends a comm your way along the lines of.. "would it be ok if I tag along with you to the station | con-store | rock hermit | sun?" They might also add that they're a { harmless | mostly harmless | ...etc } commander in need of assistance and would be willing to assign any kills they make between here and their destination to your account.

You reply with one of the following options (or any others the minds of this forum can think of)

• bugger off, I work alone...
• sorry mate, I'm not going your way
• sure that would be fine, just try and keep up
• no worries, you take point and I'll match your speed

(I'm sure there can be other possibilities...trade cargo perhaps?)

The upshot is you get a temporary escort and some additional firepower (admittedly AI controlled, however useful that may be) and less chance of being the first one hit in a subsequent pirate encounter.

[curtsibling]

I like the idea of a lone trader asking for help on the spot - And even giving a reward by transfer if you get him to the AEGIS zone.

[Commander McLane]

• sure that would be fine, just try and keep up

That should be doable similar to Hired Guns.oxp.

• no worries, you take point and I'll match your speed

That would of course be doable even without scripting. However, it could get rather boring rather quickly, simply because NPC traders are quite slow. And generally escort missions are among the most dreaded types of missions for a reason.

While keeping that in mind, it is certainly worthwhile to pursue this idea further. Everything that enhances interaction in the game is a good idea.

[Thargoid]

And also don't forget you'll need to get clever with scanclass and suchlike, or else your wingmen will continually mass-lock you, rendering your torus drive useless and the game quite long and tedious...

[Bugbear]

Point taken regarding escort missions being among the more boring forms of gameplay.

Another thought that popped into my head that could alleviate...and a possibility for equipment...handwavium explanation first...

A Torus Drive Copuling Synchroniser. Allows 'paired' ships to travel together without mass locking.

There could be a cheaper version that requires both ships (or all participating ships) to have the device installed, combined with a processor expansion pack that increases the maximum number of ships that can travel together.

The more expensive version would create a sphere of influence around the ship, allowing one ship to take anyone with them, so long as they hit the 'J' key within a second or two of each other.

This could be a nasty piece of kit for a pirate too - fly to your victim so that they are within your sphere of influence and you'll have them at point blank range (although they'll have you too)

I wish I had time to research and script this stuff...

[Bugbear]

That would of course be doable even without scripting. However, it could get rather boring rather quickly, simply because NPC traders are quite slow. .

I can understand from a gameplay point of view, why the other traders travel so slowly. Any faster and they'd constanly be mass locking the player. But assuming that some sort of Player to NPC communication can be established, is there any reason why the NPC can't put there foot down in response to an appropriate request?

It's not as though they're having to worry about fuel efficency (at least, not if they are keeping off the injectors)...

[Commander McLane]

A Torus Drive Copuling Synchroniser. Allows 'paired' ships to travel together without mass locking.

Interesting idea for a multiplayer Oolite (if it ever comes to pass, which is doubtful). However, one problem with it is that there actually is no torus drive. The so-called torus drive in Elite/Oolite is merely an in-game rationalization for something which is more like a time acceleration device (without actually accelerating time, only speed).

To put it very clearly: it is something that by its very nature only exists for the player (he is the only one in the game who could get bored with the normal speed of things). Therefore synchronization makes no sense, because there is nobody to synchronize the torus drive with. (Who is going to hit his 'J' key within a second or two of you?)

That being said, it would of course be scriptable to take an NPC with you while on torus speed (if you avoid masslock by giving your company the right scan class). So you could invent a synchronizing device.

Not sure what exactly you mean with the remark about pirates. You can already close in on an opponent fast with injectors. And even if you're using your torus drive and get masslocked, it takes a while for the brakes to kick in, so you are almost at point blank range when your speed is back to normal.

I can understand from a gameplay point of view, why the other traders travel so slowly. Any faster and they'd constanly be mass locking the player. But assuming that some sort of Player to NPC communication can be established, is there any reason why the NPC can't put there foot down in response to an appropriate request?

Usually NPCs are cruising at 80% of their max speed. So even with putting their foot down there is only so much to gain.

[CheeseRedux]

The problem (or, depending on your point of view, 'problem') with the Torus drive is that it is one of the very few pieces of gear available exclusively to the player. Even worse, it comes pre-installed and free of charge on every ship the player buys.

A quick brainstorm gave birth to the following idea:
Scrap the Torus drive completely, and replace it with a time-acceleration feature that closely resembles its function, but without cheating the way the Tdrive does. It would function kind of like the TAFreset built into the latest version of MilHUD, only slightly more advanced.

Currently, a trip from withcpoint to station following the spacelane goes something like this:
1 Arrive at witchpoint.
2 Distance yourself from any masslocking objects, use injectors if available and desired.
3 Use jumpdrive
4 Get masslocked
5 Repeat 2,3&4 until arrival.

What I'm thinking is that the time acceleration would automagically switch off every time your condition changes up the green-yellow-red chain. So, flying along the spacelane would go:

1 Arrive at witchpoint. For argument's sake, you're alone upon arrival, condition green.
2 Use TimeDrive
3 Ship(s) encountered, condition yellow, TD switches off.
4 You decide to ignore the ship(s), use TD again. Condition still yellow.
5 Ship(s) off scanner, condition green.
6 Repeat 3&4
7 Ships(s) turn hostile. Condition changes from yellow to red. TD switches off.
8 etc, etc.

In RealTime, with all things being equal, the TimeDrive would get you to the space station faster than the JumpDrive, and would accomplish it without having the PlayerShip cheating the game world. An additional benefit would be to get rid of (most) of the reasoning for traveling outside the spacelane. After all, that practice is pretty darn silly from a in-Ooniverse point of view.

Two final additions needed: An off key, in case you want to manual return to normal time, and a new way to recognize the proximity of the space station/planet and automatically return to normal time.

[Commander McLane]

1 Arrive at witchpoint. For argument's sake, you're alone upon arrival, condition green.
2 Use TimeDrive
3 Ship(s) encountered, condition yellow, TD switches off.
4 You decide to ignore the ship(s), use TD again. Condition still yellow.
5 Ship(s) off scanner, condition green.
6 Repeat 3&4
7 Ships(s) turn hostile. Condition changes from yellow to red. TD switches off.
8 etc, etc.

I can imagine something like this.

One other tweak would be needed: Currently pirateAI has an in-built delay of action. A pirate doesn't got after you immediately after you crossed his path. So, if you're very quick with step 4, it's theoretically possible that step 7 never happens. The obvious solution is to shorten the pirates' delay.

Two final additions needed: An off key, in case you want to manual return to normal time, and a new way to recognize the proximity of the space station/planet and automatically return to normal time.

The orphaned 'J' could become the off key. Alternatively 'S' should do the trick, just as it does for the torus drive as well.

Proximity of main station and planets is already recognized, so there's no addition needed.

[DaddyHoggy]

I wouldn't be adverse to losing the player-only Torus drive based on your suggested changes. Haven't really thought about the consequences to gameplay though, so might change my mind if I mull it over...

[CheeseRedux]

One other tweak would be needed: Currently pirateAI has an in-built delay of action. A pirate doesn't got after you immediately after you crossed his path. So, if you're very quick with step 4, it's theoretically possible that step 7 never happens. The obvious solution is to shorten the pirates' delay.

I take it that this delay is a real time delay and not a game time delay? Because otherwise it would not apply.

[CheeseRedux]

I wouldn't be adverse to losing the player-only Torus drive based on your suggested changes. Haven't really thought about the consequences to gameplay though, so might change my mind if I mull it over...

You can already simulate this by using the current TAF in combination with MilHUD. The difference lies in that the TAFreset of MilHUD only kicks in when condition changes to red, thus depriving you the option to interact with ships that don't attack you, and that there is no reset upon planet proximity, so that you have to take action not to slam into the planet yourself.

[Ganelon]

One other tweak would be needed: Currently pirateAI has an in-built delay of action. A pirate doesn't got after you immediately after you crossed his path. So, if you're very quick with step 4, it's theoretically possible that step 7 never happens. The obvious solution is to shorten the pirates' delay.

I'm not sure how long the delay spoken of is, but if it's made too short or eliminated, we could lose some of the illusion of the game AI being people in other ships. At present, when a ship comes on your screen there's a moment before it reacts to you that is logically while the (albeit fictional) commander of the other ship is noticing you on their scanner, ID-ing you and deciding what to do about you. While it's not impossible that there may be commanders somewhere in space who instantly attack anything that moves, most would probably take a little time before deciding if they should risk their ship.