Hi, CaptSolo, and first of all welcome to the boards, and of course to this great game!
CaptSolo wrote:Harmless(0). Just started playing and currently trading to outfit my ship. Staying out of spacelanes to avoid traffic. Do not think this technique would work on the C64 version of elite that I played to death nearly 30 years ago.
And you would be correct there. One of the major improvements of Oolite over Elite is its
non-player-centeredness. Back in Elite, all the action would only evolve around you. For instance, other ships (or asteroids) would only be created "on the fly" in your vicinity. Therefore you couldn't go anywhere without meeting other ships. They came into being just
because you were there.
Quite contrary in Oolite: the whole system is created the moment you enter it. Other ships are put in the space lanes (and in "vanilla" Oolite without OXPs
only there), therefore you won't meet them outside of the space lanes, except one of them would have left the safe lane on its own, and you would happen to come across it. Because that's the second (and even more beautiful) aspect of being
not player centered: as soon as the NPCs are created, they start to interact with each other,
even if you don't look, and even if you are nowhere close to them. This is why you can see the signs of small and big battles in the distance. The other ships are fighting it out which each other. If you happen to be there, you can join, or may stand on the side line and simply enjoy the show.
That's one reason why Oolite is superior to Elite.