Unusual planet jump failure

[Disembodied]

I still think the vanilla misjump should be classed as a bug

Putting the fuel tank in the core game could be a workaround (although I don't think it's worth doing just now: a freeze is a freeze, and I wouldn't want to argue for an exception to be made in this case).

You contradict yourself, my good man. If it's a bug, it's not frozen.

I think it should be classed as a bug after the feature freeze has thawed.

My thinking when suggesting the FT in core is fairly straightforward:
-As changes go, it's a minor one to implement - at least according to one fellow who's not going to be doing the implementation bit.
-As a piece of kit, the FT is nicely balanced. You pay premium price for the actual fuel involved, so it's not economical to use as anything but an emergency reserve, be it in witchspace or when injectors can mean life or death. And it takes up a pylon, so each tank reduces your offensive capability. The missile you gave up for the tank could end up being the missile that didn't save your bacon.
-As for the escape route from WS needing to be always available, that's a valid argument. But any equipment is optional. You could just as easily perish in WS because you decided to not restock your missiles, or if, as opposed to the OP, you didn't have an Energy Bomb.

Feature Freeze aside, the FT is pretty close to a perfect temporary fix. And that might actually be the main argument against it: After all, there is nothing more permanent than a temporary fix...

The fuel tank is a nice piece of kit, but still, you shouldn't have to carry something to get you out of a misjump. You can misjump with no missiles, no energy bomb, no injectors, in fact nothing extra at all, and you still have a chance of beating the Thargoids (OK, only a miniscule one, if you've only got a pulse laser, say, but stranger things have happened: the Thargoids might all crash into each other. You can always hope, anyway. ). But the chance is still there. If you're stuck halfway through a jump, though, even if you've killed the Thargoids, without any extra fuel you're definitely dead. (In fact, there must be certain places where you're definitely dead even if you've got a fuel tank ... if you're caught half-way through a 6.8LY jump, and there's nowhere else to go, then presumably you'd need 2 fuel tanks?)

It wouldn't need to be a ship... some sort of jamming buoy would do.

Good idea ... a big alien jamming buoy!

[Disembodied]

CheeseRedux: Well, for starters, the Nova mission becomes meaningless if we introduce fuel pods in the core game. The point of that mission is to send the player to the next galaxy by creating a sense of despair that can be resolved only by galactic hyperspacing. Carrying fuel tanks is the easy ticket out of the doomed system. You can try sun scooping as an alternative of course, but this, when done in nova systems, is a considerably dangerous operation and thus justified.

I am sure there are other game parts that are affected, but just this one, together with the fact that this change during a code freeze can distabilize the codebase and invalidate most of the effort done so far, would be a good reason to suggest that things are left as they are in the 1.x version and we reconsider for 2.0.

Very true ... the fuel tank also completely changes the way players can use their injectors. Making a long-range jump into an Anarchy system is much less dangerous if you can top up the main tank when you get there.

[Cody]

It wouldn't need to be a ship... some sort of jamming buoy would do.

Good idea ... a big alien jamming buoy!

It wouldn't need to be armed... just heavily shielded, so it took some killing.

[Smivs]

Hi Cheesy, yes, with pleasure.
I should mention that I don't use them myself, although I agree that for situations like the mis-jumps we're discussing they are pretty much the only answer. I don't have a problem with them, and indeed objectively view them as a 'good idea'. I just don't have them in my Ooniverse.
A bit of a cheat? Well yes, because the vanilla game has a 7.0LM jump limit, meaning that ships all have a fuel tank tailored to the required amount of fuel allowing that particular ship to jump up to 7.0LM. How much fuel you have left after the jump is an important factor in game-play decisions. On a basic level it would affect whether you could inject past other traffic, or have to have a long, slow journey into the planet.
More significantly, using fuel tanks would impact on decisions like 'Do I visit that low-tech anarchy 6.8LM away, knowing that I'll have no fuel when I arrive?' Without add-on tanks that is a tough call. With them it's a no-brainer.
They also impact on route planning, and this is significant if you are on a time-sensitive passenger or cargo run. Without add-on tanks, you have to either sunskim or dock somewhere to refuel. With tanks you can do two or three jumps without any time penalties. Even if not viewed as a cheat, this certainly makes life much easier for the player.
I seem to be one of those Commanders who likes to make things more challenging, not easier, so I guess that is reflected in my views and opinions on these things.

[JensAyton]

There is absolutely no way this will be changed for 1.x.

For 2.0, I think the most straightforward approach would be for a GALCOP search and rescue ship to appear some time after you misjumped and offer in-flight refuelling (for a hefty fee, but possibly waived if you’re skint).

We may also want to change how misjumps work. For instance, the countdown time could be spent actually forming a wormhole, and misjump chance would increase if you jerked it around during formation, or entered off-centre.

[Cody]

We may also want to change how misjumps work. For instance, the countdown time could be spent actually forming a wormhole, and misjump chance would increase if you jerked it around during formation, or entered off-centre.

That would be cool.

[CheeseRedux]

Valid points all around, too many to start quoting them all.

I'd forgotten about the Nova thing. Haven't actually done it yet in Oo, but remember the trick from other versions. AFAIK, that only triggers if you have a GH installed, so unless there's some major point in forcing the player to change neighbourhood, a FT just gives a second option out and doesn't really break it as such.

Novel new idea: Give all ships a bigger standard fuel tank. The maximum you need to get out is 3.4, so make it half again the size, for a total 10.5 capacity. But the last third of the tank comes with a safety switch, so it's only accessible in WS. That kills any chance of abuse, right? It could even be made as a separate tank, separate from, but connected to, the main tank. Once your ship's systems detect you're in deep shit WS, the contents of the spare tank is automagically transferred to your main tank. Of course, this takes a bit of time, so while it's happening, you still have a bit of surviving to take care of...
Once back in normal space, you're stuck with a larger-than-usual fuel bill on your next pit stop.

Ah, what do I know? I'm just throwing shit at the walls, hoping something will stick.

[Thargoid]

Whilst I have no problem with Kobayashi Maru scenarios, I would also point out that there is a way out of the trap using core equipment only - there's nothing to stop you doing a galactic jump when stuck in such a scenario without enough fuel for a regular jump is there? Presuming you have the necessary equipment installed of course, but then that's the same argument as with the fuel tank.

And there is the balance involved that it's quite costly in equipment, and it also dumps you out of the galaxy you're in, so screwing up any missions or trade/taxi runs you may be doing at the time...

[Cody]

The gal-drive can be damaged in the fight with the Thargoids though.

[Thargoid]

And a fuel tank only gives 3ly, and so if you pick the wrong jump to drop out of you could still be a few tenths of a ly short. Sometimes those are the breaks...

[CaptSolo]

The Fuel Tank OXP is great - thank you Ramirez. I do not need four missiles on my Cobby, but I side with El Viego - it should remain an add on.

[Switeck]

The worst Thargoid ambush in interstellar space is one with only 2 Thargoid warships. You actually have some chance of winning even with the starter Cobra 3, if you can hammer one to death before it spits out very many Thargons. ...Then slowly kill the other as your laser cools off.
But after such a hair-raising fight, nothing! You still die from not being able to leave there.

A "tow truck" NPC ship would be nice, since other ships should in theory pass by the same way as well. Mostly long-haul freighters (Anacondas, Boas, Boa 2's, and Pythons) -- since they create bigger and longer-lasting wormholes when they leave. Then again, Cobra 3's make a big one also? Now this random tow truck arrival could take 5 minutes or 1 hour, so you'd still have to wait around awhile. ...Or it could be lurking just out of the Thargoid battle range and come back to the "center" when it's all over.

[Zireael]

The worst Thargoid ambush in interstellar space is one with only 2 Thargoid warships. You actually have some chance of winning even with the starter Cobra 3, if you can hammer one to death before it spits out very many Thargons. ...Then slowly kill the other as your laser cools off.
But after such a hair-raising fight, nothing! You still die from not being able to leave there.

A "tow truck" NPC ship would be nice, since other ships should in theory pass by the same way as well. Mostly long-haul freighters (Anacondas, Boas, Boa 2's, and Pythons) -- since they create bigger and longer-lasting wormholes when they leave. Then again, Cobra 3's make a big one also? Now this random tow truck arrival could take 5 minutes or 1 hour, so you'd still have to wait around awhile. ...Or it could be lurking just out of the Thargoid battle range and come back to the "center" when it's all over.

A similar thing happened to me when I last played Oolite. I killed the thargs, and then was like 'Oops, I can't get out of there... ('

[Disembodied]

For 2.0, I think the most straightforward approach would be for a GALCOP search and rescue ship to appear some time after you misjumped and offer in-flight refuelling (for a hefty fee, but possibly waived if you’re skint).

I'm sure it's the most straightforward approach, but it seems a bit unsatisfactory to me, from a game point of view. Mainly because – the first time it happens, especially – the player has been suddenly pitched into a terrifying situation, and there's nothing anywhere except a truly alarming number of the most evil enemies in the basic game. If the player survives, it's purely by his own skill and talent. To then hang around until someone else turns up with a spare can of fuel seems a bit of a let-down.

There are a few conceptual problems, too, e.g. how did GalCop know you were in trouble, and how did they manage to come and rescue you? Also, surely it wouldn't be a tow truck turning up: it would be a Navy squadron, at least, because they're probably expecting a mass of bugs, and not a lone surviving trader. And why should the player pay for fuel? He could just wait until the Navy leave, and then follow through their wormhole.

That's something that can be fixed with technobabble, I'm sure, but I still think it would be better for the player – after surviving an ambush, unaided, light-years from anywhere – to find their own way out again. A shielded Thargoid buoy, positioned some distance away from where the player is ambushed, which when destroyed produces a death-action wormhole to either where the player was going, or perhaps to a random system within 7LY, seems to me to be a more satisfactory escape from the trap than waiting to be rescued.

I say all this, of course, in complete and total ignorance of how hard this might be, or how much work it might take, and from the comforting vantage-point of not having to do any of the said work in the first place ...

[Mauiby de Fug]

I still think it would be better for the player – after surviving an ambush, unaided, light-years from anywhere – to find their own way out again. A shielded Thargoid buoy, positioned some distance away from where the player is ambushed, which when destroyed produces a death-action wormhole to either where the player was going, or perhaps to a random system within 7LY, seems to me to be a more satisfactory escape from the trap than waiting to be rescued.

I say all this, of course, in complete and total ignorance of how hard this might be, or how much work it might take, and from the comforting vantage-point of not having to do any of the said work in the first place ...

This would be my preferred solution, too. 'Tis trivial to write an oxp to do this. But as Disembodied said, I have absolutely no idea about anything required in the core game.