Unusual planet jump failure

[DaddyHoggy]

Something like this would have the welcome side-effect of discouraging use of the energy bomb to kill the Thargoids.

Oh yes! Clever! Blow the Tharg's and you blow the Tube Breaker up as well! You survive, but only so you can eventually starve to death...

[Cody]

I've no idea what is feasible... I'd have it so the tube breaker has to be destroyed/disarmed after all the Thargoids have been splashed... you've got to win the firefight to earn the chance to escape.

[DaddyHoggy]

How about - the Tube Breaker (TB) is a valuable piece of Thargoid Kit - if you Q-bomb or E-bomb it to destruction - the wormhole stays collapsed due to the way the TB suppresses the WST (WitchSpace Tunnel) in n-dimensional space - if you shoot at it a few times - its Thargy AI realises that it is insufficiently defended and it jumps out itself and to do so it is forced to release the suppression field on all tunnels it currently has collapsed - and thus the wormhole entrance reappears...

[Cody]

it is forced to release the suppression field on all tunnels it currently has collapsed - and thus the wormhole entrance reappears...

Or several wormholes appear?

[Commander McLane]

Since the player might end up, post-combat, some distance away from the thing, and since there are no other points of reference, it might be a good idea to put a big green flasher on it.

I'm thinking about using the model of the Thargoid Hive Core. It's 800 meters across and it has alternating red and green flashers. I could even make it a little bigger.

[Cody]

If it is going to show on the scanner as a blip, it doesn't really matter what size it is... it could be tiny.

[Mauiby de Fug]

True, but it's still got to be big enough to contain all the equipment to collapse wormholes. I'd imagine that takes some doing, even if it's Thargoid technology.

The model looks pretty neat, I have to say!

[DaddyHoggy]

I feel a neat, immersive, clever, feels-right solution to the Wormhole trap problem...

Well done everybody!

[Disembodied]

Size isn't an issue, I don't think ... we can always argue that most of the mass is sitting tucked away in witchspace if we want.


The most crucial time will be the first time the player experiences a misjump: in nearly every case this will be a horrible surprise and they won't know what's going on. I'd imagine that most if the time, if they survive, they'll only have the time to start looking around and notice the tube-cutter after the dust has settled and they're wondering what's going to happen next. My preference would be for something smallish and innocuous-looking, personally (well, as innocuous as a lump of alien kit in interstellar space can look, that is). The Hive Core model would work fine, but I'd scale it down to somewhere between a nav-buoy and a rock hermit in size. The player should have to hunt it down, as they scan across the vast starfield, looking for anything at all ...

Escaping the trap should be a puzzle. If the thing's too big, then there's no achievement in finding it. Also, people might think it's a station and either try to dock with it, or assume it's indestructible. It could be kept safe from energy bombs and q-bombs by placing it at a distance from the likely location of the fight: not hugely far away, but far enough so that it's hard, but not impossible, to pick out.

Whenever the buoy/tube-breaker is destroyed, the wormhole reappears, but it'll only stay open for a short(ish) time, I assume: so destroying it with a q-bomb or energy bomb might not be a great idea, if you get distracted by the fight ... and if the player does manage to reach the buoy, and destroy it, opening up the wormhole before all the bugs are dead, would it be possible for the bugs to follow the player through the wormhole and arrive moments later, just after the player is feeling smug at having escaped?

[Cody]

I feel a neat, immersive, clever, feels-right solution to the Wormhole trap problem...

And I feel a nice little addition to an Oofic wip.

[DaddyHoggy]

I feel a neat, immersive, clever, feels-right solution to the Wormhole trap problem...

And I feel a nice little addition to an Oofic wip.

I was thinking exactly the same - something I started just after Snake Charming and put on hold...

[Mauiby de Fug]

Code: Select all

this.shipSpawned = function () {
	this.origTarget = player.ship.targetSystem;
}


this.shipEnergyIsLow = function () {
	if (system.countEntitiesWithScanClass ("CLASS_THARGOID") == 1) {
		this.ship.exitSystem(this.origTarget);
	}
}

Using this as the ship script for the Jammer seems to do the trick (coupled with a world script which spawns it when in interstellar space). It notes the original intended target system as soon as you enter interstellar space, and then creates a wormhole to that system if all the Thargoids are dead and it has energy less than 25% of its maximum value. (This assumes that the jammer has scan_class "CLASS_THARGOID"). I've been using a modified buoy for testing and it appears to work well enough.

It also occurs to me that you'd probably need some clean-up code in the world script to handle when the jammer emerges into normal space again...

[Thargoid]

Behemoth Spacewar and some other OXPs could give some problems there with NPCs seeing the buoy as alien and so targeting it. BS would be OK as you have a ready-made solution there to get you out of the trap, but not all OXPs are so benevolent...

[Gimi]

Another development I am going to be following with great interest. Would it be possible to use a combination of a salvage missile and something like buoy repair and have a big mission in there where the Navy ask you to bring one of these back. Of course the Thargoids won't appreciate your efforts and may try to stop you.

P.S. You guys need to stop derailing Commander McLane from his efforts of updating Personalities.oxp. I'm waiting patiently here.

[Cody]

You guys need to stop derailing Commander McLane from his efforts of updating Personalities.oxp.

Us? Derail Commander McLane's efforts? Perish the thought!