NPC-shields v 1.1 now available

[Commander McLane]

Yesterday I noticed that given enough time, even a derelict NPC would get its full shields again. I found that a little silly. A ship that has thrown plasma for a while and is clearly damaged should not have working shield generators anymore. Therefore I made a small tweak to the script in order to prevent this from happening.

The tweak is contained in NPC-shields.oxp v 1.1, which is now available for download via its  Wiki page.

[Switeck]

If you're fighting a NPC ship near the sun, won't setting its temp really high with ship.temperature = 0.99; doom it quickly?

[JazHaz]

I think this OXP ought to be in the base game!

[Commander McLane]

If you're fighting a NPC ship near the sun, won't setting its temp really high with ship.temperature = 0.99; doom it quickly?

To my experience, no. Even close to the sun the NPC-ship temperature falls to its default level quite quickly. It's just that the default level is much higher than in deep space. The only real difference it makes for the OXP is that the optical "shield-glow" effect becomes much less visible, because the NPC has a more or less red glow to begin with.

NPCs have a much better heat shielding than the player ship which allows them to stay close to the sun for much longer. This was implemented over the course of the last couple of Oolite releases, when it was discovered that previously sun skimming NPCs never had a chance of surviving. Also I think there are now much more pirates lurking close to the sun. I guess the populator spawned them in previous versions as well, but they never lasted until the player got close enough to encounter them.

[Commander McLane]

I think this OXP ought to be in the base game!

Thank you very much.

It seems, however, that the comOonity at large tends to disagree. According to the download statistics NPC-shields is one of my least popular OXPs. Version 1.0 got a mere 185 downloads since its release last April. Compare to

• (a disappointing, at least for me) 208 for Status_Quo_Q-bomb 1.3 (released in February 2011, and the OXP which I always thought ought to be in the base game),
• 235 for offender_traders (also released in April 2011),
• 267 for Killit 1.4 (May; it's somehow comforting that the common Ooliteer seems to be less prone to cheating with über weapons than you'd think ),
• 275 for wormhole_restoration 1.1 (May),
• 431 for total_patrol 1.4 (March),
• 697 for sell_equipment 1.4 (February),
• 712 for railgun 1.3 (May), or
• 829 for interstellar_help 2.1 (March).
• auto_eject 1.0 has 965 downloads, but is already up since June 2010. Still makes it one of the better-fairing OXPs.
• Anarchies 2.5 fairs well with 1285 downloads since March 2011.
• The cake, however, is taken by display_reputation 1.1 (the one I personally consider the most superfluous and the only one that I haven't installed myself) with 1818 downloads since March 2011.
• (Even Cataclysm 1.1 has a slow-but-steady flow of downloads, notwithstanding the fact that it's broken for a long time now, totaling 1347 downloads since January 2009.)
• Only Fireworks 1.1, released in May 2011, got less downloads (133).

Which tells me that my opinion about which OXPs are essential and could perhaps become part of the core is greatly differing from the majority of players' opinion. Seems that I'm for great parts of my creativity working for a niche market.

I think that for the most part the numbers compare quite well and give an accurate picture, because so many new versions were released in a relatively short time frame between end of February and middle of May 2011. I have no idea how they compare to download number of other OXPers. My guess is that as I'm mostly doing esoteric stuff that fiddles with Oolite's mechanics rather than shiny new ships, my overall numbers may be relatively small. But that's really just an uneducated guess.

[Gimi]

Thank you very much.
It seems, however, that the comOonity at large tends to disagree. According to the download statistics NPC-shields is one of my least popular OXPs. Version 1.0 got a mere 185 downloads since its release last April.
<snip>
Which tells me that my opinion about which OXPs are essential and could perhaps become part of the core is greatly differing from the majority of players' opinion. Seems that I'm for great parts of my creativity working for a niche market.
<snip>

I use this OXP on and off, but find that a few ships become excruciatingly hard to deal with. So, while I agree with JazHaz, it may well require a little balancing of other ships, both OXP and native, within the game for NPC Shields to fit in well, especially for a Jameson player. But the concept should definitely go into the main game.

[Cody]

I use this OXP all the time... it's in my 'hot set'!

[Commander McLane]

... Seems that I'm for great parts of my creativity working for a niche market. ...

I use this OXP on and off, ... the concept should definitely go into the main game.

I use this OXP all the time... it's in my 'hot set'!

Of course it's a quality niche I'm working for.

[Wildeblood]

I have no idea how they compare to download number of other OXPers.

I think the popularity of OXPs probably depends more on trivial factors, such as whether it has a cool name, than we'd like to think. When I released the first version of GalDrive Programmers the thread title here on the BB was "Naval GalDrive Programmer"; I thought it was niche thing, and I said at the time that another version would soon follow. I was pleasantly surprised by the number of downloads. When I followed up with the improved OXP a few days later, I changed the thread title to "GalDrive Programmers". It was like throwing out an anchor: it has taken six weeks for the second version to get the number of downloads the first got in three or four days. The next version I make will be called "Griff Naval Cobra GalDrive Programmer".

[Cody]

Of course it's a quality niche I'm working for

A quality niche indeed... Wormhole Restoration, Offender Traders and the Heavy Railgun are also in my 'hot set'... thanks, McLane!

[snork]

... lots of download numbers ...

interesting. What about personalities ?

[Switeck]

Most players probably don't recognize the problems in Oolite that you're trying to address, and may even be offended that you're messing with core stats/mechanics. If what you make happens to "break" a popular OXP even if only in theory, expect even fewer downloads. Perhaps the old saying: "If it's not broke, don't fix it!" ...even has something to do with it.

For me, the main reason for NPC shields is NPC Adders -- without it, they take so few hits that it's almost pointless to include them in the game. The player's Adder isn't quite so weak. While it's not so severe on other ships, the shield+energy differences between player ships and NPC ships is enough to merit putting NPC shields into the core game.

Look on the bright side -- you're not receiving flak from the experts and spending 5+ long posts over weeks just to convince them there is a problem!

[Thargoid]

267 for Killit 1.4 (May; it's somehow comforting that the common Ooliteer seems to be less prone to cheating with über weapons than you'd think )

Much as I hate to counter that idea of moral and upstanding players, ooCheat has had (since I released it in October 2010) 1030 downloads.

I would wonder if it's more something simple like "advertising", in that your sig link isn't obviously that the page it leads to contains links to your OXPs rather than to your life story or a blog or something?

Also I thought KillIt (indeed most of your OXPs above) are older than you list, or are you just referring to downloads since their last updates? It's certainly older than ooCheat, as it was somewhat the inspiration for it.

[Commander McLane]

I would wonder if it's more something simple like "advertising", in that your sig link isn't obviously that the page it leads to contains links to your OXPs rather than to your life story or a blog or something?

I also suspect the lack of advertising to be a factor. It doesn't really bother me, because as a rule I'm making my OXPs first of all for myself (display_reputation being the exception; I did it following a request and because it was easy to do). Perhaps it would be a courtesy to other people here on the boards if I made it clearer in my sig that it leads to OXPs as well. On the other hand, they're all in the OXP list(s) on the wiki which I suspect to be more of an access point than a forum signature.

I'd be interested to compare my download statistics to other people's and see whether we can find some common trends, for instance a confirmation (or non-confirmation) of my guess that ship OXPs are more popular than other types. If you look at the release titles here on the Expansion Pack forum, they're certainly more popular among OXP makers.

Also I thought KillIt (indeed most of your OXPs above) are older than you list, or are you just referring to downloads since their last updates?

Yes, indeed they are. However, I don't think it makes sense to add download numbers of older versions together, because many people will have downloaded multiple versions over time. Therefore I've only taken the numbers of the most recent versions.

... lots of download numbers ...

interesting. What about personalities ?

632 downloads since November 2009 ( what, has it really been lying on my HD for more than two years without getting to a working version 1.0 ; gotta have to do something about that...)

[Svengali]

I'd be interested to compare my download statistics to other people's and see whether we can find some common trends,

He - at least for my OXPs I simply can't say this for specific versions as I'm using the 'upload new version' functionality. I'm lazy and don't want to change the links .-)

for instance a confirmation (or non-confirmation) of my guess that ship OXPs are more popular than other types.

No surprise. AddOns/Mods with entities are most popular in other games as well.