Boarding abandoned ships?

[Thargoid]

Thargoids would probably have self-destruct mechanisms to prevent privateering...

Thargoids themselves don't generally have escape capsules in the first place.

Thargoids are well known to fight to the death, so what's the point of having an escape capsule?

Oh we have escape capsules. They're just weren't originally ours

I mean we have to have somewhere to keep lunch fresh

[Smivs]

Ah, I often wondered why my escape capsule had 'Consume within 3 days of scooping' stencilled on it.

[Amaranth]

I've always liked the idea that you could tow in a derelict and 'cash it in', maybe you could 'weigh it in' for scrap, or sometimes you would get a bounty from an insurance company or even a grateful owner who had to eject but the ship never got finished off by whoever was attacking. Maybe even GalCop would pay a small bounty on a derelict, since they are a navigational hazard. Ive never seen the effects of flying into one at full torus drive, but i doubt it would be pretty.

With relation to the idea being mooted to allow one to change ship but not with the normal buy and sell mechanism, I guess this could lead to some interesting missions or money-earning opportunities. for example get paid to haul cargo in an anaconda (but not have to buy all the cargo first), or how about being a full time UPS delivery driver, not just the odd emergency 'can you take this package to the next system', or even the opportunity to join the police or the military.

[Switeck]

Here's an idea. How hard would it be to make it possible to tow a ship, with restrictions like a huge speed penalty and no torus drive or injectors while the tow-cable was attached? When -if- you made it to a station, a random reward system could kick in along the lines of what happens when you bring in an escape pod; the owner's insurance providers, the local used ship lot or sometimes the police hand you a certain percentage of the ship's retail value, less a random sum in taxes and other fees.

Or just modify Dredgers OXP so you use a salvage missile to get a derelict to dock at the nearest station.

Once the derelict is docked and you dock there as well, you have the option to make the derelict your personal ship...either automatically selling (at the usual bad selling price) or storing your current ship (for like 1000 credits/day). This assumes the original owner isn't around to reclaim his/hers/its ship and is legally entitled to do so. (Hint: fugitive pirates wouldn't be!)

Your "new" ship would of course be a nearly destroyed derelict, so it would be in dire need of an immediate overhaul or 2. What little additional equipment it would happen to have was likely destroyed or damaged, so you'll probably need to repair any remaining equipment as well.

[dertien]

The nicest solutions of course are the ones that take care of gameplay exploits without burdening the player with additional loopholes he needs to get acquainted with or needs to read manuals for, buy new equipment for etc. This is of course not always possible nor necessarily easy. However to keep gameplay interesting, the case of getting an Annie worth 400.000 Credits within the first hours of gameplay should not become something trivial, nor should it be acquiring an Asp in likewise fashion.

Why would one want to capture a ship and use it as their own ? Because it looks better, has better specs, or fetches a good price.

The first game play obstacle (if I may call it so) to make capturing more difficult and rewarding would be an easy one.

- Capturing cannot be done when the crew has not bailed! This is obvious and easily implemented. NPC Ships that do not spawn escape capsules cannot be captured. It should however be possible for the player to mount a capsule if he chose to sell his current ship and move into his new one, but for example the small ones (Krait, Sidewinder, Adder, Mamba, Gecko, Gnat, Moth and Cobra Mk 1) should not spawn escape capsules and simply disintegrate after dropping their goodies, hull plates and fuel.

- The larger ones (Cobra Mk3, Morays, Fer-De-Lance) should be captureable , but at a price. This price would be a ship-registry fee. The pilot-less ship's autopilot homes in onto the main station and you need to follow it and protect it (maybe scripts can spawning a few pirates to make it interesting), and after it docks you dock and you get a screen with a few choices:

a) you keep the ship in storage (you cannot fly it unregistered) (daily/weekly storage fees apply depending on size) this has already be done in an oxp.
b) you sell the ship (scrap/derelict value) 5% initial ship value (cobra MK3/cheapies) - 1% of the initial ship value (Anaconda/expensives) and this for a hulk without equipment.
c) you register the new ship and pay a Customs fee to register the ship as yours. The fee is 55-60% of the value of the normal price. Customs fees only need to be paid if you want to have multiple ships, since this makes you a mogul, and you can afford them and pay the registration fee. Regular shipowners get their ship registration transfered to their new ship should they buy a new one, and do not need to pay Customs.
d) And to repeat what Switek said, you could actually add the all to well known Deluxe Overhaul Option after having paid the Customs fees to get her back into shipshape condition.

e) And if that's not enough, you could make it even harder by needing crew to fly the bigger ones like the traders, but that's another ballgame altogether.


The second gameplay obstacle to make capturing more rewarding and difficult is this:

a) Bigger ships have lots of escorts, these escorts need to be dealt with first by the player, regardless if the Anaconda is 'sitting' there disembodied or fully crewed, and ready to fight or flee. An Anaconda will probably be escorted by 6-8 cobra Mk 1's. A player cannot overcome these without hiring help (hiredguns.oxp - which is only available to players at a certain level) and having a hard ass ship, which doesn't come cheap neither.

b) The Anaconda could choose to make a run the station (fuel injectors) while its escorts deal with the unpleasantries, in the heat of battle the scanner can become very confusing, and you might lose sight of your quarry when you are outnumbered by its escorts.

Or you could put a self destruct timer on the derelict ship as long as the escape capsule(s) have not been captured by you. This will make it almost impossible to disable the freighter first, and deal with its escorts at your leisure while the juicy fat hulk is waiting for you to move in.

[Norby]

make it possible to tow a ship

I missed this thread though related to my [wiki]Towbar[/wiki] OXP. I think there is a possibility to take a ship after towed into a station and fixed for very heavy cost to help get rare hulls in another way than checking all shipyards.

the trade in value should be extremely low (something like: "The shipyard boss drags you aside and whispers to you: Hey, we both know this is not perse your ship, so if you really wanna sell her, I can give you no more than 10% its market value since I have to make a lot of ... uhmm.. modifications and paper work to put it legally back on the market").

I like this kind of justification, usable to confirm a 90% fixing cost also.

one problem could be allowing for the large number of ship types available - this OXP would possibly need to know about all available ship types including OXP ones.

I think to ships with playable versions only, which list is already gathered in [wiki]Gallery[/wiki] OXP.

storing your current ship (for like 1000 credits/day).

It is possible with using Ship Storage Helper OXP and something from Extended Shipyards OXP but not so easy to finish it and there are big headaches with core changes and new things added by future OXPs so probably always need updates or will break.

The easy way is enough imho: sell the player ship and use the money for fixing the new ship.


Regarding dertien's post, if towing is required then:
-no problem with ships without escape pod,
-no autopilot needed,
-mass is limited to maximum 1.6 times more than your ship so players will not get a much larger ship easily,
-the sell price is near the suggestion and can be deducted from the new ship price to get the cost of fixing.

Much easier to store damaged hulls only than storing the current player ship, so can be possible to gather more hulls but if player decide to fix one then must sell the current ship first to avoid problems.


If I get requests to make the version described above then I can put it into my todo.

[Zark Montor]

The economics of the "Abandoned Ships" could be tied in to insurance companies, Ship seizures by Galcorp authorities and "Chop Shop" rock hermits. If an offender/fugitive you've just blasted to the point of "podding out" has abandoned his vessel, surely the Insurance company, who provide you with a new ship when you eject, owns the remaining ship. This perhaps opens up further questions about the general economics within the original Elite game.

(The good thing about Oolite is, if you wanna play the original game, go to strict mode)

But this isn't about playing in strict mode, its about ramping up the difficulty, changing the economics, offering lateral objectives, owning fleets, breaking the law, de-stabilising systems and generally leaving your mark in the Ooniverse.

So, some of the stuff cannot be done yet, but its all being put up for grabs in further versions.

As long as we keep going with the Ideas Factory, most of the feedback is usually positive, even better when we get OXP writers actively bouncing ideas around in threads created by the "proles"" (yeah i mean me!)

*Proles :- Refering to the proletariat (the working masses), with no programming experience to create the ideas they have concerning a game they love.