Split: Difficulty for new players

[CaptSolo]

Eric, you have done a great job keeping RH upgraded. If I am not mistaken, you have been adding to the mission descriptions.

Oops, should have posted this in the appropriate thread.

[JeX]

Just wanting to weigh in on this from a (somewhat) experienced player view point playing Oolite vanilla 1.77 and starting from scratch that the difficulty is not problematic at all. No ship or equipment OXPs have been added on (yet).
It's very easy and fast to increase your credits to buy beam lasers and enhanced shields.
Though I must admit that I now know what I am doing and just go for the "must have" initial equipment (front and aft lasers, fuel injectors, fuel scoop) immediately to keep going.

What I would suggest is actually to increase the costs of some of the "must have" equipment by a rather substantial handful (eg 6000 credits for a Beam Laser, 20.000 for a Military Laser).
I quickly sold my CmkIII and bought a CmkI and could afford most of those upgrades (2 x beam lasers included). I would have loved for the lasers to be more expensive so that it feels that you're really struggling for that extra combat power in the beginning of the game for at least more than five hours!

In fact, do you know where can I alter the standard equipment costs so that they better fit my own playing style?

[Diziet Sma]

In fact, do you know where can I alter the standard equipment costs so that they better fit my own playing style?

Sure.. in /Oolite/oolite.app/Resources/Config/ you'll find a file called equipment.plist. Save a copy of it into /AddOns/Config/. (you'll probably have to create the Config folder yourself -note the capital 'C', Oolite requires that-) You can edit that copy to your hearts content. Be aware that the prices in it are stated to a tenth of a credit, so if you see 4000 it means 400 credits.

For example, here's the entry for the Beam Laser:

Code: Select all

	(
		4, 10000, "Beam Laser",
		"EQ_WEAPON_BEAM_LASER",
		"Rapid cycle laser, delivers more energy in less time for more effective results.",
		{
			condition_script = "oolite-conditions.js";
			available_to_all = true;
			strict_mode_compatible = true;
		}
	),

In this instance, '10000' means 1000 credits.

Anything in the /AddOns/Config/ folder will override the default settings. For example, if you want to change the keyboard configuration, we recommend you use the same procedure. As you probably guessed, the original keyconfig.plist is located in /Resources/Config/ as well.

If you're using Windows, DON'T use notepad to edit Oolite files, as it will mangle the file in non-obvious ways. We generally recommend Notepad++ for Windows users, although Wordpad will do as well.

After your editing is done, when you restart Oolite, hold down the shift key until you see the spinning Cobra MkIII. This forces Oolite to rebuild its cache. Otherwise, your changes won't 'take'.

Have fun!

[spara]

@JeX

If you feel you progress too fast in the early game, you could also try savegames from Switeck's Shipping oxp or my Start Choices oxp. Choose the Adder start with 2 tons of cargo space and 100 cr to spend. When you finally manage to buy the military laser, it really feels like an achievement. And after that, there's a long way to upgrading your ship to Cobra mk I.

[JeX]

In fact, do you know where can I alter the standard equipment costs so that they better fit my own playing style?

Sure.. in /Oolite/oolite.app/Resources/Config/ ....

Have fun!

Super awesome! Thanks for the thorough walkthrough. This will really come in handy!

@JeX

If you feel you progress too fast in the early game, you could also try savegames from Switeck's Shipping oxp or my Start Choices oxp. Choose the Adder start with 2 tons of cargo space and 100 cr to spend. When you finally manage to buy the military laser, it really feels like an achievement. And after that, there's a long way to upgrading your ship to Cobra mk I.

Will do as well!

edit: hmmm, cannot seem to find the Start Choices OXP on the wiki OXP list? Do you have a link for it?

[spara]

edit: hmmm, cannot seem to find the Start Choices OXP on the wiki OXP list? Do you have a link for it?

Sorry, it's a WIP oxp, not yet added to the wiki. You can find it here: https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=13382. It's a bit rough, but functional. The next version will be nicer.

[JeX]

edit: hmmm, cannot seem to find the Start Choices OXP on the wiki OXP list? Do you have a link for it?

Sorry, it's a WIP oxp, not yet added to the wiki. You can find it here: https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=13382. It's a bit rough, but functional. The next version will be nicer.

Will it work with Oolite 1.77?

edit: nvm, I just clicked the link and saw that you wrote it FOR 1.77.

[statto]

Hello everyone, I am a new player and thought you may like my input on the difficulty aspect.

First up some history. Played Elite on a Spectrum as a teenager. Played Frontier extensively in early 20's, never played FFE. Saw Oolite but thought it was an Elite+ clone so didn't download. Rediscovered Oolite due to Elite:Dangerous publicity.

Docking is definitely more difficult than on a Speccy. I remember getting close to the station and just accelerating in, doesn't seem as easy on PC. After 3 or 4 docks I can get in now without losing anything, so not a big problem. I think this will only get easier.

Pirates: the big problem.
As a previous poster said the first time you realise you are being attacked is when there is laser fire across the screen. This happened jumping back into Lave. Managed a couple of hits on one pirate and then got blown up by a missile.
Second attack, on the re-jump into Lave. Pirates didn't "come in", it appeared that I had caught up with a trader and then they felt threatened and decided to attack. Got some hits on a Python before crashing into it as the Cobra is faster. Re-jumped again to Lave without incident.
Jumped to Zaonce, and as before it appeared that a trader got jittery and attacked. There were two ships but one disappeared from the scanner very quickly. Learning from my previous experience I controlled the speed and got several hits on a Python. All of a sudden both shields were down and 3.5 energy banks, I never saw anything, I'll guess I got a missile strike at close range. A second later I was dead again.
This is where I am now.

Here are my thoughts.
1. I am against the idea in principal of jumping, dying, reloading... jumping, dying, reloading until I get a clean run. To me these games where the same actions are repeated until a favourable result occurs are aimed at children / teenagers and I have no wish to regress 30 years.
2. I am also against exploits. The safest place for a new trader should be in the spacelanes of safe worlds like Corporate States not in deep space. I was in the Zaonce system ffs.
3. As a new player I do not have a problem with boring repetitive runs. It helps to build knowledge of the game whilst knowing that the boring runs will lead to more fun later on. This method was used in Frontier (Sol to Barnards Star). Oolite dumps you in at the deep end from day 1.

Currently I have more reloads than successful runs. I basically feel that nowhere is safe and since I don't have the credits to upgrade the ship then why bother even playing the game?

Like everything in life, if you go looking for trouble you will find it, if you don't there shouldn't be a 100% chance it'll find you as appears to be the case in Oolite.

In summary the learning curve is too steep and is putting me off and how many others?

[Lone_Wolf]

Statto, have you read the pdf-files that are installed, especially AdviceForNewCommanders.pdf ?

[Disembodied]

Hi statto, welcome to the forum! Some useful insights there, I think: I have to say it tallies with my opinions too, for what they're worth, especially regarding having places in the game that should be (almost totally) safe.

One thing, though: you say you were targeted by traders who become nervous: that shouldn't happen. I assume that you were attacked by pirates, who were just acting a bit like traders. That in itself is useful to know, and maybe highlights the need for the game to signal to players what is actually happening. This is the sort of thing that people don't see when they're used to the game, or when they've got a Scanner Targeting Enhancement showing whether a ship is an Offender or not. Maybe there's a need for pirates to be more piratey ... in a universe where most people would have Scanner Targeting Enhancements, there's not much they can gain by looking or acting like innocent traders!

[Smivs]

Hi statto, and welcome.
Yes it can seem a bit harsh out there to start with, and I think you may have got a bit unlucky as well. Early on it can make sense to avoid the spacelanes while you start to make some cash and equip your ship - angle up a bit as you exit witchspace and use Torus drive to save some time (j on the keyboard), after a couple of seconds angle back down towards the planet. You should get there without encountering any traffic.
Also, I do wonder if you have accidently been attacking traders and causing them to fight you. A genuine pirate will 'go red' on you - your status indicator will turn red and the ship's flag on the scanner will also turn red when it is targeting you.
Most NPCs in the core game are actually quite weak and are unlikely to have much more than the kit your starting Cobby came with, so even in your basic ship you stand a good chance of a win in one-on-one combat. There is plenty of good advice around the board on combat techniques to help if that's what you are looking for.
Stay with it and the game will soon start to be very rewarding, and I'll put money on it not being too long before you start finding things a bit too easy, and looking at some of the OXPs which make the game harder.

[Mad Dan Eccles]

I've only been playing regularly for a month or so (after a multi-year break). I soon learned the 'avoid the spacelane' trick while I earned enough geld to get an upgraded laser and shields. I completely forgot about the injectors until I had a couple of dozen kills under my belt!

Anyway, on my first foray I got into a scrap with a Ferdie pirate. It was a good half hour furball, but I finally got him. I never felt so good! Now of course I can usually snipe them from long-range with my military laser, but yeah, it was a learning experience for a few days...

Hang in there, Statto!


(By the way, you're not Statto on twitter, are you?)

[statto]

Thanks for the quick replies and encouraging words guys. I'm not on Twitter.

They definitely went red before attacking, the second one was well inside my scanner before turning red though. I remember from the Speccy days that pirates swooped in from the side and you could see them coming and knew they were pirates whereas in Oolite I just seem to have caught up with these guys in the spacelane. Maybe I got too close to them and they felt threatened. Does this happen or are they just slow pirates?
I take the point about them being poor shots, I nearly killed the second one, relatively quickly considering my noobness, before he missiled me.

I'm not expecting an easy ride in Oolite but I feel it's just tweaked a bit too hard for beginners to cope with. I don't have any answers I'm afraid.

[Mad Dan Eccles]

Yeah, if you watch those guys they hang around in packs just off the space lane, powered down. As you pass they come alive and hit you.

When you get better you'll be able to spot them, and get your retaliation in first

[Smivs]

One major difference in Oolite is that the whole system is 'alive' all the time - there is stuff going on everywhere not just within your scanner range, so you will come across all sorts of things as you head planetward. Also unlike early Elite versions, ships travel in all directions, not just out from the planet, so you will catch up with slower traffic (and of course the Cobby 3 is one of the faster ships).
As I suggested, be patient and do a few safe milk-runs avoiding the spacelanes until you have bought some basic kit. Even an upgrade to a beam laser will give you a real edge over most NPCs which will only have pulse lasers. ECM is also worth getting early on as well, then missiles will be less of a problem. And when you can afford shield boosters and energy units you will have one of the toughest ships around in terms of the 'core' ships.