Split: Difficulty for new players

[cim]

I don't know exact sizes of what I'm working with here.

Scanner radius of your ship is 25.6km, and the safety zone around the station is exactly twice that size (51.2km)

The distance from the witchpoint to the planet varies between 250km and 1000km, and from the planet to the sun between 500km and 1500km. The planet radius in-game is 100 times smaller than the one quoted on the F7 screen (so approximately between 30km and 65km) and the station orbits at a height of one planet radius above the surface, above the hemisphere facing the witchpoint.

Maximum flight speeds are around 300 metres/second, slower for freighters, with injectors multiplying by 7 (for a couple of minutes) and torus drive multiplying by 32.

[Disembodied]

There is, of course, a problem with increasing Viper patrols: getting masslocked by Vipers. This isn't so bad if they're on the way to the Witchpoint, as it doesn't take very long for a planet-bound player to pass them, but if they're on the way back the the station, then it can take a looong time for the player to overhaul them. Maybe players, encountering an inbound Viper patrol in a non-combat situation, might find themselves being "sniffed" by the Vipers: they might nip in for a closer look, and (all being well) hang back and let the player go on their way.

Ideas on how to intercept an off-lane player, without either magically adding pirates in the right place, or preemptively adding ridiculous numbers of pirates, would be very welcome.

Hum ... fundamentally, the basic problem is the torus drive: so what might be required is some way to diminish it. Some stray and possibly slightly hung-over thoughts, in no particular order and with nary a thought for their practicality:

• the torus drive only works in the spacelane (however so defined) - it's a navigationally reliable zone/smooth subspace channel/whatever. Or perhaps it can work outside, but the top speed is lower the further the player is from the WP-planet-station line. Scratch that - won't work, for reasons which are now obvious after I've run my head under the tap. The player needs to get to far-away places; in the absence of a TAF, we have to have an omnidirectional torus.
• there are occasional asteroids which are big enough to cause a masslock. In the lanes, most of these have been cleared long ago, or are inhabited by miners; outside the lanes, though, they're a bit more common. The player can blow them up, with a bit of work, if they want to, for maybe Cr5 bounty. Sometimes, there are pirates lurking in these; sometimes, too, pirates can seed these asteroids with tiny transponders, that signal the presence of a ship, allowing them to move onto a line between the rock and the station to intercept. In some more lawless systems, pirates have been known to construct "masslock nets" of scattered rocks.
• along with (or instead of) the rocks, there's a pirate tactic of spreading out a large group of ships across a big volume of space, just overlapping the edges of their scanner ranges, to act as a masslock net. A single ship will, when encountering a freighter, signal the rest of the pack and will attempt to keep the freighter masslocked, staying at long range until enough of the rest of the pack arrives. Injector-equipped Kraits make particularly good net-ships.

[Disembodied]

I can't shake the feeling that there's maybe some way of fiddling the torus drive here ... perhaps if it could be linked to the compass? Maybe the torus will only work if the player is flying towards the target selected on the compass - i.e. its icon is green and more-or-less central? I don't doubt that this might cause problems, especially with some OXPs requiring long-distance travel off-lane (although usually these journeys would be towards a destination with an ASC beacon, so the torus would still work). It would make it a lot more time-consuming for the player to go off-lane to begin with.

[Zireael]

Speaking of time-consuming, the FFE had a handwavium time compression device of some sort, forgot the exact name.

As we've all but removed the TAF, maybe something else could be done to quicken the tedium of cruising to the station?

[Cody]

maybe something else could be done to quicken the tedium of cruising to the station?

What tedium would that be?

[Falcon777]

The self same tedium that causes me to go offlane... Otherwise it's not really tedious.

[Commander McLane]

Extending the security zone around the station is not the answer. Even if it would cover the whole system, what use would that be for a player under attack at the witchpoint? The witchpoint is so far away from the main station that it isn't worthwhile launching police from there. You'd be long dead before the Vipers reach the debris cloud left over from your ship. If you want to be protected by police ships you need them to be close by from the beginning. Thus the only logical solution is to increase the number of police ships on patrol, not the number of police docked at the station.

[Falcon777]

From Disembodied's description of playing a new jamison, having police vipers reach you while you are burning hard towards the main station seems a very viable thing to happen. The fact that there are plenty of high tech systems out there that can afford interceptors makes it even more viable. As it is right now, there are only eight vipers on patrol within a corporate state, as compared to the zero at an anarchy. Frankly, that's pitiful. A larger net, however, means that you at least have a chance of encountering police from the mainstation coming to your help as you burn hard towards the station. Most systems would need a larger viper fleet (police fleet, not navy) to be able to respond to your situation, but that just seems like a given since they'll be launching from the main station to help out npc traders as well. Also, getting attacked right at the witchpoint beacon is just bad luck. As much as I prefer a situation where new players can get the hang of things without too much difficulty, that sort of thing flies in the face of the spirit of Elite and Oolite, namely that the galaxy isn't safe.

In addition to this, extending the "safety" net is just as much about making the system seem safe as it is actually making it safe. As it is right now there's not really much of a difference between an anarchy system and a corporate system.

Lastly, it's only just a suggestion. Take it or leave it as you will.

[cim]

As it is right now, there are only eight vipers on patrol within a corporate state, as compared to the zero at an anarchy. Frankly, that's pitiful.

Agreed there.

In the next version, the numbers are variable a bit depending on where the Corporate State is, but even Zaonce, which is far enough away from anywhere dangerous that they don't really have much of a piracy problem, still has 10 or more police ships on routine patrol. Xevera, in G5, which is right next door to a whole bunch of Anarchy systems, has around 30 Interceptors in flight at any one time, usually including one wing patrolling at the witchpoint to discourage incoming pirate fleets.

[Diziet Sma]

In the next version, the numbers are variable a bit depending on where the Corporate State is, but even Zaonce, which is far enough away from anywhere dangerous that they don't really have much of a piracy problem, still has 10 or more police ships on routine patrol. Xevera, in G5, which is right next door to a whole bunch of Anarchy systems, has around 30 Interceptors in flight at any one time, usually including one wing patrolling at the witchpoint to discourage incoming pirate fleets.

You see, Falcon? As I said, there have been some changes already made in that direction for the next version..

[Cody]

... there have been some changes already made...

Yeah... some of the new NPC behaviour is fascinating to watch. Other things don't change though - yesterday, I got fined 100Cr and sent for 'attitude adjustment'. My only crime was to dock with a paltry bounty of 1 (one) credit on my head.

[Falcon777]

ROFLOL!!!!! FINES!!! YES!!! lol

I figured there would in fact be changes made. The main reason why I had suggested the larger safety net was so that you'd still have a decent chance of encountering a pirate within the safer systems. More frequent, larger patrols means more fighting between pirates and police and less fighting between traders and pirates...assuming pirate behavior stays the same. Someone had mentioned that they didn't want the frequency of pirate attacks to go down within safer systems, and so it seemed like the larger safety net would work as a solution for that.

Meh, either way it doesn't matter too much to me as I (mostly) just avoid the lanes to begin with. I'm trading as fast as I can between Ensorius and Isonar to save up for that supercobra that I've got my eyes on. I've currently got an iron assed python (thinking about switching over to a pcc for the speed, if one will actually show up on the ship market), and over 200k credits to my name, so I've still got 1.2 mil creds to go, which means fast, high volume trading for me. Or in other words, avoid combat and mass locking like it's the plague.

[cim]

assuming pirate behavior stays the same.

Not entirely. If the pirates spot the police in time (or are fast enough to get away), then they'll just move quietly out of the area for a while, and come back when the patrol has passed. (Exceptions made sometimes if the police are in small enough numbers that it's easier for the pirates to just kill them, and there are also a few pirate-aligned ships which will deliberately make hit-and-run attacks on police to try to distract them from patrolling)

[Disembodied]

I can't shake the feeling that there's maybe some way of fiddling the torus drive here ... perhaps if it could be linked to the compass? Maybe the torus will only work if the player is flying towards the target selected on the compass - i.e. its icon is green and more-or-less central? I don't doubt that this might cause problems, especially with some OXPs requiring long-distance travel off-lane (although usually these journeys would be towards a destination with an ASC beacon, so the torus would still work). It would make it a lot more time-consuming for the player to go off-lane to begin with.

I've been playing a bit with this, by just limiting myself to only using the torus to fly towards a destination on the compass. I picture a circle, half the diameter of the compass itself, and as long as the compass target is green and within that circle, I allow myself to use the torus. So far, it hasn't made any significant difference to my game. The only thing it's stopped me from doing - a bit - is using the torus to quickly shuffle between floating cargo pods that I want to snaffle up; even there, all I have to do is target the pod, and then set the compass to my current target, and zap, I'm away.

What it does do is make it a lot more time-consuming to avoid the lane. I can't pitch 90° up and scoot off the lane, and then take a long parabolic arc through empty space and round to the station. It's not impossible to go off-lane; it just takes a lot more time to get there, and if I want to stay off-lane all the way in, I have to spend a lot of time travelling.

It does change my attitude to the torus drive: it becomes something I have to be much more deliberate about. It's not just, "Scanner's clear, hit the button" any more; I have to consciously check my compass, set my heading, and then hit the button.

So far, I have to say, I quite like it. It feels more like navigation, rather than just flying really fast (you have to get used to not steering around during torus travel). Of course, it has other effects: it makes the ASC a much more important piece of kit, and without it the player can only use the torus to head to the planet, or to the sun, or to the station once they get close enough. It means that any off-lane destination has to be marked on the ASC (which - so far, in my game - they have been). It also means (I imagine: I haven't tried this!) that the player can't use the torus to chase down the Constrictor (not a bad thing).

It's a major shift in functionality from the original game (but then, the original game didn't have persistent NPCs, and the "off-lane" dodge didn't work). But in all honestly I can't say it feels all that different - and where it does feel different, it's a positive thing, not a negative one. I don't doubt that there are areas of gameplay which might be negatively affected by this, but so far I've not found any. I also have no idea how difficult it might be to code this into the game, if this was felt to be a desirable change. But so far, in my unofficial and unscientific testing, I can say that it doesn't seem to cause any huge gameplay inconvenience; it makes the hitting the torus seem like a more significant action; and it would do a lot to persuade players to remain within a broad space lane, while not preventing them from going outside it if they really wanted to.

[cim]

Interesting idea. A few difficulties I can see, though.

Of course, it has other effects: it makes the ASC a much more important piece of kit, and without it the player can only use the torus to head to the planet, or to the sun, or to the station once they get close enough. It means that any off-lane destination has to be marked on the ASC

The sun is not a selectable option with the basic compass. Off-lane rock hermits also don't get any ASC beacons without OXPs, but the player might occasionally be able to pick them out visually - especially if they use someone going that way to line up - and want to go to investigate. (Similarly, random flickers of laser light beyond scanner range don't generate beacons either)