100,000 credits is way out of line for a completely non-lethal combat.
I'd say a 2:1 as a maximum would be good. If you look at betting pay offs for professional sports for instance, very rarely the odds go beyond 2:1 even when a very strong opponent plays a very weak one. This, together with a much tougher opponent, would make a fairly nice combination.
I'd say that was still too much for the amount of risk involved. When a fugitive pirate can net you, at most, about 80 credits in bounty (and is likely to have friends with him), or a Thargoid (arguably the deadliest opponent in vanilla Oolite) 100 credits, being able to double your money on a single challenge for a combat that is not supposed to be lethal seems unbalanced. I'd reduce the betting. These are nobles, the cash should be a bit of spice for the honor of the joust, not the goal to them. Honestly? I'd even be fine with removing the cash rewards totally and substituting an internal bit of prestige tracked by the oxp, like a reputation stat among the Feudals. Eventually younger pilots should be calling /you/ out when you visit Hunting Lodges for the honor of jousting with the famed so-and-so.
As for beefing up the opponents, that's the other side of the problem-- as you noticed, they're not the most bioluminescent squids in the shoal. I've had them stall out dead in space and just sit there while I pound on them with a laser, the combat over with in seconds. Not sure how the AI for the valiant lords and ladies is set up, but it seems to heavily favor tippling at the mead-pots before they climb into a cockpit, so to speak...
Reports of my death have been greatly underestimated.
@Layne You are probably right. I guess a combination of all these would be suitable: lowering the max bet, lowering the max odds and considerably raising the difficulty.
Although I don't use this oxp, perhaps a simple solution could be just to multiply the odds by 0.1 and add 1. This would reduce 10:1 odds to 2:1 and odds at 2:1 becomes 1.2:1 and more in line with gsagostinho's RL observation.
It may not cut out all the farming, but at least it should take 10 times as long
Another possibility would be significantly increasing the pilot skill - these are generally stated to be high-Competent/low-Dangerous pilots in the ships, and so accuracy 9 or 10 wouldn't be unreasonable.
<offtopic>I can't be sure I didn't make a mistake, but when I was setting up five-a-side shoot-outs (team A = five ships of a certain type, B = five of another type), I found accuracy 10 ships ineffective. They just drifted and couldn't be persuaded to attack the other team.</offtopic>
<ontopic>Yes, Gilberto, I've used Hunting Lodges as cash farms. I wanted a FdL 3G+(t) and couldn't be bothered with the hours it would have taken otherwise.</ontopic>
Well, my guilt has grown too large so I edited out my save file and left myself with the 12.000 Cr I had before farming. The only problem is I also had a BCC by the time I edited that file (almost bare in equipment at least) and I just couldn't find enough strength to return the ship as well... I just love it so much, so I will pretend that's fair and move on
in 1.80 i found the dual-laser opponents hard to take on, in 1.82 they suffer from the reduced damage and are much easier.
You're not supposed to get more then 3 duels per system visit, after that you need to hyperjump out and come back.
As the opponents don't have an Accuracy setting, i think they get a random accuracy value beteen -5 and +5 .
The diff in combat ability between -5 and +5 is rather huge.
I downloaded this OXP... I flew to Arries Royal Hunting Lodge and pressed F8... took on a challenge... launched my ship and eventually blasted my opponent to smithereens... only to be told something along the lines of... "Bad luck, it seems that your opponent was too strong for you this time... you lost the bet" when I returned to the lodge.
I downloaded this OXP... I flew to Arries Royal Hunting Lodge and pressed F8... took on a challenge... launched my ship and eventually blasted my opponent to smithereens... only to be told something along the lines of... "Bad luck, it seems that your opponent was too strong for you this time... you lost the bet" when I returned to the lodge.
I don't know exactly what happened, but could it be that you "blasted your opponent to smithereens" after they released the green flare? If someone gives up (by releasing a flare) you must not destroy them, else (I believe) you lose the duel.
Yep. I think that I must have blasted the good Lady after she had yielded without me noticing that she had done so. That will teach me read the instructions properly in future.
If someone gives up (by releasing a flare) you must not destroy them, else (I believe) you lose the duel.
I don't use this OXP myself, but it seems to me that there should maybe be a larger penalty for destroying someone who has surrendered than just losing the contest. It's a social faux pas at the very least!
In fact, it might make these combats more demanding if duels normally went on until one pilot surrendered, rather than to the death.
@Disembodied I completely agree with you! There should be a much larger penalty for that. Probably changing the player status into Offender, as well as releasing a bunch of ships after him/her, as this is the equivalent to killing an innocent inside the range of a space station.
Disembodied wrote:
[...] if duels normally went on until one pilot surrendered, rather than to the death.
But that's normally how it works: absolutely all of my opponents surrendered and I never killed any of them.
By the way, does anyone know if the original author/maintainer of this OXP still participates in this forum? It would be great to hear what he/she thinks about these propositions of improvement.
[...] if duels normally went on until one pilot surrendered, rather than to the death.
But that's normally how it works: absolutely all of my opponents surrendered and I never killed any of them.
Thanks, interesting to know! The easiest way to make this the desired outcome might be if the player collected their winnings directly from the defeated pilot.
Force a surrender = you get paid
Kill your opponent = win the duel but don't get paid
Force a surrender but kill your opponent anyway = become persona non grata around the hunting lodge, and maybe end up with a vendetta against you from the family of the victim ...
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