Career mode/Story Mode

[Zark Montor]

I had an idea a while back whilst reading a few of these forum posts, about working with someone as an ideas person, using my corrupt mind to help create a good OXP and maybe gleaning a bit of oxp creation knowledge from whomever i end up interacting with.

I haven't even looked at programming anything since my school days, apart from helping someone work out hex patterns for c64 sprite graphics, but this was just helping someone who had a core program for an O level sports sim, i just proof read his BASIC code and spotted a few minor things missing. Since then, i have had absolutely no interest in creating anything computer wise..... Until recently!

So i stumble upon Oolite about 18 months ago. Long story short, this is a really good project, each person can pretty much modify his or her experience of Oolite by way of adding OXPs to extend difficulty etc.

However, because i am such a fan of not only Elite/Oolite, as well as being an admirer of particular OXPs and their creators, i tend to find certain things within OXPs a bit, (ahem) either superfluous, or just "why do it like that, when it can be done by taking out that and putting in this".

Anyway, ah, yes, Story Mode!

So, Having read The Dark Wheel whilst waiting for my C64 cassette version of Elite to load, as well as revisiting it just recently, i had the Story Mode idea. SO! here we go. Starting at any planet in any of the 8 galaxies, with a pilots flight exams your first task, flight, docking and basic dogfight training (a la Lave Academy) you secure your federation license.

Now unless you have a rich benefactor, you aint getting a ship, in fact, you are penniless, luckily, you have your self belief and there is a bucket load of haulier companies looking for pilots to fly ships on simple jobs. easy way to make a few creds towards an old Cobra Mk1 or laser scorched Adder. Add in a generous customer here and there, we are getting close to being able to afford our first ship. etc etc etc. So monitoring the jobs boards is going to be a big part of your experience. Also, your pilot reputation will define what bracket of job/earnings you can make. The variety could be escort jobs as part of a wing for Ooddie Gibblets long haul freight, but, there might also be cabbing a local hood around the area, with certain privileges for dropping him to Reidquat, a normally perilous journey to anyone else, but hey, no one is gonna shoot up a ship carrying a local crimelord to a meeting with another powerful undergalaxy face.

Anyway, you get the picture. If you are using OXPs to introduce other ship types, then these will be drip fed into the experience, almost as if you have taken the game back say 31 years or so? (cue the Oodverts for the brand spanking new Cobra MK3 rs codsworth with go faster stripes, new from..... comes with 20 tons of storage space,blah blah blah)

All this mind vomit in 1 post?

Yep, its Zark Montor!

Let the fun begin (hurry up and get this one shot down, so it discourages me from posting EVER again!!)

Regards!

[Zark Montor]

just to add a few things,

I was thinking about adding the Thargoid situation as a major news item, "Invasion of the Thargon Destruction Fleet" with a whole theme and sudden creation of what we call necessary technology, but would have once been vapour-ware or rumours from disgruntled ex employees.

Basically a big body of story weaving work, which might encourage other people to add to the story, by way of text files etc.

Oh and no one EVER mention multi player! its a whole new program that just CANNOT be done within the existing Oolite version. It means building a whole new game. so, NO!!

I SAID NO!

that covers that.

new ideas are formulating...

[ocz]

The idea to create a storyline is certainly not knew, but it doesn't age and get bad either

What you're basicly describing is to flesh out the game's beginnng phase and combine it with single player campain ala X or Freelancer, that would give a player a certain point of archiving a satifying end of the game.

I'm all in favuor of fleshing out the beginning phase. There is spara's [wiki]starter choices[/wiki] of which I'm a very hugh fan. Illcit unlock (never get the name right. just google oolite unlock) provides extra ships. The idea of working for a company in the beginning is good, but might be harder to implement than paying off a loan. [wiki]Towbar[/wiki] has some sort of "you got to pay for your licence." approach were half of your income (by towing derelicts) is taken away until you paid the 20000cr. In the brilliant game "Recettear" you had to pay weekly (unbelievingly step) repayment rates or they would have taken away your house! (Capitalism, ho!) This might also be very interesting. There is an OXP called the black monks monastry or something. They do give out loans (though I don't know it they are canon.) The innerworks of that OXP might be useful. Many things you need for your project are already provided.

The catchy part is the storyline. There are romans out there and I haven't read them. You already read the dark wheel. Good! As far as I know they are oolite limited canon? As I don|t know anything about the ooliteverse beside what happend in the game, I would never write a mission going over the border of my plate (ueber meinen Tellerrand) nor writing a whole storyline as I would soon be traspassing terrain I have no knowledge about. Each mission would have to be carifully planed to not confict with the official canon. I might be wrong there, but stories of most OXPs will have a hard time to be recogized as headcanon. (They have it easier if they can refere to something, like an official source of canon, like a roman. Some OXPs already do this and they span a net a whole universe can sustain on) You mentioned a fullscale attack of the Thargoid. Is this already mentoned somewhere? Are other OXPs already using this setup? (I know of one that creats Thargoid raids on galcop stations (coriolis and such), but I don't remember the name. Still have it installed. It's good.)

Now I contributed the same thing you are offering. Ideas. Coming up with them isn"t hard when someone is inspired. Writing the code to make them real is the hard part. But you're right about that this work go to waste and won"t contibute to something great, if it isn"t bound to a great goal. Write your storyline, read those books, post your ideas for missions and continue to take input of the community especally regarding story canon. These are my words of advice.

I hope I could contribute to your idea by providing the names of (and hinds to) some OXPs. I'm writing some OXPs to flesh out the beginning phase by myself. If I"ll create something that is useful to you, feel free to use it.

[phkb]

not confict with the official canon.

The thing about Oolite is, though, that while it has some shared origin with the Elite universe, there is no "official canon" to speak of. Each writer (of fiction or OXP's) is free to take whatever direction they see as being worthwhile. All OXP author's need to concern themselves with, in regard to other OXP's, is technical conflicts (ie. one OXP might remove a piece of equipment/ship/station/planet that another OXP requires). Aside from that, though, you're free to create a story without necessarily having to conform to what has gone before.