Hijacking a ship

[phkb]

I had an idea today which I think could be a lot of fun. You're looking through the ships docked at a station (via Station Dock Control), and you come across a machine you've been drooling over for a while. What if you could hijack that ship, leave your old ship behind and tear off through the station with a flotilla of police ships on your tail?

What do you think would be a good mechanic for allow this to happen? I'm hesitant to use the "buy special item from Anarchy system, plug it in and do the hijack." I'm thinking of utilising the Dock Master interface I created in Smugglers. But how to (a) make this a hard thing to do, and (b) make the player pay for it so they have to think twice about it.

Thoughts?

[ralph_hh]

Hm.. I don't know. Anything that allows you to get a ship for free where you usually would have to spend months to earn the money necessary, seems like cheating.

[Smivs]

But theft is cheating!

[Venator Dha]

Ideas of the top of my head.

• player would need some criminal reputation to stand a chance to succeed in the theft. This could be built up over time through criminal activities.
  player would get a 'bounty' placed on them by the owner, so can be attacked by assassins as per courier contracts. lasts a long time.
  player gets a special tag that makes the law anti them, so no help if attacked, open to attack by them even if clean. again very slow removal.

[phkb]

Cheating? Sure. But if I can make it fun at the same time as making it hard, then maybe it's worth it.

Bounty - oh yeah, that one was on the list. Something big I think.
Special tags - I could wipe all the player roles and make them all Pirate, which should get police to always attack, particularly with a bounty.
Criminal rep - maybe. What would determine your success in the hijack? Assuming you got out of the station, and at this point that's guaranteed, what you're left with is NPC responses, which I can adjust to some degree. But if you hijack a Pitviper you'll pretty much be able to outrun and out gun most pursuers. Also, what if I'm a first time offender? Should the option not even be offered to first timers?

One option is that hijacking is a once per galaxy thing. You can hijack a ship once, but you won't get another chance until you head to a new chart. And if I make the crime persistent then you have, at most 8 opportunities to do it.

[ralph_hh]

Since I have no experience with criminal records (I manage to do my pirate business unseen) - what happens if you try to dock while you are fugitive? One would expect that the ship would be confiscated at the next opportunity? The idea of GalCorp Status is that it works anywhere, not just in one system where the crime is committed. Maybe you could make the ship undockable at the regular stations until you found a certain rock hermit where some special friend removes all the distinguishing marks.

[Fritz]

You will be attacked by Vipers, and you won't get a docking clearance, so the fun of docking as a fugitive will include a dangerous docking approach under fire and a fine of 5000 Cr. And you will be attacked again after launching. But while you are docked, nobody will try to kill or arrest you...

That seems very strange, and that's one reason why I never felt a desire to play as a pirate.

[ralph_hh]

There is a lot of handwavium, once you are docked. When I was a young boy, playing Elite, I imagined being a pilot in my daydreams. I always wondered, how life in a station might be. How comes, the bad boys never manage to kill you once you leave your ship for example. Is this a high security area, where everyone is safe? Why are you not arrested then, when YOU are the bad boy?

I'd think it would be logic to disable docking once you are fugitive.

[Cody]

... a certain rock hermit where some special friend removes all the distinguishing marks.

Hacker Outposts do something similar... for a price, of course!

[cbr]

hmm hijacking...

anybody should be able to hijack an adder, you could relate hijack.skills required to number of (military) lasers and numbers of shields,
greater numbers means more difficult to hijack...

why only the police? you should get bounty hunters, repo's, perhaps assassins looking for a sidejob and police on your @$$ tail,
but all in relation to the value and power of the ship.

'you stole the favorite pitviper from crimelord cookiecan'
'you stole a boa with hidden cargo from legendo smith'
'you stole ...'

when caught you could end up in jail and after a time you will be released ( prisoner release stations on some of the remoter planets )
or be sentenced to mine ore with your favourite commander for the next year or ...

the once per galaxy chance is also a nice touch

[Fritz]

I'd think it would be logic to disable docking once you are fugitive.

When you had shot at the station in Elite and then tried to dock, you crashed against a locked gate. But when you left the aegis and returned, docking was possible (if I remember correctly).

I think the problem is that Elite was a relatively simple game. Nobody thought much about those things, and the game worked how it was. Oolite with all its OXPs has become so complex and in many ways more realistic, so some of the old Elite "rules" seem too simple now.

Some days ago I was on a short OXP testing flight and docked without clearance to save time. Doing this I pulverised a launching Adder. I was fined the same 5000 Cr. as usual, but in reality, after landing without clearance and killing somebody doing this, I would be really in trouble! On the other hand, shooting at the navigation buoy without destroying it gives you an offender status immediately.

[Norby]

Thoughts?

I think the security in GalCop stations prevent this, but probably in other stations you have chance, as more as the role is worse.

The right balancing is if the player's ship sometimes will be stolen also. (!)
No problem if there is another in Hyperspace Hangar, but must include some help if it was the last ship and not enough money to buy another or no shipyard in the station. Due to no way to detect if the shipyard is empty, I suggest to allow offer money for the captains in the docked list for his ships and sooner or later one of them should accept it, even if the player has not enough money. In this case the difference will be deducted in small parts all time when credit balance will over a level, for example 1000cr.

Offering money for docked ships could be available in all stations: need extra charge from +10% up to +1000% and some ships are not available at all.

[Fritz]

I just had an OXP idea: Your ship gets stolen, and you have to find it. That would be somehow similar to the Constrictor mission with hints given to you at stations (or, perhaps, only at rock hermits?).

You would have to use a ship that is available and you can afford (so the OXP should make at least one ship available at the place where your ship is stolen). If you don't like that ship and waste time to earn money or to find another ship, it gets more difficult to find the thief. And of course you should not destroy your ship - but the thief will try to destroy you, if he recognises you (when you follow too obviously? Or something else?). So you don't need an iron ass fighter to win the "mission", and for many pilots this would make a difference to normal playing.

The goal of the mission would be find the thief and follow him to a station (in a safe system).

[ffutures]

I just had an OXP idea: Your ship gets stolen, and you have to find it. That would be somehow similar to the Constrictor mission with hints given to you at stations (or, perhaps, only at rock hermits?).

You would have to use a ship that is available and you can afford (so the OXP should make at least one ship available at the place where your ship is stolen). If you don't like that ship and waste time to earn money or to find another ship, it gets more difficult to find the thief. And of course you should not destroy your ship - but the thief will try to destroy you, if he recognises you (when you follow too obviously? Or something else?). So you don't need an iron ass fighter to win the "mission", and for many pilots this would make a difference to normal playing.

The goal of the mission would be find the thief and follow him to a station (in a safe system).

To make it REALLY difficult sell the player a ship that doesn't have hyperdrive. You'd have to hitch-hike your way after the thief.

[Zark Montor]

I like this idea. and some of the angles and tangents that spring forth. ID masking, chop shops, as well as espionage, pre concept models, yup, that'll do it! it all comes up for grabs. sort of thing i had in mind for my story mode idea...