Oolite 2.0 or II

[cim]

I think if I was going for an Elite-like game without being constrained in any particular place to do it the same way, I'd make a few pretty major changes (which would require a bunch of others).

1) Get rid of the torus drive. Primary travel is at conventional speeds (injectors are less powerful, and generate heat rather than eating fuel, to make them a tactical combat option rather than a useful distance boost). The general gameplay consists of getting between nav buoys about 100km (on current scales and speeds) from stations. You can do this at conventional speeds without needing "fast" travel. Planets and stars are fairly realistic sizes and distances, so they don't change much in this travel mode.

2) Introduce a mechanic similar to Elite Dangerous's supercruise for flying between nav buoys on a semi-realistic scale system. You can't be intercepted while doing this, but you can easily be tracked and followed to a nav buoy (and can do the same to NPCs). Make transitions from this to and from normal flight highly energetic, to stop them happening near stations. You can also drop out away from a nav buoy either to just some anonymous region of space, or to appear near a station but in an unexpected direction (though requires skill to not also appear at an unexpected distance). Multiple stations per system - some more official than others - would be the norm, and not all stations would be public knowledge: some you might have to get an invite or find by other means (dropping in uninvited may or may not be safe).

3) Re-do the galactic map to have safe regions and dangerous regions, and make regional politics more important: so a clump of mostly democratic systems here, a clump of mostly dictatorships there. Border systems will often be less secure - unless they impose martial law in which case they suddenly get very secure, but... Many systems between the clumps would be uninhabited: make the map a lot bigger but no galactic hyperdrive.

4) The player does not start the game owning a ship. They carry out piloting contracts for big organisations, which will provide a suitable ship for whatever the job is. Some organisations will allow the player to take on side jobs (a parcel under the seat), others will forbid it (but not necessarily find out), others will allow it but cut the base pay (if you tell them) because it increases their insurance premiums. Similarly for whether they allow the player to refit the ship at all. As the player's reputation increases, better jobs become available. A lot of the side jobs might be quite shady - "hey, you've got a few tonnes spare in that freighter, how about taking these firearms with you and we'll split the profits 50:50" - and potentially damage your reputation quite a bit if you were found out.

If the player wants their own ship, they have two choices: save up a lot of money from a lot of missions, take on an unusual mission which gives a ship as a reward ... or steal one - just go AWOL with a mission ship. Of course, this will make it very difficult to get standard work again, at least without moving a long way away or getting some sort of fake identity (neither of which would completely stop your past catching up with you), so the main use of this ship will be piracy, assassinations, and other jobs where you're either directly earning profits or working for very shady employers.

5) Change weapons/ships to be much shorter range, and less reliant on lasers. Freighters should be slow, take a few minutes to turn around, and rely largely on turrets and much smaller escort fighters for defence (probably the player will find it more fun to pilot one of the escort fighters). Multirole fighter-traders should be the new big innovation shaking things up.

[Cody]

Ships in supercruise, ED style. I once likened them to farting comets - are they still the same?

If you were 'going for an Elite-like game without being constrained in any particular place to do it the same way', cim, what would you call it?

[Astrobe]

Here is my summary of the original thread.
The first part about the tough life of a fresh Jameson I'll skip. Not because it's not interesting but because the proposed changes made in the second part might change the deal.
The second part mainly focuses on addressing one of Cim's point: trading is dull because it's predictable.

The discussion led to the following ideas:

• Alter the availability of commodities in systems
  The intent is to make trading less predictable. Currently, if one sees a poor industrial corporate system next to a rich agricultural democracy, it reads "easy money right here".
  Two variants were considered:
  • globally decrease quantities
  • make some commodities not available at all
  I think it fits very well with OXPs like Market Inquirer MFD or Extra Stations For Extra Planets, if the alteration is on a per station basis rather than per system.
  It could also extend into an "information gathering" on the lanes: learn from other traders what nearby systems sell (maybe a masslock will become good news in the end...).
• Make systems evolve over time
  The original suggestion was about changing economy. It isn't clear to me if a system could change its economy type or not.
  I think it could take the form of a dramatic event (a revolution, a thargoid attack, a trumble invasion ... ) that would completely change the properties of the system.
  Works even better if it has an impact on commodity availability.
• Improve the cargo contract activity.
  On this point I'm a bit confused because I remember cargo contracts in the F4 screen but I don't see them any more.
  People seemed to agree that a richer cargo contract market would be welcome. More flexible in terms of quantities and distance.
  It has been suggested to add some "colour" by shipping the speciality of a system to other systems.

[spara]

[*]Make systems evolve over time
The original suggestion was about changing economy. It isn't clear to me if a system could change its economy type or not.
I think it could take the form of a dramatic event (a revolution, a thargoid attack, a trumble invasion ... ) that would completely change the properties of the system.
Works even better if it has an impact on commodity availability.

Economy can be changed runtime. And the commodity price/quantity calculation is strongly based on the eco type. So from game mechanic perspective, altering the eco changes the markets. Finding a reason for it to happen is another problem entirely. Rationalization has not been a problem around here, though .

Another idea I've been toying with, is not refreshing the markets every time the system is visited, but rather let it fill/dry over time. For example over 10 jumps or something. That would keep the original "good" pairs good, but they would be exploitable only once at a time.

It could work like this:
* When exiting a system, the market of that system is saved and a counter is set to 10 for that system.
* Every time the player makes a witchjump, the counters are reduced by one.
* If a system with a live counter is visited, the quantities of the goods are set to a values between the old ones and the new ones. The value is based on the counter so that after one jump the quantities are changed 10% from the saved values towards the new values. And for example after 7 jumps, the quantities are changed for 70% from the saved values towards the new values.

This way buying a system empty and visiting it right away will produce a nearly empty system.

Player centric, granted. But could it make the game a better game by forcing the player to move a bit instead hopping between two systems? And still having that same map that is so beloved.

[Astrobe]

Player centric, granted. But could it make the game a better game by forcing the player to move a bit instead hopping between two systems? And still having that same map that is so beloved.

Actually, assuming that the player makes the best choices, it's only natural that the NPC do more or less the same.

[Redspear]

If you were 'going for an Elite-like game without being constrained in any particular place to do it the same way', cim, what would you call it?

Good question

Oolite contains elite (or at least its meaning in a historical sense) within its own name: object oriented elite.
So a key word in cim's post is (I suspect) "if".

Elite now looks well, 'cute', but that's part of the appeal for a game like oolite that doesn't have the resources (or the demands) of an ED or similar. Also, 'low tech' often means 'easy to mod' as well as easy to run. No subscription, no multiplayer, no season fees etc. etc.

I actually like mass-lock as a concept, I think its both cute and (potentially) elegant but I think whilst Giles was busy working wonders elsewhere, the mass-lock wasn't adapted to the new non player-centric features.

An idea that has at least one major flaw, but is otherwise so gloriously simple that I'm going to mention it anyway, is for the witch point beacon to be positioned between the sun and the planet.

You would then have a clear reason for traffic to be headed in both directions
You could also widen the space lane and have encounters occur at a similar frequency but with more of them headed towards you.
If the two lanes (now overlapping as one) could be made different widths then you could massively alter the mass-lock experience, meaning nearly all traders on the 'centre lane' were likely to be travelling in the opposite direction, or 50-50 if travel from sun to station was just as likely for the player.
The space lane would also be less obvious as an entity in game.

Flawed, as I said, (to the extent that I might not even want to play it) but I still really like it...

[Astrobe]

On the problem of masslocks and the Torus Drive, I believe the real issue is that Oolite is kind of slow-paced by default, whereas some players would prefer more action or don't have enough time for games. I think a better solution, maybe, would be to allow them to play roles that fit their playstyle; namely piracy or bounty hunting.

FWIW I'm fine with the slow pace, except perhaps the lane is a bit too long on average, so I do use the Torus where possible (but rarely do I use injectors to escape masslocks; I can wait - plus the AI does a good job now at stepping aside too). An average lane distance of 5 minutes (at .35LM) instead of 15 would be just fine I guess.

The other problem the Torus solves is the travel duration to the sun or other planets. Perhaps one missed the obvious solution to this: don't play it. Replace it with some sort of intra-system micro-jump. Put the ship on auto-pilot no-collision, make it twist and turn a bit while it dashes to the destination, add some colour effects and you have a pseudo-cinematic scene.

[spara]

Player centric, granted. But could it make the game a better game by forcing the player to move a bit instead hopping between two systems? And still having that same map that is so beloved.

Actually, assuming that the player makes the best choices, it's only natural that the NPC do more or less the same.

Now that you put it that way...

Maybe the markets should be redefined the same way safe-dangerous systems have been defined? Meaning that if an agri world is within 7 LY of industrial world, then the number of agricultural products for sale in the agri would be brought down and in the industrial world their number would be brought up to reflect the likely flow of trade. The risk factor could also be noted by taking into account the gov type. That way finding a safe agri-ind pair would not be so profitable thus encouraging to a more interesting routes.

[cim]

Ships in supercruise, ED style. I once likened them to farting comets - are they still the same?

Yeah, no change there. I'd probably prefer a "submarine" aesthetic - ripples and distortions of the background, rather than seeing the other ships directly - if we're allowing stuff I have no idea how to code.

If you were 'going for an Elite-like game without being constrained in any particular place to do it the same way', cim, what would you call it?

Oh, the really hard decisions I'd leave until the end.

[Astrobe]

Ships in supercruise, ED style. I once likened them to farting comets - are they still the same?

Yeah, no change there. I'd probably prefer a "submarine" aesthetic - ripples and distortions of the background, rather than seeing the other ships directly - if we're allowing stuff I have no idea how to code.

I'd go full nostalgia mode and activate wireframe graphics for this. At 10 FPS

[Cody]

Always loved 'submarine' stuff - it fits well with spaceships.

[Smivs]

Mention of submarines always reminds me of this track. I guess being alone in space feels much the same.

[Cody]

<nods> Excellent singer/songwriter, is Al Stewart - Sirens of Titan, comes to mind.

As for naming a game, I think I'd start with the name, and work from there.

[Disembodied]

FWIW I'm fine with the slow pace, except perhaps the lane is a bit too long on average, so I do use the Torus where possible (but rarely do I use injectors to escape masslocks; I can wait - plus the AI does a good job now at stepping aside too). An average lane distance of 5 minutes (at .35LM) instead of 15 would be just fine I guess.

This is a good point: there is a place for a game where the action is relatively rare, but exciting when it happens, and made all the sweeter by the pauses in between. As Cim has said before, maybe what we should be thinking about is not how to skip past "the boring bits" but instead to give the player something else to do rather than stare out of the window.

Are there things the player can do, during the longeurs? (Non-compulsory things, so if they want to stare out the window, they can.) Things like:

1. Peruse the news
2. Bid for cargoes and contracts, in advance - perhaps with time-dependent elements, so there would be pressure/reward in reaching the station by a certain time
3. Communicate with nearby ships
4. Enable further interaction with other ships - side-to-side docking, perhaps, and inter-ship trading
5. Run system checks and perform onboard repairs and tune-ups
6. Run long-range scans, and try to discover information about what other ships and stations are out there, and where
7. Look back over the ship's log

Might it be worth thinking about having two different types of ship-speed? One could be "cruising speed", which could be fast (2 x normal, say) but very hard to steer, and where you have no shields or lasers, because of handwave (the warp-bubble is too strong, for example). The second would be "manoeuvre" or "battle speed" - the standard in-game type of speed - where you can have shields and lasers and dogfighting abilities.

When you meet another ship, you have to decide whether or not to drop out of cruising speed (no automatic masslock, in other words): you could try just ploughing onwards, but if the other ship is already at battle speed and has hostile intent they could very likely cut you to bits (especially if, say, getting hit while flying at cruising speed resulted in an immediate uncontrolled drop to battle speed - except your shields would have to come online gradually and you're in a forced tumble for 10 seconds).

At the aegis/close to the planet/sun, you automatically perform a controlled drop to battle speed (i.e. full shields straight away, no tumbling), because of handwave/the gravity well.

[cbr]

The not buying but more renting/leasing/captaining pov should give (new) players an (easy?) way to try out the different ships/missonstyles.

on the cargo front:

big traders with large cargo capacity able to trade +200t of ore/etc
The big traders could also have a bit of influence on small systems.
brining 100t of weapons to a anarchic station/planet could start a local civil which would require ...

gem/gold, sure 10t of gold in a cobra iii ( excellent profits and excellent pirate magnet )
gamesystem based on the value of the ship/cargo, the more profit the more trouble, your own pick

In the fast forward mode between big jumps perhaps something like in the old basic spacetrader,
based on status/ship/government/etc you could be harassed/tempted/ordered out of submarine/warpspace mode

Why only one witchpoint per system ( if in multiplanet system par example )