Timed Release Ships and Models

[Commander Talbot]

Oolite is a game that is very rich in in-game history, and it is an active universe. So it has always seemed a little odd to me that no matter how long you play, no new ships come on the market. If you think about it, car manufacturers release new models of their cars every year. So would it be possible to release ships on a timed basis? Say a Wolf Mk. 3 that might look more or less the same but have improved specs? Maybe use the same idea that is behind mission triggers. It's just a thought.

[Smivs]

I think it does happen, but very slowly. The Cobra III is a 'new' model, whereas Pythons are all at least a few hundred years old. I presume that something as complex as a spaceship must take a fair bit of design and development, for a relatively small market, so new models would be very infrequent. Don't forget a lot of 'recycling' goes on as well. Just look at the Python. There are several (OXP) variants, but all are based on old refurbished hulls.

[Disembodied]

Ship designs in the game last a long time … the Python has been in service since 2700, for example, and is still serving alongside the 3100-era Cobra III. I don't think the current rate of technological development here on Earth necessarily parallels technological development in the Oolite universe.

That said, the Constrictor mission shows that new ship designs can arise … but it's a pretty massive deal when they do.

(Edit: Ninja'd by Smivs!)

[Astrobe]

Redspear just talked about a similar ideas - systems that change their government over time with idea to be easier on beginners. It also may fit with the idea of rewarding the player with other things than just more credits. Ship unlocks work well if the ship is some sort of military variant because you can attach it to a Navy mission, but unlocks for regular ships are more difficult to justify, so a time-based unlock is a quite usable idea if you mix it with Iron Man mode and a game difficulty that increases over time - because you have to survive until the release date.

[Redspear]

Redspear just talked about a similar ideas...

Yep, and when you consider all of those "step up from a Cobra mkIII" ships that have been made then there's lots of potential with ready-made ships should you wish for a progression.

Some possible examples:

Cobra mk III variants (there's a slew of these, mostly slightly better but some considerably so).
Python Cruiser / Python ET (regardless of the production dates it's your game so you can do what you like)
Boa Cruiser (one of the core ships but some might consider it a good candidate for such an approach)
Viper Interceptor (perhaps policing gets tougher later on in the game)
Thargoid variants (a few variants have been made but bear in mingd that some of them may be attached to missions)
Mussurana (a sort of super fer-de-lance)
Sidewinder / Asp specials (I don't think they're massive improvements IIRC but another option)
Anything else you fancy.

They could show up in the spacelanes as well as for sale of course and I think I might know how to programme it should you be interested?

[spara]

One could quite easily make an OXP to go along with for example Griff's extras, Staer9 shipset and SB-faves so that the ships are grouped into 8 chunks and every time the player jumps into a new sector, a new chunk of ships is added to the mix. Everything would be fully opened by chart 8.

Pro: It gives some progression, something new in every sector.
Con: With very high probability, the ships in the last chunk are never seen by casual players. Which is a shame since they are such a nice ships.

[Redspear]

One could quite easily make an OXP to go along with for example Griff's extras, Staer9 shipset and SB-faves so that the ships are grouped into 8 chunks

That used to be what I did with one shipset per galaxy (exclusively).
With Griff, Deepspace, Sungs, Smivs, Dertien, Neolite, Waka/Piko (Simon B) and Re2dux (have I missed any?) there are enough without having to cobble any sets together.

I mostly use the shipsets differently now but I do favour a few rare ships being unique to particular galaxies.

[Commander Talbot]

I would be interested redspear. I have been thinking about becoming part of the oolite modding community for a while, but I have very little experience in programming. So this might be where I start.

[Redspear]

In that case the two links below from the wiki might be worth looking at in order to see what I'm thinking (and help you get some sense of how oxps can be put together).

http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Oolite ... on_scripts
http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Oolite ... nce:_Clock

I can help more in future but for now I'd suggest thinking how you'd like it to work, e.g. which ships and when.
Bear in mind that there might be licensing/permissions to consider.

[Commander Talbot]

Thanks for the links. You can probably expect me to be popping up all over the board asking dumb questions for the next while.

[Redspear]

Feel free. There's nothing dumb about trying to learn

[Commander Talbot]

Sorry guys, life intervenes. I can't work on this project... So if anybody thinks this is a good idea and wants to run with it, feel free to do so. I feel a trifle embarrassed about doing this, but that is the way the cookie crumbles.