One week in

[djxejms]

A week ago today I started playing Oolite. It almost immediately has become my new obsession. I have seen a few posts here from new players complaining about the game, usually that it is too hard, so I thought I would offer my own perspective with perhaps a bit of analysis about why I have been able to really get into this game while some other new players don't seem to be able to.

I haven't played the original Elite or Elite Dangerous or really any other space combat game before. However I have spent a few dozen hours playing Kerbal Space Program. I think this may be a large factor in why I was able to learn this game relatively easily. One of the complaints that I've seen from newer players is that it is too hard to dock. Compared to docking in Kerbal, docking in Oolite is a walk in the park. Playing multiple hours of KSP has made me very comfortable working in 3d space. It has also instilled a habit of keeping my eye on the instrumentation. Kerbal implements Newtonian physics while the physics of Oolite is much easier to work with (and much better suited to dog fighting).

I also made sure to run through the tutorial before I started playing the game, and have heavily referenced this board and the wiki when I had questions. I think some of the people I have seen complaining (but not all) have failed to do this. This page in particular has been very useful to me.

I started out just trading and stuck to safer systems. My goal was to avoid combat at all costs and build up some cash to kit out my Cobra Mk III. After a jump I would simply point my ship in a random direction and jump for several seconds to get out of the main shipping lanes, both to avoid potential combat, but also to avoid mass locking on my way into the station. Since my main objective was to make money quickly, and as I was completely comfortable with manual docking, my first upgrade was a larger cargo hold. Then I picked up the fuel injecters which allowed me to avoid mass locking even more. After purchasing the docking computer, I could make trade runs in just a couple of minutes (for other new players out there, Shift-C allows you to skip the docking sequence entirely as soon as you are inside of the station's aegis).

Now that I had a way to make some reletively quick cash, I started thinking about what I wanted to do in the game. Asteroid mining seemed interesting, so I got a fuel scoop and a rear mounted mining laser (I later mounted that to port). I quickly discovered that mining wasn't really the career for me, however, and started the process of getting my Cobra combat ready. I skipped the beam laser entirely, and went with a military laser. I also picked up a shild boaster and ECM, and I was feeling a lot less squishy. My problem now is that I had to make a longish journey to get to a system that could fit me up with a military shield enhancement. Before I left the safe little corner of the galaxy that I had been staying in, I also picked up a navigational computer and space compass, which proved very helpful. On my journey I decided not to run away from a group of pirates to see if I could start learning how to fight. My results were... less than satisfactory. So I hopped on the wiki and found that page about tactics. I would highly reccomend any new player read that. But in short, being closer to enemies is generally better than being far away, don't forget about your missiles, and always remember that escape is always an option.

This post is already too long. I now have just about all the upgrades I can buy and am playing as a bounty hunter / trader. I currently try to stick to systems in the confederacy - dictatorship range (interestingly enough though, the stickiest pirate ambush I've suffered was in a democracy system), and have managed to get my rating up to Competent. I've been playing solely with my keyboard, but have been eyeing a joystick for enhanced flight control.

I played my fist few days without any OXPs at all as I wanted to get a feel for what the base game is like. Now I am using BGS, randomshipnames, and the Illegal Goods Tweak. I particularly like the Illegal Goods Tweak, because it introduced the option to set slaves free. One thing about playing an open-world game is that you have to set your own goals. My main goal now is to try and recover slaves from criminals and set them free.

[Milo]

I look forward to your next update. Regarding the pirates in the democracy you mentioned, take a look at this.

I think you would be interested in this too, but I think it never got past the concept stage. Perhaps you will come over to the dark side and make your own OXP in such a direction. While your interest is in freeing them, more narrative would enhance the experience. For example, are these slaves hardened criminals, refugees or abductees? Instead of simply giving them to GalCop, can you convert them to passengers and take them home? (Perhaps a grateful prince/princess from a certain feudal system. And, of course, GNN afterwards.)

[djxejms]

Regarding the pirates in the democracy you mentioned, take a look at this.

That would explain it! The democracy system I was in was right next to an anarchy. It's pretty cool what this game does with NPC's.

I think you would be interested in this too, but I think it never got past the concept stage. Perhaps you will come over to the dark side and make your own OXP in such a direction. While your interest is in freeing them, more narrative would enhance the experience. For example, are these slaves hardened criminals, refugees or abductees? Instead of simply giving them to GalCop, can you convert them to passengers and take them home? (Perhaps a grateful prince/princess from a certain feudal system. And, of course, GNN afterwards.)

The Illegal Goods Tweak apparently does have a chance of generating followup missions every time you release a slave. I haven't managed to trigger any yet though. I have been interested in making an "abolitionist" OXP. Definitely something to think about.

[Milo]

In one of the possible missions from Illegal Goods Tweak, Amnesty International sends you to a pirate base in a rock hermit to buy as many slaves as you can, then destroy the base. Since one wouldn't expect every slave to be for sale, this seems quite unfortunate for the unlucky ones left there...

[djxejms]

In one of the possible missions from Illegal Goods Tweak, Amnesty International sends you to a pirate base in a rock hermit to buy as many slaves as you can, then destroy the base. Since one wouldn't expect every slave to be for sale, this seems quite unfortunate for the unlucky ones left there...

It's an ethically murky area, but this game is full of ethical murkiness. My main method of finding slaves to free is shooting criminals and scooping up cargo. But for every ton of slaves that I rescue like this I'm probably destroying ten. However, at least that ship can't be used for human trafficking anymore. So every ship I blow up is a potential dent in the slave trade.

[Milo]

With Towbar OXP, pilots will often eject in escape capsules leaving their ships derelict and the cargo recoverable. I'm not sure if Towbar alone adds escape capsules, as I also use ShipVersion which gives them to most NPC ships (over 3t).

[Cholmondely]

You're now coming up to a month in!

Has anything changed?