Stranger things in Oolite... Or "too difficult at start"

[albanlusitanae]

ARQUEBUS, which ship are you using? I made a few tests and it appears there are different outcomes depending of the ship. When i stayed with the Cobra 3 I had a lot thougher scenarios... maybe this is something tagged in the non-modded base programming that changes the scenarios and difficulty not based on your rep but on the ship you have....

[Cholmondely]

ARQUEBUS, which ship are you using? I made a few tests and it appears there are different outcomes depending of the ship. When I stayed with the Cobra 3 I had a lot tougher scenarios... maybe this is something tagged in the non-modded base programming that changes the scenarios and difficulty not based on your rep but on the ship you have....

AlbanLusitanae, are you sure?

A constant theme running through the earlier BB threads is that the Oolite vanilla game (unlike Elite) is non-player-centric.

The only exceptions I've found mentioned are the increased speed of the player Cobra Mk.3, the Torus Drive and the existence of shields rather than just energy banks. Some of the oxp's (inevitably) are much more player-centric (Deep Space Pirates creates pirates just along your route in Deep Space, not randomly - and I have a sneaky suspicion that Deep Space Dredgers does the same - I suppose that I should check with Okti's "Long Range Scanner").


Edited to add:
The increased speed was to allow players to escape MassLock
The lack of NPC energy banks was supposed to counterbalance their lack of damageable equipment

One presumes that the lack of the Torus Drive makes little difference in combat (but I saw a note here in the BB that a player had used Torus to help defeat the Constrictor which attacked and continually ran away).

[montana05]

You do have the function threatAssessment: http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Oolite ... Assessment which in AI's is pretty similar: http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Oolite ... Assessment, Furthermore the Ai offer you the method fightOrFleeHostiles:http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/OXP_howto_AI.

Yes, the kind of ship and the quality of your equipment (mainly the weapons) could make a difference.

[arquebus]

I got exactly that with cag's wonderful Station Options. Really scary with my lousy combat skills.

If you are running it - just upgrade to his whizzy new Telescope 2.0 with his new station options with extra-added options! That should fix it. The extra-added options give the bugs a massive attack of the galloping heeby-jeebies and they leg it (mandible it?/claw it?)!

new telescope: https://www.dropbox.com/s/swfwx5klha3dn ... e.oxz?dl=0 (27/11/2021)
new station options: https://www.dropbox.com/s/dzz9ayq1e0jhv ... s.oxz?dl=0 (27/11/2021)

I don't think that this version needs "Telescope Options" any more.

Oh! And there is a new Telescope Extender too (3/5/2018)

I had followed your advice about checking the save file to make sure the telescope thargoids entry was FALSE, and it was. Maybe I missed something or misunderstood...?

[Cholmondely]

I got exactly that with cag's wonderful Station Options. Really scary with my lousy combat skills.

If you are running it - just upgrade to his whizzy new Telescope 2.0 with his new station options with extra-added options! That should fix it. The extra-added options give the bugs a massive attack of the galloping heeby-jeebies and they leg it (mandible it?/claw it?)!

new telescope: https://www.dropbox.com/s/swfwx5klha3dn ... e.oxz?dl=0 (27/11/2021)
new station options: https://www.dropbox.com/s/dzz9ayq1e0jhv ... s.oxz?dl=0 (27/11/2021)

I don't think that this version needs "Telescope Options" any more.

Oh! And there is a new Telescope Extender too (3/5/2018)

I had followed your advice about checking the save file to make sure the telescope thargoids entry was FALSE, and it was. Maybe I missed something or misunderstood...?

Aah - when I fiddled it had no effect until I removed the Station Options/Telescope Options (it did seem to be better after I'd bought a Telescope - no sales pressure, guv, honest!). But with the new Telescope/options I have had no problems at all.

[arquebus]

I've put in the updated oxp's and haven't had any problems on my current (new again) save.

[albanlusitanae]

Something tells me I will keep my Cobra 1 until i have enough money to buy mostly everything when I get the Cobra 3.

However, on that...

How do I repair the hull of my ship? I dont see options anywhere...
Does it only pop up after a certain amount of degradation? Mine is at half value of hull already, i want to do it, but no offer...

Maybe a shipyards shop mod somewhere?

My first successful passenger ferry across the galaxy (literally to the right up corner) took its toll on the Cobri...

[arquebus]

On a station you should be able to do it from the Outfitter (F3), though it probably needs the system to be of a certain tech level.

[Cmdr James]

What makes BBC proper?

Elite was a BBC game writen by Bell and Braben. Other version were re implementations of varying accuracy, for example acording to wiki

According to the lead programmer of the 16 bit Amiga/Atari ST and the MSX conversions Rob Nicholson, he did not have access to the source code because of contractual issues and had to write them "blind". All he had were the ship shapes and the procedural generation code for the galaxies

[albanlusitanae]

What makes BBC proper?

Elite was a BBC game writen by Bell and Braben. Other version were re implementations of varying accuracy, for example acording to wiki

According to the lead programmer of the 16 bit Amiga/Atari ST and the MSX conversions Rob Nicholson, he did not have access to the source code because of contractual issues and had to write them "blind". All he had were the ship shapes and the procedural generation code for the galaxies

Well normally people had the first entry to elite through ZX Spectrum or Amiga, such as myself.
I believe we can be forgiven for being way too young back then to be playing SpaceTrade Sims...

Thank you for the clarification. So basically BBC Proper meaning it is the original. Makes sense. Did anyone emulate it?

[Cody]

Did anyone emulate it?

Christian Pinder reverse engineered the original BBC Elite as Elite - TNK.

[Cholmondely]

HI to all

Returning player to the game, was surprised at the evolution.
Will be posting questions and maybe venture in making changes

Cheers to all

So what do you think about the changes? Do you prefer the new version to the old? Did you try adding any of the new textures (Normal and Specular+Gloss Maps for Oolite v1.88+)? Which oxp's did you most like?