Oolite essay: game lore, features and mechanics

[Redspear]

That list is pretty fair I'd say and, obvious or not, it's easy to forget any one of them during a particular exchange.

I have some really good points to make in the future

Well, until you're ready I've actually got one (in support) for you...

In elite NPC's were always headed towards you so it didn't matter how fast or slow they were, masslocks were brief and once they were off scanner (which also matched visual range) they were gone. In truth they were actually gone but it was easy to imagine they had torus-driven off somewhere. Why they were always headed towards you was an obvious question but other than that it worked great.

In oolite they're typically headed towards the station (realistic) but then so is the player (unfortunate). So now speed difference is an issue and you can get traffic-jammed behind a faster ship that either doesn't have a torus drive or is extremely reluctant to use it.

To be fair, I've likely downplayed this particular problem so far because two of my oxps (one of which I'm almost always using) largely solve this particular problem. So the question arguably becomes can the 'solutions' be justified (power to engines does perhaps the best job of this I think) other than being obviously a player-only concession.

That is the problem however that makes it most apparent that NPC's aren't using torus drives. Interceptor squadrons I can rationalise (they're masslocking each other) but a lone asp remains a problem. In truth, the only reliable, non-concessionary 'solution' I currently have to this is via oxp (NPC chooses to keep weapons armed, player risks disarming them for speed). By no means perfect but not bad yet crucially not in the standard game which I must admit.

I'm not sure if Redspear picked up on what I meant, but I've used the word "representative" a couple of times

At this stage, I'm not entirely sure either

I think you're right however, in that it's about where we each choose to draw the line: complete realism would be agony and complete unrealism (no consequences) unsatisfying. Neither situation makes for a good game.

[Redspear]

In oolite they're typically headed towards the station (realistic) but then so is the player (unfortunate)

So IF it's a design issue then how could it be redesigned?

Considerations

• Is 'encounter hopping' a sacred cow of elite/oolite?
• Is masslocking the way to achieve this?
• How long can a non-combat encounter last before it's like watching grass grow?
• If masslock facilitates the encounters then must it also be the factor that maintains them?

For simplicity's sake I'm going to say yes to the first two, I don't want to imagine an unrecognisable game.

For the timing, having played elite both way back when and relatively recently I'd say it's about a minute when you're going to have potentially several encounters per journey?

For the last one I'd suggest that masslock stops you but doesn't keep you. This would need some care...

You're masslocked as normal, traveling sone 30 times slower than you were just a moment ago. Torus drive recalibrating (no comms message).

One minute later the recalibration is complete (comms message) and whether there are other ships on scanner ot not, you are ready to go.
This would likely need caveats however or combat, docking and sunskimming would be very different.

So, for docking and sunskimming:

• Recalibration not possible with presence of a sufficiently massive body (star, planet, station) - you stay masslocked while in range.
• Observable NPC behaviour within the aegis still makes a degree of sense

For combat:

• Taking fire (or perhaps dodging) restarts calibration process or it's only possible with fully charged shields - you could escape but it's unlikely.
• Combat masslocks last potentially much longer than non-combat ones (but are more fun of course) yet early escape is actually possible (sans injectors) even against faster ships - something the game would arguably benefit from

I think this is workable as an oxp as there was a change to the masslockable property (or similar) a few years back now.

Wouldn't solve the problem of why NPC's didn't have torus drives but would make it much less obvious.

...yet another project for myself to half-bake (doughnut reference intentional). Need to get my head around timers...

[szaumix]

Now we're getting somewhere.

• Is 'encounter hopping' a sacred cow of elite/oolite?
• Is masslocking the way to achieve this?
• How long can a non-combat encounter last before it's like watching grass grow?
• If masslock facilitates the encounters then must it also be the factor that maintains them?

Yes, yes, no comment, and probably (but no further comment) respectively.

And even then, since my top remaining problem is that it was player-centric, until cim works out a reasonable balance with NPC torus use, I'm just going to go ahead and treat is as time lapse and everyone else has no problem treating the player as the exception to the rule, so there's no "problem" that currently needs fixing for the supermajority of Oolite commanders. For me personally, I have no problem letting my ship just cruise at engine speed through the masslock as I work in the background, I actually enjoy the serenity of a few minutes floating in space.

Anyway If I were putting my efforts anywhere it wouldn't be Torus Drive. I said it was my all time biggest headscratcher, not my biggest priority.

I'd be fixing the ship size values/balance problem (as I see it) as priority #1: it drives me nuts every time I care to look at any ship's data. I'm mid way through a values rebalance that I am happy with (taking your resizes at face value, actually), but anyway Anacondas at 750 infuriates me on principle (that should be like 250 tops) despite that it only matters when it's time to own one. Plus many of the ships have annoying minor inconsistencies (IMHO) given their size, appearance rates and roles that also need tweaking (for me), not to mention that the majority are a bit too easy (for me) in their supposed roles. So that's where my eyes are gonna be for a while bagel boy

[Redspear]

I'd be fixing the god damned ship size values/balance problem (as I see it) as priority #1:

Have you tried this?

I have been meaning to add the formula and specific changes to the thread/wiki but I was giving myself a little wriggle room for some further adjustment.

It tackles size in particular but also energy banks, pylons and (in the case of the freighters) cargo hold.

I'd done similar before for the rescaling experiment but this was the first time I'd made something that would both work with the default game and also be calculated more by maths than instinct. It could do with some more documentation but it's all there.

[szaumix]

Actually yes. I've got it, had a fair few bashes with it but I was testing too many mods at once so I wasn't paying attention... thus I didn't notice differences even though I'm sure they were there and poignant. In the end, since I am excessively thorough, I removed everything except the resize values because I realized I'll want to screen ship balance in stages. I've got three spreadsheets in the process of being finalized with vanilla values, your ships' values, and notes etc. Then comes value and balance testing. (That's by no means a reflection on you I'm just a squinty-eyed skeptic and thorough hardass on issues of balance that aren't mathematical or logically consistent and therefore self-fulfilling)

My current working theory is that the vanilla Gecko/Krait are approximately the baseline "average difficulty" combat opponents, but that I want that difficulty to become the standard for below average. Like obviously as soon as one graduates to military laser it's all easier and that's where I'll need harder support ships in pirate and hunter groups. Most groups are just too poor to be a threat to me even when I've just ejected in iron man + hard eject and I can't afford a thing more than a beam laser and an ECM, I've found that the only varying factor is time: how long do I spend chasing around some stupid slippery sidewinder or night adder? I can always do it, "harder" just means I spend more time doing it and being irritated, not that it's ever really a threat. What I want is a reason to go, "OK screw this fight I've taken the couple of kills I was able to pick off, time to fly before I get killed." That probably means higher rates of certain weapons, especially missiles. But that's just me. Balance is in the eye of the beholder I guess.

After cargo consistency is fixed, ship size issues goes from infuriating to slightly irksome.

[another_commander]

Have you tried playing with accuracy values for ships? Current Oolite uses AI accuracy at the low end of the scale, thus generating opponents with skill levels comparable to Poor at best. Try fighting ships with accuracy of 9 or 10 and I am pretty sure you will notice a stark increase in difficulty. There are also a few more advanced combat tactics deployed at accuracies above 6 or so. Worth giving it a try, IMO.

[Cody]

<nods> And don't forget the liquid oxygen!

[szaumix]

I haven't started anything yet, right now it's data gathering and collecting my thoughts and processing ideas. I've barely even looked at the shipdata code

Accuracy sounds like something I'm guaranteed to tinker when I get to it all.

[Redspear]

Have you tried playing with accuracy values for ships?

Presumably it's possible to alter this 'on the fly'?
For example a slight increase once the player has a beam laser and a further increase once the player has a military laser.

Could be derived from the player's combat rating rather than main armament (more oxp compatible) - then you really would earn that rating. I'm not suggesting a one-to-one correlation, just a subtle influence at the high ends in particular.

e.g. suppose 1-10 scale

Harmless 1-2
Mostly Harmless 2
Poor 2-3
Average 3
Above Average 3-4
Competent 4
Dangerous 4-5
Deadly 5
Elite 6

Option to add one or more across the board it's still too easy for anybody.

Very player-centric I know, but it could help to smooth out the difficulty curve a tad.

Linking it to system government (rather than combat rating or weapon) would be less player-centric and might help balance pirates from neighbouring systems.

[szaumix]

Yeah the player centrism in too much rating-based adjustment would probably wreck it for me. My theoretical workaround is that there are certain things you just flee as you start, and you jump into more and more situations and contracts as you get to iron ass, that you never would have as a naked pulse beam Jameson. I actually think it should get easier as you progress but not to the extent that you can ever truly let your guard down. The gangster with the M14 and all the militarised goodies simply does better in the warzone than the guy starting out in a singlet with his dad's antique musket, and that strikes me as the way it should be.

EDIT: now that I think about it, the noticeable effect of weapon upgrades on our enemies is something that I have always just "forgiven" as necessary for a 'least worst' balance solution. I never considered alternatives because I assumed this was hardcoded. Basically I never really thought about it. And now that Redspear mentions it, ratings based improvements in your enemies could be argued for 100x easier in an immersive realism sense.

[Redspear]

I actually think it should get easier as you progress but not to the extent that you can ever truly let your guard down

Me too.

What I don't like so much however is that as a beginner standard advice is that you should dodge every combat (without injectors that's often not easy) and even sell your laser because it's essentially a waste of space.

The player's journey goes almost from avoid everything to no one is safe from your sights of lasery wrath (energy bomb or not).

It's nice to feel that you've made progress, that you should need to run less, even that you should be feared but feeling you can force a misjump or take on in interceptor squadron without a degree of fear is a bit too much I think. Again, it depends on where one draws the line.

Meanwhile, this is done...

I think this is workable as an oxp as there was a change to the masslockable property (or similar) a few years back now.

...and to my surprise is already working as intended

Maybe it's not for you szaumix but it opens up the door for me to do other things with it in future.

BTW, if you were tinkering with the source code then it is possible to make the base torus rate much faster thereby making it appear more like the time-skip you imagine (if you increase the deceleration too). Although torus speed isn't tweakable via oxp (AFAIK) base speed is and so if the latter were increased whenever in condition green and decreased when yellow then...

[szaumix]

It brings me no small amusement to realize that while your Masslock Reimagined is seriously cool (and I'll probably grab it for bug testing) all I can see is that it increases instead of decreases the player centricity inherent to the original arguments about Torus problems and therefore not only does it not solve them, it exacerbates them! Which was what 90% of this thread was all about!
*chuckles*

[Redspear]

Perhaps then it also came to your attention that it was neither designed to address concerns re player-centricity nor (having played with it a few times now) does it.

One of the reasons I have so many little projects on here is that one idea tends to lead to another, often in a quite different directions.

In oolite they're typically headed towards the station (realistic) but then so is the player (unfortunate). So now speed difference is an issue and you can get traffic-jammed behind a faster ship that either doesn't have a torus drive or is extremely reluctant to use it.

So it was designed to solve the above (gameplay) problem and no other. As I put it earlier, player-centricity concerns are (mostly) easily intellectually manouvered around sufficiently for my tastes.

I did however suggest OXP options/avenues that might be more to your tastes...

Although torus speed isn't tweakable via oxp (AFAIK) base speed is and so if the latter were increased whenever in condition green and decreased when yellow then...

And furthermore hint that my new OXP would merely be a starting point.

Maybe it's not for you szaumix but it opens up the door for me to do other things with it in future.

If you knew one of the ideas I had for this (and if I knew how to code it )... well, you'd likely at least see that it could make my imagining of how torus drives work appear less player-centric in game.

[szaumix]

I was teasing, danish enthusiast I even deleted the second paragraph about how my kids think I'm an old dinosaur era loser for caring about immersion/ consistency, video game honor and gaming prowess, and "should/shouldn't"-level cheating... because looking at it again it sounded unintentionally smug

And I know ALL about ideas leading to ideas ad infinitum! What started out as me finally conceding, after years of resisting, that I might just allow myself to tweak "one or two" things.... has unsurprisingly led to a series of ideas, and semi-major mods and balance projects are now UNDERWAY. And it was the major theme of this thread (manual+lore vs reality) that reminded me that my longest pet peeve has been that the ship descriptions versus their specs and presence in game, just don't match. Which reminds me of peripheral balance issues. Bite sized improvements, with no realism vanishing point.

Now that I am allowing myself to tweak, more and more necessary heresies, and minor challenges to Elite/Oolite's sacred cows, will undoubtedly occur to me

[Cholmondely]

... caring about immersion/ consistency, video game honor and gaming prowess, and "should/shouldn't"-level cheating...

And I know ALL about ideas leading to ideas ad infinitum! ... My kids are right. I am a stickler lol

Now that I am allowing myself to tweak, more and more necessary heresies will undoubtedly occur to me

Any good ideas about this (from Stranger's essay, above, but with my emphases):

Three decades ago, a procedural generator was used to dynamically fill a memory space with content that was too small for manually created and customized game worlds. Now game universes created on the server side can already take up terabytes of memory. Filling such colossal amounts of memory with meaningful content manually is a hopeless task. The current procedural generation algorithms no longer just create unique configurations of solar systems in general terms. They are used to generate unique planets with their own relief, climate and unique biota. Amazing progress ... and mostly pointless. In the truest sense of the word. No Man's Sky. Space, in which a person, by and large, has nothing to do.

I don’t mean to say that procedural generation is a waste of time. It creates the foundation of the world, freeing the game coders from the unbearable volumes of monotonous technical work. But procedural generation only sets the stage for meaningful content. Plot, history, cultural layer, lore - call it what you want, without this there is no game. And it is precisely the persistent misunderstanding of this fact that is the reason for the fiasco of the Parallel Reality 002 project. Some kind of motivation is needed to stimulate the gamer to wander purposefully, not just at random no matter where...

...The game engine technically allows these systems to be as spacious as you like, and the procedural generator is unique. The question is still how to fill this procedurally generated kaleidoscope of locations with interesting meaningful activity. The procedural generator by itself, as we noted above, cannot do this.

Designing all these 2048 systems by hand, customizing them individually, saturating them with meaning and plot - well, you know, this is far too ambitious not only for a lone amateur, but also for a team of game developers. But the good news is that you don't need to meticulously design all 2048 systems. Cosmic wonders do not have to come across at every step. Interesting hand-sculpted locations, separated by routine procedurally generated intermediate points - why not? Let's drop it offhand. 16 individually configured systems on the map, maybe even only 8 systems - this is already enough to stimulate long-distance flights within the sector. And it will be a completely meaningful game goal as opposed to the meaningless infinity of No Man's Sky, where it doesn't matter where one flies.

Let's face it, the potential of this open world is poorly realized. And here the criticisms are not directed against the developers of the game, but against the community of addon oxp developers. At first, addon developers drew inspiration from the lore that grew out of Holdstock's Dark Wheel. In Ooniversum, in addition to the hermit asteroids, which are in the default game, there are deep space dredgers, generation ships, thargoid craft - all these legends of the old Elite have been brought to life. If anything, now, the legendary planet RAXXLA can be technically created - of course, linking its search with a non-trivial plot. There is a legendary space graveyard in the Tionisla system, there are three more systems with individual settings, and finally, there is a promising, but alas, abandoned project The Famous Planets. There are finally some epic missions like Trident Down. Alas, this is practically everything that now exists and almost all of this has become so outdated that it urgently needs at least a cosmetic update. Ooniversum is not attracted by the concept of world-exploration. The first meeting with the colossal Generation Ship, of course, is impressive, but only just - I saw it, took a screenshot as a souvenir, unloaded it into the gallery and forgot. This meeting gives neither answers to old secrets, nor ties to new plots. The pulsar in the Tianve system, the orbital cemetery in the Tionisla system - the same issue. The first time one looks it is interesting, but nothing more. There are no storylines for these locations.