Oolite as exploration game

[Cholmondely]

What do we need to facilitate this and make it enjoyable?


References:
Exploration (brief essay with oxp list)
Relevant section from Stranger's First Essay

[Cholmondely]

There is a problem on my AppleMac running two of the map-blanking oxp's: Here be Dragons & Buyable map

Is this also true for Linux? (I'm told that there are also issues with Windows & Here Be Dragons)

[Switeck]

In particular, THIS!:

Let's face it, the potential of this open world is poorly realized. And here the claims are not against the developers of the game, but against the community of addon 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 Alas, this is practically everything that now exists and almost all of this has become so outdated that it urgently needs at least a cosmetic update.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, uploaded 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 look's it is interesting, but nothing more. There are no storylines for these locations.

There needs to be more and more complex+long stories to tell.

[Redspear]

What do we need to facilitate this and make it enjoyable?

I tried some of the oxps/scenarios that you reference but for me (admittedly after often limited experimentation on my part), they were either two complex or too restrictive.

What is the point (and indeed fun part) of exploration?

This needs to be clear IMHO because I think finding out new info isn't sufficient. Jumping to an unknown system as a beginner, only to discover it to be an anarchy can be a death sentence - not fun IMHO.

So what you find out needs to be interesting or rewarding in some way. For example, jumping to a system in the hope that it might be industrial (to sell the goods you bought at an agricultural world) is a fair risk. You might have to sell a TC or two to refill your fuel tank when it doesn't work out but the situation is recoverable with a little luck.

Contracts were fun when I first tried them because they took me to worlds that I might not otherwise visit.

So, I think we'd need

• variety
• reward
• risk

Furthermore I think it would be a balancing act between the three, with too much of any one diminshing/ upsetting the others.


Variety

For example, imagine a very different oolite in which every system is radically different to the next: different ships, different inhabitants, different police, different station, prices, goods, asteroids etc. etc. That might sound really cool to some but without a 'typical' system there soon becomes little surprise or reward in finding a different one.

Although I have lots of ideas my programming/experimenting time is about zero at present. My station variation idea for example relied on the fact that most of the systems were inhabited by human colonials and so I decided not to interfere with those systems but rather with the 'alien' inhabited ones. More variety but not by having every sytem (or even most sytems) be 'remarkable'.

Variety requires surprise in this context I think and part of that surprise is that some things be unexpected and not merely different. So to make station variation more surprising, I'd probably hide sytem inhabitants in all cases on f7. That way you'd still be surprised to discover a bird inhabited system even if you've visited such a sytem before, merely by the fact that such sytems are rare.

 Commies works well IMHO but less so if combined with Anarchies, Fuedal States and Dictatorships, not because any of those oxps are bad but rather because when most systems start to have additional stations then I'm less inclined to visit or even find them to be interesting; they become expected rather than exciting/fun.


Reward

This could be as simple as finding a new system of a convenient economy type or a particularly high tech level. Tech level might be a good example if we're prepared to either drop it or to change how it works.

Suppose that all of the systems near Lave had a tech level of no more than 6, then they player would naturally wish to explore further in order to find new equipment or repair whatever damage they had sustained. If tech level were also hidden from the f6/f7 screens then arriving in a higher tech system would constitute a good discovery for a player.

Another idea would be that rather than hiding system properties, some planets could be entirely hidden: not on the map at all until within 7LY (or perhaps even less...). Imagine that there were some well known lore-rich planets that were on the map such as Lave, Reorte etc. If more of the higher tech level and safer worlds (the two tend to go together) were not on the map then exploration is encouraged and finding somewhere useful or fun is a nice surprise.

Maybe Tionisle for example is not shown on the map until... some chance contract is ofered to a completely unknown (to the player) world (in this case Tionisle). There would need to be just enough known 'stepping stone' planets around in order to ensure that the player could reach any new found planets but if just the highest tech ones were cherry picked for 'X-directory' status then it could be interesting.


Risk

Just as there should be rewarding finds rather than 'jackpots' (again, IMHO) there should be risks but not 'death traps' that are completely hidden from the player visiting a new sytem. In other words: both nice and nasty surprises are needed but neither should be so potent as to (automatically) remove the need for further risk in a pilot's career.

So government being unknown is high risk for example (and potentially deadly) but tech level or economy type being unknown constitutes low risk.

Although, not strictly an exploration oxp,  Weapon Laws encourages players to travel to systems that they might otherwise wish to avoid, knowing full well that there would be a reward (and risk) for doing so.

A nasty surprise could be thargoid presence in some systems (maybe too severe) or a lack of police (likely less so) for whatever reason. Maybe some systems consistently have less (or more) commodities for sale and the only way to discover this is by visiting for yourself.

Risk needn't be high to be significant, it need only have consequences.

[Cholmondely]

I tried some of the oxps/scenarios that you reference but for me (admittedly after often limited experimentation on my part), they were either two complex or too restrictive.

Those are the only ones which seemed relevant and which I have so far found. No more, no less!

What is the point (and indeed fun part) of exploration?

This needs to be clear IMHO because I think finding out new info isn't sufficient. Jumping to an unknown system as a beginner, only to discover it to be an anarchy can be a death sentence - not fun IMHO.

But is not exploring usually dangerous? Climbing Mount Everest? Getting to the South Pole? Crossing the Atlantic looking for India? Leaving Venice to travel east to the barbarian lands and find where silk comes from? Not a beginner's activity - unless one is feeling suicidal. Especially in the Oolite universe. And, thinking about it further, for ignorance to prevail about the neighbouring systems/galaxy as a whole there must be a weak GalCop - or no GalCop at all. Hence, the Thargoids and pirates will be running rampant.
To do it properly, one would need bits of map and lots of good rumours about where the wealthy/high TL systems might be (or might have been before the Thargoids invaded and ripped it all to shreds...). Old maps which are no longer accurate.

So what you find out needs to be interesting or rewarding in some way. For example, jumping to a system in the hope that it might be industrial (to sell the goods you bought at an agricultural world) is a fair risk. You might have to sell a TC or two to refill your fuel tank when it doesn't work out but the situation is recoverable with a little luck.

Contracts were fun when I first tried them because they took me to worlds that I might not otherwise visit.

So, I think we'd need

• variety
• reward
• risk

Furthermore I think it would be a balancing act between the three, with too much of any one diminishing/ upsetting the others.


Variety

For example, imagine a very different oolite in which every system is radically different to the next: different ships, different inhabitants, different police, different station, prices, goods, asteroids etc. etc. That might sound really cool to some but without a 'typical' system there soon becomes little surprise or reward in finding a different one.

Although I have lots of ideas my programming/experimenting time is about zero at present. My station variation idea for example relied on the fact that most of the systems were inhabited by human colonials and so I decided not to interfere with those systems but rather with the 'alien' inhabited ones. More variety but not by having every system (or even most systems) be 'remarkable'.

Variety requires surprise in this context I think and part of that surprise is that some things be unexpected and not merely different. So to make station variation more surprising, I'd probably hide system inhabitants in all cases on f7. That way you'd still be surprised to discover a bird inhabited system even if you've visited such a system before, merely by the fact that such systems are rare.

But again, exploration, for me, requires that there should be ignorance about much of this sort of thing. Or, maybe in Lave they know that there are rodents in Riedquat - but the orbital station was set up by a clan of Mr Gimlet's batrachian cousins with a higher TL.

 Commies works well IMHO but less so if combined with Anarchies, Feudal States and Dictatorships, not because any of those oxps are bad but rather because when most systems start to have additional stations then I'm less inclined to visit or even find them to be interesting; they become expected rather than exciting/fun.

I don't get this, I'm afraid. This seems an argument for more profound differences within Commies rather than for merely dispensing with the systems .oxp's.

Reward

This could be as simple as finding a new system of a convenient economy type or a particularly high tech level. Tech level might be a good example if we're prepared to either drop it or to change how it works.

Suppose that all of the systems near Lave had a tech level of no more than 6, then they player would naturally wish to explore further in order to find new equipment or repair whatever damage they had sustained. If tech level were also hidden from the f6/f7 screens then arriving in a higher tech system would constitute a good discovery for a player.

Another idea would be that rather than hiding system properties, some planets could be entirely hidden: not on the map at all until within 7LY (or perhaps even less...). Imagine that there were some well known lore-rich planets that were on the map such as Lave, Reorte etc. If more of the higher tech level and safer worlds (the two tend to go together) were not on the map then exploration is encouraged and finding somewhere useful or fun is a nice surprise.

Maybe Tionisla for example is not shown on the map until... some chance contract is offered to a completely unknown (to the player) world (in this case Tionisla). There would need to be just enough known 'stepping stone' planets around in order to ensure that the player could reach any new found planets but if just the highest tech ones were cherry picked for 'X-directory' status then it could be interesting.


Risk

Just as there should be rewarding finds rather than 'jackpots' (again, IMHO) there should be risks but not 'death traps' that are completely hidden from the player visiting a new system. In other words: both nice and nasty surprises are needed but neither should be so potent as to (automatically) remove the need for further risk in a pilot's career.

So government being unknown is high risk for example (and potentially deadly) but tech level or economy type being unknown constitutes low risk.

Although, not strictly an exploration oxp,  Weapon Laws encourages players to travel to systems that they might otherwise wish to avoid, knowing full well that there would be a reward (and risk) for doing so.

A nasty surprise could be Thargoid presence in some systems (maybe too severe) or a lack of police (likely less so) for whatever reason. Maybe some systems consistently have less (or more) commodities for sale and the only way to discover this is by visiting for yourself.

Risk needn't be high to be significant, it need only have consequences.

Some really good ideas here, thank you!

I suppose that there are a number of ways to implement this sort of thing.

For example: Keep game as it is for Galaxy 1. But jumping to Galaxy 2 coincides with a massive Thargoid invasion. Communications start being lost, and information about other systems in the galaxy, ditto. And as one progresses through later galaxies, the situation just gets worse and worse. "Well, commander, Tetiri led an alliance of several other worlds in its sector to fight off the Thargoids, but we've heard nothing since. We've no idea as to what is out there... Tetiri was a high-tech world, but who knows what's happened since..."
Such a scenario would force exploration on an already experienced player. The need to search for equipment (just because a system has a high TL no longer means that it automatically has all the equipment for that TL).

Another thing, is that Oolite equipment tends not to wear out. Excepting Repairs, maintenance, missiles and Galactic Hyperdrives which all need stations of appropriate TL. This could drive some of the exploration (Arrgh, commander, they say that they still make Galactic Hyperdrives in Tezaeded, but the Thargoids hit it last month. Maybe there is nothing left there now... You will have to go and look...).

And this could be tied to a mission to get GalCop back on its feet, bringing messages to various world leaders, or ferrying stuff for the Navy.

[szaumix]

Just popping in to say that attempting to add "sight seeing" trinkets one at a time is fabulously ineffective and, as a commander that takes Explorer's Club and Buyable Maps seriously (and with great enjoyment)... perhaps the wrong direction to go IMHO.

Take Tionisla's graveyard. Someone put in a lot of effort to model, texture the models, place the models and beacon the models. I went, I saw, I shrugged and I never visited again despite repeated revisits to Tionisla. So that was one lot of effort that someone put in, to add one thing to one system in one galaxy that I ended up seeing one time. Doing things that way is like trying to make a field of grass by planting fully grown blades one painstaking blade at a time.

It's worth noting that missions and contracts add a sense of anticipation the entire way and I'm big on contracts. Whether you're 3 or 20 jumps away from wherever you are heading, the sense of purpose makes the entire journey about that thing, not just the end - especially with other priorities to juggle and a time limit. (In fact, maybe mostly or only with a time limit. I never liked missions that just sit and wait for you indefinitely -- it's grotesquely unrealistic that some other contractor wouldn't be sought in the meantime or that circumstances would not change).

So on that note: getting to the tionisla graveyard -- or any other unusual addition -- as some sort of mission waypoint or plot-device would be 1000 times more interesting than just planting it there and saying "go have a look some time". We would only need a couple of stand-out things per galaxy to deeply enrich that galaxy with mission variations or an as-needed basis: BankOTBM and Space Bar come to mind as good looking high-effort editions that are not "wasted" because they are patronized by the player. And plenty such things already exist.

And a reminder: text-based variations are the easiest of all mods because contribution (a) requires no special skill and therefore (b) can and will be done by anyone and (c) adds the particular flavor of each contributor.

And just on contributions...
I'm going to finish this post with the personal gripe that I wish the Random Hits missions weren't comedy acts because it wrecked it for me for a while. (I handwave this by telling myself that, to avoid GalCop crackdowns, Assassination contracts post the contract as a "joke" for plausible deniability the way the mob talks in code with phrases like "sleeps with the fishes"). I edited the "edible poets" and similar nonsense shit out of the planet descriptions for the same reason, I couldn't stand opening planet descriptions for a long time

[Cholmondely]

Interesting how both you and KW seem to immediately focus on missions/contracts.

I'm not into madly into either. The vanilla game contracts seem utterly uninteresting, but I have tried both GalCop Missions and LongWay. Pathetic combat skills may have a lot to do with it, but I'm just not into contracts.

I'd rather have depth. As Stranger says in his essay, there is nothing there but to look at the monuments. It would be nice to explore TOGY and to find things! Or at its deathly dodecahedron. Or to have things to do at the Tionisla Chronicle Array. To interact in some way.

[szaumix]

Well Cholmondely we appear to be saying similar things -- when I said "missions and contracts" I just meant purpose by which anything could serve as a waypoint or destination with a reason to be there instead of just looking, combat wasn't implied at all.

But if you really are talking about just looking, exploring and finding, I recently opined that ordinary things should be a little hard to find, even at the risk of actually not finding them at all -- which seems to me to be an acceptable consequence of not exploring hard enough!

3. Move asteroids and non-GalCop dockables out of the space lanes. Not too far, just enough that you have to keep an eye open for them. [-sic-] I like the idea that I have to either pay for the ASC beacons, or I see something in the corner of my view and I go "hey!" and check it out. Even that minor effort feels true to the space-faring, effort-laden Oolite I want.

[-sic-]

5. I love the idea of liners as markets but [-sic-] I want them harder than average to find...

I like how missions, and Hacker's Outposts have an "if you know, you know" type thing. I would also like everything to not be an in your face, well-mapped, and "for anyone and everyone who wants" type thing. I like secrets, secret routes, special finds, bonuses, rarities, hideouts and hideaways, things that ordinary traders just wouldn't have to do with etc. And while I love my (price tweaked) Smugglers mod, high prices for occasional blackmarket beacons just isn't enough. I really think it's just cool for things to have to be found, and missed out on if you don't.

The problem with randomly searching space to find anything by chance is absurdly improbable, which is why I'd like such things to either be "hinted" in the semi-normal operations of the commander, or visually detectable -- and perhaps not for long -- if you keep your eyes open and/or you are lucky.

I'm sure I'll get to work on implementing ideas #3 and #5 in the fullness of time. They don't seem like too hard tasks.

[phkb]

And while I love my (price tweaked) Smugglers mod

Would you mind sending it my way sometime? I'd love to see what you've done, and if I agree with your choices could incorporate some or all of it in the main pack!

[Killer Wolf]

Interesting how both you and KW seem to immediately focus on missions/contracts.

I'm not into madly into either. The vanilla game contracts seem utterly uninteresting, but I have tried both GalCop Missions and LongWay. Pathetic combat skills may have a lot to do with it, but I'm just not into contracts.

I'd rather have depth. As Stranger says in his essay, there is nothing there but to look at the monuments. It would be nice to explore TOGY and to find things! Or at its deathly dodecahedron. Or to have things to do at the Tionisla Chronicle Array. To interact in some way.

that was what i was looking to do personally but i also [possubly incorrectly] that some of the features might have to be invoked via a script, ie only appearing is a player's in a certain region, has a certain cargo, whatever.

for Oolite to be worthy of an exploration career, i think a lot more features need to be created and a "guide to the galaxy" available ~ not all stuff listed, that would add some interest/excitement. personally, and canon-ists would possibly rage, but i think this would be best done making Galaxy 7 and 8 "new". No planet data, you have to get w/in distance and run a scan [new equipment?] - i'm just not sure how the revealed info could be passed back to this community.

[Cholmondely]

Interesting how both you and KW seem to immediately focus on missions/contracts.

I'm not into madly into either. The vanilla game contracts seem utterly uninteresting, but I have tried both GalCop Missions and LongWay. Pathetic combat skills may have a lot to do with it, but I'm just not into contracts.

I'd rather have depth. As Stranger says in his essay, there is nothing there but to look at the monuments. It would be nice to explore TOGY and to find things! Or at its deathly dodecahedron. Or to have things to do at the Tionisla Chronicle Array. To interact in some way.

that was what i was looking to do personally but i also [possubly incorrectly] that some of the features might have to be invoked via a script, ie only appearing is a player's in a certain region, has a certain cargo, whatever.

for Oolite to be worthy of an exploration career, i think a lot more features need to be created and a "guide to the galaxy" available ~ not all stuff listed, that would add some interest/excitement. personally, and canon-ists would possibly rage, but i think this would be best done making Galaxy 7 and 8 "new". No planet data, you have to get w/in distance and run a scan [new equipment?] - i'm just not sure how the revealed info could be passed back to this community.

I'd hesitate to go for Galaxy 7 = LittleBear's Assassins Guild adds so much to it, it would be a shame to butcher it.

But perhaps 3, 6 (Vector OXP is non-functional, alas) & 8 would suit fine - as might 4 if we never finish off the Xeptatl's Sword texture updates!

Reference: List of Planets used in OXPs - listed by Galaxy. I believe that this is reasonably up-to-date (but I've not yet added in The Assassins Guild, Darkside Distilleries, Fuel Station or Mandotech's factories). Edited to add: Mandotech & easily identifiable Assassins Guild systems now added in


By the way, just to emphasise, I'm not against the idea of contracts and missions oxp's - I'd love to have all the old missions fully functioning. The fact that I don't personally like them does not mean that others should be denied the choice to add them to their Ooniverse.

[Cody]

The "mythical" ninth galaxy would be ideal for exploration.

[Switeck]

 Commies works well IMHO but less so if combined with Anarchies, Feudal States and Dictatorships, not because any of those oxps are bad but rather because when most systems start to have additional stations then I'm less inclined to visit or even find them to be interesting; they become expected rather than exciting/fun.

I don't get this, I'm afraid. This seems an argument for more profound differences within Commies rather than for merely dispensing with the systems .oxp's.

Once again, Commies barely adds any stations -- the AstroGulags are usually just converted Rock Hermits added by the ingame populator rather than additional stations. It's only in higher tech level communist systems that the other stations are added, and even then typically only 1 of the 2 other types.

For Dictators, I didn't like the original Dictators OXP due to all the extra ships it added. If anything, Commies OXP aggravated me in the same way -- but at least the big transports it added wasn't capable of shooting at me, just mass-locking me all the time.
So for a lesser Dictators OXP, I get oolite.oxp.spara.ImperialAstrofactory OXZ instead. It adds 1 station to only industrial Dictator systems and a fun number of asteroids with it. Maybe too many asteroids?

Feudal States OXP I don't typically have installed because I very seldom visit those system types...and even less often stay long.

Anarchies OXPs really makes Anarchy systems really "busy" with stations and other activities. As if Random Hits Space Bars there wasn't a lot of action by themselves! ...What with pirates regularly getting too near it. I don't really like how some of the activities/mechanics work with Anarchies OXP...hacker station seems rather contrived to find. Salvage gang is kinda interesting, but it becomes a common station not just in anarchy systems but also in a LOT of other gov. type systems as well! (...and chances of it appearing is based on a pseudo-random number instead of system characteristics or proximity to other systems, so it feels misplaced a lot.) Also a few Behemoths around, which should be a very rare ship-type at best. Sentinel stations? Meh...as if the Galactic Navy doesn't already has too big a presence as-is! (My personal mod of it vastly reduces it.)

[Redspear]

But is not exploring usually dangerous? Climbing Mount Everest? Getting to the South Pole? Crossing the Atlantic looking for India? Leaving Venice to travel east to the barbarian lands and find where silk comes from? Not a beginner's activity - unless one is feeling suicidal. Especially in the Oolite universe.

Two points here:

• Even early climbers of Mount Everest were aware that it would be a dangerous undertaking - in oolite speak, they knew they were entering an 'anarchy' and were under no illusions that they 'might get lucky and it'll turn out to be a corporate state' I've no problem with danger, only with there be no awareness of risk and therefore an absence of stratgy around the same. You may not truly know if you're ready to tackle Everest but you at least won't mistake it for a hillock.
• When should exploration be a valid gameplay option? - If it's early then there needs to be relatively safe, likely less rewarding exploration options, and it further needs to be apparent which systems/options they are

But again, exploration, for me, requires that there should be ignorance about much of this sort of thing. Or, maybe in Lave they know that there are rodents in Riedquat - but the orbital station was set up by a clan of Mr Gimlet's batrachian cousins with a higher TL.

My point was simply re variety, specifically that too much could be overwhelming and paradoxically unintersting.

I did say:

Variety requires surprise in this context

and surprise would require ignorance would it not?

Exploration does require ignorance I think but that ignorance needn't be total.

I don't get this, I'm afraid. This seems an argument for more profound differences within Commies rather than for merely dispensing with the systems .oxp's.

It isn't, not even close... Try reading my post again maybe.

Once again, Commies barely adds any stations -- the AstroGulags are usually just converted Rock Hermits added by the ingame populator rather than additional stations. It's only in higher tech level communist systems that the other stations are added, and even then typically only 1 of the 2 other types.

Fair enough but my point was that when every system type has a distinct, strong character then there is variety of theme rather than peaks and troughs of excitement. 'They have red stations and we have blue' is relatively dull compared to 'we have stations and they don't' (and yes, they are extreme hypothetical examples rather than in any way directly representative of the systems oxps - I'm using them to make a point about variety rather than criticise them either individually or in general).

Just popping in to say that attempting to add "sight seeing" trinkets one at a time is fabulously ineffective

Agree that it's both labour intensive and that any 'one-off', interesting as it may be, actually adds little to any sense of exploration.

So how else could it be done?

Pick a common game element

• e.g. asteroids

Imagine a rewarding (but very rare) variant that could potentially appear anywhere

• e.g. asteroids that yield gold rather than (or in addition to) minerals

Have there be some associated risk or limitation so that once found the benefit can't simply become a limitless exploit

• e.g. once player has mined X kg of gold, or once X number of hours hours have elapsed, then the supply in that system is exhausted (at least temporarily)

[Old Murgh]

Being still in the long catch-up phase of what has been added to Oolite in the last decade, I can't speak to what has and hasn't been done, how lacking or fulfilling, but the thread is interesting reading. Seems to some extent there is the disparity of what "works" for different types of players, but also some agreement that the Oolite canvas feels in a large part blank in relation to its galactic potential.

I think the points about the "unknown" are valid, and do like the idea of charts that only reveal where one has been, and info on the possible jumpable systems in proximity. Completing one's map is incentive for exploration. But only in itself that would just be a hollow collector's reward. There should be mystery and intrigue to be encountered along the way. As mentioned above, the key isn't total chaos, but dynamic variation between the predictable and the surprising. The blanket idea of singling out the non-human colonial worlds for unusual experiences seems a very good one. –And, rumours of discovered gold in asteroids, joining a rush of competing greedy opportunists to the other side of the quadrant sounds like another good type of incentive.

The TOGY is mentioned as a sightseeing destination of one-time interest, which it is in its present state, but as a mission storyline springboard hub it is full of potential. A visit there ought to occasionally result in encounters with mourners with vendettas, murderers consumed with guilt, authority surveillance, graveyard union racketeering, false Lazari etc. sparking story threads that could weave perpetually or fizzle out. Then again, maybe not for everyone..

If the prophesised torrents keep me inside this weekend I'm starting a new commander; I really like the sound of Weapon Laws, and then to combine it with ZeroMap or Here be Dragons?