Oolite as exploration game

[szaumix]

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!

I've replied in the Smuggler's thread. I only mentioned it here because of the beacon purchase effect on exploration. Sorry I took so long to answer, work is killing me right now.

[Switeck]

Doing it as I described above isn't to make SLAPUs rarer (along with the other trapings of the oxp such as the distinctive traffic, police, asteroid mines, factories etc.), rather it's to make galaxies more distinctive and therefore visiting them more memorable.

It's not the only way or the best way but merely an example of such.

I'd have made Galaxy Chart 4 the Communist-specific one, since it almost is even in vanilla Oolite...
Galaxy Chart 4 has Communist systems 2x as common as all the other Galaxy Charts...
They've also managed to destroy all the Feudal, Dictatorships, Confederacies, and Corporate States...and nearly completed their takeover.
I don't like going there for that reason.

I'm working on something that is mostly centered on Galaxy Chart 3...although I cannot promise to release anything on it anytime soon, because I'm slow and not good at this level of programming.

There's nothing wrong with someone wanting to almost always stay in a certain Galaxy Chart -- Everyone needs a niche in Oolite to enjoy playing it.
Missions/campaigns are among the main drivers to encourage/force the player to go Galaxy Chart hopping...but there's precious few enough of those.

But Galaxy Chart-hopping also implies players won't stay there very long...
So I think I need to get back to my flippantly-put quote:

"Either way, it's only exploration the 1st time you go there."

OXZs makers need to give players a reason to stick around longer in a Galaxy Chart...and maybe come back to them later.
An idea to encourage that:
Very high-end specialty equipment that can only be bought and serviced (after it always gets damaged from ugly fights) at a single or handful of systems found only in 1 Galaxy Chart...

This would be more like your oasis concept than a generalized desert.

[Redspear]

I'd have made Galaxy Chart 4 the Communist-specific one, since it almost is even in vanilla Oolite...
Galaxy Chart 4 has Communist systems 2x as common as all the other Galaxy Charts...
They've also managed to destroy all the Feudal, Dictatorships, Confederacies, and Corporate States...and nearly completed their takeover.
I don't like going there for that reason.

If that's the case then, good idea. It would be like turning a 'bug' into a 'feature'. The player could then recall that they'd visited the "famous communist collective of galaxy 4" and that it was actually an experience of some kind.

OXZs makers need to give players a reason to stick around longer in a Galaxy Chart...and maybe come back to them later.

For the first part, I think having just a few sufficiently rare entities that are exclusive to a particular chart could work (see later oxp example).
As for return journeys, I think that the oft discussed 'dynamic ooniverse' ideas could be employed for this purpose.

What?
It doesn't have to be the usually mentioned change in government type, it could just as easilly be tech level or economy type or even thargoid presence.

When?
It's eight jumps to get back to any of the charts and so that would likely be long enough for quite significant change to have occurred (especially if players were encouraged to 'stick around for a while as mentioned above).
No timers, no gradual transition: once you're back it's simply different and potentialy markedly so.

Why?
So that it feels like the player has spent some time away.
To enable a change in difficulty e.g. make all galaxy one systems two government types safer by default for an easier start - but once you return then galcop has a weaker hold and Riedquat et.al are now their more familiar selves
So that higher tech is now avialble/sustainable...

• Very high-end specialty equipment that can only be bought and serviced (after it always gets damaged from ugly fights) at a single or handful of systems found only in 1 Galaxy Chart...

Similar to that but working with what's already there:
e.g. lower tech-levels at start and then raise later (being careful to ensure that the galactic hyperdrive remains availble from somewhere) to enable better tech to emerge and also be repariable.

OXP Example:  Star-Jelly

• make them specifc to one galactic chart and ensure they are rare
• on first (galactic) visit, only the females can be found
• upon player return to that galaxy the males have shown up
• next time it's the eggs and the males have gone
• fourth visit the females have gone and it's the eggs and the lavae
• fifth visit as the first etc.
• By the time a player has vitied any galaxty four plus times then they likely have been playing for a quite a while but we can still give them 'seasons' to recognise, potentially be surprised by and (hopefully) enjoy.

[szaumix]

Wow this thread is cool. Amazing ideas being thrown around. Scanning over it again from the start... most of these ideas would be fairly labour/code/file_editing intensive, which is a shame because it means this is essentially mostly academic. Redspear, you are writing checks you can't cash with all these super cool ideas!

Tweaking rarity seems to be the main theme of the thread (though by no means the only) -- and incidentally, the easiest of things to tweak.

[Redspear]

Redspear, you are writing checks you can't cash with all these super cool ideas!

Well, I can cash some of them...

Long has it been the case that my ideas are far, far ahead of my coding ability but the latter has at least begun to close the gap. For example, I do know how to restrict commies to galaxy 4 and I believe that I do know how to effect the changes suggested to star jellies. They're not my oxps however...

Ideas I had ten years ago are slowly coming within range of my current coding ability... thinking fast but learning slow

Very busy with real life at the moment, so the odd post here and there is easy enough but any coding will have to wait. I do have a couple of oxps ready to go however (not especially relevant to this thread) which might make an appearance very soon.

Thanks szaumix

[Switeck]

Tweaking rarity seems to be the main theme of the thread (though by no means the only) -- and incidentally, the easiest of things to tweak.

Rarity of OXZ stations is a semi-easy fix with changes in conditions they spawn under. I have almost entirely removed their individual spawn .js scripts and put that into a master "Station Exclusion" script.js that basically means once a single big OXZ station is added, none of the other big OXP stations will be.

I absolutely butchered the common-ness of events, ships, and stations in Galactic Navy v5.4.3 because it had nearly taken over the universe if I didn't ...any misjump to interstellar space always had lots of ships added by it.
More details about that:
viewtopic.php?p=285608#p285608
Most of that was very simple changes.

Doing this ONCE:

Code: Select all

if(Math.random() < .01) {

instead of doing this 5 separate times:

Code: Select all

if(Math.random() < .26)

Meant the odds of seeing extra ships (mostly Thargoids) in interstellar space is reduced to a 1% chance from roughly an 80% chance previously.

This could be made dynamic in other ways, such as based on player.score , missions completed, Galaxy Chart, last system visited...all without a lot of work.
The number of ships spawned is also made dynamic...based mostly on player.score and mission conditions.


Another change, which is even easier... is to make more equipment have dependencies on prior "lesser" equipment.
My Auto-ECM obviously requires an ECM unit to work...but it works better with Scanner Show Missile Target equipment.
With complex enough dependencies, players will have to buy lots of equipment to even see the most advanced equipment.

[szaumix]

[deleted]

[Cody]

... video and game and other etc et al...

Would that include board games?

[szaumix]

Would that include board games?

It sure would. My brother and I jointly made a few custom tweaks to board game Risk in our 20s, and I spent a lot of time reconfiguring the Monopoly board into a celtic knot with intersecting train stations and a few tweaked rules in my 30s. We co-invented a pretty neat card-and-token game and considered creating a company to finance and market its release but he got married and I got divorced so sadly, I'm not a billionaire right now!

I think generally I'm used to playing games with a critical eye, the way a food critic eats food. I still enjoy the meal but I don't think I can help it any more.

[Cody]

Would that include board games?

It sure would.

The first game of interstellar conflict I played was a board game.

[cbr]

The first game of interstellar conflict I played was a board game.

Quick Cholly insert

[Cody]

<chortles> That's the one - pure turn-based strategy! We had some serious all-night sessions playing that.

[Redspear]

but he got married and I got divorced

I hope the former didn't require the latter

[szaumix]

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

Cholmondely, has this thread come up with the kinds of ideas you were looking for? I value the idea of exploration really highly, as well as non-linear things to do. It's one of my main attractions to this game -- very much more so than combat and generalized action which in any case is invariably too easy no matter how much I tweak for difficulty.

I absolutely butchered the common-ness of events, ships, and stations in Galactic Navy v5.4.3

By the way just on that; does licensing and non-ownership of the mods we are tweaking mean we can not share modified files with one another publicly? I say publicly because I can't really imagine declining a private request for a modified version of some mod's file that I did not own. I've noticed you guys take licensing fairly seriously -- seriously enough that it affects (hinders) updates or improvements to existing mods because people appear to be waiting for permission?

Another change, which is even easier... is to make more equipment have dependencies on prior "lesser" equipment.

Oh great another excellent idea just made the list of things I've got to tweak into my game! Let me just add that to the pile

I hope the former didn't require the latter

*chuckles* negatory Batman

[Switeck]

I absolutely butchered the common-ness of events, ships, and stations in Galactic Navy v5.4.3

By the way just on that; does licensing and non-ownership of the mods we are tweaking mean we can not share modified files with one another publicly? I say publicly because I can't really imagine declining a private request for a modified version of some mod's file that I did not own. I've noticed you guys take licensing fairly seriously -- seriously enough that it affects (hinders) updates or improvements to existing mods because people appear to be waiting for permission?

Better safe than sorry on licenses...there's been some very bad blood over these issues on this forum in the past.

I can talk about how I butcher my copy...and tell how in general without violating at least the spirit of the licenses.
I vastly prefer chatting with the original authors over changes...usually they agree with me or get me to change my mind concerning why they did things the way they did.

Another change, which is even easier... is to make more equipment have dependencies on prior "lesser" equipment.

A very simple requirement to add to equipment...is require the buyer to be clean.
Because why sell Q-bombs to a fugitive?

My favorite example of this is for Military Missiles:

11, 4000, "Military Missile",
"EQ_MILITARY_MISSILE",
"Hunter-Hawking HMX-10 Military Smart Missile, an enhanced hardened missile developed for use by the GalCop Navy and police forces - A fast and accurate LRARM with an armor-piercing warhead. The missile's intelligent seek-and-destroy guidance system seeks a nearby Thargoid or pirate ident when ECM'd, otherwise behaves like a standard hardened missile.",
{
"available_to_all" = 1;
"requires_empty_pylon" = 1;
"requires_clean" = 1;
}

If you're not clean...when you fire one and it gets ECM'ed...if you have a fugitive rating the missile may lock onto you instead.