Dynamic Ooniverse

[LittleBear]

Its on Oosat1. A list of download links to (pretty much) all the OXPs is on the Wiki here :- http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/OXP

[*cat]

When you shoot criminal ships, the bounty figure appears as the money is credited to your account.
I think the "back story" is that there's a camera that sees what you shoot, knows the legal status attached to the ship, and (presumably) Galcop do a bank transfer into your account.
[Hmmm - in that case, how come Galcop don't know when you shoot innocents? I'm sure some of our role-playing experts can come up with a convincing "in game" explaination!]
If you use fuel scoops to pick up escape capsules, you get some more bounty for the capture of criminals when you next dock. Non criminals often pay even more in insurance - I think I may have got 750 credits once for "rescuing" someone.

[Captain Hesperus]

that pirate cove oxp that got mentioned sounds quite interesting. where would one go about getting it? i've never seen it on oosat2 (although i imagine that it;s actually part of some oxp that i have in fact seen)

See here

anyway, just curious, but you do get paid for hunting down pirates? i see some bounty counter come up when i shoot one down, but i'm not entirely sure if that's bounty i'm owed, or bounty that's on ME. er, right. i might be going somewhere with that.

No, the bounty is what you earn for ridding GalCop space of that particular pirate.

anyway, would it be easier to destroy and create new stations over time than to change a planets tech level? i'm not to sure how the internal scripting things work. though, i'm assuming what the station sells is based on its planet? hm. what about just changing the station's model every so often?

The station is and remains the property of GalCop, a means for the planet to trade with the greater galaxy without copious noisy (and often environmentally damaging) spaceship ruining the atmosphere. The Tech level is the planet's and the station stocks and sells produce based on that Tech Level

Captain Hesperus

[Cholmondely]

oolite seems to contain a lot of the features from archimedes elite -- namely ships moving in formation and a world happening around you. so while you don't see systems changing hands or government, you at least see other people that aren't you. did you ever encounter ships in the elite sequels that weren't pirates or mission targets? i never saw any, and that disappointed me. such a dead universe.

has anyone played space rangers 2? as far as dynamic universes go, that's quite excellent. it has a lot of semi-unique and named pilots which are individually ranked, the war with the dominators carries on with or without you, systems fall and are won back even if you aren't involved, the tech level changes as you play, there are semi-unique weapons, a dynamic economy, and nice factions. and planet government i believe can change. very well done. i think that's the sort of thing you guys are talking about.

i guess the x series is also dynamic but the x series loses a lot of the playability elite has because x is like really really confusing.

How much of this is implementable in modern v.1.90 Oolite?
*semi-unique and named pilots which are individually ranked? - (Does Bounty System really do this?) Is it doable?
- and is it possible for my opponent to come back with improved skills for another round of jousting?
*systems fall and are won back? - is this doable?
*tech level changes as you play?
*dynamic economy?
*changeable planet government?

[phkb]

*semi-unique and named pilots which are individually ranked? - (Does Bounty System really do this?) Is it doable?

Bounty System doesn't, but the GalCop Most Wanted OXP does - it creates and maintains a list of high-bounty individuals that move around the galaxy independently.

*systems fall and are won back? - is this doable?
*tech level changes as you play?
*dynamic economy?
*changeable planet government?

All aspects of a planet (economy, govenment, description) are scriptable, so yes.

[Cholmondely]

This is taking up an idea Killer Wolf posted in the "A Pirates Joice"-thread:

Re Anarchy.oxp, I'd quite like to see a reverse scenario : the innocent habitants of a system are hacked off w/ the pirates buggering up their trades, so a set of missions could be made to wipe a bunch of pirates out and assault a bigger, meaner Rock hermit pirate base, thereby actually making a system no longer Anarchic, resulting in much wealth in reward and the adulation of the local girlies.
that would actually be quite interesting - veering off here on a tangerine - ie, making the system status more dynamic. consider - if you do a lot of pirating, the system will become more dangerous, and the market prices could rise substantially....make yourself a nice little market

I definitely support the idea of the systems in Oolite being more dynamic, but in a broader sense, not influenced by the player. If you play long enough to become ELITE pretty much in-game-time will have passed. So it would be actually quite strange if nothing would change in the Ooniverse during that time. As we have a total of 8*256=2048 planets it sounds quite likely to me that at least some would change their government system during playtime. Revolutions happen in feudal and dictatorship systems, setting up democracies or communist governments. The military attempts coups in democracies or corporate states, making them dictatorships or (if they fail) anarchies. Statal entities in multi-government systems can unite, forming a unified government of one kind or the other.

Also planets can advance (or stumble) in their economical and technical development, thereby raising or decreasing their TL or agricultural/industrial status.

We just have to look out of the window to RealLifeTM and see what changes are happening even on a short-to-medium timescale on earth with its mere 200 countries. Then it seems very, very odd that the far bigger Ooniverse should be so static!

I think it's even possible without hard coding. An OXP could be changing selected planetinfo very, very slowly every now and then. The only question is: Should it be done randomly (therefore differently for every player) or should someone invent and script a certain line of development and change in the Ooniverse that would be the same in each game?

What might we expect to change in Oolite?

The Oolite.space introduction seems to me to set a picture of decline and fall:

The two thousand star systems of the Cooperative once enjoyed a golden age of peace and prosperity, and perhaps the wealthiest of them can still pretend to. The trade ships that once safely travelled between planets now have to be well armed and escorted to fend off pirate attacks, from small-time criminals desperate for their next meal, to powerful robber barons extracting tithes from everyone who passes through their space.

The Cooperative's police force, concentrated near a few influential planets, can no longer maintain order. The mercenaries they hire for a few credits a kill are too few, too unreliable to do so either. And in the darkness between the stars, an old enemy lurks, fearless, perhaps waiting for order to collapse entirely.

Such a deterioration meshes nicely with a ooniverse getting more difficult to survive in - as the player gains in money, experience/skills and equipment. I feel that this would be good for gameplay.


So what might one expect?

- More (and co-ordinated) Thargoid attacks
- More (and co-ordinated) Pirate attacks

A general decline in GalCop's ability to maintain order - wars between systems and invasions/conquests.
A natural increase in TL amongst the safest systems, counterbalanced by a loss of wealth and a loss of Police/Navy vessels.
Safer systems becoming more unstable. And loss of TL in those systems.
Higher taxes.
Higher prices for needed commodities.
Trade becomes more dangerous. Fewer traders. Possibly a smaller percentage of independent traders and a higher percentage of protected convoys.
Higher prices for equipment, maintenance and ships.

Turrets on GalCop stations?



Have the thargoid attacks already been oxp-ed?

[Cholmondely]

Does anybody know to what extent the various Thargoid OXPs introduce an element of "dynamism" into the game?

[Cholmondely]

Just thinking about G4 and its rather bizarre collection of political states:

64 Democracies (including 2x TL14, 4x TL13)

64 Communist states (including 2x TL13)

64 Multi Govs

64 Anarchies

Ignoring the absurdities and trying to make sense of what there is, it would seem to me that the dominant power in Galaxy 4 could well be the Communists - with Communist political parties in many/most of the democratic states, with Communist Governments warring with the others down on the MultiGovs and with communist agents at work in the Anarchies.

Influence from other dominating political philosophies: the Corporates, Dictatorships (Imperial and/or Juntas) and Feudals would be a matter of political parties dominating their democracies and of corporate/dictatorial/feudal states down on the MultiGovs. Plus, of course, one-way influence from G3 (due to the way the galactic hyperdrive works).

This is, of course, based on interpreting the Democracies, Confederacies, Multi Govs and Anarchies as resulting from a conflict of ideologies rather than possessing any positive ideology of their own (democratic theory says nothing negative about communism/fascism/feudalism if the communist/fascist/feudal parties submit themselves to the will of the electorate).

So I see the current situation in G4 as a snapshot of a situation very much in flux, with the communists expanding their influence and taking over the entire galaxy.

Comments?

Reference: https://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Oolit ... t/Galaxy_4

Chart of G4

Outer coloured rings show political allegiance

[Switeck]

Ignoring the absurdities and trying to make sense of what there is, it would seem to me that the dominant power in Galaxy 4 could well be the Communists - with Communist political parties in many/most of the democratic states, with Communist Governments warring with the others down on the MultiGovs and with communist agents at work in the Anarchies.

In my personal changes of extra station placement, Galaxy Chart 4 gets much more restricted station types -- typically none I consider "rich palaces" like Nephthys or Nuit.

Considering the Nova event also tends to happen in the same chart...somewhere...it may not be an accident.

[Cholmondely]

Considering the Nova event also tends to happen in the same chart...somewhere...it may not be an accident.

By the teeth of Lord Giles! Will those evil commies stop at nothing?

So tell us - what is it that you know? And why are the rest of us labouring in ignorance?

[Switeck]

Considering the Nova event also tends to happen in the same chart...somewhere...it may not be an accident.

By the teeth of Lord Giles! Will those evil commies stop at nothing?

So tell us - what is it that you know? And why are the rest of us labouring in ignorance?

I mean as out-of-game programming knowledge how it works.
Why does it always happen where they player visits?

Plus, there's some really evil equipment added by an OXP I shall not name which can trigger a Nova in a system of your choice...
...I think it's the same one that can set off a bomb to detonate a main station.