Ship building

[Killer Wolf]

http://www.purgatori.net/Isis_Interstellar.htm

comments? Criticism? Howls of derisive laughter (Bruce)?


Again, *many* thanks to Charlie, Little bear, Capt Hesperus, Dr Nil and everyone else who's put up w/ a newbies multiple questions. i'm gonna work on a How To doc, that i will put up for approval/amendments etc, maybe we can develop it into a full on, in-depth resource for everyone.

[Brianetta]

Very sales-blurb - I hope that was the effect you were after. You might want to make the section titles a little more pronounced; I missed them the first time through.

I do really like the console!

[TGHC]

Very very good, the Vampire Elite logo finishes it off nicely.

Are you sure about the 7.5 and 8.0 LY range on the purgatori and reaper, I though 7.0 was hard wired and couldn't be changed. This will negate the remote constellations and make every planet reachable. Could be a bit contraversial.

[Charlie]

Yum-yum

Nice ship - Niiice Hud

Keep up the good work


7.5 & 8.0 LY? Hmmm... must have a look @ your .plists
I thought that one was hard-coded too...

But there's ways round most things with a bit of head-scratching...

[Killer Wolf]

Bugger. i didn't know about that hardcode limit
isn't it reasonable tho that some of the huge traders would have massive tanks for long-range hauling, etc etc? giving every ship a hardcoded 7LY limit seems a bit....odd.

yes, it was supposed to be sales blurb, a pretendy brochure/ad from the company.

[Captain Hesperus]

Bugger. i didn't know about that hardcode limit
isn't it reasonable tho that some of the huge traders would have massive tanks for long-range hauling, etc etc? giving every ship a hardcoded 7LY limit seems a bit....odd.

I believe Giles (blessed is His Name, holy is His Code) set in stone the maximum range of 7ly, since Oolite is based on the original Elite, not it's 'decendants'. see here

Captain Hesperus
"It's 45LY to Ceedra, we've got a full tank of Quirium, half a full cargo bay, it's *always* dark in space and we're wearing solar radiation diffusing eyewear."

[Killer Wolf]

Oh well, that's made me look an idiot then

i'll update the docs/plists and resub it tonight.

[TGHC]

Oh well, that's made me look an idiot then

i'll update the docs/plists and resub it tonight.

Not at all matey, it was discussed on the board many moons ago, you can't be expected to know all the specs and limitations. All contributions are very welcome, I wish I could design ships and OXPs.

[Dr. Nil]

Bugger. i didn't know about that hardcode limit
isn't it reasonable tho that some of the huge traders would have massive tanks for long-range hauling, etc etc? giving every ship a hardcoded 7LY limit seems a bit....odd.

I would very much like to see variable jump capabilities if we eventually get the Frontier galaxy. It was also nice the way that different drives took up different amounts of the total space available (something I'd like for all equipment to do in Elite). For the flat Elite galaxies I don't think that changing the max jump distance is such a good idea.

[DaddyHoggy]

@Dr. Nil - I'm not sure I'd like to see ships that could jump more than 7LYs on their own but perhaps a compromise would be that based on the reasoning that you can't jump more than 7LYs is because of a Elite-physics based limitation (which is fair enough) and the reason that you can't jump to remote systems is that their Witchpoint Beacons are more than 7LYs from another system and therefore your Nav computer can't compute a jump solution. But these systems must have beacons otherwise they wouldn't be on the map - somebody got to them at some point so how about this:

A combination of two things - an incredibly expensive update to your Nav Computer 1) that is actually able to calculate the vector of a mis jump that puts you into interstellar space combined with 2) a special cargo bay/fuel pump conversion that then pumps extra fuel into your main tanks so that the Nav computer can make additional (mis)jump(s) to destination system.

So you launch - put the ship into "Nav computer mode" and it Hyperspaces into the void for you - your tanks then refill (which takes time and could make you a target for Thargoids) and the ship then jumps again (or mis-jumps if you're still more than 7LYs away - even with the expensive upgrade its not an exact science you might still need to make several jumps to cover say 9-10LYs - the Nav computer upgrade just lets you make the jumps and gets you going in the direction of the system you wish to get to...)

My actual preferred route (pun intended!) would be something along the Star Gate Super Gate approach where distant (rich/high tech) systems are link via "rings" that bypass normal space and get you there in a single trip as long as you pay the exhorbitant useage fees. This way the "distant clusters" in the various galaxies could club together to pay for the rings and the connection back to the main trade routes.

My ulterior motive is that I'm writing a short story as the background of a BIG oxp I'd like to do that would actually need these "super jump rings" to see the light of day!

*********NOTE:**************
As an aside I'd like to see fuel costs based on tonnage of ship - so a 100TC CMk3 is the base line and therefore fuel cost for other ships is based on (mass of current ship)/100 x cost of fuel at this station = actual cost of fuel so that you can jump up to your max 7LYs - that way small ships cost less to jump/refuel and big bloaters like Boas and Anacondas cost considerably more!

[Killer Wolf]

interesting ideas, but i personally don't see why there's so much fuss made about jump distances. bigger fueltanks could be made available like the passenger cabin, eating into cargo space, but aside from that, i think it's entirely logical that ships would have varying sizes of tanks. saying an Anaconda has the same jump capabilities at an Asp is a bit odd, i feel, less we put it down to physics, but as modern cars can hav 2ltr, 3.5ltr etc variants, i don't see why the ships shouldn't be upgradeable like this. it stands to reason longrange haulers would use a ship that could jump 10LY if they had one, so i think it's a reasonable/logical addition to the Ooniverse, rather than something that potentially adds uberness (ooberness? :-) ) to a ship.

[TGHC]

I like this thread, there are some interesting ideas that just keep reoccurring. Refueling in mid flight, scooping fuel cannisters, increasing 7.0LY all have their merits, the most important issue I think is retaining the game balance, the whole point of it is to become Elite, and you need to have been there done everything etc, to achieve that status. so refueling and cannisters etc would certainly be ok, increasing the travel distance, hmm well that would perhaps be OK providing you have say reached deadly status and can afford equipment costing at least 500k credits. Xelite allowed travel up to 14LY.

[Ramirez]

They way that Frontier handled the whole ship size and jump distance thing seemed to work really well and kept things pretty balanced. Large ships could cover long distances, it's just that it took quite a while to get there. Also, it was quite fun trying to shoehorn a military spec engine into a small ship just to get the speed advantage, and having to deal with the radioactives produced in the process.

I've come to view the 7ly limit inherited from Elite as something like the sound barrier, which the current witchdrive technology hasn't been able to overcome. I figure that jumps > 7ly have occasionally occurred through drive malfunctions, so its not against the laws of witchspace physics as such, it's just that it cannot be achieved in controlled tests. If a company were to find a way to break this barrier, the impact across the Ooniverse would be huge. GalCop would certainly be concerned, as by knowing a fugitive can never jump more that 7ly at a time it narrows down the routes available for escape. Military forces would also be also worried at the prospect of a heavy cruiser being able to bypass their chain of monitoring posts by making a huge witchjump.

Maybe there's already a prototype out there...

[Charlie]

@Ramirez:

Hmmm, got me thinking...

I know what Q. et al would do if they could.

Time to see what further tricks can be played with Oolite.

FWIW:
It's been in development hell for some time, but I refuse to give up on BlackHole.oxp
Some day there will be long-distance wormhole travel.
( Very dangerous though )

[Killer Wolf]

Well, regardless of the interesting debates and suggestions, the sales brochure/oxp for the Vampires has been updated. the person responsible for the misleading of our customers has been relieved of his blood.