(WIP) Sun-Skim Jump Gates

[Cholmondely]

My desperate attempt to get Phkb to produce a fascinating OXP destination close to the sun (one well worth a 250₢ trip) having failed desperately, I remind myself that this is an optional oxp which individual players themselves will decide whether or not to download!


Red Herring Time

I consider allowing equipment OXPs possibly the biggest mistake in Oolite

Why?

Personally speaking, I find much of the equipment fascinating, fun and immersive. Equipment and Stations were my first OXP "loves" in Oolite.

I do choose to avoid those pieces which strike me as cheating (I only use Long Range Scanner for testing). But much of it I find is what I would expect in another thousand years time (Telescope, Fuel Tanks, Useful MFDs, Broadcast Comms, Repair Bots etc.).

[Redspear]

...An equipment item (and bear in mind, I consider allowing equipment OXPs possibly the biggest mistake in Oolite), let's call it something like a "hyperdrive programmer", that would allow a pilot departing system A for system B to target either (1) the witchpoint beacon, or (2) the star directly.

I've been considering something very similar for the rescaling thread to effectively create inner and outer systems.

So (at least as I was imagining) industrial sytems might tend to be in outer systems, with the main station orbiting a gas giant, and agriculturals in an inner system, as per usual. It would break up at least some of the monotony and potentially reduce some of the difficulty in placing other planets.

Although supeficialy simple, there's a bit of thought to go into the how exactly it would work (speaking of my idea), as for one thing sun-skimming likely shouldn't be an option within outer systems and how much exactly am I prepared to rock the status quo and all that hangs on it?

An intrasystem hyperdrive has been dicussed before I think but from where to where exactly? WP and sun being less problematic destinations generally than the main planet/station.

Random arrival points have also been considered.

[Wildeblood]

Personally speaking, I find much of the equipment fascinating, fun and immersive. Equipment and Stations were my first OXP "loves" in Oolite.

I do choose to avoid those pieces which strike me as cheating (I only use Long Range Scanner for testing). But much of it I find is what I would expect in another thousand years time (Telescope, Fuel Tanks, Useful MFDs, Broadcast Comms, Repair Bots etc.).

The core game equipment is mostly acceptable. Fuel injectors I never understood. But the OXP stuff is nearly all based on Timelord technology: none of it takes up any space. It's often indestructible. It rarely uses energy or fuel, and when it does there's usually a loophole to return more than it used, if the player just does some simple 30 second task.

Anything that adds fuel is a cheat. Simple as that. We already have the contradiction that the witchdrive is powered by "quirium", a super exotic element that apparently exists somewhere on the periodic table between unattainium and handwavium, but every star is spewing out the stuff in such quantity that one can refuel by star-skimming in a few seconds. Bah!

The F3 screen is a disgusting mess. It's ugly even with just the core game entries. By the time it's bloated to 3 or 4 pages, it's unusable. Most equipment OXPs are what one would politely call "unfinished". Descriptions of their snazzy equipment on the F3 screen are usually terse, often cryptic; nearly always over- or under-priced. People create three variations of their new mega-weapon, intending to test them to decide which has the best game-play, then they get bored with testing and just throw all three in.

The ooniverse doesn't need yet another three missile variations. It should have a hard limit of three missile types: the two in the core game, plus one OXP missile. In other words, a missile OXP should only be allowed one missile, and all missile OXPs should be marked incompatible with each other. Similar rules should apply to mines and lasers: core game equipment plus one new variety only. Even with that the F3 screen would still be a mess. Okay, really, there should be a separate weapons broker screen, right away from the usual F3 screens.

Don't get me started, Mr Cholmondely, I could go on like this all night.

[Wildeblood]

Although superficially simple, there's a bit of thought to go into the how exactly it would work (speaking of my idea), as for one thing sun-skimming likely shouldn't be an option within outer systems and how much exactly am I prepared to rock the status quo and all that hangs on it?

Whereas my idea, which assumes a vanilla ooniverse, not a rescaled one, isn't just superficially simple, it's actually simple. Someone with phkb's skills could knock it out in a few minutes.

WRT to rescaling bigger, and having in-system hyperdrive, just explicitly label "every" star on the chart with the same name, and say "All these worlds orbit the same star." Simples.

[Redspear]

WRT to rescaling bigger, and having in-system hyperdrive, just explicitly label "every" star on the chart with the same name, and say "All these worlds orbit the same star." Simples.

Zaonce is a... Actually, opinions on Zaonce are divided...

[phkb]

As I don't want to distribute anything that might be considered a cheat, I've removed the download for the time being. I'll have another think about how it can work towards the goal of making sun skimming more fun. I don't really consider the option of moving the gate to the station as helping the sun skimming goal (and even if I did go down this route, I'd call it something else and start a new thread), so for now, it's offline.

A couple of points of clarity:

Very true and in respecting your oxp I'll keep it to the initial concerns from the recent post you linked to:

As a choice, fuel scooping is:

• time consuming
• difficult/frustrating

And this oxp addresses the second of those two concerns:

Actually, I consider it primarily addressing the first one (by reducing the time it takes to get to the star after jumping into a system), and only partly the second one.

The gate takes you right up to the star

That's incorrect. It takes you three quarters of the distance to the star. In my game, jumping into (say), Zaonce, and using the gate, still leaves you with 1300km to go, which is way longer that the WP-main station distance in the core (strict) game (WP-station in Lave is around 430km).

Anyway, thanks for all the input, everyone! I'm still happy to bat ideas around, but we can do it without an exploitable OXP from this point.

[Redspear]

Actually, I consider it primarily addressing the first one (by reducing the time it takes to get to the star after jumping into a system), and only partly the second one.

Typo on my part - I meant the first one. It's the only way that point (that I was trying to make) makes any sense.

The gate takes you right up to the star

That's incorrect. It takes you three quarters of the distance to the star. In my game, jumping into (say), Zaonce, and using the gate, still leaves you with 1300km to go, which is way longer that the WP-main station distance in the core (strict) game (WP-station in Lave is around 430km).

I don't think so.

Let's see my quote in a little more context:

Seeing as we're dealing with cost here already (gate use) is it wildly out of place to suggest a gate at the station to the star, free to use and add the cost to the fuel at the station instead?

The gate takes you right up to the star, and is likely how fuel is bought to the station in the first place. Fuel is only more expensive where the gates are found and those gates are only found where sun distance is particularly high.

I'm talking about my suggestion here, having tried to introduce it in the first paragraph.
"is likely how fuel is bought to the station in the first place", makes much more sense if there is a gate from the station to the star, as I was suggesting.

My initial suggestion was of course just that, nothing more.
The back and forth that has ensued has largely been a consequence of being misunderstood I think, as we continue to demonstrate. That is at least partly my fault.

[phkb]

none of it takes up any space

See  Ship Configuration

The F3 screen is a disgusting mess.

See Loadout by Category.

The back and forth that has ensued has largely been a consequence of being misunderstood I think, as we continue to demonstrate.

And apologies for my part in that.

[Redspear]

And apologies for my part in that.

Likewise.

FWIW, that player I know who occasionally uses the sun to planet route, promises not to use your oxp to cheat with