WOOT-Attack!

[another_commander]

Have you noticed what happens sometimes when you encounter other ships in the Ooniverse? Initially the encounter may appear friendly or neutral, minding its own business, then all of a sudden its blip goes red on the scanner, your red alert goes off and you are now under attack. But the ship has not yet fired any shots at you. You just know it's hostile because your scanner shows red. Have you ever wondered why that is and why you cannot do the same to others?

Well, here you are: this is a very, very crude and simple OXP that changes gameplay in a very, very dramatic way. It makes the weapons lock functionality a cirtical gameplay element, which you need to be at all times very aware of. Not handling weapons lock properly may lead to serious trouble. And now, you can also choose to appear red on other ships' scanners just like they can.

How does it work then? The main idea is that Weapons Online On Target (WOOT) is now interpreted as a hostile move. This means that under normal circumstances you MUST fly with weapon systems offline. You also have to be very careful of when you bring them online. If you deploy weapons while a target is locked on, this will be seen by your target in the same manner you see other ships go suddenly red. Expect your target to take action, either by engaging in combat or by fleeing. Likewise, if you have weapons online and you pick a new target - even by accident - this will also be considered a hostile act against that target. In any of the two cases mentioned your ship will go red on the other ship's scanner and will also go in the its AIDefenseTargets list and you will become an eligible target. You may be prioritized or left for later, if your target is too busy with other ships at that time, but your weapons deploying action will be definitely noted. So now you should spend most of your flying time with weapons offline, you MUST be very careful with your targeting and only deploy weapons when you are sure you are OK with going into combat. If you need to scan or identify targets, make sure you do it while your weapons are offline.

Have a go with it if you want to try out this gameplay mechanic, see what you think. There still might be cases not handled fully correctly, but it should be serviceable for the most part. Consider this a gameplay experiment at this stage. It's just an idea that may or may not work. I just wanted to somehow cover the scenario I mentioned at the beginning of this post and I think this might not be too terrible an idea.

Download from https://wiki.alioth.net/img_auth.php/0/ ... Attack.oxz

[Cholmondely]

Wiki page now up: Woot-Attack!

[hiran]

Download from https://wiki.alioth.net/img_auth.php/0/ ... Attack.oxz

Intentions to have it on the Expansion Manager?

[another_commander]

Intentions to have it on the Expansion Manager?

Eventually yes. Just needs a bit of testing in the field before that.

[Nite Owl]

Likewise, if you have weapons unlocked and you pick a new target - even by accident - this will also be considered a hostile act against that target.

For clarity's sake and to be consistent in terminology in the above line change unlocked to online. Confused me for a bit until the OXZ was actually used and the context became clear. Weapons unlocked can either be the same as weapons online or can be easily confused with not having a weapons lock as in weapons NOT locked on a target, or unlocked.

Very nice addition to the OXZ mix. Twitchy button mashing is a thing of the past. May have to reassign some joystick buttons to avoid accidents. So far all is working as it should. Testing will continue. Thank You for the time and effort.

[phkb]

I like this a lot! A couple of suggestions:
1. Maybe targeting non-piloted entities (like nav buoys) shouldn't trigger the response.
2. Maybe there should be a reaction time for piloted entities. It might take a moment or two for the pilot to realise they've been targeted by a ship with weapons hot.
In any event, it sure changes up gameplay a lot

[another_commander]

For clarity's sake and to be consistent in terminology in the above line change unlocked to online. Confused me for a bit until the OXZ was actually used and the context became clear. Weapons unlocked can either be the same as weapons online or can be easily confused with not having a weapons lock as in weapons NOT locked on a target, or unlocked.

Thanks for that, correction made on first post. I'll change it on the wiki as well later, when I am near a PC with wiki access.

1. Maybe targeting non-piloted entities (like nav buoys) shouldn't trigger the response.
2. Maybe there should be a reaction time for piloted entities. It might take a moment or two for the pilot to realise they've been targeted by a ship with weapons hot.
In any event, it sure changes up gameplay a lot

1. Yes, this needs fixing for v0.2.
2. Depending on which AI is running on the NPC at the time, the reaction may be instantaneous or with delay. I found during testing that .js AIs behave OK with the desired delay, while the older .plist based ones (e.g. planetPatrolAI.plist) react to the "ATTACKED" message instantly. Not sure how I want to go about this, maybe leave it as-is, since the plist-based AIs are probably the minority? We'll see.

[hiran]

I like this a lot! A couple of suggestions:
1. Maybe targeting non-piloted entities (like nav buoys) shouldn't trigger the response.
2. Maybe there should be a reaction time for piloted entities. It might take a moment or two for the pilot to realise they've been targeted by a ship with weapons hot.
In any event, it sure changes up gameplay a lot

Thinking about it:
I used to target ships since the target scanner reveals more information about the ship.
Would that be somehow possible with offline weapons?

[phkb]

You can still target ships with weapons offline.

[Redspear]

So...

Weapons online works just as before UNTIL the player targets something, right?

I nearly always use power to engines and consequently usually have weapons offline. Something that becones very obvious very quickly is that with weapons offline the targeting area of the scanner is dimmed significantly.

This works great for missile icons bur not so well for non aggressive targeting. To be clear, this is a related source code issue and not a consequence of any oxp. I run a custom version of oolite that reduces the dimming.

Anyway, back to the oxp... nice idea

[another_commander]

Version 0.2 is now in the Expansion Manager. The wiki page has also been updated (Cholly, thanks for setting it up).
Unpiloted entities no longer generate red alert.

[MrFlibble]

Wiki typo.

becomes

[Cholmondely]

Just musing about this one.

Would being targeted really be ascertainable by another ship?



And if it were, surely somebody on Ceesxe or wherever would have come up with an equipment add-on preventing such ascertainment?
WOOT-Woffler: A snip at 10,000₢, available at TL13



And then someone else on Ascension would have come up with another equipment overriding the prevention?
WOOT-Woffling-Knobbler: A snip at 30,000₢, available at TL16



And then...

[Wildeblood]

Just musing about this one.

Would being targeted really be ascertainable by another ship?

And if it were, surely somebody on Ceesxe or wherever would have come up with an equipment add-on preventing such ascertainment?
WOOT-Woffler: A snip at 10,000₢, available at TL13

It's why submarines have giant passive sonar arrays that cost hundreds of millions, instead of pinging with active sonar every few seconds like they did on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.

It's why "5th gen" aircrafts like the F-35 leave their radars off and use passive IR to track targets.

[Cholmondely]

It's why submarines have giant passive sonar arrays that cost hundreds of millions, instead of pinging with active sonar every few seconds like they did on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.

It's why "5th gen" aircrafts like the F-35 leave their radars off and use passive IR to track targets.

This leads me to think that a_c_'s WOOT-ish approach should be incorporated into both The Assassin's Guild/Victim 11 and Random Hits. Surely the more experienced targets of each would be on the lookout for this sort of thing and respond appropriately!

That's in addition to the ability to modify an NPC's speed of reaction (as well as the accuracy which we've been aware of for many years now).