Energy Bomb Reimagined OXP

[Redspear]

Hmm. That reads as sarcasm, but wasn't intended to be. I'm just musing over the sociological aspect.

No worries, parts of it raised a smile.

It won't kill all ships, certainly not all of the time but your historical review is relevant I think.
It's Energy Bomb Reimagined (pompous I know but the best I've got) rather than 'Reinstated', so I think it's a fair title given that I've changed a few things (at least one of which is highly significant).

There's some valid criticism of the energy bomb I think but it often went with the assumption that all pilots might have a good reason to equip it.
(anyway, I think that particular horse might be dead now).

The NPCs had guns, the player had guns and a bomb

In Oolite the NPC's (freuently at least) have allies, the player, rarely so. There's the military laser too of course so your point still stands but maybe there was a good reason why the player had a bomb.

I'm afraid that I forgot our previous conversation about it.

But I was not trying to make any point other than NPC's (of whichever varieties are deemed condign) should be using it too

Again, no worries.

As long as it's understood (by my reasoning at least) that very few NPCs would have use for it. So few in fact and potentially so rarely against most players that version 1 of this thing likely won't grant it to any of them.

A simple chance of a warning from any last remaining ship, followed by another chance that they might be bluffing, followed potentially by a variable timer for the player to either back off or finish them off before playerShipDestroyed. So I have thought about it but my coding is mostly crappy and as someone who leaves other traders alone my motivation too add such is low.


Relevant to your concerns:

We've had players profess to being smugglers before on these boards but any player pirates?

The escape pod is important here because that is the superior 'cheat' unless you have an expensive cargo to protect. Why expensive? Well the bomb/whizz-popper/whatever costs 900Cr and you can only use it once, so the theoretical cargo you're saving had better be worth at least that much. Not all ships can carry such a cargo of course.

If you energy bomb a trade convoy then could you expect to scoop cargo of that value?
Would bombing a pirate pack grant 900Cr of bounties?

The way in which it is superior to an escape pod is in that it doesn't cost you all of your cargo.
The obvious way in which it is inferior is that it doesn't guarantee that you make it to the station be that with or without further costs.