(WIP) Anaconda Cruise Liners

[Wildeblood]

I suppose that the "windows" in the cabins are really View-Screens.

Absolutely. The management of the cruise lines reserve the right to suspend viewing in the event of unforeseen circumstances. However, the viewscreens take up an entire wall in the cabins, displaying the wonders of space in 32K resolution - as real as if you were really there!

This is something I thought of years ago, and don't know why no-one - to my knowledge - has done it yet on long-distance trains. I believe this exists on some cruise ships that have nasty, windowless interior cabins. But on railways, I think the effect could be quite convincingly realistic: a commercially-available 100" screen will fill the front wall of a railway carriage, there is no wave motion to contend with, the eye-level of a seated passenger would be known, and a camera could be mounted on the engine front at exactly the right height.

Also, the Cholzburton annie looked really good. Thank you.

[phkb]

OK, I've got the first 8 liners done (1 brand for each galaxy), so I'm turning my attention to some spawning logic. I had a look at the FP liners spawning script, and they are spawning in *any* of the 4 spaceways route systems, including Aronar and Anarlaqu, both of which are Feudal. That seems... dangerous.

So, here's the logic I'm thinking of instead:
1. When spawning on the WP-Station route, only do it in Corp States with a majority of safe systems around it.
2. When spawning as launching from the main station, only do it if there is a Corp State nearby which will be their destination.

If we're heading towards a Corp State OXP, it makes sense to have these spawn in those systems, or be heading towards them.

Let me know what you think.

[phkb]

Subsequent thought: Sector 4, with no Corp States, would therefore never see one of these ships. Do I bend the rules and include Democracies in G4, or leave it as an anomaly? I'm leaning towards leaving it as an anomaly, but I'd value other opinions.

[Cholmondely]

Subsequent thought: Sector 4, with no Corp States, would therefore never see one of these ships. Do I bend the rules and include Democracies in G4, or leave it as an anomaly? I'm leaning towards leaving it as an anomaly, but I'd value other opinions.

G4 is an anomaly. But if you eventually include Space Routes, well then, G4 has 6 of them. Again, liners should be taking people to places rather than just sitting and stewing in the safe & secure corporates. There are other safe and secure systems or ones which can be made such temporarily while the liner is passing through.

[phkb]

I need to nail down some spawning logic.

If we assume liners would be *extremely* risk adverse, and that any form of fighting would make the business unsustainable, that would either severely limit their operating scope, or require a considerable armed escort at all times, enough to discourage even the most well-funded pirate gangs.

Would liners routinely go through dangerous systems? Even with a heavy guard, I can’t see them being able to justify the risk. One battle would result in a drop in clientele and lost revenue, and the constant drain on resources in having keep the best escorts would also be considerable. My feeling is that they would limit their operations to just safe systems (confederacies, democracies and corp states), which may mean avoiding all the normal space routes altogether, and just going from safe harbour to safe harbour- which isn’t that far removed from how cruise liners operate today.

That said, some operators could theoretically offer a service that visits dangerous systems, at a reduced fee, but they wouldn’t fit with the kind of luxury service the ships I’m designing would be offering.

Another point to consider is just how valuable a target would a liner be? The pirates we see in system are after one thing: cargo. You dump your stuff, the pirates are (generally) happy. Knowing this, the liners would actively try to make themselves less desirable to pirates by not having enough of anything on board to warrant an attack. Yes, there are feasibly other reasons a pirate gang might want to target a liner (scooping the potential escape capsules, kidnapping high value targets) but our pirates are not generally in that business. A mission-based pirate might be, but not your run of the mill pirate.

Finally, there’s the in game experience. No one is going to follow a cruise ship across its entire multi-system journey. They are just scenery you find on the way to the station. Where did they come from? Know knows. Where are they going next? Again, no idea. You see them, you pass them, and when you jump out of the system they cease to exist. A bit of eye candy, and adding some breadth to the visual experience.

Therefore, how prescriptive do we need to be, other than defining which systems they could likely spawn in? Anything deeper than that is part of the “game in your head”, all the things you assume about the ship as you fly by it.

So, what this leads me to do is research clusters of safe systems in each galaxy where liner would likely operate. If I can find enough of them, I’ll make those systems the ones where liners would spawn. If I can’t find enough, I’ll need to rethink this a bit.

Apologies if this post is a bit rambling and potentially incoherent. Brain is a bit fuzzy right now.

[Redspear]

Re democracies: they're close enough, especially since it's as much about neighboring systems these days.

Re pirate motivation: it's not just cargo or (in this case) passengers that are valuable) it's reputation. Cruise liners would make very juicy targets for terrorism or extortion. Want us to leave them alone? Sure we can do that for you but we'll be needing a big slice of those profits. Your cruise liners can escape a Q-bomb, right?

IMHO, oolite as is doesn't suit liners but people like them and it's an oxp, so why not? The only places that the player is really likely to notice them (other than the screenshot thread) is at the witch point or outside a station. That's one thing the ridiculously remarkably big liners had going for them: visibility. You didn't have to approach them in order to notice them for what they were.

[phkb]

Cruise liners would make very juicy targets for terrorism or extortion.

True, but the logic our pirates use doesn't cover those things. They shoot things to get cargo. So, theoretically, a real pirate would definitely find liners juicy targets. But the ones we see in game -- not so much.

[Redspear]

True, but the logic our pirates use doesn't cover those things. They shoot things to get cargo.

So no cargo = no pirate attacks... = no need for escorts... = freedom to traverse any system unmolested... except that's not quite right is it?

...and yes I know you said to get cargo not because they know that their target has cargo but if we're talking only about current pirate behaviour then your point below seems moot.

Another point to consider is just how valuable a target would a liner be? The pirates we see in system are after one thing: cargo

So if it's only how do pirates behave in game then why don't they leave them alone?

Is it in fact the case that pirates (in game) simply attack things that don't appear to be a significant threat? So yeah they might know if you're preferred role is trader or not but if they think they can take you then they'll give it a try?

Do pirates know how much cargo you have?
In the absence of role = liner what do in game pirates care?

[Cholmondely]

But we know that pirates and/or terrorists attack liners/trains/buses and then hold the passengers to ransom.

I vote for the Space-Lane Vipers protecting the Liners.

i) It makes the Space Lanes something different/special in our game
ii) The heavy presence of the S-LVs makes them safe at the time of Liner transit and prevents attacks by pirates who merely wait until they pass or gom elsewhere (I'm presuming that the pirate gangs are not strong enough to challenge the S-LVs).
iii) There could well be entire bunches of traders also traversing the Space Lanes at the safer times when the liners/S_LVs are doing their thing ...and it would give a helping hand to starting Jamesons who wish to travel safely to a distant system!

I'm presuming that GalCop is too feeble to be able to properly patrol the Space Lanes at all times.

[Cholmondely]

Brainwave!

This is obviously the reason for the Viewscreens dotted throughout the liners. The Viewscreens show placid previously-recorded views while the escorting GalCop Vipers unleash murderous mayhem on the raiding pirates! And inside the liner nothing is seen, nothing is felt...

[cbr]

My concern with the SpaceLanes above was based on the worry that these liners would have nowhere to go without their passengers all bailing out in fright. Unless they just pootle aimlessly around their home Corporate system, visiting Rock Hermits and skimming the sun.

Coding the path these liners take is, at the moment, a secondary concern. The creative process of coming up with enough variations of these ships is where I'm spending most of my time.

Here's the current set

That's a nice set, how about repurposed cobra mk1s as escorts...

[Cholmondely]

...how about repurposed cobra mk1s as escorts...

But would they be good enough?

"Today, it is hopelessly outclassed as a fighter, but some pirates still use the craft when operating in groups due to its low cost, and occasionally traders use the craft as a support vessel. Today, it is most commonly used by miners, and has been described as "...an Adder with 2 energy banks". From our wiki: Cobra Mk.1 (Oolite)

We're in an Ooniverse which is collapsing under the Thargoid invasions and the rise of piracy. Only the wealthiest systems can pretend that things are as they were before it all started going to pot. And it is no more than a pretence.

The horrendously expensive liners need top-notch protection. A slither of Cobra Mk.1s? Surely a nest of vipers with some interceptors mixed in is more the sort of thing?

[Redspear]

The horrendously expensive liners need top-notch protection. A slither of Cobra Mk.1s? Surely a nest of vipers with some interceptors mixed in is more the sort of thing?

How many escorts and what they are armed with is arguably as (if not more) important as what ships they are.
Six vipers with beam lasers or four cobra mk!s with military lasers?

Escorts don't need to be fast, manouvrability does help but the variation isn't huge with oolite ships. The interveptors you mention are exceptional in many regards but unless you're including constrictors as well (and why would you?) then they're very much in a class of their own.

I'm just weighing the merits here, not advocationg for a particular escort type besides my reservations around interceptors (or constrictors), I do think that would be too much.

[phkb]

Progress for those that might be interested.

I now have 8 galaxy specific liners, and 3 all-galaxy ones (P&OO, Carnivoor and Cunoords). I went with Cunoords, rather than Coonards, mainly because of this. I thought it best not to go there.

Spawning: You've got options. By default it will use my safe system cluster collection of systems. But this is changeable, via Library Config, to use all systems, or the spacelanes. Either way, they will be less likely to spawn in dangerous systems. If there is another known collection of systems you think might be worth having as an option, let me know and I'll include it.

And if you don't like either of those options, you can roll your own list of systems and swap to using that. Simples.

For the liners themselves, they will not spawn any cargo when destroyed. So there is no value in blowing them up for loot.

Escorts: I've put a custom Viper into play, and each liner will have from 4 to 6 of them. As the mod pack develops, I'll add some more skins for these. For now, there's just the one three.

What I haven't done (yet) is add the liners role to the oolite-pirate-victim category, which would mark these ships as being valuable to pirates. I'll think about whether that's worth it.