Buyer's guide to spaceships

pepak · Post by **pepak** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 6:38 am

1) Is it possible to keep the Military Shields (or what it is called; the stuff I got for destroying the Constrictor) when changing ships? I thought I could at least buy it, but when I tested it by buying a Mosquito Trader on a tech-15 world, the enhancement was not offered for sale.

2) What determines the price of a ship? It seems to me Mosquitos are way too cheap considering their speed and their cargo space, relative to the default ships - they are cheaper than a Cobra MK3 and apparently better in both speed and cargo.

LittleBear · Post by **LittleBear** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 12:35 pm

1) No. But you can buy them again, if the new ship you buy has the capacity to mount them.

2) The Cobra III can fit Military Shields, but the Mossi cannot. Thats why the Mossi is cheap. Not being able to fit Military Shields to an Iron Ass is a big downside. Over all, the Cobra III is a better Iron Ass than the Mossi IMO as you miss Militray Shields big time, even if you do a bit better turn of speed. Even if the Ship yard you are at is of high enough tech level you won't be offered equipment that your ship can't fit. So at a Tech 15 in a Cobra III you will be offered Military Shields, but won't if you're flying a Mossi. The Wiki entries for ships list which can and cannot mount booters and Military shields.

On ship price a base value is set by the entry in Shipyard, but this value is increased depending on the equipment fitted. Oolite randomly adds equipment to ships for sale in the shipyard from a list of equipment that the ship can have set in shipyard.plist. An Adder with a Naval Energy Unit will therefore be pricey.

pepak · Post by **pepak** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 6:02 pm

That makes sense. Although it seems some ships (Boa and Python Class Cruisers) are still far more expensive than some other ships (SuperCobra).

United Blobs · Post by **United Blobs** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 6:10 pm

That would be due to the different base values. SuperCobras are too cheap for what they can do

TGHC · Post by **TGHC** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 6:45 pm

United Blobs wrote:
That would be due to the different base values. SuperCobras are too cheap for what they can do

I tend to agree, even though the supercobra is one of my favourite ships, uber ships like this ought to be the most expensive.

Killer Instinct · Post by **Killer Instinct** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 6:59 pm

That would be due to the different base values. SuperCobras are too cheap for what they can do

The Tiger1 is expensive and it's way better than the supercobra - or I'm the only one that thinks this?

United Blobs · Post by **United Blobs** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 7:13 pm

Killer Instinct wrote:
That would be due to the different base values. SuperCobras are too cheap for what they can do
The Tiger1 is expensive and it's way better than the supercobra - or I'm the only one that thinks this?

The Tiger is better in everything but manoeuvrability (and cost).

LittleBear · Post by **LittleBear** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 7:58 pm

In code of course the price is set by a variable, but I think its justified to have Boa's and PCCs as expensive ships. "Better" is relative.

As Jamesons, we want to make our way to Elite and have fun doing missions. But I'd see us as the exception to the rule. Most of the population of the Ooniverse want to stay alive and make money. The Super Cobra is better for us, but if you are a Buisnessman wanting to equip a trade fleet to ferry goods, a Boa is a much better ship. You'd make 300% more profit with a fleet of Boas than you would with a fleet of Super Cobras. IMO it makes sense for a Boa to be expensive therefore on supply and demand basis.

In Real Life, a London Black Cab costs more to buy than most sports cars. Now if I was buying a car (and had £75,000 to spend!) I'd buy a sports car (as I'm not a cabbie!). The sports car is better to me in every way, faster more fun to drive, nippy etc. But Black Cab drivers still buy Black Cabs, because they're buisnessmen and the trusty reliable Black Cab allows them to make money!

BTW, the Tiger is now the most powerful (in terms of Combat) ship in the game. But I think CyberTiger balanced its power well. Its so rare and so expensive that most players will be at least Deadly and probabley have completed most missions before they can get their paws on one.

Don't underestimate the power of the native ships though. My own Commander flys a Tiger and so I wrote Assassins (a series of very tricky missions for the skilled Commander in G7) flying this ship. Worried that I'd made the missions too hard, I gave it a final playtest in an Iron Ass Cobra III before releasing it.

I thought I'd have to tone the opposition down to make the OXP playable in a native ship. In fact I didn't. My trusty Cobra took a bit more damage (this is why some hits offer big rewards - a lot of your fees will go on repairs). But I still completed them in the native Cobra III without having to reduce the power of the opponents.

lfnfan · Post by **lfnfan** » Thu Oct 01, 2009 2:25 pm

LittleBear wrote:
2) The Cobra III can fit Military Shields, but the [Mosquito Trader] cannot. Thats why the Mossi is cheap.

I am trying to figure out where it's specified what equipment a ship (player edit:~~or NPC~~) can have.

I look in shipyard.plist for Mosquito Trader and see, amongst other entries:

<key>optional_equipment</key>
<array>
<string>EQ_NAVAL_SHIELD_BOOSTER</string>
</array>

which looks to me like it's describing the Military Shields (assuming 'naval' = 'military'), so contradicts LB's statement above...

Should I be looking in equipment.plist? There isn't one in the marett_vol1.oxp folder.

The Mosquito Trader-player Shipdata.plist also seems a bit light on equipment specifications eg has_shield_booster or has_shield_enhancer.

could be helpful to contrast the CMkIII .plists, but I guess these are somewhere in the depths of the game code.

thanks for any help

Wiki pages · Post by **Thargoid** » Thu Oct 01, 2009 2:34 pm

Shipyard.plist refers specifically to player versions of ships. There you will find amongst other things the keys optional equipment (stuff that can be fitted) and standard equipment (comes as standard, as the name suggests). If an item of equipment does not show in one or other of the lists and does not have the key "available to all" set true in its equipment.plist, then it can't be fitted. Most OXP equipment has this key set, hence it can go in any ship you care to mention.

The entries in shipdata.plist are whether an NPC ship has/hasn't (or what chance they have) of specific equipment being present when an example of that ship is spawned. Hence it is possible for some NPC versions of a given ship to have a given bit of equipment and others not to, if the has_<whatever> key is set to a value (0-1) rather than yes/no/true/false boolean.

lfnfan · Post by **lfnfan** » Thu Oct 01, 2009 2:39 pm

Thanks Thargoid, that helps.

So if a ship has EQ_NAVAL_SHIELD_BOOSTER in the shipyard.plist that means the player ship should be able to get naval shield boosters.

My question then becomes: is a naval shield booster the same as a military shield booster? I am guessing 'yes'...

Commander McLane · Post by **Commander McLane** » Thu Oct 01, 2009 2:51 pm

Why don't you look at the only place that is relevant for getting your answer: Oolite's built-in equipment.plist?

The documentation tells you that there is "a string that shows the name of the equipment as seen by the player" and another "string that shows the name of the equipment that is used by scripting. Must start with EQ_ ...".

Armed with this important piece of information go and open the equipment.plist inside your Oolite application. What do you find, somewhere at the bottom?

Code: Select all

	<array>
		<integer>13</integer>
		<integer>475500</integer>
		<string>Military Shield Enhancement</string>
		<string>EQ_NAVAL_SHIELD_BOOSTER</string>
		<string>Military technology, used in conjunction with ordinary shields and shield boosting technology, further increases the capability of standard defensive shields.</string>
	</array>

So, as far as the player is concerned, this particular piece of equipment is called "Military Shield Enhancement". This is what you see on the equipment screen (if you buy it) and the status screen (if you have it). However, the internal identifier for this piece of equipment is "EQ_NAVAL_SHIELD_BOOSTER".

Who says that everything has to be consistent everywhere? So, please check the other entries in equipment.plist, if you want to know what the gui-descriptions and the internal identifiers for each equipment item are. All the information is on your computer, within your copy of Oolite.

lfnfan · Post by **lfnfan** » Thu Oct 01, 2009 3:46 pm

Oolite has a built-in equipment.plist? I see. Did not know that.

I read the equipment.plist Wiki before posting, as is only polite, but it does not spell out the existence of a built-in one (only an OXP equipment.plist), and I plainly failed to derive its existence from first principles. My bad!

Still, you live and learn. A day older and a day wiser, as they say.

Wiki pages · Post by **Thargoid** » Thu Oct 01, 2009 4:46 pm

Look in oolite.app/Resources/Config. You should see equipment.plist, containing all of the "built-in" equipment like fuel, basic missiles, fuel scoops, large cargo bay etc. Also in that folder are the trunk shipdata.plist and shipyard.plist detailing the built-in ships you can see and buy (respectively) - it all works in much the same way as those in an OXP.

Zbond-Zbond · Post by **Zbond-Zbond** » Fri Oct 02, 2009 7:45 pm

I have a saved MosquitoTrader with MilitaryShields.

MilitaryShields augment ShieldBoosters; both can be fitted.

If you buy an ExtraEnergyUnit however, it is not possible to buy the NavalEnergyUnit later. You'd need to buy a ship as a standard customer model - or at least one without the ExtraEU fitted - and wait until at TL..14+ to buy the NEU.

I am using 1.73.4 and think there might have been an update to fix this?