Emergency - Marooning Poll!

[aegidian]

Based on Steve's observations here:

https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?t=125

and your feelings about the game.

Which of the following fits the Elite universe better?

The quick-jump one-shot Emergency Hyperdrive Unit (similar to the galactic hyperdrive unit).

or

A one-shot Emergency Hyperdrive Unit, with a 15 second delay.

or

An Emergency Hyperdrive Refueller, refilling your tanks by up to 3.5 LY of fuel as a one-off device.

[Phrostbyte]

How about a VERY slow refresh rate on Witchdrive fuel? It only costs 2 credits per light year anyways. Figure (with engines at 0 thrust?) you can recharge either 0.1 light year worth or 10% of your current Witchdrive ammount (whichever is lower and non-zero) every 10 minutes. (Perhaps the "P" key begins and ends the process, accelerating in-game time while you recharge.) It could be trumped up to a quirky attribute of the "witch's brew", a side-effect from the way it warps space and an explanation as to why it's so cheap (it just grows back).

[TGHC]

I think there are three issues here.

1. The desire to hyperspace as a means of survival in a battle.
2. Being a purist in line with The Dark Wheel, GH is a potentially dangerous activity, and damage may "sometimes" occur.
3. The need to travel further than 7ly to normally "unreachable planets" as part of a mission or just exploration (I like the former)


In the first instance I think classic Elite is about right, you need to engage GH about 10 seconds before you die as a last resort.

Secondly, damage will occur if your shields are gone and you manage to survive to live another day. When you eventually dock you will need to carry out repairs and purchase replacement equipment if the planet's tech level will allow you (you will have to find a higher tech level to fully restore your ship which may mean a temporary change in your strategy - all part of the fun).

Thirdly for mission purposes a one off purchase of extended range fuel tanks to fit in the cargo hold seems a great idea. You could also consider special fuel booster equipment (The Fast and Furious sort of thing) to give extra speed and distance capability.

As an additional comment on damage it will also occur if you try and dock when you have had too much Riedquat ale, you are tired/concussed from a battle, or you are trying to be too flashy! so the same principle of repairs and replacement apply.

TGHC

[TGHC]

The need to travel further than 7ly to normally "unreachable planets" as part of a mission or just exploration (I like the former)

As a wimsical afterthought, is it possible to make the trading opportunities in these planets extreeeeemly profitable? the "Eldorado" of the galaxies.

Or for example the only place you could buy special armaments, shields etc. or even a really FBL (you can work out the acronym)

It's an attractive thought.

TGHC

[Murgh]

hmm. I don't get to vote on this one?

I fancy the emergency refueller, unless there are new wormhole ideas in the air..

[tgape]

As a wimsical afterthought, is it possible to make the trading opportunities in these planets extreeeeemly profitable? the "Eldorado" of the galaxies.

Well, if I remember my Dark Wheel correctly, there should be one "Eldorado" of the galaxies, which is guarded by a moderately large group of Elite pilots. Not sure what is there, but when you get there, you win the game, or at least complete the big, fundamental mission behind it all.

Personally, I think it's a weapon or ship type (or both), which is not available anywhere else. I'd implement it by having the system tech level be 20+, having it be a ship (or group of ships), and their optional equipment. That way, you cannot get them anywhere else.

I'd also be inclined to implement it such that the only way to get there would be to malfunction on a regular jump in the right region, and happen to luck into being closer to said "Eldorado" world than elsewhere, and use either Emergency Hyperjump or reserve fuel to get there.

Incidentally, no Behemoth at that world, no vipers (vipers are replaced by Elite offenders or fugitives, most flying ships not available anywhere else), and no trade ships. No commodities for sale, but they will purchase goods, potentially with some being at a premium.

[tgape]

How about a VERY slow refresh rate on Witchdrive fuel? It only costs 2 credits per light year anyways. Figure (with engines at 0 thrust?) you can recharge either 0.1 light year worth or 10% of your current Witchdrive ammount (whichever is lower and non-zero) every 10 minutes. (Perhaps the "P" key begins and ends the process, accelerating in-game time while you recharge.) It could be trumped up to a quirky attribute of the "witch's brew", a side-effect from the way it warps space and an explanation as to why it's so cheap (it just grows back).

It would have to be engines at maximum thrust, with hyperspeed enabled. What you're doing is scooping the faint amounts of star dust found throughout space. Note that, in "witchspace" (it isn't, really, it's merely well off the defined space paths, and I don't know why Giles decided to spruce it up funky), those amounts are very faint indeed. As such, it could take hours or days to get 0.1 LY of fuel.

Given that 'P' is hard-coded to pause, I think either that needs to change, or you need a different key.

[Phrostbyte]

Oh, yeah. "P"....huh.....maybe "Shift-P"?

[rabidvixen]

I have always felt that if a ship is moving through space at a reasonable rate of speed (even at sub-light velocities) it would be moving through minute particles of gaseous deposits in open space. What if we introduced a piece of equipment that we could bolt onto the ship which could act like a fuel scoop but be used in open space for minute retopping only of primary fuel sources. When I say "minute" I mean that it would very slowly fill the tanks for as long as the device was activated (and it would have to be activated, either automatically or manually) and could, in theory completely fill a tank, but that this refilling would take considerably longer than a routine scorch-and-scoop operation.

This device could be called the MicroScoop and be oriented for fuel only - not to be confused with the full fuel and matter scoop utilized for picking up cargo in open space. I can see the usefulness of such a device. It would permit in or outbound vessels to top up their tanks in open space, while in the pursuit of prey, in trading runs in or out of system space and in situations where the trader or the combateer needs just a few more litres of fuel to make a Witchspace jump. It could mean the difference between faraway and becoming pet food in orbit about the nearest gravitational anomaly.

[Mad Dan Eccles]

Solar panels?

[rabidvixen]

"Solar panels? Thing of the past!" -- (common joke on Reidquat among shifty used ship dealers when speaking with new pilots green out of the academy and looking for their first ride).

No, not solar panels. The original fuel scoop has nothing whatever to do with solar energy - at least not in the way that you might think. Although it is true that a fuel scoop may be used to generate a multi-frequency (agile), wide-beam funneling field matrix to collect the solar wind from the outer corona of a stellar body, it does not necessarily collect the wind itself. No, what it actually does is process material within the wind that is in a state of energy-matter collapse and annilation and convert it into Q-Fuel which can be processed further by the engines of a Witchdrive.

The microscoop works in a completely different manner. It collects minute particles of hydrogen and other elements found in open space and processes them with considerably less difficulty into a Q-Fuel of equal potential, but at a much slower manner seeing as space borne gaseous matter is not as energetic as the solar wind and because the craft is not moving through the field at such speeds as are required for stellar wind collection.

[goat]

Now that is authentic scifi technobabble if ever I heard it. You watch, folks, she's going to talk about reversing the polarity of the deflector arrays any second now.

[rabidvixen]

Wel-el, the average deflector array consists of a pulse-chambered manotox field generator coupled to a tralaulax compensator which is in turn hooked up to a compendeux ionization distrupter to produce an inverse field harmonic which is subsequency transmitted by isodentrix field coils mounted at node points on the outer hull of a craft.

While the pulse-chambered manotox field generator is utilized to generate the necessary energy for shields, it is in fact the tralaulax compensator which is responsible for the creation of a specific field which can be channeled through the waveguides inside the ship to the isodentrix array (the field coils specifically) and from there converted back into a signal which is broadcast to the nearest node point, and linked via a complex series of frequency shifts producing a self-replicating harmonic feedback loop which acts like an energy barrier beyond the craft at a distance of no more than five meters in most circumstances, and no more than a kilometer at most - although with considerably less effectiveness.

Reversing the field output has two effects. First of all, it has an unfortunate tendency to make people sick to their stomachs on smaller craft due to the harmonic wave profile, and secondly, it makes my life a whole lot harder as I have to go back to watching ST:TNG to get in the right frame of mind to generate more tekbab.

[tgape]

I have always felt that if a ship is moving through space at a reasonable rate of speed (even at sub-light velocities) it would be moving through minute particles of gaseous deposits in open space. What if we introduced a piece of equipment that we could bolt onto the ship which could act like a fuel scoop but be used in open space for minute retopping only of primary fuel sources. When I say "minute" I mean that it would very slowly fill the tanks for as long as the device was activated (and it would have to be activated, either automatically or manually) and could, in theory completely fill a tank, but that this refilling would take considerably longer than a routine scorch-and-scoop operation.

Yes, but there's a problem; due to the great dispersion of gasses in deep space, you'll need a tremendous amount of energy to collect it from a wide area, or it'll take forever. I believe this means the device will drain the ship's energy at about a rate of 9 while it's turned on. As such, unless you have a Naval Energy Unit, you simply *cannot* leave that on for a long time. (This use of energy will also decrease the amount of scoop time such that, traveling at hyperspeed with this device turned on, one can scoop just fast enough that Giles doesn't have to change the fuel from an int / 10 to a float or double.)

[goat]

Wel-el, the average deflector array consists of a pulse-chambered manotox field generator coupled to a tralaulax compensator which is in turn hooked up to a compendeux ionization distrupter to produce an inverse field harmonic which is subsequency transmitted by isodentrix field coils mounted at node points on the outer hull of a craft.

While the pulse-chambered manotox field generator is utilized to generate the necessary energy for shields, it is in fact the tralaulax compensator which is responsible for the creation of a specific field which can be channeled through the waveguides inside the ship to the isodentrix array (the field coils specifically) and from there converted back into a signal which is broadcast to the nearest node point, and linked via a complex series of frequency shifts producing a self-replicating harmonic feedback loop which acts like an energy barrier beyond the craft at a distance of no more than five meters in most circumstances, and no more than a kilometer at most - although with considerably less effectiveness.

Reversing the field output has two effects. First of all, it has an unfortunate tendency to make people sick to their stomachs on smaller craft due to the harmonic wave profile, and secondly, it makes my life a whole lot harder as I have to go back to watching ST:TNG to get in the right frame of mind to generate more tekbab.

*Sigh*