Ship and equipment ideas

[pagroove]

I have some ideas I like to see implemented in future, although I don't know if any these are possible. I should point out though that I enjoy the game VERY much at the moment with all those excellent oxp's already made. So this are just ideas for new oxp's.

Shoot with your laser on it if you like.

Such as:

EQUIPMENT IDEAS

- An In system scanner (which can be fitted on a missle pylon). A sort of long range radar which updates VERY slowly and only displays a list of crafts that are in-system, entering and leaving the system. It should be an expensive gadet
- A sort of IR cam. Which makes the space in the front view white when you switch it on so that you can see the heat signatures of ships. This should work for a short time and drain much energy. Otherwise it would be too easy to spot other ships.
- A cam (for recon missions)
- A Mass generator (maybe only to be fitted on ships with a certain size) to prevent ships to hyperspace. It should be expensive.

SHIP SYSTEM FAILURES

I like to have subsystems which can fail if you wait to long with a maintenance overhaul.

-For example the ECM system: When the state of this item drops below a percentage it will be less effective.
- Lose the cargo bay compression (very dangerous)

SHIP COMPUTER FAILURES

I also like to have a chance that you ships main computer can fail. Due to not maintaining the ship or catching a Ship-computer-virus. (these can be triggered by beacons which are placed by pirates or bounty hunters) Or by reading a message on a spacebar/staion etc.

The consequences from a ship computer failure may be:

- Not able to view the front, left, right, or rear view
- Slower response to steering or not being able to steer at all
- Not being able to accelerate
- lose the data link to the trade network, galactic map or the system info


The consequences from a ship computer-virus may be:

- All those above mentioned normal ship failures:
- changing of legal status by the virus (so that it goes from clean to for example offender while you didn't commit any crime
- changing of trade of other data by the virus
- lose of control of you ship in any sense
- etc...

[FSOneblin]

When you get a computer failure, you should have an option to call a hog-nose. And, Some ships should have more failures than others, say an old pcc, Should have more failures than a new falcon-s. And maby more things like, vandilism, and your ship would have, say "Ben was here" (what, no, officer, I am Ben, but not THAT Ben). And, mabey some monuments, planet flags, and mabey HUGE battles, Commies V.S. Galcop.

Don't look at the other side of your ship: FSOneblin

[Eric Walch]

EQUIPMENT IDEAS

- An In system scanner (which can be fitted on a missle pylon). A sort of long range radar which updates VERY slowly and only displays a list of crafts that are in-system, entering and leaving the system. It should be an expensive gadet

Hmm. Sounds familiar. I have a scanner that prints every 30 seconds on screen the number of pirates, traders, police, thargoids in system. For the starting pilot this information is a little to helpful in my opinion. After long thinking I added this equipment in the 1.3+ version of UPS, but with a lot of restrictions: It only becomes buyable for an elite player that fulfilled the last UPS mission more than once. And it is expensive (80 000 cr) but that is generally no problem for an elite player. An Elite needs new challenges like killing the last pirate in a system. Than this scanner helps. However it only gives numbers, no locations.

[Lestradae]

I have a scanner that prints every 30 seconds on screen the number of pirates, traders, police, thargoids in system. ... After long thinking I added this equipment in the 1.3+ version of UPS, but with a lot of restrictions: It only becomes buyable for an elite player that fulfilled the last UPS mission more than once. And it is expensive (80 000 cr) ... An Elite needs new challenges like killing the last pirate in a system. Than this scanner helps. However it only gives numbers, no locations.

Really cool idea!

Also nice touch to add challenges and things to aspire to for ELITE Commanders, I like it!

Haven`t had an UPS mission for a long time, by the way (use version 1.3.6 with 1.70 Oolite) - is there a way to look if something`s wrong or broken in my savegame?

Keep up the good work

L

[Eric Walch]

Haven`t had an UPS mission for a long time, by the way (use version 1.3.6 with 1.70 Oolite) - is there a way to look if something`s wrong or broken in my savegame?

The 5 key mission variables are:

D: [mission_ups_docs], P: [mission_ups_parcel], C: [mission_ups_container], S: [mission_ups_sun], Sl: [mission_ups_slaves]"

They show the mission status for every one of the five mission series. On my computer I have a test oxp that prints them on screen after a jump so I always know what to expect on the next docking.

When nothing is going on they have a value of "NOT_NOW" or "NO". Only the slave and sun variable can be totally undefined after a mission-reset. Any other value means UPS has selected a mission but just waits until the right moment to present it to the player.
e.g. docs missions are only generated in democratic states. When you avoid them, the missions are not generated. When the docs-status is "NO" it has a 20% change of generating a mission in a democratic system. Yesterday I was "desperate" for a docs mission because I couln't remember when the last happened and I at least jumped in and out a democratic system 10 times and still no mission. Statistics is never a guarantee it will happen soon. Then I looked again in the code and noticed a syntax bug in the docs-mission generator. At 3 places I used "==" instead of "=". Must have been there since the first docs js translation. I did test all the translated missions but not the random mission generator itself. It only affects the docs missions and the first solar mission is triggered by a docs mission. Seems there will be an new UPS update soon after eastern.

There is also a ship encounter in the oxp that is so rare that I started to doubt myself it hadn't a bug. I re-readed the code several times and stayed convinced the code was sound. Then the encounter happened. I was very surprised. But it is still the only encounter I had in all that time. Some things should stay rare.

---
But back to pagrooves equipment failure things. I saw already some oxp that have similar things in it. But now an oxp can only award or remove equipment. Maybe we also need a function crippleEquipment that does the same as now when it gets destroyed in combat.

[pagroove]

@FSOneblin:

Indeed,

When the ship fails you have to be tugged, rescued or otherwise.
.
@Erci Walch
Cool! I will play a UPS mission soon. I just got average.
With my idea i meant indeed JUST a list. With indeed NO locations. But only a scanner that can give you a sort of safety rating just by looking at the sort of ships

*************
Famous are the errors in the ship software from the company Microostoft.
Black or blue screens in the heat of a battle is very irritating
***********

[Commander McLane]

I like especially the failure ideas. On the other hand I have no clue what exactly a lack of maintenance does to your ship in the trunk. I would guess that a bad maintenance status may trigger equipment failures, but I am not sure at all. Could one of the code wizards perhaps do a little research on this?

But back to pagrooves equipment failure things. I saw already some oxp that have similar things in it. But now an oxp can only award or remove equipment. Maybe we also need a function crippleEquipment that does the same as now when it gets destroyed in combat.

Anarchies1.0.oxp does this. All salvagec equipment items bought from a Salvage Gang have a built-in chance to fail. The player will get a screen message like: "Oh no! Your second-hand Fuel Scoops just broke!", and the equipment is marked as damaged. And this is easily done with the existing methods. It's just two lines of script:

Code: Select all

 "removeEquipment: EQ_FUEL_SCOOPS", 
 "awardEquipment: EQ_FUEL_SCOOPS_DAMAGED", 

This works analogous for all equipment items. Much more lines of script go into storing and keeping track which equipment items were actually bought cheap from a Salvage Gang, and of course calculating the failure chance.

[Eric Walch]

Anarchies1.0.oxp does this. All salvagec equipment items bought from a Salvage Gang have a built-in chance to fail. The player will get a screen message like: "Oh no! Your second-hand Fuel Scoops just broke!", and the equipment is marked as damaged. And this is easily done with the existing methods. It's just two lines of script:

I know, with "I've seen it somewhere" I had Anarchies in mind. I do some of this replacement stuff also in UPS. But is is not the same as a real command that does the "crippling" what would be much easier. Currently it is just new equipment with an other name and the script has to deal with it to remove it. And the "damaged" equipment has not the right colour for damaged things in this way. (or has it?)

EDIT: You are right, the ending "_DAMAGED" just lets it work as the real thing, just tested it.

On your maintenance question: I think it has only influence on the trade-in prize. And I also would like it to have a small influence on the failure chance.

[another_commander]

Lack of maintenance influences failure chance: Worn out ships have a higher chance of executing a misjump to witchspace than properly maintained ones. But I don't think that low maintenance causes any other specific equipment failure.

[pagroove]

I think the following failures and effect would be nice

Sort of malfuncitions:

Example Cobra MK1

- Main Drive Failures Effect

- Main drive wear 0 - 25 % Loss of speed
- Main drive wear 25%- 50% Loss of speed/ maneuverability
- Main drive 50 % -75 % All of above + injectors don't work
- Main drive above 75% Call a Tugship because you won't move

- Injector Dive Failure Reduced performance or won't work

- Hyperspace Core Can't hyperspace/
- Hyperspace 'processor' Misjump risk
- Hpyerspace Feul tank Reduced range> wasted feul

- Ship Wiring Fire risk/ loss of command

- Shield Core 0%- 50% reduced reloading of shield
- Shield Core 50% 75% less shield power, no reloading
- Shield Core 75% and more You're a sitting duck!

- Energy bank I and II From reduced reloading to no power
- Cargo bay atmosphere loss of 'living' caro (like slaves)
rotten food ( less value of cargo)
No protection against radioactivity so
the pilot could become ill

I could go on forever. But Some things would add a lot of depth and also some real difference between the little and larger ships. I could imagine that an Anaconda is a far more complex ship. So you must hire crew.

[Commander McLane]

EDIT: You are right, the ending "_DAMAGED" just lets it work as the real thing, just tested it.

I did that testing before . I actually got the idea when I browsed through a save-file of mine, where one item had been damaged in a battle. And guess what? It appeared in the save-file as EQ_item_DAMAGED. "Oh", I thought, "that's easy. Let's script some broken equipment." - Said and done.

So the two lines of code from above are really exactly what a crippleEquipment method would do. It's already there.

[pagroove]

Good to know that it's possbile