Realistic Shipyards Development Thread :)

[Cmdr. Maegil]

I agree about some ships not being available, id doesn't make sense to have a Thargoid warship on the open market, or certain other 'special' ships.

But even in the real world no reserve-navy-captain is allowed to purchase his own, private cruiser, destroyer, dreadnaught or carrier. And Maegil, whom we know to be on a boat, for sure was never offered to buy a military ship. It makes no sense, and it makes no sense in Oolite's world either. Therefore, to be frank, I think it's a big cheat to make military ships available.

It's not so, sorry. In many countries you can buy some decommissioned, disarmed military vehicles, as jeeps or trucks, sometimes even armour...

As for ships, see this link.

[LittleBear]

Although in RL Governments tend to keep the best stuff for their Navys / Air Force, I think you have to regard GalCop as having a more relaxed attitude. You can in RL buy Migs and Phantoms (without weapons) legally, although no RL Govenment is likley to let you have an armed F-14 or EuroFighter. But in Elite we all have the Cobra Mk III and can buy missiles etc. True the Cobra does not quite have the performance of a Navy Asp buts its not far off. The Cobra and Asp are on a par in a way a civillian jet isn't on a par with a military one. And in RL the Cops don't have the best stuff. Traffic Officers are not crusing round in Super Cars, they generally get a Ford Escort! I'd say that any Military stuff should be at the lower end, but the GalCop has a very much more trusting view of its citizens than any RL Government.

[Selezen]

You should also remember that GalCop and the Oolite universe are at war with the Thargoids, and thus the civilian population will have more leeway to be able to arm themselves to be able to aid in the fight.

It's that concept that allows us as players to forgive the fact that ordinary people are encouraged to arm themselves and buy laser weaponry and missiles, as well as purchase and use military or ex-military equipment.

Man, I'm starting to feel like a fluffmeister...*





* that's Master of Fluff (extended fictional background information) for those who don't know such...

[LittleBear]

I do like that explanation. Rather like the right to bear arms in the US! Orginally, the Citizens needed to be armed to fight the war against the British. After the war everybody had got into the habit of carrying arms and the justification became 'home defence.' You couldn't give up your gun, as then you'd be at the mercy of your armed neighbours. By the time of FFE the Thargoid Threat has gone, but everyone is still armed against the threat posed by fellow citizens. Even at the time of Elite / Oolite, its more common to have to use your ship's defences against a fellow human, frog, birdoid etc than a Thargoid!

[Selezen]

yeah, these things happen. Due to the increased availability everyone (even the naughty people) got hold of guns n stuff...

[Captain Hesperus]

Think of it more of a futuristic 'Dark Ages'. Any traveller who wanted to get from A to B without being way-laid and having their throat slit somewhere near C would have gone armed (and if they could afford it, armoured). This is why you see Trader ships with escorts, why advanced weapory and combat systems are openly and readily available. There are a lot of worlds and not enough Vipers to patrol them. Thus the onus of defence falls upon the individual pilot.

Captain Hesperus

[TGHC]

I also tend towards a restricted list of ship availability, it makes more sense from the game point of view IMO.
I suppose a special mission OXP which requires you to capture/purloin a normally unavailable ship would be quite cool though. eg you have to enter the Thargoid battle headquarters to steal warplans on an encrypted chip, and the only way to get in undetected is in a Thargoid battleship!

[Lestradae]

Hye @all,

I have opened a new thread about the new alternate, "strict" version for those who like the basic idea of the Realistic Shipyards but don`t want additional content or too "special" ships in their game.

@Commander McLane: This is going to be the version that you might want to download! Oh, and PS: I did not make any ships buyable with my oxp that hadn`t been made buyable by another oxp before! The only additional ships I included to be bought are five of the six super-veteran ships. And the guy who created the Deep Space Dredger did give his sanctus to it being used as a player ship for the shipyards ...

@TGHC: If someone scripts a mission which makes the stolen Thargoid Warship available for high-ranking, very rich players I would be very interested to integrate this into a future full version of the Realistic Shipyards - it would be much more atmospheric than just having it appear from a certain point on (with a little story inside). But my skills are way not enough for that.

@Captain Hesperus: "Futuristic Dark Ages" - this would exactly be my in-game explanation for the super ships, the military ships, the police ships, the weapons etc. In a universe filled with anarchies, feudal systems, dictatorships, corporation systems & the like and a loose network of navys and polices and federations of all kinds ANYTHING that exists will be buyable. So, I personally do not see anything unfitting in any of the ships I make available for players. Who disagrees, will have the strict version in the future.

@LittleBear: "no RL Govenment is likley to let you have an armed F-14 or EuroFighter" - RL Governments even BUY this stuff (i.e., EuroFighter) from PRIVATE firms who can do anything with this ... perhaps not officially, but if, say, Mr. Branson wants a private EuroFighter, he will get one. Even 2008, RL.

@Cmdr. Maegil: Concerning stoning still existing in RL: Better lets not go there, or I`ll start the next extreme rant in the Outworld section ... Einstein once said, that there were only two truly infinite things, the universe and human stupidity; but that he wasn`t absolutely sure about the universe.

Greetings

Lestradae

[Commander McLane]

@ Lestradae: It may interest you that I'm writing a mission around a recovered Thargoid Warship right now. I'm about 60% through with it. In the end the player will get the chance to try and fly it. (Although one of the major problems yet to solve is the impossibility of allowing him to switch back to his old ship afterwards. I would really love an elegant solution for giving the player a specific ship (some kind of awardShip:) in a script.)

The whole mission is sort of a sequel to the built-in Constrictor- and Thargoid Plans-missions. You will also meet some characters from these again.

And it's a mission for an experienced ELITE pilot (7000+ kills). I figured "Deadly" is not enough to get through it.

[Lestradae]

It may interest you that I'm writing a mission around a recovered Thargoid Warship right now.

Yes, it does.

I'm about 60% through with it. In the end the player will get the chance to try and fly it. (Although one of the major problems yet to solve is the impossibility of allowing him to switch back to his old ship afterwards.

Actually, as I suggested already, if you were OK with integrating such a mission into the Realistic Shipyards versions, I would take the "just buyable" Thargoid ship back out again - a mission with which you can actually "win" one is far more interesting than "just getting it to buy from the Navy".

I am not so sure about the game balance elements if either you just get the ship awarded without paying for it (as this would be an award worth millions of credits in this specific case.). What about making it buyable for the player as a consequence of such a mission? Then you would only have to set the conditions to kills>7000 and mission_something done both.

Also, if it becomes available to the player AFTER completing that ELITE mission as buyable you would not have to find a way to make the ship "unsellable" afterwards. It might be given back for another ship and vice versa to a later point in time. I don`t know, but never ever being able to fly another ship, I find that a little extreme. Just saying.

By the way, I like the idea of a mission for ELITE commanders very much. I always thought after reaching ELITE on the C64 that it would have been cool if something new came along just now. Surely the Federation of Elite pilots does not sit around in a lounge somewhere wearing their golden badges and talking of the old days? Surely they are getting offered the most extreme, undoable mission impossibles the Ooniverse has to offer? So, good idea, that, imo.

I would really love an elegant solution for giving the player a specific ship (some kind of awardShip:) in a script.)

Yeah, well, see above. What do you think? Buyable after mission completion, solution or no solution for you?

The whole mission is sort of a sequel to the built-in Constrictor- and Thargoid Plans-missions. You will also meet some characters from these again.

Quite fitting, methinks.

And it's a mission for an experienced ELITE pilot (7000+ kills). I figured "Deadly" is not enough to get through it.

As I said above, good idea. Perhaps the Federation of Elite pilots is also involved?

Hm, wasn`t there some secret group called INRA in the later Elites, that secretly worked for all sides at once? Perhaps it`s them forming already? Just some ideas thrown around here.

What do you think?

Greetings

Lestradae

[Cmdr James]

I think it would be better to keep things apart. If I want to fly a mission, then it seems strange to change the price of all the ships at the same time.

2 separate OXPs let me choose which to have.

[ovvldc]

By the way, I like the idea of a mission for ELITE commanders very much. I always thought after reaching ELITE on the C64 that it would have been cool if something new came along just now. Surely the Federation of Elite pilots does not sit around in a lounge somewhere wearing their golden badges and talking of the old days? Surely they are getting offered the most extreme, undoable mission impossibles the Ooniverse has to offer? So, good idea, that, imo.

"Before enlightenment; chop wood, fetch water.
After enlightenment; chop wood, fetch water."

[Commander McLane]

I think we can go either way. It can be integrated, I have no problem with that. Or, as Cmdr James suggested, can stay an OXP of its own, for those who don't want to install Realistic Shipyards at all. In this latter case you, Lestradae, could change the condition on which it is buyable to just check whether the mission is completed. The effect would be that anybody who ever has completed the mission would always be able to buy the ship.

Let me explain a little bit more what I mean with giving the player a specific ship. My basic idea for the mission is that the Navy has recovered a crashed Thargoid Warship. The player gets involved, because the Thargoids want it back (of course!), and the Navy needs every help it can get in order to prevent them from doing so.

But there is another issue: After all it's all alien technology in the recovered ship. So they need the most experienced pilot they can get (hence the condition to be a veteran ELITE pilot), in order to testfly it.

In order to script this, the most elegant way would be to be able to award a Thargoid Warship to a player, who has to do some test flights, involving some combat, hyperjumps, etc. After completing the tests he just should get back his old ship, complete with all the equipment he had (so all of that would have to be stored somehow (it's basically the same as the "I want a garage"-issue)). Up to this point no financial transactions would be involved. The player should neither gain nor lose money for exchanging the ships.

Independent from this, after the successful test flights the Navy could give out a contract to some shipyard, to produce copies of the Thargoid Warship. Not with the complete alien technology, but with some substitutes. So the final buyable version would be slightly different from the Thargoid version: no thargoid laser, ordinary missiles instead of Thargons, an ordinary propulsion system, resulting in slower top-speed, slower pitch- and dive-rates, and a visible exhaust plume like in any other GalCop-ship. And it wouldn't appear as a Thargoid ship on the scanner, of course.

So much for my ideas. I still have to see how I'll be able to realise them. As for the time being we cannot award ships to the player (the only possible way is to hack the save-file, which is of course a No Go for an OXP that is addressed to the general public), I think I will try to make the test ship available on the shipyard for a price that allows the player to buy his old ship back afterwards without having made a considerable loss or gain. One problem is that I can't force him to sell the ship and buy his old one back. Another problem is, how to make sure that his old ship will be available again on the shipyard.

Time will tell. For the time being: Anyone interested in creating a .png showing a Thargoid attack on a city (something like a sreenshot from "War of the Worlds" with Thargoids instead of Martians), as background picture for a mission screen?

[Cmdr. Maegil]

In Jades.Org there used to be such an image, a screenshot of a Thargoid warship overflying a city on FFE... but it seems another one bit the dust!

[Lestradae]

Is it just me, or would "Thargoid Mission: Impossible" be a fitting classification for this mission?

I think we can go either way. It can be integrated, I have no problem with that. Or, as Cmdr James suggested, can stay an OXP of its own, for those who don't want to install Realistic Shipyards at all. In this latter case you, Lestradae, could change the condition on which it is buyable to just check whether the mission is completed. The effect would be that anybody who ever has completed the mission would always be able to buy the ship.

I think the best way to do it then would be as both seperate and integrated into the (both, strict and full) Shipyards OXPs, with me setting the conditions in the Realistic Shipyards for this ship buyable to kills>7000 and thargoid mission imp. = completed, to leave the choice if they want one of the OXPs or both with the players.

So, someone who wants both already has it integrated in their version of the Realistic Shipyards (and you would be one of those figured very prominently as contributers!), and someone who wants the mission and nothing else takes your OXP exclusively. That`s probably the most viable solution for all possible tastes combined imo.

But there is another issue: After all it's all alien technology in the recovered ship. So they need the most experienced pilot they can get (hence the condition to be a veteran ELITE pilot), in order to testfly it.

No problem also, just have to adjust upwards the "buyable from kills such-and-such-on" in the Realistic Shipyards also, accordingly.

In order to script this, the most elegant way would be to be able to award a Thargoid Warship to a player, who has to do some test flights, involving some combat, hyperjumps, etc. After completing the tests he just should get back his old ship, complete with all the equipment he had (so all of that would have to be stored somehow (it's basically the same as the "I want a garage"-issue)). Up to this point no financial transactions would be involved. The player should neither gain nor lose money for exchanging the ships.

The garage problem, as far as I understand that`s an unsolved one (yet). I would also like a garage for my OXP. It would actually make sense that (for an upkeep parking lot fee) it would be possible to own more than one ship and change ship at diverse locations. If ever a garage is developed for Oolite, I would definitely want that in my OXP.

Is it so difficult to get something like award:ship or so into the core game engine? I have no idea - scripting is not something I`m good about. Perhaps it`s time such a function became available.

Independent from this, after the successful test flights the Navy could give out a contract to some shipyard, to produce copies of the Thargoid Warship. Not with the complete alien technology, but with some substitutes. So the final buyable version would be slightly different from the Thargoid version: no thargoid laser, ordinary missiles instead of Thargons, an ordinary propulsion system, resulting in slower top-speed, slower pitch- and dive-rates, and a visible exhaust plume like in any other GalCop-ship. And it wouldn't appear as a Thargoid ship on the scanner, of course.

Hm, I would suggest not lowering it too much, or the whole point of winning such a ship could be lost. I mean, we are talking an experience ELITE veteran here!

I would also have to re-adjust the pricing of a ship that is notably different from the original. No problem there, anyways.

If we take into account (if! ) the military version of the Imperial Courier (the old, original, overpowered one) that recently came out of the preposterous dictatorship (they call themselves "Empire", can you believe it?) at the unreachable TL 16 system Facece is nearly as good as a Thargoid Warship in all aspects. (Unreachable, except with the rumoured "Class 2 Hyperdrives" that those "Imperials" claim to have developed there. "Class 2", what`s that supposed to mean? It`s all humbug, that`s obvious!)

In earnest, the award of being able to buy that salvaged ship should be immense in comparison to what is already available to such a veteran imo, just saying.

So much for my ideas. I still have to see how I'll be able to realise them.

Looking forward to it!

Greetings

Lestradae