I missed the original Elite, but stumbled upon Frontier back in the early to mid 90s and fell in love with it, wasting ... er, spending many pleasurable hours increasing my wealth and the strength of my ship. I don't want to reignite the almost-flaming debate about the relative merits of the original Elite family versus Frontier versus First Encounters, but I do see merits in both Frontier and First Encounters, as well as in things like VegaStrike and Orbiter and so on. Nevertheless, it's in oolite where I spend my gaming time. I can't see trying to bend what is already a successful and harmonious program into something it's not.
So, fantastic work from all you developers and OXP writers! This thing is gorgeous, surprising, absorbing, and getting better with every passing day.
I have lots more to say, but wanted to keep this first post shorter than a novel. After starting with 1.65 and seeing some weirdness (most of which have already been discussed at length on this forum), I finally bit the bullet and set up my Ubuntu Linux system to build 1.71.2 from source. Saw a huge improvement in the visuals, of course, had access to many more interesting OXPs, and most of the oddities were gone.
But they were replaced by a new set of oddities, things like asteroids and random bits of space bars (subentities, I think they are?) flying around as independent ships, and huge asteroids mugging the main station, presumably trying to dock. (Just about the funniest visual I've seen so far; looked like two hippos mating.) I de-installed most of the OXPs I had, and switched to the svn version of the source, and those went away too. Now, I have some questions that I hope you guys can answer for me:
- Making an honest living. I am running four separate commanders, picking one as the mood strikes me. One is a trader exclusively, one wants to be a miner, one is an unrepentant scoundrel who shoots pretty much everything that moves and many things that don't, and one (my first) is sort of free-form, but has settled mostly into being a "paladin", a good guy who always defends traders, is never happy with Offender status even for a minute, has come to terms with the assassinations in Random Hits (they were bad guys anyway, so killing them is a public service, no?), and has made it to Dangerous as a result. I guess he's mostly what you'd call a bounty hunter. (And the fact that I can choose those four separate careers is part of what makes oolite so great.)
The question is, how does one make a huge pile of money honestly (and quickly), besides trading? I've run the numbers; with that commander's current Seymour, he makes an average of 5000Cr on each jump. A mid-level random hit, which may be unsavory but is still legal, may net you 5000Cr too, but you typically have to jump 3-6 systems away to fulfill it, and beat hell out of a hive of hostile ships to earn it. Third-level hits go higher, but the cost-benefit ratio is still pretty low. Even the Constrictor mission pays only 5000, though one cannot scoff at the 256 kills you get. But raising money and raising one's rating are, in my mind, two separate activities, since I haven't yet found a really good way to increase both at the same time, with the same ship. (I admit, I suck at fighting, which may have something to do with it. And I can't yet afford a Falcon or a military Courier. Not sure I'd feel right using a Falcon in oolite anyway, high pricetag or no. Even a Courier is stretching it a bit, but I have a fondness for them since one was used as the opening animation in Frontier. Plus, who can resist spinny nacelles?!)
So am I missing a bet somewhere? Whacking innocent Pythons and Boas in the space lanes is very lucrative, but really not so much what you'd call legal. And so far, I've found precious few large-cargo pirate ships. Even when I do, seldom do more than 10-20 tons of cargo survive the ship's demise. Yes, it's pure profit, but it's small profit. Is there some way to make really big bucks aside from repetetive runs back and forth between <insert favorite poor agro system> and <fave rich indo>? Because while that's profitable, the most profitable thing I've found so far in the game, it's also rather, um, tedious. Jump in, jumptrick around the lanes, injector past the inevitable preacher/rickshaw/SAR, dock, sell, buy, jump out. Rinse, repeat. Sure, earning money the old fashioned way is hard, but if I wanted repetetive and boring, I'd switch off the computer and go to work. (Which, come to think, I really should do soon.)
A fast trader with a big belly, like a (civilian) ImpCourier or Sled, minimizes the wall-clock time for the above, but it gets predictable fast; I can tell within 5-10 minutes how long it'll take to earn X amount of dollars. And the more, um, active ways of making cash tend to be less lucrative. So steer a newbie right, please? Or is it intended that one spend weeks in the cockpit to make a few creds? I guess I'm more interested in the credit per wall-clock hour ratio; if I had a military Courier or a Boa Cruiser or something, I'd feel better about tangling with pirates while still trading, but not being able to afford those yet is sorta the point. - Offensive behavior. Okay, I've come to terms with the fact that if a ship gets a mayday off before you whack it, even if it's an Offender or Fugitive, and the cops hear it, you instantly become an Offender yourself. Broke me of my habit of hanging in space beside the station with my scanner ready to check every ship that exited, waiting for bad guys so I could jump them. (Yes, I'm basically a chicken, and did I mention I'm a lousy shot?) But the other day I was involved (involuntarily, I swear) in a furball just outside the station entrance, but well within the aegis, where the cops themselves were firing on a fugitive. Wanting the bounty, I let them soften him up a bit and then gave him a laser ticket to the hereafter. And I got a nice warm fuzzy when I got the "Thanks for the assistance" message.
But then, as soon as the first miscreant had met Lord Braben, after which I verified that I was still Clean, the cop turned to firing on another fuge who was lurking like an idiot waiting to dock. (What's with those guys, anyway? Especially that SuperCobra fugitive ... I'd still probably be Poor if not for those here-come-kill-me morons.) I let the cop get in a few hits, then moved in and demonstrated why military lasers are so popular. After that went to its inevitable conclusion, I was an Offender! WTF?! I'm sure I didn't hit the cop or the station or any other innocent bystanders--I was firing away from the station, no other ships near the target, and the cop was off getting ready for another pass at the guy when I exploded him.
So can somebody clue me in to the rules here? I guess it's less of an offense when you snuff a bad guy near a Feudal or Anarchy station, but those Communists and Corporate types are soooo touchy. But why is it an offense at all? Couldn't I clear up the confusion in twenty minutes back at headquarters just by showing them the recording from my gun camera? Yet this Offender status, mild though it might be, sticks with me for at least three more jumps, if I don't decide to chuck it immediately, Shift-D, and reload to get back to clean. (If only real life had a Reload command!)
As an aside, a vague notional feature request: When I become an Offender, or in my bad-boy persona, a Fugitive, it'd be nice if there was a simple notation that told me why I was. Like "public explosions" or "firing on citizens" or "slave trading" ... doesn't have to be long and complex, but the first and/or last and/or most serious thing that changed my status would be nice to know. The thing that always runs through my mind in such cases is "Why???" Would be nice to be able to avoid doing that in the future. If I want to Be Good.
- The Lost Boys. Sometimes I'll knock the stuffing out of a bunch of ne'er-do-wells, and from the wreckage will emerge a very pissed-off BoyRacer. He shows up white on my scanner, so I don't even know he's there until I start getting laser hits while I'm scooping goodies. And those things are darned hard to hit! Yet their weapons pack just as much of a punch as the biggest ship's do.
And I can't swear to it, but I think a cop showed up as I was tangling with one of these mysterious strangers, saw me kill him, and wrote me up as an Offender. Nowadays I just run away from them whenever they appear; not worth the trouble. Since they're white, I can just toroid away from them, but they do make the rest of the scoopables a loss.
So is that some form of escape pod? A bug? A bad OXP interaction? My guess is the first one, but thought I'd ask. I'm just not used to white blips being armed with lasers. And angry. - Stick, no joy. I like the game so well that I bought a joystick just to use with it. It's my third or fourth over the years, but my new comp doesn't have an old style "game port", and everything is USB nowadays, so I bought a cheapie Logitech stick. Works fine in oolite except:
- I had some trouble with the dead zone at first. I'd take my hand off the stick but it kept rolling or pitching (or both) a little even so, until I'd jerk it around enough to make it quit. And when I tried using the Linux utilities to adjust the dead zone, the stick stopped working in oolite until I unloaded and reloaded the joystick driver (kernel module). I understand that Linux is the ugly stepchild of the PC world, but eh, thankfully the deadzone issue went away. Dunno if it was the upgrade to the svn oolite, or I've just broken it in, or what.
- I cannot use the stick for yaw control, no matter what I try. It's just a two-axis cheapie, but when I set the axes from "pitch/roll" to "pitch/yaw", they both stop working.
- This is the most frustrating: When I set one of the joystick buttons to "Toggle precision maneuvering", pressing that button sends the ship into a constant full-speed yaw until I press that button again, or use one of the keyboard yaw controls. This is new to 1.71 and later; in 1.65 the "precision toggle" worked great. But of course there was no yaw in 1.65. I miss the "precision" setting, but I don't want to lose the whole game's yaw capability just to get it fixed. My buddies at the Horny Lobster Bar & Grill would all laugh at me if I pranged my ship while trying to dock. An acceptable workaround would be to have a keyboard control that toggled the precision; if there is one, please tell me.
- Darned alien drivers! What's with the NPCs being unable to steer their bloody ships? I've learned to check the position of the main station's nav buoy immediately upon witching into a system, because three times out of five some idiot will ram into it and explode himself and the buoy before I even get to the station. Sometimes I even find the station by seeing the flash. Not only that, I've seen numerous escorts ram each other and/or their mothership immediately upon exiting the station, seen Dreadnoughts and Condors fly out of the station (like a Beagle giving birth to a Doberman), turn majestically, and ram right into the side of the same station, seen fugitives flee toward the planet and burn up in the atmosphere, and so on.
Mostly it's just some idiot who leaves the station, flies straight and true, and smack, buoy sandwich. Are they supposed to do that? Again, could it be an OXP conflict, bad AI, whatever? I'll gladly provide installation details, but this post is already longer than many phone books, so only if asked. (BTW, I do have Buoy Repair installed, and aside from those breathtaking stations, I've seen no evidence that buoys actually get repaired. That's probably a time issue--I'm seldom in a system very long when in trading mode.)
I bet all the Jamesons fall for that one), Local Hero, stomped the Wolf for Taranis, and am looking forward to the missions of the future, as soon as I feel I've squeezed galaxy 1 dry.Oh, I guess I do have one more question, this one for Eric or anybody who might know: I was a regular UPS courier until I installed the svn version of oolite. The version check for that OXP says "1.71.99" is its max, but the svn version thinks it's 1.72, so now I have Entizadi permanently marked with a red X. Any idea whether it'll actually work in this pre-1.72, or was the 1.71.99 max in there for a reason? No harm, just a bit distracting.
Hats off to all you contributors, and take pity on a new Jameson who has delusions of grandeur!
Maybe later than my second post!
