It's probably just me, but...

[Commander McLane]

Thanks for the help!

You're welcome!

As far as the battleship goes, what ai should I give it? I don't think I'm up to programming one yet (as my really basic error making confirms!)

Without any programming effort on your side there are three alternatives for you in the pre-existing role/AI-set.

It could be a hostile Battleship. Hostile to just anybody. That would practically make it behave like a pirate. And pirates have a pre-programmed AI that could be used for your hostile battleship as well. The only thing you would have to do is exchange the roles "trader" with "pirate". Don't insert an ai_type-entry at all, the engine will take care by itself that anything with roles "pirate" gets the correct AI.

Or it could be a Battleship of any force, probably a planetary government, probably an alien force? But not GalCop. Then it would not attack harmless traders, but bad guys only. This is very similar to what within the pre-existing roles/AIs a hunter does. So replace "trader" with "hunter" and you're there. Again, no AI needs to be specified, the engine chooses the correct AI all by itself.

Or it could be an addition to GalCop-force itself, a "big brother" of the Viper etc. Then you should replace the "trader" with "police", and again the engine will choose the corresponding AI. But in this case you should also add the lines

Code: Select all

     <key>scanClass</key>
     <string>CLASS_POLICE</string>

This will make it appear like the other police/military ships on the scanner. There is also CLASS_MILITARY, which could be a better choice. I'm not completely sure about the difference in behaviour between CLASS_POLICE and CLASS_MILITARY. I guess ships with CLASS_MILITARY will kill a wrongdoer, but not make him pay fines.

If you want to go for the GalCop-police/military option, it could be worthwhile to use the Behemoth's AI instead.

*****

All of the above said is true if you want to confine yourself with the standard roles in Oolite. So the engine would choose your Battleship randomly instead of other pirates/hunters/police when populating a system. But probably you want to create your ship for sure in specific circumstances. In that case you have to give it a unique, custom role (which can go together with one of the standard roles). Something like amen_brick_battleship. And then you would add it with that role. In this case you need to specify which AI shall be used, because the engine knows only for the standard roles which AI has to go with them. So you will have to add the ai_type-key. In the first case (pirate) you have to assign "pirateAI.plist" to that key. In the two latter cases (hunter or police/military) the AI is the same "route1patrolAI.plist". Or, as I mentioned above, probably the AI used by the Behemoth (look into that OXP).

One last remark on naming: You should give your ships unique entity-identifiers (like I gave the example with the unique role). And also all file-names should be unique. That is because two identical entries or two identical file-names will overwrite each other. "Yacht", "Battleship" or "Hospital" do not qualify as unique. Who knows, some other ship designer may wish to create a "Battleship" as well, and he would effectively delete yours (or you his). Not nice. So instead of "Battleship" your entity should be called "Amen-Brick-Battleship" or "YourOXPname-Battleship" or even "Brick-YourOXPname-Battleship". And the same goes for all the files involved: not "Battleship.dat", but "Amen-Brick-Battleship.dat"; not "Battleship.png", but "Amen-Brick-Battleship.png". You're free to decide how to name it all, whether you want to use your real-life name, your avatar, the name of the OXP you want the ships to be in, or anything else. But make it unique enough that nobody ever will use that exact name again. Something as general as "Yacht" does not qualify.

[Amen Brick]

good points, ta.

[Eric Walch]

I'm not completely sure about the difference in behaviour between CLASS_POLICE and CLASS_MILITARY. I guess ships with CLASS_MILITARY will kill a wrongdoer, but not make him pay fines.

Exactly right. Or to more precise: the message "OFFENCE_COMMITTED" is only send to ships with scanclass STATION or POLICE. And in that message the fines are given and a group-attack is issued.

[caracal]

Same goes for a max_flight_speed of 500 for the Biodome. The fastest existing fighters are not that fast.

Depends on what you mean by "existing". It's certainly true of standard player ships, but plenty of OXP ships go 500 or better, though I'm sure you know that. As I'm dabbling now in ship design, I am hoping you can clarify this.

[Lestradae]

Same goes for a max_flight_speed of 500 for the Biodome. The fastest existing fighters are not that fast.

Depends on what you mean by "existing". It's certainly true of standard player ships, but plenty of OXP ships go 500 or better, though I'm sure you know that. As I'm dabbling now in ship design, I am hoping you can clarify this.

The standard ships of the core game have a top speed of I think somewhere between 0.35 and 0.4 LS.

As Realistic Shipyards has everything, that is by far not the highest speed of ships in the game. But speed is a very valuable commodity - in the RS ship prices, a speed raise of 0.1 LS is treated as doubling a ship`s worth for a reason!

Example Speeds & pricing result (in relation to a Cobra MkIII with 0.35LS):

0.40 LS ... Asp MkII ... 1,5 times price
0.45 LS ... Krait Dragster ... double times price
0.50 LS ... Tiger MkI ... triple times price
0.555 LS ... Kestrel ... quadruple price
0.655 LS ... Pallas ... eight times price
0.755 LS ... Benulobiweed ships ... sixteen times as expensive

The fastest ship in the Ooniverse is the Interstellar Explorer (0.999 LS).

The thing is, a very fast ship can outmaneuver most other ships, can run away from most things, a ship that goes beyond 0.75 LS can outfly most missiles!

So, keep in mind what you want with a ship. Something beyond 0.40 LS will always be an exceptionally fast vessel, perhaps a racer; beyond 0.50 LS a crown jewel of the Ooniverse, a high-tech ship only built in a few shipyards per galactic sector; something of 0.70+ should be rare, have a reason, and have some kind of nemesis to keep it balanced: If you give the police a 0.50 LS ship, the pirates should have one, too.

As there are as many opinions on this topic on this board as users you should probably just do whatever you find cool to do, but an advice might perhaps be: Keep it balanced.

Cheers

L

[Commander McLane]

an advice might perhaps be: Keep it balanced.

Couldn't agree more.

And IMO the benchmark for "balance" are the built-in ships, not the uber-uber ships from various OXPs. To get the stats of the built-in ships is ridiculously easy for every OXPer: You just have to open the shipdata.plist in Oolite.app, and there they are. Or, if you like to have them in a nice form, the wiki can help. Or the reference sheet.

I'm not feeling too comfortable with creating more and more uber-ships, compared to which all of the original set are just harmless bugs. I think they should stay the normal, reasonable ships in the Ooniverse, and not become ridiculous, underpowered toys. But that's just my opinion (and one of the reasons why I choose the ship-OXPs that I install very, very carefully).

The other thing that gives you a hint how to balance is your ship and its purpose itself. I have deliberately chosen the example of the Biodome in my first post. I don't know what you all are imagining when you read Biodome. The picture in my head is something like the domes from the SF-movie Silent Running. And the last thing I would associate with these is an extraordinary speed. They should be drifting through space very slowly, like 0.1 LS or even less than that (which translates into a max_flight_speed of 100 or less).

[caracal]

an advice might perhaps be: Keep it balanced.

Couldn't agree more.

And IMO the benchmark for "balance" are the built-in ships, not the uber-uber ships from various OXPs. ... I'm not feeling too comfortable with creating more and more uber-ships, compared to which all of the original set are just harmless bugs.

What you say feels right to me. Balance is the only thing that makes the game playable and enjoyable.

On the other hand, I also enjoy having a very wide variety of ships show up on my scanner and in the shipyard display. (I often go window-shopping for ships even though I don't have a chance in hell of affording most of them. I just love drooling, I guess.) And if they were all just low-poly minor variants of the Cobra, I think it'd get pretty boring pretty quickly. I enjoy jumping into a system for the first time and finding out what sorts of stations are there, and what sort of skin the main station is wearing this time.

And earlier tonight, I was zooming up to a station and noticed that I could see (1) the main station itself, (2) a casino, (3) a buoy factory, (4) a shipyard, and (5) the YAH nav buoy, all of which were visible from quite a distance. For a large high-tech world, that seemed right and natural. Heck, there should be a dozen things crowded around such a point of interest, plus ships. And OXPs make that possible.

But of course, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Would a dozen or more objects make the game less playable? More interesting, or less? Would OXP authors have the energy and creativeness to make each one worth including in the ooniverse? Uber ships are fun (I assume, not being able to afford them so far), but each one that appears in a pirate suit makes it harder to live past your first three or four jumps. I'm swerving into philosophy here, and I think that should go in a different post.

I think they should stay the normal, reasonable ships in the Ooniverse, and not become ridiculous, underpowered toys. But that's just my opinion (and one of the reasons why I choose the ship-OXPs that I install very, very carefully)

Yes, I did that too, and then RS came along. I installed it mostly because (a) I agree with its pricing model, for the most part, and (b) I lust for variety. It was better than having eleventy-dozen ship OXPs installed, but it did bring some, um, unwanted baggage too. And I installed the Eagle MkII ship OXP at one time, but quickly de-installed it when I found out that it creates a crowd of 15 of them with murder on their minds at the Zaonce witchpoint, which is often the first jump a new Jameson makes. Very funny, ha ha.

There are also non-ship OXPs I have avoided so far, because I'm still quite green and don't think I am ready to handle them. Pirate Coves and Renegade Pirates, for example; I have quite enough trouble with the usual pirates, thankyouverymuch. And Missiles and Bombs--I'd love to try shooting some of those at somebody, but wouldn't much care to have them shot at me. And so on.

I have some ideas about how to address these issues, but so far they're very raw. Right now, just choosing your OXPs carefully is the best solution.

[Disembodied]

I have some ideas about how to address these issues, but so far they're very raw. Right now, just choosing your OXPs carefully is the best solution.

That's very good advice. It's the most flexible way to maintain balance, really -- let players bleed in new challenges as and when they feel up to it!

[Amen Brick]

Yeah. I saw that somethings were too fast or too powerful. I probably would have changed them anyway if I hadn't been sidetracked by getting it to work.

I set the Biodome back to 100 speed, so it glides serenely through system. I also set it as pilot less so no chance of it fighting back at all, though for a laugh I may put a heavily defended suprise one in the next version.

[caracal]

The standard ships of the core game have a top speed of I think somewhere between 0.35 and 0.4 LS.

Slowest ship in the standard game is the Orbital Shuttle, at 0.080LS, fastest is the Constrictor at 0.600. Slowest player ship is the Anaconda (0.140), fastest is the Asp (0.400). (The fastest "thing" in the standard set is a Q-mine, at 1.000, followed closely by missiles at .750. I was surprised to learn that the stats for a regular missile are identical to that of a hardhead--I'd thought the hardheads were supposed to be slower but more powerful. If they are, that fact is not in the ship data or AI.)

Of the eleven (!) standard player ships, the Cobra MkIII is the second-fastest. Somehow that seems wrong to me, and I note that others have said much the same elsewhere.

Example Speeds & pricing result (in relation to a Cobra MkIII with 0.35LS):

0.40 LS ... Asp MkII ... 1,5 times price
0.45 LS ... Krait Dragster ... double times price
0.50 LS ... Tiger MkI ... triple times price
0.555 LS ... Kestrel ... quadruple price
0.655 LS ... Pallas ... eight times price
0.755 LS ... Benulobiweed ships ... sixteen times as expensive

The fastest ship in the Ooniverse is the Interstellar Explorer (0.999 LS).

For a programmer, I'm remarkably lousy at math. Somebody help me out here--what's the formula for this? It looks like 2 to the N power (2^N in some notations): .450 counts as ".100 more", or one "step", and 2^1 is 2 (double the price). Also true for 2^2 (.550, two steps higher, quadruple the price), and so on. But .400 would be 2^0.5, which isn't 1.5 times the price, it's around 1.4 times the price, and .500 is 2^1.5, which isn't thrice the price but only 2.8 times (approximately). So what would I do to get f(x) for this calculation? I've written a little python app that implements the RS formula, but I guess my code for speed is wrong.

The thing is, a very fast ship can outmaneuver most other ships, can run away from most things, a ship that goes beyond 0.75 LS can outfly most missiles!

Oh, don't I know it. One of my commanders managed to earn enough to buy a Swift, and that was quite an experience, lemme tellya. I learned to point the nose slightly to the side of a station as I'm speeding in, because mass-locking doesn't slow the ship down in time to avoid slamming into it.

If you give the police a 0.50 LS ship, the pirates should have one, too.

Quite true. But if you install RS, you face pirates flying Kestrels, Fireflies, and as discussed before, the occasional Constitution. Meeting one of those as a new Jameson isn't just scary, it's almost invariably fatal. Police? Pah! There's never a cop around when you really need one. And even if there are cops around, and they deign to pitch in and help you, the poor wights can't shoot straight--I saw them miss a Navy Constitution at point-blank range more often than they hit it.

Keep it balanced.

Amen. But balance cuts both ways: New players need an environment that's safe enough to allow them to survive; advanced players need an environment that's challenging enough to keep them interested. One solution is to dumb down everything so that the fastest ship you'll face is an Asp, in which case a Cobra seems like a pretty hot machine. Another is to fling open the doors to every possible ship variation, and let the player scramble to find a niche. I'm still wrestling with the two options, and haven't decided how to resolve the conflict.

[DaddyHoggy]

Surely balance could/should be achieved through the system type - Corporate States are police infested - only the bravest pirate dares to tread type systems and Anarchies are blood-bath waiting to happen - with pirates feeding on pirates feeding on bounty hunters feeding on pirates feeding on traders who think they've got an Iron-ass...

If you're a newbie stick to CSs and Democracies as you move down the scale - the number of and types of pirate uberness goes up. (of course there should be chance encounters at either end - a pirate constitution at Diso on a raid, a Police Condor plus a swarm of vipers in an anarchy system having a mass clear-up/out)

Just my thoughts

[TGHC]

Hmm, very interesting thread, I wonder, would it be possible to use the commander's status to control the quantity of uber ships that populate a system, so that being Harmless for example you are less likely to meet up with the big boys than Dangerous. (If you're Deadly it's the baddies who need to be more careful )

[caracal]

Hmm, very interesting thread, I wonder, would it be possible to use the commander's status to control the quantity of uber ships that populate a system, so that being Harmless for example you are less likely to meet up with the big boys than Dangerous. (If you're Deadly it's the baddies who need to be more careful )

Yes! That's exactly the sort of thing I'd like to see. Maybe not the whole solution, but it's in the right direction.

When, for example, I'm looking for cargo contracts, after a while I get to where if it's not a five-digit payout, I don't even bother. And I'd assume that a high-end pirate would be wanting high-end prey to make it worth lighting their engines. The only thing they'd want a greenie for would be target practice, and then only if they were bored.

Then again, if the commander attacks, anybody will fight back. When a lone pirate in a Cobra MkI jumps me, I go ahead and waste him, but only because he won't leave me alone otherwise. Well, okay, and because it's one more kill added to my still-low count.

And in my admittedly limited experience, a system's government matters far less than the population and tech level. Back in 1.65, oolite would print out a message when you jumped into a system telling how many pirates it had generated. Those counts were reliably lower for most anarchies and feudals (which are normally low-tech low-pop systems) than for the "safe" democracies and corporates. The theory is that the "safe" systems have more police, but from what I've seen, that's just window dressing; I guess if you steamed away from the planet as soon as you witched in, and just sat for 10 minutes, the extra police might have time to clean up the bad guys. But if you just jump in and start slogging down the lanes, you'll encounter more pirates (and yes, more traders, but who cares) in a TL12 democracy than in a TL1 anarchy.

But I are n00b, so don't mind me.

[Cmdr. Maegil]

IIRC this phenomena had already been discussed, and someone suggested to deploy more police on several points along the lanes...

In any case, I managed to download Realistic Shipyards, and am now on the process of "plane blading it to fit my computer" (@L: ). I might as well put it on the Wiki when I'm done as my personal compact veteran's selection; then I could also do a young Jameson's version.

[Lestradae]

might as well put it on the Wiki when I'm done as my personal compact veteran's selection; then I could also do a young Jameson's version

I can see it now:

Realistic Shipyards: Blood & Gore ... Realistic Shipyards: Green behind the Ears



By all means, do so!