Galactic Navy OXP and weapons trading

[Screet]

Hi,

I've found out that the initially very expensive service comes down to a really nice price finally, as well as free refueling. I like that....however I've made a few observations:

- the bonus increases in 25% steps...I guess it would be nice to have more steps in between
- with 75% off it's easy to make a LOT of money in few minutes by trading pylon mounted weapons from the navy station to the systems station.

The latter one is not a bug directly and there are other places were eq and maintenance is that cheap, too. I guess the real solution would be if sold eq always returns only a percentage of the buying price? Commanders would have to be very careful about unmounting and re-equipping the pylons though, as they would lose a lot of money if they just want a slightly different setup.

Conerning the amount of money required to invest in order to get such a bonus...well, it can pay off within minutes if weapons trading is being done, but it's a very good investment into the future, if it's not abused but used to get high-level maintenance for expensive ships

Furthermore I had on several occasions the same name appear in the newsbrief twice, once for fleet-action reports and then for the little report below. Strange coincidence?

Screet

[matt634]

Thanks Screet,

It's good to know people notice all the little things I tried to incorporate. (Have you seen a Med-Ship rescue an escape pod yet?)

The 75% is really only 25% because the Navy charges you double to start. I tried to strike a decent balance. I've fixed the name repeat for version V. It should be up by New Years, but I still need to do some more play testing before the update, as I plan on this being the definitive release.

[Screet]

(Have you seen a Med-Ship rescue an escape pod yet?)

I only recently installed some more packages, which obviously included the med-ship, as I never saw one of these before. Only got to see it when I dropped several cargo crates around a station in the hope that they would increase the blast and thus probably take out the station, but it did not work. However, right after the initial blast, a med ship did launch...didn't see it rescue anything, but it was a really nice sight!

The 75% is really only 25% because the Navy charges you double to start. I tried to strike a decent balance. I've fixed the name repeat for version V. It should be up by New Years, but I still need to do some more play testing before the update, as I plan on this being the definitive release.

Yes, initially I thought noone would give those navy engineers something to do because they are too costly...but since the cost did drop, they are my first choice for maintenance and re-equipping after using the e-bomb. However, at 75% it's 450 credits for an e-bomb, thus it is 50% cheaper than on a normal station! That's the reason why cascade missile weapons trading did worry me.

If you need someone to test a little bit...you've got a volunteer. Seems I am spared from insomnia problems this night, but tomorrow I'll still have some time for testing...since my burnout there's not much more I can do than playing games anyway. I'm quite happy that a friend did send me the link to oolite...my most favorite game of the old days with fresh graphics and so much more in it that it's not boring anymore after being deadly for such a long time...

Screet

[Commander McLane]

I think the issue just gets worse, because there have been a lot of very expensive pylon-mounted items added recently. Which is not matt's fault, of course.

And I also have to take some of the blame, as it wasn't possible to re-sell non-pylon-mounted items before sell_equipment.oxp. And I didn't have the possibility of making money with this in mind. Oh, well, it's out of the box now; it can't be undone.

The only thing I can do is to appeal to all you honest commanders to not take advantage of the opportunities opened here. (Too late, obviously. )

[another_commander]

I wouldn't worry too much about it. People who would use this to up their credit balance knowing that it is really cheating are the same people who would simply edit their savefile and add a few zeroes extra at the appropriate place.

[Screet]

I think the issue just gets worse, because there have been a lot of very expensive pylon-mounted items added recently. Which is not matt's fault, of course.

And I also have to take some of the blame, as it wasn't possible to re-sell non-pylon-mounted items before sell_equipment.oxp. And I didn't have the possibility of making money with this in mind. Oh, well, it's out of the box now; it can't be undone.

The only thing I can do is to appeal to all you honest commanders to not take advantage of the opportunities opened here. (Too late, obviously. )

It can be undone, and I guess it's easy: If the pylon-eq reselling is deliering only 50 (or maybe 60) percent of the normal price, this exploit would be gone. Concerning the oxp to sell anything it is apparently useless to try making money that way already, as there is such a drop in value!

Screet

[Screet]

Hello and happy new year!

I guess you are quite busy, as you said there's a new release upcoming...however, it seems there's noone aside from you who could answer me a question concerning that addon.

I asked in the forum if I possibly broke something or if I was looking in the wrong place - I went to G6 for the spec ops stuff, but before I got that, they offered me another reserve duty mission which I happily accepted. Afterwards, I was offered the mission to find the renegade admiral and accepted, too. Both were displayed on F5 and galactic chart displayed both target planets.

I first went for the reserve mission and then towards the other marked planet, however, when I arrived, the mark was gone. The mission page says I should find and return that admiral, but I could not find him...thus I am now doing some more reserve missions, but it would be really nice to be able to complete that other one, too.

Anyway, if you have use for someone with much time for testing and who obviously has a strange ability to find bugs that rarely emerge...I'd happily give your updated version a try and report what I find, otherwise I'll just wait until that update is available. Great job anyway! I really love doing those navy missions, especially for the fleet battles.

Someone brought the question up wether the cougar from the game is that strange ship which one only encounters once in the c64 elite version...and I could confirm that it looks similar and has been named cougar in some article about elite, that was published many years after the game. The person asked if that could/should make it into a mission, and I think that's a good idea...and could provide a proper source for the scanner filter, like having to hunt down the current (or better: a proper model of the cougar, together with it's incredible original lasers, which delivered instant energy low on C64) version of the cougar equipped with a scanner/missile jammer (MASC), have the player return some pod with a (damaged) device to the navy for analysis and then probably be equipped with a filter to hunt down some more of those ships...which could fit in very well as another navy special operation. Maybe it's an idea for a future release? The only inconsistency I can see is that a few ships already use MASC while the plot I wrote would deliver a possible source for the navy version of MASC and filter. I would not give the player MASC yet, as it's too powerful. It protects 100% from missiles without requiring activation or having energy consumption at the moment, while it has a little bit different behaviour for NPC ships.

Please forgive me if you're now reading this after already reading it in the forum without proper time to reply...I just wanted to ensure that I reach you in case that you might have missed those postings.

Kind regards,
Arne aka Screet

[Lestradae]

Hi Screet!

The only inconsistency I can see is that a few ships already use MASC while the plot I wrote would deliver a possible source for the navy version of MASC and filter. I would not give the player MASC yet, as it's too powerful. It protects 100% from missiles without requiring activation or having energy consumption at the moment, while it has a little bit different behaviour for NPC ships.

Just mentioning that OSE (the RS-successor) will make MASC and filter accessible. It won't be easy, it won't be cheap, and it won't be unbalancing in the context of OSE.

Because in that context you can have much bigger fighter or even carrier vessels than in the "normal" game firing with chain missile launchers at you, and having a jammer really helps. Still, some of those (a few, so most for you with your "luck" at strange probability distributions ) are going to have the countermeasure for that, too, again disabling the advantage.

Don't want to break anyone else's oxps and/or oxp ideas with mine, actively working to not do so, also ready to cooperate on oxp compatibility, but I'm going to use this as a feature, and if anyone creates an oxp that demands those items to be exclusively available through some mission or somesuch, it won't be compatible with future OSE.

Just saying. </thread hijack>

Greetings

L

[Screet]

Don't want to break anyone else's oxps and/or oxp ideas with mine, actively working to not do so, also ready to cooperate on oxp compatibility, but I'm going to use this as a feature, and if anyone creates an oxp that demands those items to be exclusively available through some mission or somesuch, it won't be compatible with future OSE.

Seems I accidentally hit the wrong button - I wanted to write that as a PM to matt634, and it seems this was a good accident, since you've been able to see and comment that suggestion, thus reducing the chance of creating a problem for the future

Screet

[Lestradae]

Yeah, if your button-clicking leads to us being able to avoid potential oxp clashes that would be fortunate.

I will answer you soon - there are a few topics where OSE and Galactic Navy will intersect, and even better than not clashing, it would make sense if they enhance each other if installed in tandem - both oxp's seem to be rather popular if download statistics have anything to say about it

Your PN-idea is not bad, more via that later

Cheers

L