How long (game-time) have you played Oolite?

[Commander McLane]

There are a lot of polls these days on the forum, and I want to add one more.

I would like to know how much game-time your langest living commander has spent in the Ooniverse. I'm not interested in your time behind your keyboard, but to which time the game-clock has advanced. The game-clock is this little device on your HUD:

and I am only interested in the days part of it (the number in front of the first ':', as marked in the screenshot.

For all new commanders the clock starts at 2084004. My own commander is now at 2084995, as you can see in the screenshot above.

What about you?


EDIT: Can an administrator change the last option to '2085464 and above'? The board messed up here. Thanks!

[Lestradae]

So, my ingame date is now ...

2085646

... exactly.

So how much time did my Commander spend ingame, then? I guess it will be years as its in the uppermost bond of your poll.

Why is it not possible to have a real date, with year, month and day? Shouldn't be that difficult, or is it?

[another_commander]

Because in the year three thousand whatever we will be using the GalCop Universal Standard Time Reference, which has nothing to do with months and dates as we know them today.

That's why.

Oh yeah, plus it's easier to leave it as it is, rather than recode it.

[Eric Walch]

When opening my current save file I see that my ship clock reads :180337748610.429321 seconds. When you divide that number by 86400 (=60*60*24) you get the date in days that is displayed on screen. And that is way above your presented options to choose from. That commander started on 25 August 2005 when I look at the creation date of that old file.

Doing travelling advances your clock much, much faster than combat. So this date mainly is a measure of how often you have jumped between systems.

Why is it not possible to have a real date, with year, month and day? Shouldn't be that difficult, or is it?

That would deviate further from original Elite. And besides: In my right upper corner I already have the real time on my computer. And also on my left wrist so there is no need to have another real time around me.

[Disembodied]

If I travel at 99.99% lightspeed to a star 25 light-years away, and back again, it would take me about 6 months. That is, I would experience roughly 6 months in my personal timeline. By the time I got back, though, 50 years would have gone by. The real paradox to be answered here is: would I be entitled to 50 sets of birthday presents when I opened the hatch? And would it all be good stuff, or should I expect a steady decline into the socks-and-slippers end of the market?

[tomsk]

The first people you would see on opening your hatch would be the tax collectors wanting 50 years of unpaid taxes....

[LittleBear]

2088516. . My Commander has been constantly jumping though to test Random Hits. My playtest commander has unlimited fuel so he cam be making a jump every 15 seconds or so when playtesting! How many years is it since he left Lave?

[Cmdr Wyvern]

I honestly don't know. I've never paid much attention to the clock on the HUD.

[FSOneblin]

2085908, I can't find were I would vote.
FSOneblin

[Tivva]

Don't know what I started at... didn't log it...

Currently on 2085293 & enjoying every minute of it


Brings back happy memories of being a young stude with my BBC micro...

[pagroove]

Timestamp 2084310:00:00:39

[wackyman465]

Littlebear! Shame on you!

Actually... how do you do that?

[Commander McLane]

Thanks for the replies so far, guys.

Sorry for the bad last option. It seems the board allowed me to set up more voting options than can actually be displayed; and then it mangled the last one together from a couple of my choices. And I can't seem to edit it anymore. So, please, understand the last option as '2085464 and above'.

I have to say that I didn't quite expect so many people being so far advanced. Of course it depends a lot on how much playtesting you are doing with your commander. For usual gameplay I would rather expect that the number of long and short jumps different players do tends to get equaled out over time (although I can't prove it, of course).

The answer on the question 'into how many years of my commander's career does the number of the screen translate' depends very much on what a 'year' is in Elite/Oolite. If it has still 365 days, each option above represents half a year (that's why I chose these ranges). So my own commander is roughly two years and eight months into his career. Eric's commander, OTOH, is less than two months away from his 9th anniversary(!).

Overall, the impression is that the range is very large; perhaps too large to script anything useful based on dates in the game. Will have to think about it.

And before you ask: The reason for this small poll was an idea of mine, to start a mission not depending on the player's kills, but on the date. So the mission would be offered let's say at the first anniversary after leaving Lave. While this may be fun, it might—due to the huge diversity—be a less good idea to offer something at the fifth anniversary. At that point it would be quite unpredictable how far the player has advanced in terms of kills, galaxies, money, missions, and any other statistics.

*****

Now it would be interesting to relate this poll to the 'how many kills do you have' poll, in order to determine how fast each of our commanders is on his road to ELITE...

[Lestradae]

Hi Cmdr McLane!

I think this sort of diversity is to be expected, as so many different careers can be taken in Oolite.

For example ...

Now it would be interesting to relate this poll to the 'how many kills do you have' poll, in order to determine how fast each of our commanders is on his road to ELITE...

OK, so if I use your equation with 365 days my Commander is now 4 1/2 years in the game and is Deadly (3000). So that's 1.8 kills per day on average.

I am playing more of a trader, I guess, than mercenary or somesuch. Never played a pirate, but some GalCop officials might claim that there were some incidents of fateful WMD-accidents, that seem to have disappeared from GalCop's databanks. That strangeness aside, my kills : ingame-time ratio is probably low.

My real-life game time is now at about two years. Perhaps also an interesting ratio.

Of course it depends a lot on how much playtesting you are doing with your commander.

I for one have completely separate test save games for playtesting, and I never playtest with my usual Commander. Would feel too much as a cheat to me otherwise.

The reason for this small poll was an idea of mine, to start a mission not depending on the player's kills, but on the date. So the mission would be offered let's say at the first anniversary after leaving Lave

I was thinking about a "road to frontier" timeline once, that would slowly change the Ooniverse around the player until, after the 15 ingame years or so it would take according to Selezen's timeline, the situation would closely mirror the one at the start of Frontier.

The problems are obvious, which is why the issue will probably not be resolved easily. If the wormholes collapse and galactic chart 1 needs many more systems and range than before, doesn't sound oxp'able, and was the reason I threw the whole idea out the window after a few discussions with Selezen

If you manage to pull something like that off, it would be interesting for sure, though. That you would stay true to everything fitting together is something I'd take for granted

Cheers

L

[Commander McLane]

I was thinking about a "road to frontier" timeline once, that would slowly change the Ooniverse around the player until, after the 15 ingame years or so it would take according to Selezen's timeline, the situation would closely mirror the one at the start of Frontier.

The problems are obvious, which is why the issue will probably not be resolved easily. If the wormholes collapse and galactic chart 1 needs many more systems and range than before, doesn't sound oxp'able, and was the reason I threw the whole idea out the window after a few discussions with Selezen

This is indeed something I have been reflecting upon lately. If I'm correct that Oolite starts in 3141 (still haven't found where I have that from, Selezen only mentions the start date of the 16-bit Elite versions as 3134; or I have overlooked it), then the Thargoid Wars should end after 10 years. And the wormholes should collaps after 24 years. Fortunately there seems no commander yet advanced that far in time.

I don't think at that point everything already needs to resemble the beginning of Frontier, because this is only in 3199, another 35 years in the future. So I wouldn't yet bother with adding more planets to chart 1. We could simply say that the Federal and Imperial worlds weren't opened at once for GalCop pilots (or we could invent a reason—via a mission—why they weren't for the player). But still, the end of the Thargoids and finally the collaps of the wormhole from Galaxy 1 would be a massive undertaking to script.

If you manage to pull something like that off, it would be interesting for sure, though. That you would stay true to everything fitting together is something I'd take for granted

For the first part: As I said, I have started reflecting upon it. Which doesn't mean that anything practical will come from it soon (or ever).

And for the second part: Well, somebody has to stay faithful to the canon here. So, why not me? (And I do claim for all my works that none of it breaks the canon. Bending it, perhaps; but not breaking.)