Revision of the Energy Bomb?

[DaddyHoggy]

Ok, so when I'm not running my Oolite based Advertisement Executive for many of the banks and new businesses springing up within the Ooniverse I do, very occassionally, get to play the actual game.

Having been patient with my new Commander (my old one "vanished" last year so I started again) I did the milk runs in the safe systems and built up a reasonable spec Cobby-3 and over the weekend I finally ventured out of the safe areas for a little more sport.

I of course immediately got jumped by far more pirates than I had any hope of defending myself against - out of missiles and beam laser in the red - I resorted to using my Energy Bomb and was very disappointed in myself.

The Energy Bomb is a hang-over from the "old days" of the 8-bit Elites and I, personally, don't think it should work the way it currently does. The fact that NPCs don't use them still belies the "player-centric" history of the game - admittedly nobody wants to spontaneously die because an NPC let off an E-bomb in a battle you were skirting around and not directly involved in - but I think there's a halfway house...

1) Stop the E-bomb having an instant effect - make it take 5 seconds to charge and detonate and a warning is issued to all ships in the area.
2) Have a two-stage E-bomb protection system - a cheap one and a more expensive one - purchaseable via an OXP.
2a - the cheap one - detects the E-bomb warning and does an emergency shutdown of your ship's engines. Leaving you dead in the water temporarily but leaves you immune to the E-bomb effects. It takes 10 seconds to re-power your engines post detonation.
2b - The more expensive system only reduces engine power to say 50% and scans the detonation harmonics of the e-bomb - retuning your engine to an alternative and e-bomb proof frequency - there is a very small chance that some on-board equipment may be damaged during the retune - as soon as the e-bomb detonation has occured ship instantly gives you full power back so you can go smack around the scum who fired off the e-bomb.

This way I think you could have NPCs who could carry and be prepared to use E-bombs and you would have the opportunity to carry protection from it.

NPCs could also carry the e-bomb protection system so a convoy could have one E-bomb between them and the rest could have the protection system - the convoy is attacked by pirates - the e-bomb is triggered all the escorts shutdown/shift harmonics - the bomb goes off - everybody powers up and kills off the pirates who remain (who themselves may have an e-bomb and/or an e-bomb protection system)

I just don't like the fact that I alone in my Ooniverse have the ability to instantly vaporise a huge chunk of small and medium ships in my immediate vicinity for a relatively modest sum of money.

Am I alone in this? Is any of this doable?

As ever, just my 0.2Cr worth.

[Thargoid]

I would agree with the concept, as for me the Q-bomb has rather superceded the E-bomb in this kind of thing.

As to being OXP'able, it depends on how you want to "simulate" the engine shutdown bit. Presumably via speed, which isn't doable as player.ship.speed is read-only. Not sure if there's anything read/write that could be used ot get around that.

My personal suggestion would be something that could affect ships speeds and engines/equipment perhaps, although that also depends on what is read/write and what is read-only.

[Kaks]

Well, it's 'a bit' ham-fisted, but for the cheap one you could always record the ship's position and facing, then use a timer to reset it exactly as it were every .5 of a second... it should work, and the stuttering effect should add to the whole 'crap, I'm dead!' effect!

Hmmm, that could still apply to the fancier protection system! Just reposition the ship exactly in between its position the previous tick & this one... And you can break equipment via script without a problem!

... but how do we get NPCs with E-bombs? Could that be scriptable already?

[Screet]

I just don't like the fact that I alone in my Ooniverse have the ability to instantly vaporise a huge chunk of small and medium ships in my immediate vicinity for a relatively modest sum of money.

Am I alone in this? Is any of this doable?

No, you are not, and I really like those ideas you made! I'd happily install that, including an oxp which protects some pirates with those countermeasures you suggested...

I had some occasions where NPCs appeared to be using an e-bomb, probably it was a q-bomb and I just didn't see the blue? Typically, the situation was that a NPC fired a missile at me, I hit ECM, the NPC goes "Grrr" and I get "press space" instantly. It also happened the other way around: I fire a hardhead at the NPC, the NPC uses ECM and goes "Grrr" and I get "press space".

That did happen with ships which do not have turrets, just in case someone thought this might be the thing I reported when i wrote about the turret bug, as sometimes in combat I'm just dead on the instant without having any hint at what happened.

Would be nice to always see how my ship has been blown apart.

Screet

[Commander McLane]

... but how do we get NPCs with E-bombs? Could that be scriptable already?

Well, there is of course has_energy_bomb in shipdata, but this doesn't count, because it actually gives the NPC a Q-bomb.

Apart from that I see two implementations, one via AI, and the other via ship script.

For the AI-implementation there is dealEnergyDamageWithinDesiredRange, which does exactly what it says on the tin. Problem with it is that most ships don't have enough weapons_energy to deal some serious energy damage.

The ship script-implementation would be another 5-line-solution (or so ) which would simply do some ship.energy -= whatevervalueyouwant to anything inside a given range. The king-size version could even exempt group-members of the issuing ship's group (like its escorts). They would of course have their shields remodulated to the frequency of the energy impulse, or somesuch.

[ClymAngus]

Couldn't you just tone down the damage done by the energy bomb? Researching ai's. A fair number of them have a flee option if they take some serious damage. That would make the e-bomb more a defensive weapon rather than a blat everything on screen, easy step on the way to elite status.

[Kaks]

I like it! I'm going to see if I can do a proof-of-concept oxp in the next couple of days... Thargoid, feel free to beat me to it!

[DaddyHoggy]

This implies I had another good idea! This is almost habit forming (even if this one hasn't gone quite the way I hoped/expected - it's going somewhere!)

[Thargoid]

I like it! I'm going to see if I can do a proof-of-concept oxp in the next couple of days... Thargoid, feel free to beat me to it!

I've got too much on the go as it is with Fuel Station 1.1 and Lave Academy 1.0. Go right ahead

[FSOneblin]

Well, there is of course has_energy_bomb in shipdata, but this doesn't count, because it actually gives the NPC a Q-bomb.

That means...We need to put a Has_q-bomb in shipdata!

Don't Panic: FSOneblin

[CptnEcho]

I think I've been e-bombed by an NPC ship at least once. It was either that or a game malfunction or a collision I didn't see coming. "Press Space Commander."

I have no problem leaving the e-bomb as it currently is.

Although, creating a missile version has merit too (in order to hit large ships from a distance and/or to carry additional ordnance).

We pay great sums of money to ensure our ships (and our seatcovers) survive the hazards of space voyages. Why limit our options?

Let the players decide what sort of game they want to play, please.

[Zbond-Zbond]

"The more expensive system only reduces engine power to say 50% and scans the detonation harmonics of the e-bomb - retuning your engine to an alternative and e-bomb proof frequency - there is a very small chance that some on-board equipment may be damaged during the retune - as soon as the e-bomb detonation has occured ship instantly gives you full power back so you can go smack around the scum who fired off the e-bomb."

If considering detonation harmonics as a solution then why not absorb incoming energy (in some sort of "blast accumulator") and then re-transmit using fourier synthesis as a square-wave event? Since the e-phenomenon propogates instantaneously, suggesting hyperspatial energy packets, the concept of quantum blast accumulators seems admissible, discharging as square-wave interference -- an appropriate dessert for e-bomb scum!

(Some OXP NPC ships are e-bomb resistant, but not Quirium-proof.)