Ubership or not?

General discussion for players of Oolite.

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Azathoth
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Post by Azathoth »

Cmd. Cheyd wrote:
@Azathoth - That's what I term my Ironman game. I am allowed to save and reload, but only due to play hours - NEVER DEATH. I have made a few exceptions here and there though... I launched from a station and was INSTANTLY dead once or twice. I think I launched while someone was docking. A few things like that... And yes, the game becomes much more 'intense'. :lol:
Never had that leaving a station but I have had it when I exit witch space. I assume I’ve jumped straight into a constore or fuel depot. Yes, then I would reload.

Which brings up a point about random death. Occasionally my ship blows up without any notice during combat. Do NPC ships sometimes have Energy Bombs? If so it’s a bit of a bummer don’t you think. Personally I would like Energy bombs removed altogether from the game.
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Post by Davidtq »

Disembodied wrote:
True, but almost everyone in motorsport will use proflex suspension, because it's vital for their profession.
Actually even in motorsport Proflex is considered expensive, (its a relative thing) maybe 5% of rally drivers will use it. Bilsteins will do 95% of the job for 10% of the price. Money is normally always the deciding factor.
Disembodied wrote:
So assuming that almost everyone with a Cobra III is flying it as a job, not just to get from A to B, then if there's an adaptation that makes the Cobra III into a much better trader, with no downside, I think everyone would take it. It's a business decision, not a lifestyle one. It's like the cargo bay expansion: it's a no-brainer. Everyone takes it. There's absolutely no reason not to have it, as soon as you can afford it. It's stupid not to fit one. If there's a way of essentially giving a Cobra III an even bigger cargo bay expansion, with nothing to worry about except the money, then again, everyone who uses the cargo bay for their livelihood would do it.
It depends on the price, many pilots can barely afford to get the basic cobra. Now if it was the case that the double size cargo bay cost double the base cobra price SOME might pick it over the cheaper larger python, If they want Combat. Now what about if the 75 ton cobra cost as much as an anaconda? Only those with a real desire for that solution will pick it. The Anaconda makes a far better trader, escorts arent hard to emply if you want to trade somewhere dangerous. A "pack" of cobras are far more effective for piracy than one with a large cargo bay. (Which of course isnt an option open to us to own multiple ships or have a hauler follow you at a safe distance hauling your wares for you :D.
Disembodied wrote:
Ultimately, it all comes down to your concept of fun. And that's where Oolite's under-the-hood tinkering really takes off, because everyone can enjoy different aspects of the game and have the universe set up the way they want it.
Yeah its a big part of the game being able to "have it your way"
Disembodied wrote:
And of course this kind of situation is where "game balance" goes out the window, because all your setup has to do is please you, and you alone. When it comes to multi-player games, though, and non-sandbox games, the balance gets much more important. With regard to Star Wars Galaxies: I haven't played the game, but as it's a MMORPG there are other people involved. Game-balance issues are therefore very important, because if one or two sets of possible character choices are much, much better than all the rest, then it's only going to be any fun for that subset of people who like playing those one or two character types. Whether they got it right or not I don't know: obviously from your point of view they didn't! But probably you were in a small minority of people who were prepared to play as something other than the best available, and still have fun. It would have been a commercial decision (obviously: no corporation will work if it's not getting paid) to try to get as many people playing the game for as long as possible.
The reaction to the decision was somewhat legendary in mmorpgs :D before the big change if you wanted to do pvp you went jedi or bounty hunter \ combat medic. However the game had a HUGE role play \ social gamer sided - its actually one of the few games taht had completely non combat play styles available - crafters entertainers medics etc were complete play styles of their own, and not side choices to a main combat class!

In the name of balance they devestated character personalisation and lost a good two thirds of their player base... The game has never recovered. The game did attract people with the idea of living a a life in the star wars galaxies rather than trying to be luke skywalker, the vast majority of the players LOVED customisation, even now all the very highest priced items in games are decorative, rather than stat modifiers or equipment.

The dev team was swapped after the decision and the CEO has since issued several apologies saying they did the wrong thing.

But in that came if you wanted to power game you knew where to go but most players werent wanting power, as long as they could complete content why worry about getting through it faster or doing group content solo etc etc. It was a game where you were encouraged to pick what suited you enjoyed. My main character was a droid engineer I made and sold droids :lol: Believe it or not doing that and spending time decorating a virtual house was well worth a subscription :D.

Galaxies at its best was simply not a competetive game it was far more about cooperation and interaction. There were thousands of players who spent their entire game time with their avatar dancing in bars, buffing and healing players and socialising etc. Never even handling a weapon.
Disembodied wrote:
My own best example of bad game-balance is the old Games Workshop board game Talisman. Each player picked a different character with a different set of abilities and stats, and you all farted about for many hours through the night until whoever had the Prophetess won. Because it was a hugely, overwhelmingly better character than any of the others. Once someone had that character the game was essentially over, and there was even less point in playing it than before. If you dumped her from the game things got a bit better, but even still there were good characters and lousy ones: the differences between them meant that only a few of them were ever usable.
thats one of GW's games I havent played, but by the sounds of it, it was a competetive game.
Disembodied wrote:
You're absolutely right, of course: "fun" is absolutely the overriding principle in making any game. If it's not fun, then it's not a game. But – in anything except a pure single-player sandbox game like Oolite – balance is an important part of that fun. Talisman, with the Prophetess character, was no fun, because everyone who wasn't playing the Prophetess knew that they were just going to get thumped. Even for the person playing the Prophetess, it wasn't much fun, because all there was to do was sit through a long but inevitable progress towards ultimate victory. Aspects like having a coherent and well-realised gameworld and a sense of player involvement are very important aspects of fun, too, but they're harder to define, and more prone to personal taste.

For example, I actually enjoy the fact that my ship can only carry 20 tons of cargo. I don't find swapping around canisters to be all that tedious (and anyway, I've made so much money that it doesn't matter to me any more). I like the fact that if I spurn the chance to buy rock-bottom computers because the Poor Agricultural I'm heading for is a seething Anarchy, and I'll fill up the Radio Maru twice over with salvage, then sure as fate I'll meet nothing on the way in with a bounty on its head, and I can moan and complain about Sod's Law. I like the fact that if I've blown up a pirate and scooped up some slaves, I can't dump them, even if there's a whole mass of tinned luxuries floating all around me: because in my game, in my head, I don't do that. I can't leave living beings drifting out there, maybe forever (in my head, again, when I get them to the station I'm releasing them, not selling them). Escape pods, too: I'll jettison something expensive if I have to, to take one of those on board. I find that much more involving, much more fun, having to make those decisions. If I had a huge cargo bay then the issue would almost never come up. Plus, of course, everyone knows that a Wolf Mark II SE is way cool. 8)


If I was only killing stuff with a bounty on it I probably wouldnt have such an issue, I have to say I think this time round is the first time Ive ever really ran into it, probably beause I normally only bounty hunt rather than taking out everything I meet. Pirates dont normally carry so much cargo or so much junk. I guess those anaconda's probably make good profit carrying so much food, purely because of the size of their hold :D

I would end up having to cycle and dump at least 20-30 cannisters every run and that gets old very very fast.

If the interface was like the jettison screen in FE2 then Id have no problems with it (not that game doesnt have its own share of issues, but I play that often enough as well still.) but just click on the box next to the food to dump it nice and easy.

Pre notification of what was in a cargo cannister would probably help as I could just shoot the junk and then its not cluttering my scanner as well, perhaps only being able to tell what was in a cannister from a close distance would be usefull.

When you "bleed" an anaconda they can leave a very very long trail of cannisters, only a few of which I might genuinely have an interest in selling. 35t would be ample if I had an easier way to screen out the 40 ton of junk that didnt become monotonous quickly. seriously 40 dumping sessions on a run gets boring fast...

Some time or another Ive really got to get back into coding, Ive not done any serious programming for years, I often think "I wish I could do "this", would be nice to drop in such functions.
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Post by Zbond-Zbond »

I eventually got a Super Cobra, but it doesn't really offer many advantages over the MkIII. The Boa Class Cruiser probably just as good, but :( the main problem is that SC won't mine asteroids! Whether mining lasers or cheaper pulse lasers are fitted, the asteroids only ever blow up!!
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Post by overmage »

The Super Cobra is purely for the insane energy recharge rate, IMO :O

that's what makes some classify it as an Ubership
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Post by Screet »

Zbond-Zbond wrote:
I eventually got a Super Cobra, but it doesn't really offer many advantages over the MkIII. The Boa Class Cruiser probably just as good, but :( the main problem is that SC won't mine asteroids! Whether mining lasers or cheaper pulse lasers are fitted, the asteroids only ever blow up!!
With the boa class cruiser I simply ran asteroids over in order to mine them. I didn't try that with my Caduceus, but it should also work. Anyway, if you ask me, get a Caduceus!!!

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Post by Davidtq »

Just downloaded the neolite oxp and a few similiar oxps...

I've had to remove half my oxp's because they just dont fit with that look...

I dont think Im going to be able to create my own ship to that standard If I stick to my current wholesale piracy I will probably end up having to create a "Special Edition" based on one of those ships...

I might even legit for a while, maybe going out of the lanes with the PCC and trading properly might make money a bit faster than stopping to fight everything and picking up free cargo... before possibly going for a dedicated small fighter and ignore cargo completely later...
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Post by Disembodied »

Davidtq wrote:
Galaxies at its best was simply not a competetive game it was far more about cooperation and interaction. There were thousands of players who spent their entire game time with their avatar dancing in bars, buffing and healing players and socialising etc. Never even handling a weapon.
Well, it sounds like the developers made a catastrophically bad decision there! Still, at leas they seem to have realised afterwards that they'd done so.

That's an interesting attribute of complex open-ended games: obviously the developers had thought that everyone (or almost everyone) would want to play Rebellion v. Empire with lots of shooting and fighting – but they ended up making a virtual universe where plenty of people were just happy to get along and do their own thing. People ended up using the game engine for completely different purposes!
Davidtq wrote:
thats one of GW's games I havent played, but by the sounds of it, it was a competetive game.
Yeah, there was no co-operation (except maybe, "Let's all team up and try to kill the Prophetess while she still only has demi-godlike powers!"). It's maybe a bit more fun than Monopoly but not much.
Davidtq wrote:
If I was only killing stuff with a bounty on it I probably wouldnt have such an issue, I have to say I think this time round is the first time Ive ever really ran into it, probably beause I normally only bounty hunt rather than taking out everything I meet. Pirates dont normally carry so much cargo or so much junk. I guess those anaconda's probably make good profit carrying so much food, purely because of the size of their hold :D
An interesting point ... maybe the Cobra Extended Version could be a pirate modification: something that only becomes available now and then, on a very select number of worlds (or pirate lairs, even) ... or even as a reward for a pirate mission. That would definitely limit the number of them you might see flying around the place!
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Post by Davidtq »

Disembodied wrote:
Well, it sounds like the developers made a catastrophically bad decision there! Still, at leas they seem to have realised afterwards that they'd done so.

That's an interesting attribute of complex open-ended games: obviously the developers had thought that everyone (or almost everyone) would want to play Rebellion v. Empire with lots of shooting and fighting – but they ended up making a virtual universe where plenty of people were just happy to get along and do their own thing. People ended up using the game engine for completely different purposes!
The original lead developer had deliberately designed it as a game that wasnt purely combat orientated, his vision was a life within the star wars universe, but he moved on as soon as the game launched (about a year earlier than he had wanted) The next dev team up had other ideas on how the game should be. The games been through about 4 phases now, the developers they have now are probably the best they've ever had, but they wont make any further drastic changes for fear of scaring off those who remain who can live with the current system. So they focus on improvements and additions within the current framework. They have a good handle on what the players like and spend a lot of time now days asking the player base for ideas and impletementing things directly from feed back. Ive seen stuff hit live a week after first being mentioned by a player on the forums. They learnt their lesson well sadly not before the damage was done.
Disembodied wrote:
Yeah, there was no co-operation (except maybe, "Let's all team up and try to kill the Prophetess while she still only has demi-godlike powers!"). It's maybe a bit more fun than Monopoly but not much.

An interesting point ... maybe the Cobra Extended Version could be a pirate modification: something that only becomes available now and then, on a very select number of worlds (or pirate lairs, even) ... or even as a reward for a pirate mission. That would definitely limit the number of them you might see flying around the place!
Now thats a good idea pirates certainly suit the image of backstreet ship yards producing rare oddballs. Fits in with the original fiction very well, thinking off the ship descriptions from the original hand book:-

ADDER
Manufactured by Outworld Workshops, a rogue breakaway company from Spalder and Prime Inc. which operates without license from an unknown location, the Adder-class craft has dual atmospheric-spatial capability and is often used by smugglers. Pregg's " wingfolding " system permits landing on planetary surfaces. Carries one missile.

GECKO
Patented by Robert Bream, but not manufactured until Ace and Faber improved upon the original design specifications after the death of the inventor. Later the design was stolen and widely circulated to a number of "backyard" workshops who produced the ship in vast numbers with many individual variances to protect companies against lawsuits. Mainly used as a single- pilot combat craft, typically pirates.

MAMBA
Fighter which grew out of custom-built primarily designed for racing purposes but adopted and armed by pirates due to its high speed and maneuverability. Cargo space was added later when Raddlett and Rayburn Shipyards (based at Reorte) standardized the variences and began manufacturing the craft in large numbers.

The fiction certainly supports the idea of back yard custom ships, particularly used by those on the wrong side of the law. Perhaps the extended cobra is a "newer" development which hasnt caught on, still only produced by one workshop somewhere in limited numbers.
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Post by Disembodied »

Davidtq wrote:
The fiction certainly supports the idea of back yard custom ships, particularly used by those on the wrong side of the law. Perhaps the extended cobra is a "newer" development which hasnt caught on, still only produced by one workshop somewhere in limited numbers.
Yes, I think that's something we could see more of ... unique modifications, only available in one select location in the whole ooniverse, which require some form of special payment – maybe accomplishing a mission, or maybe just in return for some large amount of specific cargo. A hefty quantity – several hundred kilos of platinum, maybe, or a kilo of gemstones (working on the assumption that pirates might have their own internal economy, working outside the Co-operative Credit, for their own internal transactions). It would definitely add to a player's sense of accomplishment, not to mention personalising the ship, if unique mods and addons could only be obtained from one individual black-market or experimental station.
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Post by MKG »

I hate to take you guys back to the point, but I've just come across a wonderful example. There I was having contentedly strolled into a new system, bumbling along towards the navigation beacon. One blip appeared on my scanner and, after a couple of seconds, turned red. OK, I thought, so be it ... and went straight for him. I got within 10 kilometres, and there's still only one blip on my scanner. He opened fire ... I opened fire. Suddenly, six other ships which must have been in a perfect line behind him and incredibly close to him fanned out (I now have seven blips on my scanner), turned red and opened fire themselves. Some of them had orange lasers, which always seem to be more powerful. One (I think) of them had that awful bluey-white laser which seems to stick to you and rip away your shields and energy banks. I survived - but only by hitting the injectors.

All of that, to me, looks convincingly intelligent. Worryingly intelligent, in fact. I'm convinced that I never saw any such behaviour until I fiddled with my ship specs.

Once again, it ain't no complaint. If any code, whether resident in the core game or added by an OXP, can create this kind of AI, then it's worthwhile playing with the ship specs - it certainly makes life a whole lot of interesting.

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Post by Screet »

MKG wrote:
All of that, to me, looks convincingly intelligent. Worryingly intelligent, in fact. I'm convinced that I never saw any such behaviour until I fiddled with my ship specs.
Hey, that sounds as if I should try to upgrade my ships specs so that I can have that sort of fun, too ;)

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