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Random Hits OXP

Discussion and information relevant to creating special missions, new ships, skins etc.

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Screet
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Post by Screet »

Nemoricus wrote:
Ah, wonderful news. I look forward to testing it.

Are you going to do anything about the second tier missions?
My suggestion: Make third tier more difficult :twisted:

Well...concerning balance...maybe make 2 easier and add another difficulty step for elite players or such ;)

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Post by DaddyHoggy »

This is turning into what we used to call the D&D syndrome when I used to roleplay a lot...

Players gain experience - and kill all the standard monsters, they gain more experience and kill all the non-standard monsters, they gain more experience points and you have to start throwing Gods at them just to keep it interesting.

If you're going to be flying around in ships like the Caddy then the missions will need to be harder - which will require eventually even more uber ships, which will require even more stupidly difficult missions - repeat ad infinitum.

Perhaps you should go back to trying to do the missions in an adder (or even a Cobby3)?
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Post by Nemoricus »

I personally feel that if a mission is too tough for a skilled player in an Iron Ass Cobra Mk. III to handle, it's too hard.

I prefer having ships more powerful than a Cobra as opponents. But this is just how I feel. Others like the level of power that comes with those high tier ships.

That said, if you do make an additional step beyond tier three, I'm ready to give it all I got. Bring it on.
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Post by Screet »

DaddyHoggy wrote:
Perhaps you should go back to trying to do the missions in an adder (or even a Cobby3)?
There's really some big truth in this, however, rest assured that those missions were easiest when I was flying a Merlin ;)

It's just that my skills also got much better in the mean time. I can shoot Asps and Sidewinders with side lasers now!

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Post by LittleBear »

I'd sort of desgined Random Hits as a mid-level OXP, so the targets in it arn't meant to be super-difficult (try Assassins for some really badass mission ships). There is a big jump between level 1 and level 2, but this is really out of necessity as I wanted to include all the inbuilt ships in the missions. I didn't want to 'cheat' by altering the stats of any of the ships and most of the inbuilt ships a light fighters, so shooting down an adder or sidewinder is pretty easy. I've added The Liberator and the Vampire Reaper to the pool of level 3 ships to toughen things up at the higher end (these ships can also be flown by Crime Bosses). The 2nd level ships use level 1 ships as escorts and the level 3 ships use level 2 ships as escorts, but although level 3 is harder than level 2 the big jump is between level 1 and 2. This is partly deliberate though (there is also a big jump in payment), to make the missions playable by commanders of all levels. New players can take the easy missions without being blow out of space and level 2 and 3 are for more experienced commanders.
OXPS : The Assassins Guild, Asteroid Storm, The Bank of the Black Monks, Random Hits, The Galactic Almanac, Renegade Pirates can be downloaded from the Elite Wiki here.
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Post by Screet »

LittleBear wrote:
I'd sort of desgined Random Hits as a mid-level OXP, so the targets in it arn't meant to be super-difficult (try Assassins for some really badass mission ships).
That's true, however Assassins can be played through while RH missions can always be flown, thus it would be very nice to have some tough opponents.

How about a Level 4 with a group of All-Level-3 ships and maybe slightly increased amount of them? Would that be difficult to add?

Interestingly, from my last RH kill, I recently got the message "Time to strike: Soon / jumps made: 44"...is there something broken or is that just some strange luck?

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Post by Capt. Slog »

LittleBear
Will you be removing the guaranteed revenge ships and the warnings?
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Post by Nemoricus »

The jump in difficulty between tier 2 and 3 is not because of the quality of the ships. It's because of the quantity.

The target ship can be good. However, it shouldn't have so many escorts.
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Post by Azathoth »

DaddyHoggy wrote:
This is turning into what we used to call the D&D syndrome when I used to roleplay a lot...

Players gain experience - and kill all the standard monsters, they gain more experience and kill all the non-standard monsters, they gain more experience points and you have to start throwing Gods at them just to keep it interesting.

If you're going to be flying around in ships like the Caddy then the missions will need to be harder - which will require eventually even more uber ships, which will require even more stupidly difficult missions - repeat ad infinitum.

Perhaps you should go back to trying to do the missions in an adder (or even a Cobby3)?
I’m pretty much with you on this. As a D&D player many years ago I found the game got less interesting as your character progressed. It was at its best when you were say a level 1 thief and had to roll dice just to make it to the toilet in time :lol: .

Same with this game, for me anyway. If you want a challenge, fly a challenging ship.

Are Space Rickshaw’s available on the open market? :lol:
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Post by Capt. Slog »

Nemoricus wrote:
The jump in difficulty between tier 2 and 3 is not because of the quality of the ships. It's because of the quantity.

The target ship can be good. However, it shouldn't have so many escorts.
Do you get paid for fighting the escorts? :wink:
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Post by Nemoricus »

You get GalCop's bounty, but that's not the issue.

The problem is that tier 2 and 3 are almost completely identical, at least as far as I can tell and with the exception of the target ship.

I'd like to see those two be more distinct. Changing the quantity of the escorts would do that.
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Post by LittleBear »

Yep, I'm taking out the de-bug messages for the new beta. On the bar bill screen you will however see somthing like "The interplanetary mafia regard you as ([load of variables]). In the finished version the variables will be replaced with a comment such as "a minor annoyance" "a real pain in the ass" etc, so you know how you're regarded. But ATM there's no code to turn the variables into a comment. But that'll be the only debug message in the new beta. The message you are getting is a debug for the fact that your victim's relatives are tracking you. You'll find that sooner or later you encounter some annoyed memberes of the dececed's family. The escorts should be considerably tougher for a level 3 ship as they're picked from a different pool, but the quality of escorts is also determined by the ship itself. For example the Annaconda is a level 2 ship, but the Annaconda is just so slow turning that its a sitting duck so to balance to make it a fair fight I've uped the probabilitys of it a having a lot of fairly decent escorts. On the other hand the Liberator with its three lasers is a level three ship, but I've only given it a couple of wingmen as its a hard ship even on its own. As you've noticed though the quality of escorts doesn't make that much difference to the toughness of the fight. Although a Cobra Mk III is a much better escort ship than an adder, a beam laser is a beam laser whatever ship its on and 5 adders slamming your shields with their beams can be just as dangerous as 5 Cobras. :wink:
OXPS : The Assassins Guild, Asteroid Storm, The Bank of the Black Monks, Random Hits, The Galactic Almanac, Renegade Pirates can be downloaded from the Elite Wiki here.
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Post by Capt. Slog »

Nemoricus wrote:
You get GalCop's bounty, but that's not the issue.

The problem is that tier 2 and 3 are almost completely identical, at least as far as I can tell and with the exception of the target ship.

I'd like to see those two be more distinct. Changing the quantity of the escorts would do that.
I find I can usually target the mark and cut her free from the herd. :D
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Post by Azathoth »

Had a tough day at the office.

Entered an Anarchy system, intending to go to a space bar for my next assignment. I think some joker must of painted a target on my ship’s hull as everyone and his wife wanted to melt me with lasers.

Anyway, I survived the almost constant waves of pirates to limp towards the bar. With no fuel or missiles and a few onboard systems damaged, I noticed that my legal status had changed to offender. How I don’t know. Even if I took out a few innocents during the fire fights, I never noticed any cops about(never one when you need them) to witness it.

Anyway MKII, I thought that a Seedy Space Bar was the ideal place for an bruised and bleeding offender to hide out for a while and lick his wounds. Not so it seems. Got a warning that I was not welcome in the bar. Thought it must be some kind of bad joke as I assumed most of the clientele are offenders or worse. So I docked. BAD mistake. Was welcomed by a few thugs who tried to make my day even better. Attacked by a guy with a spiked club!?! Never thought that would happen to me in this Ooniverse.

Anyway MKIII, I managed to launch my ship only to be hunted down and destroyed by my pursuers.

Anyway MKIV, why are offenders not welcome? Surely these bars are not only frequented by Accountants and Politicians who only come to watch Lobsters pole dance?
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Post by Screet »

Azathoth wrote:
I noticed that my legal status had changed to offender. How I don’t know. Even if I took out a few innocents during the fire fights, I never noticed any cops about(never one when you need them) to witness it.
Some days ago I read a report from Eric...it does involve police, but basically it was caused by an offender ship calling for help:
https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?t=6195

I myself have encountered quite some clean pirates already. I'm not sure if it also works on the player, but clean NPCs can create a bounty for another ship that was clean until then. Typical situation: Two clean NPCs fighting and the player jumps in, drawing the attention of one of those ships, causing the other clean NPC to set a bounty (or increase the existing one) as a reward.
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Anyway MKIV, why are offenders not welcome? Surely these bars are not only frequented by Accountants and Politicians who only come to watch Lobsters pole dance?
These bars are visited by bounty hunters. Bounty hunters are clean and shoot everything else for their bounty. Were they offenders or fugitives, they would hunt each other.

Using a turreted ship and having the space bar sometimes lock on to me, few times even shooting, I became a fugitive in many of those situations. This got worse with the auto-lockon to attacking ships/stations.

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