Ship Rationalisation / Balancing Project

[Sendraks]

I’m going to undertake a project to go through all the OXP (and core ships it seems) and compile a list of changes I’m going to make to those ships for my own playing purposes. A lot of this is going to be driven by a sophisticated formula known as “common sense” based around the precedent set by most of the core ships and also data available through helpful tables such as the one found here (thanks Wolfwood).

http://www.susimetsa.net/funstuff/oolite/index2c.html

The objective of this project is to try (for my own benefit) to create as balanced an Oolite experience as possible, where the core ships and oxp ships retain their own flavour and value in the game. The selection of ships will be varied, but not one ship will be “better” than all the others in every conceivable way. I’m not promising that the end product will be an OXP, right now that is outside of my comfort zone, but it doesn’t hurt to learn. What I will definitely do is publish the revised stats for every ship.

I have a few principles that are going to guide me in this project on which comments would be welcome.

1 - The Cobra MKIII is my baseline. It is supposed to be the best all round ship in the game. Other ships may be faster or tougher or able to carry more, but this is all achieved at the expense of one or more factors. No ship will be able to do everything the Cobra MkIII can do and do it better. The Cobra MKIII is a cutting edge vessel, available to the new player, because it gives them versatility to explore differing career paths perhaps before going down a more specialist route.

2 – Price is no justification for violating principle one. If the only justification for a ship’s performance is that it costs a lot, it gets thrown out the window. That does not preclude the existence of expensive ships, such as the Mussarana, but that won’t mean that the ship is able to function as a Cobra MK III +1.

3 – I’ll debate whether to have a speed cap or not. At present there are a few OXP craft capable of speeds in excess of 0.4LM, which I think is silly. My preference is for increments in speed to get progressively smaller as you near 0.4LMs, so that the top end combat/performance craft engineers are fighting for every additional 0.01 of speed. Anything above 0.4LM to my mind should be either a) Alien b) Military or c) hugely experimental and not available to the player through market purchases. In the interests of balance, the appearance of aggressive/pirate versions of such ships should be rare.

4 – As a corollary to 2 & 3 I don’t have a problem with such ships appearing in game and made available to the player if it can be done in an entertaining and challenging fashion i.e. via a mission OXP.

5 – The table provided by Wolfwood sets out, for me, a few basic common sense guidelines on ship design. Large ships are tough, slow and do not handle well. Small ships are fast, agile and generally easily destroyed. All other ships fall between those extremes. This isn’t to say that a large ship can’t be fast, but it will invariably mean that the cargo bay is mostly taken up with engineering.

6 – Depending on how imaginative I get with OXPs, ship modifications may go further than just raw stats. It may be that stats go unchanged, but limits are placed on equipment which can be purchased for a ship. Something which has been implemented to a varying degree in OXPs.

I’ll handle ships in batches, usually grouping by their main role, and post my thoughts and changes for discussion here.

Ultimately any changes I make to the ships on my P.C are for my use and I’m not out to campaign on a platform that this is how any OXP ship “should” be. What I’m really looking for is a sensible discussion with the like minded individuals here as to whether the changes to the ships balance them or not and/or if it is even possible to balance those ships.

First tranche of ships I’ll be looking at are:


Python
Python Class Cruiser
Python ET
Imperial Courier
Boa
Boa Class Cruiser
Anaconda
The Kirin

Yes, some of these are core ships, but I’m not working on the assumption that all the core ships are balanced and the performance of some of the core ships may well be the justification for the performance of certain OXP ships. However, the Cobra MKIII as the baseline, doesn’t ever change.

Final question.

Pitch & Roll values - the higher these are, the better the ship handles right? (unless the values are too high and the ship becomes uncontrollably twitchy).

[Lestradae]

Good luck with your new project!

Feel free to use/dissect OSE for your purposes and to your hearts' content for it (you can do so anyways, but I assume saying that I think this is a good thing for the purists who just "don't get" say speeds beyond 0.4 LS etc. etc. might make sense here)

If you do so, I'd better use OSE than RS though. OSE is being upgraded for 1.73 and has had about 250 bugs fixed already in comparison to RS and/or the original oxps it stems from.

Have fun shaping the game to fit your way & style, just don't forget other people might enjoy it in other ways & styles without having to be crazy to feel this (their) way

L

[Cmdr James]

Could I suggest that you package these into smallish units, so that, for example, the many people who dont want starwars ships can just download the packs without them.

And perhaps feed back any fixes to the original OXPs, not changes or improvements, just fixes.

[Sendraks]

Have fun shaping the game to fit your way & style, just don't forget other people might enjoy it in other ways & styles without having to be crazy to feel this (their) way

Totally agree and this is one of the beauties of Oolite. My concern (which I think is not unique) is that there are a lot of fantastic new ships being designed (they look really really good), but there isn't the cohesion with the core ships that there used to be. I'd like to come up with something that, to my mind, fixes that. A real inspiration to me is Simon B, who aside from doing an amazing job re-skinning classic ships, has also tinkered with the stats of some to make them better fit their intended role I think.

This is just one way of looking at the game. It isn't the only way of looking at the game and it is acknowledged that some people won't be happy unless they are in a ship capable of holding entire star systems to ransom. I don't see that as being in the spirit of Oolite, but also doesn't do me any harm either. I'm not saying my approach is "right" or "better" just something I want to try.

But yeah, this is really for the purists. For those players who are getting a little discontented at seeing questions regarding "best" ships and the responses recommending something grotesquely powerful from an OXP which spews death into space.

Could I suggest that you package these into smallish units, so that, for example, the many people who dont want starwars ships can just download the packs without them.

If do make any OXPs I'll keep this in mind. Most likely I'll just be writing up batches of re-worked stats that I'm using for my game for comment and dissection. What I can say for certain is that I won't be doing the Star Wars ships, they're just not Oolite for me.

And perhaps feed back any fixes to the original OXPs, not changes or improvements, just fixes.

Not sure what you mean by this.

[Cmdr Wyvern]

Pitch & Roll values - the higher these are, the better the ship handles right? (unless the values are too high and the ship becomes uncontrollably twitchy).

Well, yes and no. The length of the ship has a noticeable effect on those values.
The Cobby has a pitch/yaw of 1 and roll of 2. That's a figure that works well on short, broad ships like the Cobby and most of the classics.
But those same figures on a long-necked ship like a Vampire or Caduceus makes the thing twitchy as hell in the pitch/yaw, in which case I'd want to crank those figures down a little. A pitch/yaw of 0.7 is a good ballpark to use on long ships.

[Cmdr James]

And perhaps feed back any fixes to the original OXPs, not changes or improvements, just fixes.

Not sure what you mean by this.

Sorry, wjhat I meant is that a lot of the existing OXPs have bugs, and as part of the process you are going through, I guess you are (Like L did) likely to fix a lot of those proiblems. It seems a shame to me that people keep going through that process, and yet the base OXPs used as source material remain defective.

I dont want to see the originals changed or rebalanced, but where there is a typo or a copy/paste error in a plist, it would be nice if we could somehow communicate these fixes back to the authors, or, where this is not possible, to releasee a fixed OXP that is as the author intended but bug-free.

[Sendraks]

I'll see what I can do.

[Lestradae]

Sorry, wjhat I meant is that a lot of the existing OXPs have bugs, and as part of the process you are going through, I guess you are (Like L did) likely to fix a lot of those proiblems. It seems a shame to me that people keep going through that process, and yet the base OXPs used as source material remain defective.

I am actually terribly sorry about that state of affairs ...

Thought about doing what you suggest a long time ago, but it was even impossible to just find all nicknames of every oxp author who's work I used, not even after extensive search on the board and wiki and google.

With the inherited bugload to keep track of everything I fixed, make a list of all that with reference to the respective original oxp plus which author (where I knew it at all) and then sending out PM's to everyone would, I am afraid, have been an at least RS-scale project of its own

Cheers

L

[Cmdr James]

Just to be completely clear, I wasnt intending to blame anyone, we are where we are, and I dont think anyone is to blame. I was just thinking that if the process is planned in from the start, it might be easier than trying to unpick it all in the future.

In fact it could, I imagine, easily be done in two stages, first the OXP is fixed of all known bugs, and made available, then it is rebalanced, and either released as a parallel version, or merged into the OueberXP

Either way, its only a suggestion, and I am sure everyone has better things to do satisfy my OXP-OCD.

[ClymAngus]

First tranche of ships I’ll be looking at are:


Python
Python Class Cruiser
Python ET
Imperial Courier
Boa
Boa Class Cruiser
Anaconda
The Kirin

I thought we did ok, with the Kirin. To be honest. Fights like a battle ship flies like a brick. Still, I have the solace of knowing that the cargo size is accurate according to the size of the ship. You can actually physically fit 400 cargo pods in the ship (which is more than can be said for the anaconda). Ah! The downside of creative commons, vanilla away khemosabi!

But just to be perfectly clear, unaltered versions will still very much be kept available dear sir, oh yes. And I would expect as a professional courtesy that if this ship is altered and reintroduced then clear definition is made between the "balanced" and the unadulterated original.

One last thing, you take it, you alter it. You host it!

[Sendraks]

I thought we did ok, with the Kirin. To be honest.

I agree, I think you did a fine job. However, you've got to compare a range of ships within a given role to balance them against each other. So I'm not saying that the ships on that list are unbalanced, they are there for comparator purposes.

But just to be perfectly clear, unaltered versions will still very much be kept available dear sir, oh yes. And I would expect as a professional courtesy that if this ship is altered and reintroduced then clear definition is made between the "balanced" and the unadulterated original.

I wouldn't have it any other way. This is a personal project which I'm sharing the findings on. It isn't a manifesto for saying that all ships should be a particular way. That would be a nonsense that stifles creativity.

[Commander McLane]

I like this project!

[Wolfwood]

I like this too - the least it will do for me is to show which OXPs (out of those I haven't tested yet) might be worth my time to try out (i.e. the ones that need little or no changes to make balanced).

[lfnfan]

will be good to see what you come up with.

For me, the ethos of the Holdstock novella is that combat, making a living, and ultimately becoming Elite, is not easy. Or even just 'mildly challenging'. It's tough. But, 'according to the effort is the reward'.

At what point is the balance "wrong"?

From a combat standpoint, all ships should fit into four categories - fighters, freighters, fighter/freighters, and fodder. Each of the first three categories are fundamentally different, but, within each category there is only minimal variation - essentially just appearance. Then, it's a numbers game. I would say that the balance is fundamentally wrong when a single ship of one type can take out a pack of three ships of another type without taking any damage to systems or equipment. Six against one, and after a very short time the only option should be the escape capsule (you did fit one, didn't you...?).

The exception being the 'fodder' category, who are close to being toast however few adversaries they come up against at one time in combat. Fodder is a sub-Iron Ass ship belonging to any of the three main categories. Based on how the game is at the moment, I would be surprised if a Commander didn't have an Iron Ass by the time they were Competent, at least.

From a livelihood standpoint, I do struggle with the fact that a Commander who is trading successfully is going to want to spend those credits on something. And there are only so many times one can buy core ship equipment upgrades or GalCop Victory Bonds before a shiny 'uber ship' edges its way to the top of the shopping list. Perhaps after a Commander has paid for their Iron Ass Cobby III, it's no longer about the credits. To quote the coda from The Dark Wheel:

Possible Spoiler Alert:







'Has the grief gone?' Rafe asked, and Alex nodded.
The old trader smiled. 'How does it feel to be rich?'
'Empty,' Alex said, and Rafe Zetter laughed.
'You'll do for the Dark Wheel, Alex. You'll do . . .'


End Spoiler


that's just imho, anyway. ymmv

[Selezen]

I'm in favour of someone going through and making sure that OXPs all balance with each other, since that will only improve the gaming experience and increase the accessibility of Oolite to new players.

However, I'm concerned at the amount of different versions of everyone's OXPs that will be kicking about now. Think about the good ole Imperial Courier.

Version 1: My original version (the one everyone calls the "military" version)
Version 2: My new version with better model and more balanced stats
Version 3: The revamped Version 1 in Realistic Shipyards
Version 4: The revamped Version 2 in Realistic Shipyards
Version 5: The revamped Version 1 in OSE
Version 6: The revamped Version 2 in OSE
Version 7: The revamped Version 1 in Sendrak's project
Version 8: The revamped Version 2 in Sendrak's project

Isn't this getting a little silly? I wrote 2 ship expansion OXPs involving the IC. I asked for V1 to be replaced with V2 and it never happened, but fair enough. Now, however, there are potentially 8 versions kicking about on the boards and the download sites!

I can't say I'm happy about this, since there's so much potential for confusion. Which version do YOU have? I'm not even sure which version _I_ have any more, and I was the one who put the model and its settings out there in the first place!!

I don't mind the modification of the OXP, don't get me wrong - that's what Open Source and so on is all about. What I an worried about is the proliferation of so many different versions of these OXPs.

I think we need some sort of version control on this stuff to make sure that everyone's gaming experience is consistent. I don't know how to manage it officially, but I think something definitely needs to be put in place to ensure that all this creativity is not wasted on the new gamers who just want to fly a cool ship without having to fish through a nightmare list of modifications and versions.

How about this as a starter for 10: use the wiki to store text versions of all the ship stats with the correct filenames. If someone wants to mod the stats, the reasons have to be approved and the changes themselves have to be approved. Only one "official" version should be available, and if anyone wants to come along and create an uber-OXP then they have to ensure that the changes they want to make to the OXP are approved and included in the root file.

I suppose it's something like how version control in SVN works to a degree - it ensures that the codebase is consistent and that everyone is playing the same game. Once they get it on their hard drive it's up to them what changes they make on their local systems, but the central version is the one that any downloads are based on.

It's just a thought. I just don't want to wander onto the forum one day and find fifteen versions of the same ship available for download...