Ship Rationalisation / Balancing Project

[Commander McLane]

@ Lestradae: The thing is that, while your opinions may be humble, your OXP is not. As you never fail to inform us how many thousands of people have already downloaded it, the only conclusion I can humbly draw is that in fact RS/OSE is your attempt to climb into Oolite's Master and Commander's seat and dictate everybody else how this game has to look like, and play.

And because you serve everything in one OXP which is difficult to modify, you leave the player no choice. If he wants only one thing from RS/OSE, he has to swallow everything. Which again leads to the big Lestradae dictatorship over Oolite.

Therefore, effectively there is no question of dictatorship vs. democracy, but only which dictator dominates the game. And as a matter of fact you are the one who has gone the farthest into this direction so far.

And this is my humble opinion.

[Disembodied]

But as Disembodied said correctly (imho): The moment you install any oxp the "authentic Elite feeling" is out the window. So from there on, it's your individual vision of where could I/we go from here?

That's not quite what I meant ... when you install an OXP, you obviously divert from playing a version of the original Elite with better graphics (in fact, it's different right from the get-go, simply because you don't have to fly a Cobra III: in the unmodified Oolite you can sell your Cobra and buy a Python, or a Moray, or a FDL, etc.). But there are OXPs which, I think, keep closer to an "authentic Elite feeling" than others – in that they expand the game within the same sort of limits that the original worked under. There are new ships in there, but they all still make sense in a universe where the Cobra III is the acknowledged jack-of-all-trades craft.

I really, really don't get why it is not possible to agree to disagree over issues like that here, even if we are strictly talking about what we would individually like or not in our games. It's like the difference between a dictatorship (one opinion) and a democracy (contradictory opinions coexist side by side), again imho.



L

I'm all for agreeing to disagree! And for remaining polite, too ... Nobody is forced to download any OXP, or OXP package. Everything else is down to personal opinion and taste, and I don't see the harm in it!

[Selezen]

One OXP to Rule Them ideas are all well and good, but as has been said before, some people might like the idea of OSE and some of the stuff it brings but not the idea of having to download a combined copy of the entire OXP list. Personally speaking I like the idea of RS and OSE and some of the stuff they do, but I don't want to install every available OXP just to get that benefit.

The idea I'm crawling toward with that introduction is this: is there any way that the RS or OSE type ideas can:

a. offer the user a choice of which aspects to use from its functionality list (e.g. RS's shipyard fixes but not the modded ship stats)
and
b. parse the user's OXP list and apply the enabled modifications to each OXP it finds?

This saves on huge downloads, the need to get rid of OXPs that are not wanted and the risk of duplicated OXPs.

If someone can make this sort of thing work, the One OXP can become a user-friendly thing again and maybe prevent all this sort of conversation.

This is by no means a comprehensive idea - it's a skeletal concept that would need fleshing out but I think it would be a good idea because it leaves the customisability up to the user whilst still showcasing the creativity of people like Les. Unless they WANT to be the big eye in Barad Dur...

[Cmdr James]

I really, really don't get why it is not possible to agree to disagree over issues like that here, even if we are strictly talking about what we would individually like or not in our games. It's like the difference between a dictatorship (one opinion) and a democracy (contradictory opinions coexist side by side), again imho.

Correct. I am not trying to kill the debate, I am simply responding to your assertion that some people see it as elite with knobs and some do not.

I think my key point was that if someone (lets say yourself, but its a general point) dont want to play a game close to elite, then you might well be better finding either another starting point, or creating a version of oolite with "native" support for buying and selling equipment, with something thought out for large ships rather than the JS cludges you are currently forced into and so on. You could even (easily) have oolite calculate the price of ships from their stats, so you wouldnt have to update all the OXPs. This isnt me telling you to go play another game, its simply me questioning the value of oolite as is for a non-elite experience.

There is nothing wrong with RS or OSE from my perspective. Ill make no secret of the fact I dont use them, but they do have every right to exist.

I might also add that I think elite was fundamentally a product of its time. Elite without the limitations of its time is rather a strange concept, I guess you could say Atic Attack without the limitations of its time is Wolfenstein 3D. Its the same with elite. Elite without the technical limitations is called EVE (flame on!).

[Diziet Sma]

And because you serve everything in one OXP which is difficult to modify, you leave the player no choice. If he wants only one thing from RS/OSE, he has to swallow everything. Which again leads to the big Lestradae dictatorship over Oolite.

In fairness, Lestradae has stated his intention to also create a version which has the extra features of RS/OSE but without any ships included, so that players could then include only those they wanted by adding the regular OXPs wtih the ships they desired..

[zevans]

I think there have to be some basic physical facts that need to remain constant in order to keep the game world logical. Cobra III is supposed to be the peak of commercially available medium trading ships (and even a very good all-around ship). Going too far beyond this basic role of Cobra III in any other ship would destroy this basic starting point.

This sounds like a lot of people here are thinking of game balance like a quality triangle, constrained by price... so something that costs about the same as a Cobra could be a better trader but a worse fighter, or vice versa, but not better at both. If it is better at both then it should cost a lot more.

The problem is, this leaves a hole for uber-expensive uber-ships, because oolite ships are mostly made of unobtanium and therefore there are no real engineering constraints.

We're all sort of expecting there should be a point that it should just be impossible to build the ship any better, because you're bumping up against some engineering or other type of constraint. At the moment it's possible to design OXP ships that ignore this barrier and that's what doesn't feel right...

[Wolfwood]

I think there have to be some basic physical facts that need to remain constant in order to keep the game world logical. Cobra III is supposed to be the peak of commercially available medium trading ships (and even a very good all-around ship). Going too far beyond this basic role of Cobra III in any other ship would destroy this basic starting point.

This sounds like a lot of people here are thinking of game balance like a quality triangle, constrained by price... so something that costs about the same as a Cobra could be a better trader but a worse fighter, or vice versa, but not better at both. If it is better at both then it should cost a lot more.

No, cost should never play the part of a balancing factor (at least no more than 5-10 percent of improvement in technology) - I've said this before, but will just repeat it here for good measure. You've said it also in your previous posts, so I know we think alike in this.

[JensAyton]

The idea I'm crawling toward with that introduction is this: is there any way that the RS or OSE type ideas can:

a. offer the user a choice of which aspects to use from its functionality list (e.g. RS's shipyard fixes but not the modded ship stats)
and
b. parse the user's OXP list and apply the enabled modifications to each OXP it finds?

Yes. This could be done by splitting the “functional modules” into separate OXPs, each of which uses shipdata_override.plist and shipyard_override.plist to modify those ships the user has installed. In fact, those plists were added specifically to allow Lestradae to do this kind of thing without enforcing a particular set of ships.

[Lestradae]

I should kind of have known not to get into that debate again.

I am neither "the great Oolite dictator" nor "the sauronic eye watching and binding them all" nor "taking the seat of Master & Commander" from anyone. I find it slightly disturbing that some of you guys can straight-faced (?) write semi-paranoid stuff like that here

There is no taking away of any options or forcing anything on any player or whatever involved here. Anyone who wants to be picky for whatever reason with their oxps should not install RS or OSE. (I will even write this in the OSE introduction, I know Ahruman, no one reads manuals, but that's all I can do regarding this information).

So I can't, won't and don't want to "enforce" anything on players, original oxp creators or aegidian or whomever else you might think of here. You install either a carefully selected list of ships & equipment oxps specifically tailored to your specific tastes or you like the all-in-one-go mentality of RS/OSE, but then please don't complain about the latter, that's what you get with this meta-oxp, it's kinda the point.

The only thing that is sort of enforcing are a few features unique to OSE that might make sense to offer in a separate oxp also. For example the buying and selling of player stations. Therefore, as I have already written in the Expansions forum, I will probably do a down-scaled OSE version, sort of RS 4.0, which will not contain any ships but just the shipdata and shipyard overrides plists in the way suggested by Ahruman, so this will offer all functionality of OSE without any ships of its own (you'll have to use the original oxps then) and without the special ship features including the expansion into ship classes.

Flame on, guys, I am out of here. I completely respect your opinions if they refer to your own Oolite gameplay tastes, perhaps it is not nescessary to do an healthcare Obama on me for creating a rather successful meta-oxp.

Have a nice evening, and good luck with your ship rebalancing project (You know what? I mean it!)

L

[DaddyHoggy]

I like what I've installed. I try to install stuff that was hinted at in the manual or the Dark Wheel but 1980s 8-bit machine just couldn't do. I think YAH fits into the Elite Ooniverse along with most of the naval, thargoid expansions, even the black monks, GRS stuff - and I love the new designs of the core ships. Everything else I've left out (save the extra missions OXPs) - that's the BEST thing about Oolite being single player - when I do get chance to play it - I'm playing in MY Ooniverse.

I actually think RS/OSE are a good idea but definitely not for me...

[Selezen]

I am neither "the great Oolite dictator" nor "the sauronic eye watching and binding them all" nor "taking the seat of Master & Commander" from anyone. I find it slightly disturbing that some of you guys can straight-faced (?) write semi-paranoid stuff like that here

Here, wait a minute - a few months ago when I first wrote that "One OXP to Rule Them All" thing you thought it was fall-over funny! Who's the paranoid one?

Anyway, I'm not specifically criticising OSE or RS - they are just the first of what could become a rising number of balancing or rationalising OXPs - the real subject of this conversation is Sendrak's proposal. In the same way that diseases are named after the first diagnosed patient, this sort of OXP is being labelled (by me at least) with the moniker of the first of those OXPs that came into existence. So I call them RS-type projects. No offence is intended and I do value the work you do, Les. You know that. I love you, dude!

However, I have always felt that the concept of creating an Uber-download like RS is risky and takes a lot of choice away from the player. On one hand if someone wants to use the balancing aspects of RS then they have to install EVERY OXP that's bundled with RS. If they only want one or two ships in there, then they have to manually remove all of the others. It's either that or the player can't use the cool little features of the addon. Which is a shame, since (as I said) they are cool features!

OSE is an even better concept. Sendrak's idea is a good one, as long as you agree with the way he will rationalise the ships. My only worry is that bundling a custom version of an OXP in each of these packages 1) makes a HUGE OXP that will only bloat more with future iterations and 2) results in many disparate and unmanaged versions of ships kicking about the wiki.

If the facility is within Oolite to do these things without packaging up another copy of all the ships then it seems good sense to take that route! Ahruman HAS gone to all the trouble to make the functions that can handle it after all. It would be rude not to use them.

I'm not flaming anyone here, least of all you, Les, since as I said in my last post the creativity you and Sendrak have shown is phenomenal and has greatly benefited the community in many ways! I think with some work any of these concepts could make Oolite a more accessible game for veterans and the Harmless alike. I personally would LOVE to own a station, but not at the cost of having to install EVERY ship OXP, for example.

My only flame is to anyone who likes that pile of poo that is EVE Online. Yes, I'm lookin' at you, James...

[ClymAngus]

I am neither "the great Oolite dictator" nor "the sauronic eye watching and binding them all" nor "taking the seat of Master & Commander" from anyone.

Sweet can you remove the old caduceus from shipyards then please it was meant to be superseded by the neo, in every way an improvement and replacement of the original. Fewer vertex, better texture, more realistic stats, smaller target area, more code work from the Wyvern..

Oh and as for Ooolite with oxps is EVE. This won't be a flame war but it will result in a light toasting:

1) EVE is EVE there is no EVE with user lead add ons.
2) You see any other players out there when your playing Oolite? Thought not.
3) Playing EVE my wallet appeared to be magically lighter every month. I wonder how that happened?

EVE is the same as Oolite because they're both in space. There, the similarity ends. There is a tread dedicated to this subject;
https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.ph ... hlight=eve

Might be worth a review.

[Cmdr James]

I didnt say I liked it, I said thats what you would get if you took the elite concept to a software house now.

Hey, lets make it MMOG, and trading, stock markets, and design and build your own stuff in game, and..., and...

My point was actually rather the reverse -- what makes elite good is that it was created in a time when it was limited, when the best had to be squeezed from what was available, not just flash graphics, and feature bloat.

It is hard to imagine in the present day, without the elite precedent anyway, build a 3d space game, with only single player, physics to make a highschooler teacher feel sick, trading limited to 20 or so items, which dont vary (much) depending on the planet, with only 4 weapons, and concpets such as turrets considered radical! Thats what I mean, bring elite up to date and what do you get -- EVE.

But its just an assertion from me, doesnt make it correct, and it certainly doint make it my target (I want elite, not eve!).

[ClymAngus]

I didnt say I liked it,

Well I never said that you said that you liked it. All I said was, you said that Oolite with certain add ons was like EVE, a point which I currently strenuously contest! Now some day someone might deposit a EVEalizer.oxp like a great fat steaming turd on our immaculate site. It's possible, but unlikely. Until that shining day, there are a cornucopic plethora of reasons to vive la différence!

I said thats what you would get if you took the elite concept to a software house now.

The world has unfortunately gone, "provide the machinery for humanity to blow the digital snot out of each other." It's a penny in the pound and keep on paying kind of thing. Why just sell a product when you can sell a service? One which takes minimal effort to administrate?

Hey, lets make it MMOG, and trading, stock markets, and design and build your own stuff in game, and..., and...

Could, can and might. This adds to the palette of possible player experiences. You like amish Oolite and that's fine. But there is more at stake here, to personalise your gaming experience and share your creations with others keep a game evolving. It stops it stagnating. Sure you'll get bloat. Then someone will come along and streamline it. Suddenly your not just playing your engaging people in a creative interaction. Arguably this is more important psychologically than the game itself. You've noticed people playing less and making more? Well there is a good reason for that!

My point was actually rather the reverse -- what makes elite good is that it was created in a time when it was limited, when the best had to be squeezed from what was available, not just flash graphics, and feature bloat..

And there is nothing stopping you playing that game from now till doomsday. In fact there are a number of oxp's that actually improve the look of oolite to be more like the old elite game.

It is hard to imagine in the present day, without the elite precedent anyway, build a 3d space game, with only single player, physics to make a highschooler teacher feel sick, trading limited to 20 or so items, which dont vary (much) depending on the planet, with only 4 weapons, and concpets such as turrets considered radical! Thats what I mean, bring elite up to date and what do you get -- EVE.

That's an assumption on your part, a somewhat fatalistic one at that. That all expansions of space based trading games will inevitably end in EVE. I believe there are may ways of going. The course being charted here is a broad one, EVE on the other hand is a glorified coin-op in a room full of coin-ops all wired together.

But its just an assertion from me, doesnt make it correct, and it certainly doint make it my target (I want elite, not eve!).

And you have it. Oolite with no add ons.

[Cmdr James]

FWIW, I was responding to

My only flame is to anyone who likes that pile of poo that is EVE Online. Yes, I'm lookin' at you, James...

, you sneaked in before I posted

The point about EVE wasnt actually directly about EVE, I was contrasting simple limited (oolite) with latest and greatest superset of all (EVE). EVE was just handy because I knew it would touch a nerve