Oolite Bulletins

I like space trading games such as Elite and god games such as Civilisation, preferring single player games.
'played Elite on the Commodore 64 on a fateful visit to my cousin's, then came across it again years later on the Atari ST. I remember the shock when I noticed that the game clock had ticked past twenty-four hours. I miss that real-time clock in Oolite

A few years ago I got into Vegastrike on Gentoo Linux, but it never reached maturity; Newtonian physics is fine an' all, but it's a pain in the rear. Family life means I stick to simpler games rather than the big online ones.
Last month I discovered Oolite and I've since lost too many hours, "Just one more flight".

I use a brand new Thrustmaster joystick, and may spring for a throttle. Call me a Philistine, but I play pitch/yaw. I find the trading side almost as much fun as the flight side, guess' that balance for me is what makes Elite et-al so great.

I'm doing long precious metals runs in Galaxy one saving up for a new ship with Norby's OXP's for Beginners and have completed Long Way Round and 'Curse. Once I've done other G1 missions, I'll do Contrictor in G2. I've started doing Random Hits too.

Right on Commander.

Jim

brownandsticky wrote: ↑Tue Sep 11, 2018 9:51 am

"Just one more flight".

<chuckles> Welcome aboard, Commander!

Hello fellow space nerds. I have been working on my own open source space game (called Space Nerds In Space) for the last roughly six years, and I see some interesting topics around here so I thought I would join.

Space Nerds? Here? Where's my blaster?

Hi smcameron, welcome to the boards - if it's not the friendliest BB this side of Riedquat then your pizza is free!

Hum, "Hello, World!" *coughs*
France, here.
Not much to say, except I'm a fan of Elite and glad to have found Oolite.
I have played 'Elite' and 'Frontier Elite'.
The other versions were *blah* for me, not really enjoyable.
I was considering (maybe!) buying 'No Man's Sky', but, then, I found Oolite, which is heaven to me.
So, well, I'm here.
BTW, the nickname I'm using here is a translation of my real names. Because they don't fit the box (I don't know if I'm clear, there ).
So, heh : "Hey, guys!" *waves at the crowd*

Hi Prester John, welcome! Good to have you aboard.

Welcome aboard, PJ.

Hello. I'm a new player and I didn't play Elite or other space sims growing up so I'm very much a novice. I'd like to share some of my initial experiences with Oolite. I haven't tried playing without mods. Before starting, I went into the in-game mod manager and downloaded almost everything there. I don't regret that, because the game looks great and is full of interesting things, but from a difficulty perspective, I think that I should have been more careful. The descriptions in the in-game mod manager don't really convey some of the nuances, and I did not know for example that enemy ships by default do not have shields, so I did not realize that Custom Shields was making the game a lot harder, not just making flashy visual effects. I did not expect that combining ShipVersions, Skilled NPCs, HardShips, IronHide, Custom Shields, Q-Charger, etc., would make even the smallest ships probably tough enough to resist anything short of a military laser. Not that I have a military laser yet -- just a forward beam.

So, combat is definitely a challenge for me. I don't have a joystick or gamepad and I'm terrible at lining up targets with mouse and keyboard. Even with the Ctrl key, which I only discovered accidentally by reading some posts here, I have yet to win a single dogfight, even with one opponent. I rarely manage to keep my laser on another ship for more than a second before it swerves away, faster than I can follow it with the arrow keys. Even if I reduce the throttle, I can't stay on their tail as they keep flying over and behind me. I tried using mouse control, but even small movements of the mouse translate to huge movements of the ship, and the motion doesn't stop when you stop moving the mouse, unless you hit the right mouse button, which feels awkward to me. I'm not sure how anyone manages to fight effectively with the keyboard alone. I haven't tried the Numpad, maybe that's better?

On MFDs and primable equipment ... having MFDs and equipment with useful features is great, but cycling through a long list to find the one you want takes a while, and I only recently found that you can go backwards sometimes with Ctrl (like Ctrl-Shift-N) but not other times (can't reverse the mode cycle with Ctrl+b, or the MFDs cycle with Ctrl+;). Is there a trick to these that I'm missing?

On ship comms ... with comms pack A and such, there's so much chatter that a lot of it scrolls off screen before I even see it. It would be nice if an entire side column of the screen could be dedicated to displaying the comms, instead of just one of the small MFD rectangles or the area next to the HUD radar.

On navigation ... At first, without an advanced space compass, I was confused when trying to find stations. It kept telling me to look for the square on my compass when I got close to the planet, but there was no square on the compass with a basic compass. I think the basic compass should at least show the sun, the main station and the main planet.

On progression ... Milk runs for less than 1000 credits at a time when most equipment and even missiles costs 2-5 times that makes for a slow start. I traded down to a Copperhead Mk II thinking it would let me buy better combat equipment, only to find that I still couldn't win any fights. Then I realized that a small cargo bay (20t) is terrible for trading and I should switch to a larger ship. Then I realized that Ship Versions was making the trade-in value of my ship keep dropping.

So, I'm starting over without some of these increased difficulty mods, and we'll see how it goes...

Hi, welcome to the game. It is true that one needs to be very careful at the beginning with OXPs; as you have discovered, some are really meant for more experienced players. Combat is indeed not terribly easy, but on the other hand, there are ways to win. Check out this video which showcases some combat tactics in a totally unfair dogfight.

It should be possible to modify the HUD so that the message area becomes bigger and permanently on-screen if you so wish. Editing the hud.plist's message_gui section should do it.

Welcome aboard, Milo. General advice for virgin Jamesons is only use eye-candy OXPs, and try to avoid combat. If you've gotta fight, get in close and don't waste shots.
Some players do quite well using keyboard only. I use a joystick by preference, but I can survive using the keyboard only.

Thanks for the advice, another_commander and Cody. I just re-did the tutorial and this time saw the tip about using the Ctrl key for precision. But I'm having the same problem with the basic compass. The tutorial says that it should show the station when close to the planet, but it still just shows the planet. Maybe one of the OXZs is overriding the basic compass behavior?

The basic compass does switch from the planet to the station when close enough, but it doesn't change to a square - it remains as a circle.

Milo:

By all means go with a joystick if at all possible. Much easier to deal with dogfights with a joystick.

Avoid using the following OXZ's when you are starting out:
Hard Ships
Multiple Lasers
Separated Lasers (is dependent on Multiple Lasers so it is not possible to use it without Multiple Lasers)

If you have decided to use the Skilled NPC's OXZ be sure to download the LIBRARY OXZ. Library is NOT available from the in-game manager but is essential as it lets you customize the behavior of many OXZ's including the difficulty levels of the Skilled NPC's.

Find a safe, large group of planets to jump between to earn the credits that will get you the upgrades you need to get an Iron Ass. There are quite a few but the closest to your starting point at Lave is the Zaonce group with Isinor at its center. Jumping between the many planets in this group will keep the markets stable and profitable. Try to avoid jumping between just two planets, back and forth, as the markets will eventually spiral downward and eat into your profits. A few of the planets in this group can present somewhat hostile environments which make for a decent learning experience.

Get yourself Fuel Injectors as early as possible. Learn when to run, when to dump cargo, and when to fight. All of these are essential skills that can make the difference between fun, profit, and pressing the space bar. If you stick with a Cobra Mk. III go for the Cargo Bay Extension as soon as is feasible.

Rule number 1: If it is possible always save the game before you leave a station.

Welcome Aboard Commander - Fly Safe and Dock Straight.