Oolite Bulletins

Cody wrote:

need someone else to check

I just tried from Firefox, Chrome, Safari (on an iPhone) and IE. No image. IE even reports a 404 error.

Thanks... it was fine here (Firefox). I was trying to avoid Photobucket, as they're pissing me off lately. However...



Previous attempt edited too... hope that works.

What will you spend the money on, if I may ask ?

I've never seen a parcel contract over 10K - I'm obviously flying the wrong routes!

Re the question about money, I don't think there are any ships (in game or expansions etc.) costing more than a million or so, once you can afford any ship fully equipped, plus the deposits on a few high-value cargoes, the exact amount you have is just a way of keeping score. My current pilot has nearly 6 million in the bank and a DTT Cyclops, and is basically just flying lots of valuable cargoes, unpopular passengers and dangerous parcel runs etc. to get up to Elite.

It would be nice if there were other things you could do with the money, such as buying your own planet or saving the Star Jelly, but we've been over that ground too many times before.

What will I spend the money on? When I have enough, I intend to purchase a xagave plantation on Zaquesso!

ffutures wrote:

I don't think there are any ships (in game or expansions etc.) costing more than a million or so...

There are actually eleven costing one million or more - maybe the game needs something really expensive!

The Constrictor is a really sweet ship to fly... well worth ten million!

To be honest, I see little logical connections between ship price, size, and capabilities...

I could afford an Andromeda, actually almost two if I consider the contents of my safe and the value of my current ship. But I don't want an Andromeda, so I don't really know what to do with all the money. My current incentive to play is becoming Elite one day, but money isn't really important at the moment. Still I try not to lose it, and I even bother to scoop cargo containers and alloys. Perhaps some day I'll find (or write) an OXP containing something worth all the money!

Fritz wrote:

To be honest, I see little logical connections between ship price, size, and capabilities...

I could afford an Andromeda, actually almost two if I consider the contents of my safe and the value of my current ship. But I don't want an Andromeda, so I don't really know what to do with all the money. My current incentive to play is becoming Elite one day, but money isn't really important at the moment. Still I try not to lose it, and I even bother to scoop cargo containers and alloys. Perhaps some day I'll find (or write) an OXP containing something worth all the money!

I tried an Andromeda, it's huge and very pretty but tends to be a bit boring because its huge range without refuelling means it can avoid / outrun most problems. So far the Cyclops is the best big ship I've tried - it's not up there with the mega-big ones, but I can manage 675 tons of cargo and 8 passengers and it's considerably faster than e.g. an Anaconda.

Fritz wrote:

I don't really know what to do with all the money.

This is a common failing/feature of Oolite. Eventually you end up being super rich, but with nothing to spend your money on (of significance I mean. You can always buy more ships). Someone could probably link to a thread that discusses this issue in particular.

It's not an uncommon topic... and not only here.

As a German, I know a simple solution. Just introduce taxes!

The accumulation of money is an inherited problem from the original Elite (even the prices for goods and equipment are, as far as I can remember, identical to those in Elite), but most games where you can earn money share the same problem. With Oolite, prices for ships were introduced, but this doesn't solve the problem because often there is no real reason to buy new ships - many seem still to use the Cobra 3 after years of playing, and this is probably no bad way to play the game. Maintenance also came with Oolite, but you would have to play very badly to be unable to afford it - and even if you can't, it doesn't matter, your ship will remain usable for an infinite time...

In reality, maintenance would be more important and probably more expensive. And it would be mandatory, at least for ships docking at the main stations. In reality, ship owners would have to pay insurance fees, of course depending on the value of their ship, and they would be very high because the Ooniverse is so dangerous. And pilots and traders would have to pay taxes that could be be imposed as docking or trading fees.

But even with all this, good pilots would get richer and richer. In reality you would stop working one day, you would run for president, or you would invest the money, e.g. in buying additional (!) ships flown by pilots working for you. But if this was made possible by an OXP, you wouldn't see much of this, only money coming in at an even higher rate. (I think, I just had the idea for a really complex OXP: the Oolite tycoon... )

So if money doesn't matter, how can you keep the game interesting? The Elite ranking is one incentive, but I'm sure I'll reach this goal sometime in 2016. I can't see into the future, but perhaps I'll do more OXP work then. That's the good thing about Oolite: Even if you have played it for years, earned millions of credits, and of course an Elite ranking, there will always be new things to do because of the OXPs.

Fritz wrote:

buying additional (!) ships flown by pilots working for you.

An  Escort fleet is something similar and enough costly.

No offence, but attaching this to my Python would look like a Porsche with a roof rack and a trailer.

(Having written this, I googled, and found that it wouldn't look too bad: http://www.autospies.com/images/users/A ... railer.jpg)

Someone should introduce an OXP where you can buy main stations. You would get your name added to the station name, but that's about it. Maybe even get some measly income/drain from every owned station. Then the goal would be to own the whole Ooniverse and to become the ultimate Troomp.

Station interface for buying the station would be: "Meet the owner."