Oolite Bulletins

i like the memo idea - it sorta ties in w/ when i asked about implementing the bulletin boards again : to look for escort/assassination/package-ferrying etc. IIRC, there were two aspects of this that may make things a bit more interesting, economy-wise :-
(1) in Frontier, if (say) i was taking furs to a techy planet for a good profit, i could look on the F8 and see i was gonna get C89 a ton. BUT - if you went to the bulletin boards there was also a chance that someone there was offering say C95 a ton (perhaps for a certain amount).
(2) the price of goods must be alterable under certain circs, because (at the risk of a SPOILER!!!) in the Nova mission on Elite, i took some refugees : they gave me some gems. "fricking gratitude", i thought grumpilly, until i tried selling them and was given 1000x (think) the market price.

i was thinking maybe these could be combined w/ all the stuff below :
EITHER
you get a message "Solar flares have buggered puters in Isinor". pick some up, take them there. (a) i'd think the amount to buy at the station would be 0, and (b) the gem thingy above would kick in and you would get (market price * 1.(random number) ) for your stock.
OR
perhaps, tho, an easier way (soz, i'm thinking as i write here) would be to set it all up as per Constrictor mission etc : -
You dock at Isinor. You notice there are no puters for sale. EITHER - the F8+F8 would give you a contract thing saying "Isinor station requires 100 tons of puters by <date>" OR, you get a mission screen saying "Commander, we desperately need puters, and will pay <price> per ton if you bring them by <date>" - in each case, the mission parameter thingy could set the price and the selling bit would all be sorted AS you docked (like the existing cargo/passenger contracts) so potential conflict w/ the normal F8 stuff could be avoided. I think.

did that make any kind of sense? :-/

quick edit here, thought : say if Isinor needed 1000 tons of computers etc etc : could that influence what cargo might be carried by a trader if you happened to be a pirate? seems logical that some nefarious gits could go "ooh, nice profit option here", wander off to the beacon and, say, there's a <%> chance that anything you kill will be carrying what the station's desperate for.

another : if we do do this mission-ways, it could possibly introduce new items, just for, y'know, interest ~ not actually tradeable on the normal F8 -say, "Station hospital needs x tons of blood from <station y>" - have to go to Station Y, mission would load you up, and you return for a profit. if you miss the deadline, tough, the script removes the cargo and you're out of pocket. teach you to be quicker in future ;-)

Looks good!

Can change all the info about a particular system in script. I make over 100 changes in Assassins.oxp as stuff happens, Player's actions (and the actions of NPC powers interacting with each other changes how a system is). Eg One system is a nasty Dictatorship at the start, but as civil war breaks out falls to Anachy Status and becomes poor rather than rich, if the rebels win out it becomes a Decomcary. This is pretty easy to do in script with (as a do if conditions are met):-
As things happen other bits can be set. Eg "setSpecificPlanetInfo: 6=13=inhabitants=Resisting harmless birds", when the inhabitants rebel, changing the govenment, productivity and economy values as approprate at the same time. This has an effect on the stock market (although the point of this is really for the missions, but Oolite's code changes the stockmarket as I've changed the economy etc of the system).

Now at one point, GalCop kick the Dictatorship out of the Union of Worlds (for doing certain things!). So a:-

"setSpecificPlanetInfo: 6=13=station=balrog"

(balrog being the role of a real nasty BattleStation defined in shipdata!)

replaces the normal main station with a nasty dictatorship armed platform!

I know this works for a specific system (where the numbers represent G number then planet number), but may work with a random number as per your idea. Limited to d100 at the moment, but even so. If we define a d7 and a d100 for a variable gnumber and pnumber then maybe a:-

"setSpecificPlanetInfo: [gnumber]=[pnumber]=station=traderstat1"

would work.

Same idea could also put in KW's mini-mission ideas:- 'puters all wreaked in the X system, using CM's timer, they'd be a time frame where taking 'puters to X generates (say double) the profit, but after a bit, there're all 'putered out and the price drops back again. Just use the =description= to add a comment about them needing computers and then a comment when they don't.

lolwhites wrote:

Littlebear makes a very valid point. Once you've got the best ship you can buy and kitted it out, credits just become numbers. OK, so you need to keep a float to repair damaged equipment, but unless maintenance overhauls become a lot more expensive and frequent, or people think of other uses for credits (such as missions where you have to pay for clues and other important information), where's the incentive to trade once your ship is maxed out?

The obvious thought is that players need something to *do* with all those credits. That however implies more game expansion.

Commander McLane wrote:

[snip research]

Excellent investigative work, Commander McLane.

LittleBear wrote:

Nice Idea's commander. I'm sure it would be a complex task to OXP, but must be easier than writting a whole new version of the game and passing loads of variables over a server.

I think there are two very different types of complexity here.

From a programming point of view - which is to say, a well understood problem with well understood and concrete solutions which are fairly obviously correct - it is simpler to write an OXP than change the game to use a server.

However, from an economics simulation point of view - which is to say, a very poorly understood problem without obviously correct solutions - using player behaviour as the driver for realistic behaviour is a MUCH MUCH simplier and more effective solution than trying to program up a numeric simulation.

Killer Wolf wrote:

i like the memo idea - it sorta ties in w/ when i asked about implementing the bulletin boards again : to look for escort/assassination/package-ferrying etc. IIRC, there were two aspects of this that may make things a bit more interesting, economy-wise :-
(1) in Frontier, if (say) i was taking furs to a techy planet for a good profit, i could look on the F8 and see i was gonna get C89 a ton.

This sort of behaviour is what you get with a realistic market; a range of buyers and sellers, at different prices for different quantities.

And of course if you predict the demand will increase and you can afford it, you put your sell order higher than the current best offer and wait - and then later the money rolls on in and you did well.

@Callas

Think your sort of missing the point. Elite / Oolite is not suseptable to a real world economy simulation. In the real world I'm 34. I'm fortunate enough to enjoy my job and would do it even if I won the lottery and had no need to work in finacial terms. Justice (as an example) is important in its own right. Most Doctors would still work as Doctors (even if they won the lottery and had Millions in the bank and no finacial need to work), because they feel treating the sick is a valid life aim in and of itself.

Ensuring Innocent people do not go to prison for crimes they didn't do, just so the govement of the day can announce that its conviction statistics look more impressive, is also a worthwhile thing to do with your life, money aside. As a Legal Aid sentence earns me the impressive sum of £1.50 (before tax), I don't do it for the money!

Even if I hated my job, in the real world, I have to work to pay the morgage, feed and clothe my daughter etc. But Oolite isn't like this. If my Jameson left Lave at 21, then by 22 he has everything that can be bought! Whilst I might want a new 'puter, plasma screen TV, bigger house etc. My Jameson Charcter already has everything that can be bought! This is because these only so much that can be bought in Oolite. The real fun comes from being an Ionics Wars hero, turing Outlaw and killing for money, saving the refuges, shooting down the consitrictor etc. There are now over 50 missions to do, so Oolite is really more "plot driven" than "money driven".

I really admire the work your prepared to put in. But if your gonna do it, go for somthing (like a deathmatch system) that adds to the gameplay. Other players actions making a small difference to the price I gain when selling goods just isn't that interesting and seems a hugh amount of work, to do somthing that could be added by CM's "flavour" OXP. Be much more interseting to be interacting with other players in space combat!

Use all those credits to influence governments in a more surreptitious manner??? An ongoing OXP "Power Wielder"?

@ LittleBear:

As for the specific planetinfo: I think without sacrificing anything we can set gnumber just to the current galaxy and so eliminate one element of random. It makes sense anyway that disasters and things like that are announced galaxywide, not in the other galaxies.

For pnumber I think we can get one step further. In v. 1.67 there will be d256_number, which is ideal (see Ahrumans thread about the next built). As long as we don't have it we can at least script: set: pnumber [d100_number], add: pnumber [d100_number], which gives us a range of 200 planets instead of 100 only, even if they won't be equally randomized (higher probability in the middle range).

And then we can work with setSpecificPlanetInfo in script.plist, as you suggest. Or if in planetinfo.plist we can use conditions, we also can do it this way: conditions = ("mission_actsOfGod_active equal YES"); do = ([gnumber] [pnumber] { and so on. (Don't nail me on the correct syntax here, haven't yet played with planetinfo.) I would prefer the latter way, because it would keep the script.plist cleaner.

And by the way: Should we perhaps move this discussion from here and open another thread for oxp-development? It is leading away from the topic in this thread, which is about MMORPG and an external economy server.

The original Elite was for the BBC Model B and in its day was cutting edge 3D on a computer with only 32K and a processor running at 1MHZ. The authors of the original had to use seed random procedures to create maket prices and starfields etc.

Today machines are running at 1.86GHZ with 1GB memory. I think that a multipalyer version is not impposible it is just a challenge.

Hi pmhunt, welcome to the board.

I think most people are agreed that it's not impossible but I think the main sticking point is the size of the challenge, given that Oolite is developed and maintained in other peoples spare time.

Has anyone mentioned Jet Set Willy Online yet? A much smaller game and probably miles easier to develop (all done by peeps in their spare time). But it goes to show that its possible to make a free version of an MMORPG.

http://www.bagfullofwrong.co.uk/bagfull ... ly-online/

That’s not really massively multiplayer. Or an RPG. But it’s a game, and it’s online, and multiplayer, so it counts as a MOG. :-)

Anyway, writing an online game and turning an existing game into an MMORPG are entirely different projects. To make Oolite multiplayer would require major architectural changes, gameplay changes, and breaking compatibility for OXPs and saved games (these last being minor issues in the greater scheme of things).

Ahruman wrote:

That’s not really massively multiplayer. Or an RPG. But it’s a game, and it’s online, and multiplayer, so it counts as a MOG.

Anyway, writing an online game and turning an existing game into an MMORPG are entirely different projects. To make Oolite multiplayer would require major architectural changes, gameplay changes, and breaking compatibility for OXPs and saved games (these last being minor issues in the greater scheme of things).

Would it be worth keeping OoliteMOG as a seperate entity though? No more OXP's added to i until a new edition is announced after the original release? Im sure there would be a way round it :p

The multiplayer game might be the way to go for an online game. People on here could easily organise a get together and play for several hours. Less progress and more social interaction perhaps? Who knows. Im just throwing ideas into the pot

Lorfarius wrote:

Would it be worth keeping OoliteMOG as a seperate entity though?

“Keeping”? It doesn’t exist, and as far as I’m aware no-one is working on it.