Oolite Bulletins

I have request: make combat encounters less numerous, but when those happen, with the better equipment.
Reason behind this request: someone said in another topic that combat happens too often and I agree.

Have you read the readme?

Matti wrote:

I have request: make combat encounters less numerous, but when those happen, with the better equipment.
Reason behind this request: someone said in another topic that combat happens too often and I agree.

If you've read the readme ( ) you'll see that one use of the OXP is to simulate a deteriorating situation, one where pirates are progressively more prevalent and therefore combat opportunities are more common. That's the way it's supposed to be.
Level one does not add any new pirates but makes the existing ones meaner, so there will be no extra combat situations over the vanilla game.
At Apocalypse level, three extra pirates are added to some systems, those middle-ranking systems that normally don't get too many pirates. This evens-out the spread of pirates around the Ooniverse, so in practice adds one 'combat opportunity' to around 1 in 3 systems. Not a lot, in other words. The pirates are all a lot tougher though, and the dreaded 'War Dogs' (the Boa and Boa 2 pirates) appear from time to time.
At Armageddon is does get tougher. The 'middle' systems get five extra pirates, and the witchpoint blockades appear at the industrial systems. The blockades add five pirates but to balance things also a Police Constrictor, with two wingmen.
So yes, at Armageddon a lot more combat, which is exactly what this OXP is supposed to do. At levels 1 and 2 none or very little extra combat.
Having said that if any of the spawned pirates (and thats 'normal' ones as well as ones added by TG2) have escorts, you get more. A Python Blackdog comes with two escorts and the 'Dogs have four each, so a worst-case scenario where five pirates are called and say they are all Boas or Boa2s is that you'd get a gang of 25 pirates!
I've actually never seen this, but blockades of 15-17 ships are not uncommon (and amazing fun too!).
So to answer your point, extra combat is not common and to reduce it you would need to reduce the number of pirates, and that goes completely against the point of the OXP. Their equipment also increases through the levels, and is not/cannot be dependent on the number of combat opportunities.

Smivs wrote:

So to answer your point, extra combat is not common and to reduce it you would need to reduce the number of pirates, and that goes completely against the point of the OXP.

Does extra combat mean that OXP increases combat encounters?

Anyway this is what I'm looking for: combat is less common than in vanilla Oolite, but when it happens, it's wolf pack of pirates with beamers and player says: "OMG, I'm screwed!" Or would say without iron assed Cobra3 or Boa2 with military lasers, fuel injectors and sniper scope. Of course there could be few pirates with such iron ass and equipment on them, but those should be rare occasions, once or twice in a virtual lifetime unless player is actively looking for trouble.

Hi Matti,
Combat occurs when it does, and is obviously linked to the number of pirates generated either by the game engine or OXPs.
Oolite (vanilla) adds pirates (as well as other roles) into systems as you launch or exit witchspace, and it is this mechanism that ultimately determines how much 'combat potential' there is.
Put simply the minimum amount cannot be influenced in a downward direction, only left as is or added to by OXPs. So the frequency of pirates (combat opportunities) cannot be reduced, and (without OXPs adding groups) neither can the pirates present be made to congregate any more than they do anyway.
As I said above Level One (Anarchy) does not increase the potential for combat situations over those you'd get in 'vanilla' Oolite, so i can't give you less combat, only the same amount (Anarchy) or more (Apocalypse and Armageddon).

All clear now. Thank you for explaining things loud and clear.

Matti wrote:

All clear now. Thank you for explaining things loud and clear.

My pleasure

Smivs wrote:

Put simply the minimum amount cannot be influenced in a downward direction, only left as is or added to by OXPs.

Not technically true - it would be a fairly simple script that is set to run on a timer after a system is populated to scan the system for ships with pirate role and silently remove them. Having said that such an OXP would have to be careful not to remove mission ships etc....

You're right of course, both about the fact an OXP could reduce the number, and just as importantly the negative impact something like this could have.

Hi Smivs, I have been getting these errors in the log,

19:20:05.618 [shipData.load.begin]: Loading ship data.
19:20:06.707 [plist.parse.failed]: Failed to parse ../AddOns/TG2-Griff(all-in)_apocalypse.oxp/Config/shipdata-overrides.plist as a property list.
Parse failed at line 237 (char 7471) - reached end of string
19:20:12.577 [script.load.world.listAll]: Loaded 82 world scripts:

Hope this helps.

I think that's fixed, but Smivs is away for a few days, so it'll have to wait 'til he returns.

Hi Leafy,
Yes I think that's been fixed. Line 237 is the last line in the plist.
Are you using v1.1 of TG2 for Griffs? That's the latest one.

Edit:-
It seems this was a new problem, a missing bracket in one of the plists in Apocalypse (Anarchy and Armageddon are unaffected).
I have corrected this and re-uploaded the OXP so corrected versions can be downloaded.
If you want to fix it yourself, open the shipdata-overides.plist for TG2 Apocalypse and add a closing curly bracket and semi-colon ( }; ) after the entry for the Asp Mk II. It should be easy to find.

Hi Smivs,

The download link on your site for the Griff edition seems to be broken.

http://www.smivsonline.co.uk/oolite_oxp ... s-v1.1.zip

Also on your homepage http://www.smivsonline.co.uk/oolite.htm#ToughGuys has gone. Tough Guys download links are still accessible from the wiki page.

Yes the whole section seems to have vanished from the website
I've got no idea how that happened, but will sort it out ASAP, with the downloads.
Thanks for the heads-up.

Edit:- All fixed now

Following an error in the log I found that the ToughGuys Apocalypse.oxp/Config/shipdata-overrides.plist is missing a }; at line 233.