Oolite Bulletins

Even for an experienced courier, the Tiarice/Timaesin gauntlet can be a problem - but today they really threw it at me! About ten assassins were awaiting me, and with no fuel for injectors the only way is to pick a couple off quickly, then settle in for a long, barrel-rolling run, evading as much fire as possible, and hoping for a few Vipers to show up. No such luck! Instead, every pirate along the way decided to join the procession - when I eventually made it to the aegis, somewhat damaged, I had oodles of them in tow. I drew their fire onto the station, and out came the Vipers - which is where I faced an old dilemma: dock without clearance, take the 5,000Cr hit, and be safe; or stay and fight alongside the Vipers (who were being hard pressed). I chose the latter, and between us we whittled them down to three - but the final Asp lobbed a missile at me as it blew! I died fighting a mere 500m from the station!

Cody wrote:

I died

So, you're gonna start at Lave with 100Cr as a proper iron man now, don't you ?

Oolite is not made for that kind of play. There are too many easy or stupid ways to instantly die even in an extremly advanced state.

I once had about 30 or 40 at Xeines in G3, probably the maximum. Mostly Asps and Fer de Lances. They seem incredibly ineffective in close combat. Didn't hit me enough for my shields not being able to recover so I slowly destroyed them.

Anonymissimus wrote:

So, you're gonna start at Lave with 100Cr as a proper iron man now, don't you ?

<chortles> No, I only had to return to that run's first pick-up, which was about half a chart back!

*chuckles*

not really a tale but something nice concerning the immersion even for a trader brought by the smugglers.oxp...

I was shipping some juicy gold contract half across the galaxy, expecting even some bonus by being more than in time. When I jumped into Esbize I checked the Markets screen, and realized with horror the Gold I was transporting is a controlled cargo in this system. I never considered myself a contrabandista.

Weighing my options, I decided to see if I could dock, maybe bribe someone and get off with a black eye. On my way some pesky rebels demanded twelve tons of my cargo, I sent a hardhead to one of the ones who decided to following on injectors. Eventually I got to the stations aegis, requested docking clearance, docked and was greeted by my contractee, I was payed handsomely and got into station without further hassle. Ok, I thought, it seems that guy had bought a permit for this transport after all... I was refueling, checking for other contracts, buying/selling, etc...

Just before I launched to my my next destination I checked back at the ships status and alas! to my dismay my dealings didn't have gone unnoticed. I was considered a fugitive and a bounty of 302cr was put on my head now... I tried to look for a way to pay off my bounty but to no avail. So, when I launch I'll better get out of the aegis and into witchspace as soon as possible, I guess.

Teaches me to check not only the next stops on my way but also the destination before accepting a cargo run.

Will do some milkruns now, and see if I can get some of the bounty off my back by sunskimming, using planets and rock hermits as trade points...

Amah,

Ps. Thanks phkb! Great Oxp! This is really fun.

Thanks, Amah. I'm so glad Smugglers is adding so much extra fun. From what you describe it appears the gold became illegal at the destination after you took the contract, as there's code in there to prevent contracts to places with existing illegal goods. I was wondering if I should put further limits on new illegals, checking for current contracts and skipping any conflicts, but I thought it might make things more interesting, which you've discovered. It's certainly more realistic I think - take a contract, but the situations change on route. There probably needs to be some tweaking to still allow the player to bribe his way out of the bounty, even though the cargo was automatically taken off their hands by the contracts system.

Anyway, great tale!

FYI there is a way to cheat out of the fugitive status:-) Just buy a new ship *g*

<chortles> not that I would consider anything like that...

On the final stretch of a long, cross-chart, courier run - still four drops to make, and time is running a little short on one of them. No problem, I should make it okay - but Lachesis needs a maintenance overhaul badly, and I'm in a run of low-TL systems. No time for a detour, so I make another four/five jumps along my route, expecting a misjump every time - but luck is with me, and I make it into a TL10 system. With much relief, I refit and re-ordnance Lachesis and head on out again, everything now in prime condition - and immediately suffer a misjump! O'Toole's Corollary in action!

2084372:05:06:53 Log entry Rigel IV, Ophidian class trading vessel, Cmdr Amah, Docked at the Tetrahedron Depot at Razaar/G1.

On route fulfilling a cargo contract delivering 2800kg Gold to Esbeus for 191100c . Was a rough ride this time and my views on GalCop is shattered a little bit.

But first things first. I was jumping in from Zadies, Razaar was just a short stop and planned to head on to Maxeedso. I had mixed feelings but the time saving instead of jumping directly was just to good.

When I came out of witchspace, I was in for a surpise. No pirates but a viper patrol of two ships dangling at scanner range. "Hello officers, good to see you..." I thought to myself. I set course for main station and was about to try to get out mass lock when suddenly one, two , three, four yellow dots appeared on scanner. Before I knew what was happening the alert level changed from yellow to red and first laser shots hit.

Foolish lot, I thought there's police out there, but it seemed it was me who was the fool. The vipers still went just inside scanner range so they must have heard the brigands shamelessly demanded my cargo but obviously decided to overhear it.

I put weapons online, the id automatically locked on the first attacker and I sent a missile out to get him from my back. I turned and fire until my laser overheated on a Der de Lance, she passed closely by and suddenly the missile alert went off, I was just able to hit the ECM, seconds later again another incoming missile, hit the ecm nothing, again ecm draining my Energy, nothing sending myself a hardhead hoping for the opponent to ECM again nothing, the alert still was on so it was still following me. Hitting injectors past the police still lingering around and with one of the pirates hard on my tail...

ok, no missile left to distract him I hoped to see station aegis until he aims better and eventually I docked with several pieces of equipment damaged, but cargo more or less intact.

Well, teaches me to rely on patrols...not

Ahh.. the dreaded Ferdy tactic of popping a missile at close range.. I agree with you, looks like the missile alert has definitely proved its' worth.

I started a new Commander, doing the usual, loading up on cargo and plotting a jump to another system to trade. But everything ended up horribly, horribly wrong.

Warping into the system, I found myself behind a convoy en-route to the planet. Lacking any proper means of self-defense, (I did have some gear thanks to  Start Choices) I decided to follow the convoy. I figured I could help them if something happened and boost my reputation, or they could help me if pirates made a demand for my cargo. I eased myself in the middle of their formation, and adjusted my flight so I could take my hands of the controls for a while, if need be.

After following them for some time, I noticed that, without warning, every ship in the convoy suddenly changed into a red blip on my radar. I saw the escorts break formation, then peel back, each moving in to attack position. I didn't want to cause any trouble, and I was severely under-equipped for a fight, so I activated my fuel injectors and blasted away at full speed. They were firing openly now, and while I had no difficulty evading their shots, a couple managed to connect with my rear shields. Wanting to take a little more action, I shifted to the rear view where I had a mining laser mounted. They obviously fired first, and were the aggressors in this scenario, so I figured anything I did would be an act of self-defense.

I haven't gotten used to aiming backwards yet, so when I did fire at the distant cluster of ships, the blast sailed harmlessly past them, miles away from any target. Oh well. There's a warning shot for ya.

Big mistake.

The route was far from empty, so when those manipulative bastards broadcast: 'SOS...SOS...SOS, we are under attack!' on the open channel, all around me, every single good Samaritan and GalCop Viper immediately stopped and turned, making a beeline straight for my position. They approached from every direction, quickly closing distance and converged guns blazing.

------

I doubt there was anything left to save.

my ammo crate wrote:

They obviously fired first, and were the aggressors in this scenario, so I figured anything I did would be an act of self-defense.

Heheheh.. you need to be careful here.. so far as the cops are concerned, the 'offender' is whoever they first see firing on someone with a 'clean' rating. Assassins will even try to provoke you into firing on them in front of witnesses, for this reason. This is another area where having a rep for helping the cops can help.. they're less inclined to automatically judge you guilty in such cases.

my ammo crate wrote:

Wanting to take a little more action, I shifted to the rear view where I had a mining laser mounted. ... I haven't gotten used to aiming backwards yet, so when I did fire at the distant cluster of ships, the blast sailed harmlessly past them, miles away from any target. Oh well. There's a warning shot for ya.

You should note that mining lasers are useless for combat. Yes, even more useless than pulse lasers. The only thing they hurt is rocks.

my ammo crate wrote:

The route was far from empty, so when those manipulative bastards broadcast: 'SOS...SOS...SOS, we are under attack!' on the open channel, all around me, every single good Samaritan and GalCop Viper immediately stopped and turned, making a beeline straight for my position. They approached from every direction, quickly closing distance and converged guns blazing.

Yeah, they're sneaky bastards, at times..

Bad luck, normally a lonely trader but I sometimes join company of an Anaconda or Boa (or in case of some OXP ships like Monitors, Python-ETs, and a Lira convoy), too. I won't join a convoy with a Python or a Python Class Cruiser, because pirates sometimes use it as freighter.

Concerning the cops... As I wrote I don't rely on them any more , because they never seem to help me in the space lanes anymore like they used to like in older Oolite versions. I think they already on a duty and ignore my distress, but it's kind of odd when 5 or more Pirates attack a clean trader like me and a pack of Vipers cruise by.(Don't know if it's some kind regression of the AI, some side effect of another OXP or I somehow have got a bad reputation I don't know off)

Don't get me wrong... It's not a problem for me, because I always say to me that GalCop's influence is on decline, so for me it's even like an aspect of immersion (s.a. btw. anybody having experiences with the current default AI and totalpatrols AI, which was initially for older versions? Haven't installed it but I wonder about regressions side effects.)



Wear a hat, don't forget your mittens, and keep your socks clean - it's a harsh ooniverse out there.
(Amah's motherprawn - when he set out for the stars)

I almost never got help from the cops, except in the vicinity of a station, but only inside the scanner range, not the aegis. Yesterday I was battling some assassins just outside the aegis, and the fight slowly moved back to the station. No cop showed up! If you need help in a situation like this, it is best to go exactly for the station so that it will be hit by the assassins while they are shooting at you. That will wake up the cops!

I think, when you get help from them somewhere else, it's only an illusion: They would have attacked the pirates even without you. That's somehow logical too, because you can't call for help.

Fritz wrote:

I think, when you get help from them somewhere else, it's only an illusion: They would have attacked the pirates even without you. That's somehow logical too, because you can't call for help.

Certainly not. I recall a situation when they said "if it was up to me you'd already be dead...". Then upon the first shot onto my ship "You'll be space-dust!". Stupid pirate AI. You can argue that they don't know that the player is well-equipped and/or experienced, but that was clearly suicidal.
Another time assassins were waiting for me in a communist system. The vipers were present as well, but I think only I could see them, the assassins couldn't. So I flew into their direction, the assassins continued to shoot. Some pirates and hunters joined the furball. Well, the forces of the oppressive regime were way too strong that day.