Oolite Bulletins

Corbeau wrote:

Oh, and, about limiting encounters to friends-only.

I want a realistic game.

Erm, but oolite isn't realistic. The scales are out of wack, the physics is airplane based, it took a s**t load of explaining to plausibility justify cat and bird people. The game itself is horrendously flawed in the "realistic" department. But that's why we love it.

To my mind the "adrift in a sea of ass-holes" genre is over subscribed anyway. I'll go further; It smacks of LAZY programmers who just point players at each other because they can't be bothered (or don't have the skill) to produce engaging AI.

Games should be as diverse as possible. Sure, have games that enable you to do over a pack of 12 year olds half a planet away and steal their stuff (am I the only one that finds that pass time to be a touch perverse?). But leave room for some that actively keep people apart. Player vs AI only, is a valid game platform with as much right to exist as player vs player.

Not all sports are competitive sports and not all games are competitive games. People play games for a myriad of different reasons, not just to make themselves feel better by putting someone else down. Oolite isn't about getting "Junkie happy". We don't need another EVE, we already have several.

Gimi wrote:

If you played both Frontier and FFE you will have some idea of what it means. FFE took some of the Newtonian out of play by "automating" the use of "thrusters" to make it feel a bit more "water tank physics" like (I like that term). So it's a way of hiding the skidding and relative motion between two moving entities and make them more "flying in an atmosphere" like where you have external factors the will influence your movements (air resistance).

Thanks for the explanations(s).

Wasn't it FE2 that tried taking it out by "automating" thrusters in combat while in FFE the automatics automatically switched off and enabled you to use full manual? Actually, I was never able to hit anything in FE2 until I played FFE and realised I should switch everything off...

because of my stricly capped (and slow) internet connection, i'm only going to be able to play this if there's an offline mode, i'm pretty sure frontier have already mentioned there will be so it's just a matter of what type of DRM they add in which could potentially cause me problems.
I really hope the game is moddable and that it's possible to add in fan made missions and stuff, i'd probably get into that more than playing the game

Corbeau wrote:

Thanks for the explanations(s).
Wasn't it FE2 that tried taking it out by "automating" thrusters in combat while in FFE the automatics automatically switched off and enabled you to use full manual? Actually, I was never able to hit anything in FE2 until I played FFE and realised I should switch everything off...

You have made me doubt my memory now. I do remember that I thought FFE played better than FE2 at the time, but I'm certainly not sure which one was most true to Newtonian Physics.

Gimi wrote:

... but I'm certainly not sure which one was most true to Newtonian Physics.

<summons the Pioneer rep> Geraldine would know that, I reckon.

El Viejo wrote:

Gimi wrote:

... but I'm certainly not sure which one was most true to Newtonian Physics.

<summons the Pioneer rep> Geraldine would know that, I reckon.

Ah, the Naval Attaché goes to work. Thanks.

Gimbal Locke wrote:

An opinion: Deathmatches may be fun, co-operative play (even if only 2-player) is a lot more fun.

Hear hear! 2-player coop would send me into spasms of joy, just before logging on to fly alongside the great folk on this board!

Gimi wrote:

You have made me doubt my memory now. I do remember that I thought FFE played better than FE2 at the time, but I'm certainly not sure which one was most true to Newtonian Physics.

Actually, I think both are completely Newtonian. The only difference is that in FFE, when combat alert goes off, the engine mod immediately switches to manual so you have to hold down the thruster key for the engine to work at all, or else you're sitting dead in space. In FE2 the engine remains in automatic, meaning the engine doesn't shut off, but if you really want to get close to the enemy, you need to shut it off yourself.

ClymAngus wrote:

Corbeau wrote:

Oh, and, about limiting encounters to friends-only.

I want a realistic game.

Erm, but oolite isn't realistic. The scales are out of wack, the physics is airplane based, it took a s**t load of explaining to plausibility justify cat and bird people. The game itself is horrendously flawed in the "realistic" department. But that's why we love it.

To my mind the "adrift in a sea of ass-holes" genre is over subscribed anyway. I'll go further; It smacks of LAZY programmers who just point players at each other because they can't be bothered (or don't have the skill) to produce engaging AI.

Games should be as diverse as possible. Sure, have games that enable you to do over a pack of 12 year olds half a planet away and steal their stuff (am I the only one that finds that pass time to be a touch perverse?). But leave room for some that actively keep people apart. Player vs AI only, is a valid game platform with as much right to exist as player vs player.

Not all sports are competitive sports and not all games are competitive games. People play games for a myriad of different reasons, not just to make themselves feel better by putting someone else down. Oolite isn't about getting "Junkie happy". We don't need another EVE, we already have several.

Actually, an Elite-like (or FFE-like) universe is big enough to support all types of play you mention. Simply, there should be safe systems and there should be anarchic systems. You want it safe, stick to the civilization.

About "lazy programmers", isn't multiplayer ALL about pointing player at each other, without or at least with as little AI as possible?

And yes, Elite isn't realistic. That's why I like FFE more. But that's a matter of taste. Like I said, the universe should be potentially big enough to accomodate many tastes WITHOUT the need to create artificial friend-listings and enclosed bubbles of reality where everybody is nice and having their own farmville.

Corbeau wrote:

Gimi wrote:

You have made me doubt my memory now. I do remember that I thought FFE played better than FE2 at the time, but I'm certainly not sure which one was most true to Newtonian Physics.

Actually, I think both are completely Newtonian. The only difference is that in FFE, when combat alert goes off, the engine mod immediately switches to manual so you have to hold down the thruster key for the engine to work at all, or else you're sitting dead in space. In FE2 the engine remains in automatic, meaning the engine doesn't shut off, but if you really want to get close to the enemy, you need to shut it off yourself.

I have done a little research, and it seems that Frontier adjusted the flight engine in FFE based upon criticism of the Newtonian flight engine in FE2. This included a faster reaction/dampening when making course adjustments (essentially giving the ship stronger thrusters I suppose).

Corbeau wrote:

...where everybody is nice and having their own farmville.

The 'verse is a nasty place. Even your 'friends' may turn on you for some quick creds. Hope there's no "friendly-fire off" setting.

Some very interesting pics on the Kickstarter page now!

Corbeau wrote:

Having douchebags is realistic.

No, it's not. Having criminals is realistic: people who rob and murder for profit is realistic. But criminals who go around killing insignificant people who are carrying little or nothing the criminal could possibly want are scarce, to say the least. You get bullies in playgrounds (real or virtual), but they tend not to prosper in the adult world. Thieves and murderers, yes - but out-and-out superpowered spree killers driving tanks are, in my experience anyway, very, very rare ...

Corbeau wrote:

Disembodied wrote:

if they've got any sense though they won't do what they did with Frontier - i.e. a vast procedurally generated galaxy with a tiny fraction of 1% containing anything at all. Frontier had millions of systems the player could (eventually) visit, but nearly all of them were devoid of any life beyond the odd procedurally generated tree.

Actually, that was one of the things I liked most about FFE. The worlds exist, but you can't effectively reach them. Or you could if you put resources and effort into it. Yeah, still nothing there, but still, they exist. Can't get more realistic than that.

Putting in a limited number of worlds would have the same effect, but not the same feeling of openness. And space should be about openness.

I didn't make myself clear ... the worlds should definitely be out there in potential. However they shouldn't waste all that potential by putting it all out there in the core game on day one with nothing in it. Wait a bit, and bleed it out slowly, once they've made something there worth going out to see! With 100 billion stars in the galaxy, they can give players a lot of openness to begin with without leaving 99,999,999,000 star systems devoid of all interest. Give players 1000 stars to explore in the basic game (or 10,000, if it comes to that) - then start selling the expansion packs, so that there is something to explore besides more of the same ...

I've been chatting to mikembp on the IRC who has just alerted me to some new images on the kickstarter site...worth a look. Just concept art but a hint as to what to expect maybe.