Oolite Bulletins

Reflexes? You still have memories of your reflexes? Impressive! I can't even remember when I lost my memories...

Had two occurrences in the last few days that have never occurred before within my visual range.

The first was a Galaxy Liner that had been successfully attacked by Pirates. This happened before my arrival on the scene or there would have been an attempt on my part to prevent it. As it sat there just hanging in space it was not only spewing sparks but was also in the process of launching what seemed like 100 escape pods. Went ahead and scooped as many of the Escape Pods as my empty cargo space would allow, waste not want not, right?. As for the Galaxy Liner itself when it was locked onto after the Escape Pod barrage had ended it was labelled as "Disabled". This meant that it could be hooked up to with a Tractor Beam (towbar) and salvaged. This possibility was avoided however given that the mass differential between the Galaxy Liner and my ship could have caused me no small amount of damage. Plus my Cargo Hold was full of Escape Pods which meant shuttling back and forth between the Galaxy Liner's location and the nearest station to be able to get paid for all of that Salvaged Stuff. With a full Cargo Hold the Salvaged Stuff would have to be left hanging in space for who knows how long while going back and forth to retrieve it all. Surely some others would come along and make off with most of the prize before all of this shuttling about could be accomplished. Most if it would probably end up in the self same hands of the Pirates who disabled the Galaxy Liner in the first place. Let it be, discretion being the better part of valor, and all that sort of rot. So the Galaxy Liner was left hanging there for the Galcops to deal with while my next destination within the system became the priority. Oddly enough upon my arrival at that next station not all of the Escape Pods registered as being filled with rescued passengers. At least a third of them came across as Slaves. Not wanting to be one to criticize the hiring practices of the Galaxy Liner Corporations but you would think they could afford to pay their crews rather than using Slaves. At least they let them get into Escape Pods.

The second incident involved those ubiquitously spawned boulders from our friendly OXZ Space Crowds. A group of these boulders spawned and were subsequently being broken down into splinters, identified as being worthy by my Ore Processor, and then scooped and processed into that worthiness by that self same Ore Processor. During all of this processing three rather harmless looking Gnats showed up and slowly made their way past my location. Only they did not just buzz on past. To my annoyance they turned about and started stealing the splinters faster than my Ore Processor could deem them as being worthy (insert your own Mjölnir joke here). Usually these Gnats would have been swatted flat by yours truly for such an infraction of societal norms. However, being so taken aback by their actions and the uniqueness of the situation they were allowed to continue their rather rude actions without any intervention on my part. Next time, if there is a next time, my lack of action may not be so lacking.

I had a similar experience. Except that the pirates poked their luck one time too many and my "lack of action" suddenly wasn't so lacking anymore ...

--- snip ---

A pack of pirates pretending to be miners. Stealing from other miners, docking with the Rock Hermit, the stuff. I didn't mind, because, well, there is so much space rock around, I am not going to risk everyone else's life in a furball for a few tons of minerals. I didn't even bother to ID them. Just turn around, move some 20 km further away and crack another space rock while they are busy chasing whatever leftovers they found, no problem. Then one of them uttered: "This one's minerals, nice!" as he stole my splinter. I thought: "This miner is quite rude" but I understood. If you have only a Mamba, with its feeble 4 TC cargo space and 3 energy banks there isn't a lot of space for any serious ore processing so some rudeness of the (usually pretty financially stressed) miner is to be expected.

But one day they weren't satisfied with stealing my splinters before I scoop them. Maybe I was too skilled in scooping, you know, being a professional miner, scooping stuff all day is part of my job, you know or, maybe, they came late to the party and there wasn't much of the asteroid left or, maybe, they guessed (correctly!) that my belly has some advanced kit that allows me to get a LOT more out of the space rocks than the feeble 10 Cr per ton that everyone else is getting. I don't know and I can't ask anymore.

All I know is that they, suddenly, brought out the typical "Your cargo or your life!". Revealing to me that they are no miners but, pirates. Pirates, stealing from miners. FIRST BIG MISTAKE.

You know, it is one thing to poke an Anaconda for a few tonnes. Anaconda owners tend to be pretty rich. That "rogue hollowed out asteroid" of a ship can swallow the complete content of the public marketplace of several main stations and still have a room for a few luxury appartments for passengers.

But steal from poor miners with badly beaten ships, unable to afford proper maintenance, always praying that their engines won't quit, leaving them helplessly drifting into the interstellar space?

Even the former type of pirate tends to make me see red when the poor ship they attack tries to ask for help. Screaming on injectors I throw myself into their pack with blazing lasers to tell them to buzz off but I will usually give them a break when they ask nicely for mercy. But bully poor miners who cant afford anything better than a Transporter? NO MERCY FOR YOU!!!

So I headed away from the asteroid field and they (probably) thought: 'This is going to be easy. Look, he is running away. We can deal with a miner in a fancy ship' SECOND BIG MISTAKE.

You know, since this is space and space is filled with the hard vacuum, you can't hear a thing from another ship. Should there be air, the "rrr, rrrrrrrrrrrrr, rrrr, iririririri" sounds from my nose could give you a hint that this is no ordinary miner and you better sneak away while you can. But they didn't. They followed my ship, probably thinking that 'they are trying to run away, they are not too strong". I even hit the injectors briefly for a few times and they hit theirs to keep pace. THIRD BIG MISTAKE.

So, now we are at a safe distance from the asteroid field and all the miners, who are truly poor and too weak to withstand even stray shots from a battle nearby. Out the Warrant Scanner goes and the pirates are scanned. Still not firing though. Since my trip to deliver the corporate research I learned to scan my targets for warrants first. This little act of preparation can sometimes bring about 100 extra credits out of a shooting match with a small pirate pack. And this pack wasn't THAT small. Now it is quite clear to anyone in range that this "miner" is actually a bounty hunter posing as a miner. Or, it should be clear.

Well, actually, he isn't, he is a miner that does bounty hunting on the side if the criminals are so stupid that they go out of their way to bother him. Did they run away? No. FOURTH BIG MISTAKE.

You know, in the game of chess one big mistake is enough to lose the game and fast. These pirates committed four such mistakes. Maybe they thought they were prepared. Maybe they thought that their leader has a BEAM LASER and that is a fine thing, friend. A few shots and the defenseless Anacondas and Pythons dump quite a bunch of their cargon in panic, many times in such a panic that they neglect to check what is going to be dumped and they throw out a few tons of Luxuries instead of the food they bought as the pirate kibble.

But the pink laser that relentlessly finds their hulls despite their dodging attempts and the Cobra Maneuvers that the Cobra is (probably) named after (slow to a dead stop, swing around, speed up and the hunter behind is now the prey in front) made them change their mind VERY quickly. Change their mind they did but to no avail.

Bludgering headlong into a dangerous situation unprepared is a sure fire way to end up dead or at least as a pet food orbiting around Isveve, said my instructor before stamping my pilot license. In this case the pirates ended up as space dust in orbit around the very asteroid field they used to freeload from. And its rather poor inhabitants. For, I have no idea for how long. As the miners don't like to talk too much, as the life of most of them is pretty boring and pretty sad.

And the Iron Ass Miner returned back to his cracked space rock, content that his less fortunate fellows are now going to have a little bit more peaceful life from now on.

Nice!

The cosmic dice – when they roll your way, they really roll your way!

I went back for another look at the parcel contract for virgin Jamesons (mineral surveys from Lave to Begeabi for 436 Cr) - a challenging run in a stock Cobra (especially one with no teeth, and sticking to the spacelanes all the way). I blame Lockdown!

• Sold pulse laser and two missiles; bought furs, bought kibble
  Lave to Leesti – milk run, Vipers all the way; sold furs, bought burners
  Leesti to Diso – milk run
  Diso to Reorte – free ride (through the first wormhole); straight on to Quator; burned past assassins
  Quator to Begeabi – burned past/evaded assassins (just)
  Delivered parcel

Outside Begeabi Main, a heavy assassin in an Asp - the Chivalrous, or Everlasting? - awaits me!

Cody wrote: ↑Fri Jan 15, 2021 6:22 pm

Leesti to Diso – milk run
Diso to Reorte – free ride (through the first wormhole); straight on to Quator; burned past assassins

Luck, or judgement, to get the lift into Reorte, since you don't have a wormhole scanner? Or did you do a savegame at Diso?
I'm really flogging to get through the "Collector". 30-odd attempts, and I've only found the damned asteroid swarm once. I may just delete the OXP as "too much like hard work".

RockDoctor wrote: ↑Fri Jan 15, 2021 10:19 pm

Luck, or judgement, to get the lift into Reorte...

Luck! Diso has a HC of 7, so odds of 6/1 - but somehow, I just knew it was going to Reorte. As I said, when the dice roll your way...

Cody wrote: ↑Fri Jan 15, 2021 10:34 pm

RockDoctor wrote: ↑Fri Jan 15, 2021 10:19 pm

Luck, or judgement, to get the lift into Reorte...

Luck! Diso has a HC of 7, so odds of 6/1 - but somehow, I just knew it was going to Reorte. As I said, when the dice roll your way...

You powder the dice and roll your own?

I certainly roll my own!

Actually, diving into the first wormhole you see makes a good alternative start option for a virgin Jameson.
Wherever you end up, you'll have a full tank and the ability to jump straight on out to somewhere else.

Cody wrote: ↑Sat Jan 16, 2021 12:31 am

Wherever you end up, you'll have a full tank and the ability to jump straight on out to somewhere else.

Well, if you know the Galaxy map like the palm of your hand. (Personally, I don't rub the back of my hand on bits of my sensitive skin often enough to know it well.) The rest of us, new Jamesons in particular, have a significant chance of entering a region of space they've not explored. At least, if they're using the ZeroMap add-in, which I'd got so used to using that I forget it's there. Until I enter a new galaxy.
You've still got to do an F6-wiggle-click to lock the WitchDrive onto a new target.

SandJ wrote: ↑Sat Apr 28, 2012 3:58 pm

I decided to start again with a Cobra Mk I by selling the Mk III and using the 7k ₢ cach-back for equipment. That was a mistake.

The non-upgradeable 10 tonne cargo bay means making money is a very slow process, made even slower by promising myself I wouldn't use any OXPs for trading, e.g. ConStores. And after many hours of playing, making about 450 ₢ on each round trip, I was bored. Very bored. It didn't help when I saved up and bought an Ore Processor before remembering this tin can does not have side laser mounts.

So I installed the Galactic Navy OXP so at least I could volunteer for some missions. At Galactic Navy Sector Three Command ("SecCom 3" to you) at Isinor they politely turned me down ("You'd be a liability - you wouldn't last 5 minutes.")

So off I go again, scoop some more fuel (I can't afford to BUY the stuff) and set off to cart another 10 tonnes of Furs across space.

Except the Thargoids had other plans for me. I appeared in Witchspace surrounded by coloured dots on the scanner - loads of Thargoids. But purple dots too - one behemoth and three other Navy ships. I had been pulled into a Thargoid ambush.

I ran until I was no longer in the centre of the swarm and then turned and fired; was attacked, and so, having overheated my front beam laser, turned and ran, finishing off a chasing Thargoid warship with the rear laser.

And that's all the time it took for the brass knobs in the Navy to die. So much for ME not lasting 5 minutes!

So now I have a cloud of Thargoid ships all chasing me!

Using the standard rear-laser fighting tactics - sniping at maximum range - I took out another two Thargoid Warships and a whole handful of Thargon drones. The hardest part was the waiting for the lasers to cool down each time.

"Yeah, Military Lasers are like that" I hear you say. Err, no. Beam Lasers, front and back. No Extra Energy Unit, no Shield Boosters, no Missiles, no Energy Bomb. No side lasers, no Q-Bomb, no cloak. Remember, I'm saving up for a bigger ship. I have just the basic Dusty Cobweb™ shield and two DodgyCell NeverReddy™ energy units between me and sucking vacuum. And firing each Beam Laser drains a ⅓ of one of those energy units.

By this point I have a dilemma. I have enough fuel to jump back to Isinor. But these insects (or whatever they are) have a bounty on them.

I put my faith into the mythical Giles and prayed my Ingram lasers could keep cutting the chitin.

Next nearest in the Thargoid cloud chasing me is a Thargoid Carrier. This will take a while.

Three Warships die. There's a Thargoid Cruiser on my tail. (I wonder where the Carrier went?) It's 250 Credits for killing a Thargoid Cruiser, by the way. Even in my clockwork Mark I Cobra with a beam laser.

... another Warship bites the dust. I have now doubled my kill-score.

Oh, then it got really tough. Two Thargoid Warships on my tail, both at 20km. If I use my usual tactic - stop, face one, empty the front laser, turn, full speed, empty the rear laser - I will be dead before I take out either of them.

So we keep on running, with me slowing down enough for them to start hitting me and chucking out Thargons, but me close enough to start hitting back, then I push forward until my lasers cool down, rinse and repeat.

Eventually, I have milked them of all their Thargons, I hoped, then I just needed to hit the brakes and hope I can damage one when it gets within 15km before the pair of them take out my two energy banks. Or I could run away...

"Well use your unusual volcanoes for our cutlet!" Target lost. Bounty 100 Cr.

"We'll use your weird dust clouds for our steak!" They won't you know.

I headed back in the direction I had come from and mopped up. There were a few stray Thargons and another Warship and some wreckage. Shame my super-massive cargo hold already had its full quota of 10 tonnes of Furs.

Well, I jumped out of witchspace back to Isinor where I came from. "No heavy pirate presence" said the Welcome Mat. 20 seconds later there are three pirates on my tail!

"Kill one, then run away. Live to trade another day."

I was shaking all the way to the main station - it would be just my luck for the Docking Computer to ram me into the space station - I docked the ship myself.

Ship docked, and game saved. Phew! 39 kills, almost all Thargoids, 600.6 Credits richer (all bounties!), 2¼ hours Real Time playing. And I am back at the station I started from with the cargo I was trying to take to Ensoreus.

I left rated "Poor" and returned "Above Average". Wa-hey! Off to the Navy SecCom Station for a mission ... maybe they'll give me a medal.

"You need a few more kills before taking on the Thargoids. Come back when you've gained some combat experience."

Ha! What would a salaried desk-pilot like that know about real fighting?

Just reading through this one.

The Galactic Navy.oxp just looks at the kill score/Elite rating and ignores everything else. But is there some way of getting Oolite to recognise what SandJ had just gone through? And engendering a more realistic response?

Would something like a "Pilot_Max_Killcount_in_one_system" record be a suitable direction.
Re-set to zero on using an Energy Bomb.
Would this be a question for the core programming team?

RockDoctor wrote: ↑Thu Oct 14, 2021 6:26 pm

Would something like a "Pilot_Max_Killcount_in_one_system" record be a suitable direction.
Re-set to zero on using an Energy Bomb.
Would this be a question for the core programming team?

Not a programmer.

But that records the entire killcount in that system over several visits? Or just the current visit?

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Thu Oct 14, 2021 9:27 pm

RockDoctor wrote: ↑Thu Oct 14, 2021 6:26 pm

Would something like a "Pilot_Max_Killcount_in_one_system" record be a suitable direction.
Re-set to zero on using an Energy Bomb.
Would this be a question for the core programming team?

Not a programmer.

But that records the entire killcount in that system over several visits? Or just the current visit?

Just the current visit. So, as part of the "set up" that the program does (while displaying the "expanding hoops" screen), you record the kill count on entering the system, and when docking/ saving compare the current kill count to that value. Killed a hundred between entering the system and docking / saving - you're a hecakiller!
Hmmm, that wouldn't cover the test case you raised, with getting hit by multiple bad systems jump after jump. So that might suggest storing "kills_at_last_save" as well as "kills_at_last_jump".

Not a programmer.

Whether there are suitable parameters already recorded, is a question for the programmers, but coming up with a meaningful brief for the programmers saves everyone cycles of "what do you really mean?" questions.

But that records the entire killcount in that system over several visits? Or just the current visit?

<P>(Ooops! Bloody Slashdot.) Recording the killcount in each system. That should be do-able. If there are OXZs like "ZeroMap" (there are), then "userland" values can be stored on a by-system basis.

Thing is, one visit to a system can be hell (as I recall, your first landing in Diso has a high chance of getting you handed your ass in a space bar), and the next can be interstellar pussy cats, threatening you with deafening purring. I strongly suspect that the Bank of Random Number Generators is consulted, and that determines roughly how much grief you get from the natives. Then there are the Thargoids.

I'm not so sure that the kill-count_by_system would be terribly helpful (does someone have a "Pirates Skuzziness Notebook" OXZ? Would be a natural fit there. Achieve 100 massacres in every system of every galaxy and earn a really big black hat?

But a "kills_between_saves" count would present a real challenge. Is your nerve (and damage level) good enough to jump into another Anarchy with a cargo of valuables and try to get to 30 kills since your last save? Or do you dock? Decisions, decisions!
That would imply that your current count appears on one of the in-flight status screens (F5F5, I guess) and/ or be accessible via the HUD or an MFD.
It also implies that "closing" the "kill-count_since_save" value happens during the automatic part of docking. Otherwise someoen will be fiddling with it to get to incredible values before the ink is dry on the Hollerith card (or however programs are written these days).

Which do you think would be better? kill-count_since_save, kill-count_since_dock, or kill-count-since_jump ? Or all of the ablove?

Exploring ideas here - and for this we would need input from a programmer - or at least, someone more familiar with the internals of the game than I am :

Is there enough information in the save game (or display) that some sort of checksum could be implemented on the "kill-count" (for this_system, or since_save, or since_dock).

I'm thinking some manipulation of Galaxy_number ; multiple of {system_number,in_system_kill-count} ; final_system_number coming together so that a claim of (say) "137 kills in G3, between Orrerrererer and Rererrreore, checksum 3 Jamesons and a Thargoid" could be validated - or invalidated reasonably easily. A necessary part of the check (possibly done in the "enter_new_system" event) would be validating that each jump implied by the sequence of planets was 7.0 ly or less?
IIRC, the planet coordinates and numbers are procedurally generated using the same code as the original BBC game, so there's no need for more than the Galaxy number and planet number. Everything else is derived from those two numbers - no?

Simpler than check-summing - maybe - would be just be posting a screenshot of the putative MFD screen with the stats on it. Relatively cheatable, but do we really need to worry about that?

Should a count be taken of the number of megaweapons used? Any Jameson with deep pockets in his brown trousers can wipe out an arbitrarily large number of pirates with a single energy bomb and a pulse laser.

Something like this?



Reference: Flight Log OXP