Oolite Bulletins

Wildeblood wrote:

Well I, for one, would like to see a version of the game with the 7LY limit hacked. Specifically, I'd like the Jameson Cobra 3 to have a hyperspace drive that was only capable of shorter jumps, and then to have two equipment upgrades to raise it up to the familiar 7LY limit. Pleb, I suggest you go back to that hack and, rather than setting a ludicrously high limit, see how the galactic chart connectedness breaks up with lower limits of e.g. 5, 5.5, 6 or 6.5 LY. Perhaps you could post an image of the familiar galaxy 1 chart with such a lower limit in place?

Well this is a better option, but the problem with 3 light year jumps is then you wouldn't be able to go anywhere! See below:



As you can see, it makes travel impossible in the ooniverse...

As Wildeblood suggested, the minimum would need to be about 5ly - try 5.6ly?

and also better class drives might make faster jumps and/or use up less fuel?

Griff wrote:

and also better class drives might make faster jumps and/or use up less fuel?

I like this idea. Then that would also mean that the maintenance overhaul would be more expensive.

oo yes! maybe instead of buying a better hyperdrive for your ship, you pay a bit more at a high tech world for maintenance and you get a better tuned ship engine for a while

Griff wrote:

and also better class drives might... use up less fuel?

That could be done by OXP script without needing to alter Oolite.

Well I played around with a few more distances. The results are shown below. Just ignore the fuel circle as I can't get it to show less than 7 light years when the tank is full!

5 Light Years:



6 Light Years:



As you can see, 5 light years would limit where you could go but not as harmfully as 3 light years. 6 light years would allow travel to everywhere but creates a different star map.

Pleb wrote:

6 light years would allow travel to everywhere but creates a different star map.

Makes the  Long Way Around very long indeed.

Commander McLane wrote:

Makes the  Long Way Around very long indeed.

Indeed! Although this is an interesting idea, I feel this way also unintentionally break several OXPs that rely on the player being able to jump a maximum of 7 light years.

Pleb wrote:

Commander McLane wrote:

Makes the  Long Way Around very long indeed.

Indeed!

Oops! Actually it doesn't. That part of the galactic layout isn't actually changed. Seems I remember the mission as shorter than it really is.

Wildeblood wrote:

Griff wrote:

and also better class drives might... use up less fuel?

That could be done by OXP script without needing to alter Oolite.

Both the Vortex and the add-on military fuel injectors already do this, at least for in-system drives rather than jump drives (doing it for jumps would still need the requisite fuel amount to make the jump, although you could of course refund some back on arrival).

It does look a bit odd seeing the fuel gauge occasionally go up rather than down though when under injectors...

Giving Jamesons a 5 light-year range from the start would cut them off from Zaonce (5.6 LY from Lave). It would pretty much leave them hopping between Leesti and Diso until they could afford an upgrade (and could chance another run in to Lave). To make it a playable option would probably require a different starting position.

Disembodied wrote:

Giving Jamesons a 5 light-year range from the start would cut them off from Zaonce (5.6 LY from Lave). It would pretty much leave them hopping between Leesti and Diso until they could afford an upgrade (and could chance another run in to Lave). To make it a playable option would probably require a different starting position.

Agreed this was an interesting idea but I feel that it would make the game impossibly hard. I know in Frontier that different ships had different jump distances, but the problem with Oolite is too much depends on the player being able to jump a maximum of 7 light years...

I have been playing around with the Thargoid Laser recently, after realising my original test with creating a player version was very basic. It is indeed possible to modify the code slightly to allow it to be fitted to a player's ship but it does not take any damage. I was playing around with it, as I wondered whether you could create a playable Thargoid ship like in Frontier and FFE. The omni-directional laser can only be fired if you have a target locked on, and then a ship would only need one laser as it fires from all directions. But as I said before, it does not take off any damage for a reason that still eludes me. I thought it could have been interesting, given some of the new features in the TRUNK version that allow the player to 'switch ships', so that OXP missions could be created where the player has to pilot a Thargoid ship...

I've also been playing with the turret settings. As far as I can tell (and because I don't have the source code at work I'm using my 'lack-of-memory' for this), the range a turret has is the speed * the duration of the shot. However major increases to the speed or duration creates very varied results, sometimes creating almost a beam of plasma bolts or sometimes just randomly shooting at nothing! It still requires some tweaking...

Pleb wrote:

I have been playing around with the Thargoid Laser recently,
...
I've also been playing with the turret settings. As far as I can tell (and because I don't have the source code at work I'm using my 'lack-of-memory' for this), the range a turret has is the speed * the duration of the shot. However major increases to the speed or duration creates very varied results, sometimes creating almost a beam of plasma bolts or sometimes just randomly shooting at nothing!

I've seen Thargoid Cruisers and Battleships from Galactic Navy firing their lasers at nothing. Maybe related...?

Switeck wrote:

I've seen Thargoid Cruisers and Battleships from Galactic Navy firing their lasers at nothing. Maybe related...?

There is a probability that the laser will hit 1 in 20 times it is fired, so this is probably what that it is. I did try taking this line out, but then the Thargoids became too dominant and were able to reduce a Navy Taskforce into debris very quickly!

As requested, I've moved this discussion onto a new thread as so not to confuse people into thinking what's being discussed here are actual suggestions for future releases. Check it out here