Oolite Bulletins

Dr.Tripsa wrote:

Actually though that makes me wish the Monks would hire out , ahem, Holy Default Inquisitors.

+1, that would be a great extra source of bounty-hunter-income!

Dr.Tripsa wrote:

Actually though that makes me wish the Monks would hire out , ahem, Holy Default Inquisitors.

An idea that I've been pondering for a while is that instead of a simple whack job, which the Monks are quite capable of doing, you would get a more 'complex' track down job. Sort of a Holy Detective.

It might work like this:

You are be offered a job to track down deptor x, who was last seen in system y. The debtor has somehow got rid of the nano bots and the holy beacon and must be found. You go to system y, dock at a station and get another clue that x has jumped to system z, etc, etc. The clue could be in any station in system, including hermits and oxp stations as long as the dockable is in system. Eventually, after a few clues and jumps the deptor would be found and your job would be to infect him/her/it with holy nano bots (a special missile?) so that the Inquisitors may do their job. Return to a monastery and collect your price. There could/would/should be some scripted opposition along the way and in the end.

If you do try to add such a mission, see if you can do something about that annoying "16 weeks = 16 jumps" thing..

(I've tried Commander McLane's fix.. and -unless I've done something wrong, which is always possible-, it doesn't work)

I coded the interest rate in this OXP as a reference to the Blackadder II episode “Money” and as satire of the lending situation at the time. 6 years later it seems to be true in the UK. In real life in Dec 2013 the UK Pay Day Loan companies such as Wonga charge the desperate 3000% APR entirely lawfully. So if in Real Life you are desperate enough to borrow 100 Credits for a year from the Black Monks at Wonga, you pay back 3,000 Credits or are exterminated. And the Real Life GapCop of the UK allows it. This is an outrage and must be stopped. (LittleBear - very pissed off having represented a 65 year old good character client in the criminal Courts as unpaid duty solicitor whom the state wanted to commit to prison as she had been arrested on warrent for not paying her council tax as all her money had being taken from her account by Wonga by direct debit). Truth is Stranger than fiction!

LittleBear wrote:

very pissed off having represented a 65 year old good character client in the criminal Courts as unpaid duty solicitor whom the state wanted to commit to prison as she had been arrested on warrent for not paying her council tax as all her money had being taken from her account by Wonga by direct debit.

And what's the prognosis (is that the right word?)?

It's an odd rule of my profession that if you want to practice then you have to work 4 days a month as a pro bono Duty Solicitor to represent anyone who is unrepresented at a court assigned by the LAA and facing custody. Most Duty Solicitor slots that you are assigned are general criminal and so the usual. But all Courts have a Council Tax Day once a month, so it comes around about once every 5 years that you are required to do the Council Tax Rota. As she had not deliberetly failed to pay the Magistrates found that she was not in willful default and so remitted her council tax debt and released her. Still spent a night in the cells though. Her loan to Wonga remains a civil matter. The 8 people I represented that day were in similar situations. Depressing.

LittleBear wrote:

The 8 people I represented that day were in similar situations. Depressing.

Best get used to it.. the next economic downturn is gonna make '08 look tame. I'm tipping within the next 12 months.

Kinda getting really off topic: I love how the economic system continues to fail and we keep using it. On the other hand, science keeps getting challenged. <sigh>

Might I make a suggestion for a new Black Monks vessel.

An expensive and ostentatious Black Monk Ship for transporting these damnable Bankers (how I wanted to write something different there) as they go about their business, that could give us some VERY pleasant satisfaction hunting down and killing with extreme prejudice.

Diogenese Senna wrote:

Might I make a suggestion for a new Black Monks vessel.

An expensive and ostentatious Black Monk Ship for transporting these damnable Bankers (how I wanted to write something different there) as they go about their business, that could give us some VERY pleasant satisfaction hunting down and killing with extreme prejudice.

I like this idea very much..

(and there is at least one considerably more apt name you can call them by in public.. Banksters )

KILL KILL MURDER MAYHEM KILL DEATH BOOM BOOM MAYHEM BLACK MONKS SPIT

I shall now go and have a nice cup of tea and calm down a bit.

On a more serious note, my oldest also got himself into trouble with Wonga (a fifty pound load rapidly escalated to 500). Fortunately, he had the common sense to come running to Dad and ask for help (and got seriously told off for not coming to me in the first place). I think I would rather deal with the Black Monks.

Being in the land Downunder, I had to look Wonga up.. yes, nasty evil creatures, those..

"And on the seventh day the Lord Giles created compound interest."

Howling good humor. Pisses the monks off, though, if you repay your loan before it is due.

As I have nothing better to do I have basically converted the oxp from legacy to js and wonder about making some changes. Any input is welcome.

* 16 weeks is a really long time to pay the debt back. I was thinking about changing it to 16 days instead. The original idea has been to limit the loan to 16 jumps.
* There is a market and an equipment shop in the station. I'm itching to take them out as they feel a bit out of place. It's a bout lending money after all.
* I feel that the ambiance gunships are a bit too common. Currently there is a 10% change when exiting witchspace and 10% chance when launching. Something like 10% in a populator spawned to somewhere in the spacelanes would feel better. And maybe 1% in a repopulator. The oxp reminds you of your debt by spawning gunships. Those would not be touched.

All of your ideas are good imho.