Oolite Bulletins

SandJ wrote:

Albee wrote:

At the risk of asking a question that's no doubt been asked before, why doesn't Oolite start new Jamesons in a Cobra Mk 1?

Having done so (immediately start off by selling the Cobra Mk III and buying a Mk I) I can tell you it is boring and tedious. It takes forever to make any money and buy back that Cobra Mk III. For a newbie, it would be too slow a start.

Okay, I see. Thanks. I guess the Cobra Mk 1's 10 t cargo hold is just too limiting.

Albee wrote:

At the risk of asking a question that's no doubt been asked before, why doesn't Oolite start new Jamesons in a Cobra Mk 1? Elite couldn't, for the reason given here by Commander McLane, but Oolite could, one presumes, very easily. The many changes and enhancements Oolite has introduced have made the game much, much better, IMO. Starting 'further back' would add yet more fun and provide a greater sense of achievement, surely?

Oolite, like Elite, is designed for the player to be in a Cobra III. I've recently started a new commander, and like SandJ I sold the Cobra III and bought a Cobra I. Unlike SandJ though I'm having a great time, enjoying a dangerous kind of milk-run between Isinor and Qutiri. I buy Computers on the Rich Industrial world of Qutiri and bring them to the Poor Ag Confederacy Isinor, at around 40Cr/ton profit. From Isinor to Qutiri, though, I fly empty, and fill up from pirates I meet on the way in.

It's a really profitable run, and I'm enjoying it hugely (injectors, ECM, fuel scoops, an extra energy unit, beam lasers front and rear, no shield enhancers yet though, and only 2 energy banks ... it gives combat a real edge ), but with a non-expandable 10-ton cargo bay, it'll be a looong time before I can buy a Cobra III. I'll have earned it, mind you!

A big problem is the ship prices. They're taken from Elite, from a game where they were pure window dressing: they didn't matter because you couldn't buy a new ship even if you wanted to. So the prices would have to be restructured to allow for a realistic progress from small ship to better ship to better yet to best: ideally, players would start in an Adder (the smallest jump-capable core ship with any sort of cargo bay) and work up from there, but the earning potentials would need to be reworked as well as the ship prices.

The other main factor is ship speed. The Cobra I is slow. You have to plan your jumps really carefully, to ensure that you've always got plenty of fuel in your tanks for when you need to inject past someone who's mass-locking you, unless you want to spend all your time off-lane and then what's the point?

Flying and trading in a Cobra I, when you know the game's quirks and tricks, is fine – indeed it can be a lot of fun, and I recommend it. But the game's basic assumptions revolve around the Cobra III's stats, and it would require a major ground-up overhaul of ship and equipment prices, and the in-game economics, and pirate behaviour too (they'd have to be much less likely to bother with a mere Adder, or at least let you go once you've shed your cargo, otherwise what is already a tough game for beginners would be well-nigh impossible). And for best results we'd need to get rid of mass-locking and move to a time-acceleration system instead, to make slower ships playable without resorting to injectors all the time, which means a radical rewrite of most of the game ...

Disembodied wrote:

Flying and trading in a Cobra I, when you know the game's quirks and tricks, is fine – indeed it can be a lot of fun, and I recommend it.

I do agree with that. The problem I had was in making about 400 Credits per round trip it became a long slog. No firing missiles, no buying upgrades, can't afford to take passengers, usually can't scoop free stuff, can't do contracts, avoid fights because of the repair cost, etc. It started feeling like going out to work to pay a mortgage.

My last saved game for the Cobra Mk I was number 138 by which time I could trade in my Mk I for 96K and I had 302k in cash, having sold everything I could. So I probably did at least 150 to 170 jumps (probably far more) to get to that point, and had only racked up 144 kills. And I see I had an Ore Processor fitted , so a lot of that money would have come from mining.

My graph of kills / Oolite day doubles in gradient from the point I bought the Mk III.

SandJ wrote:

Disembodied wrote:

Flying and trading in a Cobra I, when you know the game's quirks and tricks, is fine – indeed it can be a lot of fun, and I recommend it.

I do agree with that. The problem I had was in making about 400 Credits per round trip it became a long slog. No firing missiles, no buying upgrades, can't afford to take passengers, usually can't scoop free stuff, can't do contracts, avoid fights because of the repair cost, etc. It started feeling like going out to work to pay a mortgage.

My last saved game for the Cobra Mk I was number 138 by which time I could trade in my Mk I for 96K and I had 302k in cash, having sold everything I could. So I probably did at least 150 to 170 jumps (probably far more) to get to that point, and had only racked up 144 kills. And I see I had an Ore Processor fitted , so a lot of that money would have come from mining.

My graph of kills / Oolite day doubles in gradient from the point I bought the Mk III.

My Qutiri-Isinor flights bring me about 400Cr in profit per trip, right enough. But flying back, empty, that can net a lot more. Usually I'm doing away with around 10 pirates or so on the trip, averaging around 150Cr on raw bounties, and filling up with prime booty. I make it a rule though always to scoop escape pods if I see them, and never to dump slaves if I scoop them – but there's a lot of gems and precious metals and if you're patient then you can build up a fair pile of those and sell them for 40Cr/kg for gold, near 80Cr/kg for platinum, and 23 or 24Cr/gram for gems. It's definitely slow – far slower than I would recommend for a game – but even with paying for repairs I'm making a profit (partly because I'm really, really careful about getting into fights with more than two or three ships at a time). With the precious metals trading it comes in fits and starts, but when the prices hit their peak there's a real feeling of triumph in being able to boost the bank balance by somewhere around 10,000 Cr in one trip.

Disembodied wrote:

...a realistic progress from small ship to better ship to better yet to best

That would be fantastic, if it could be arranged -- a bit like my motorbike progression, from Raleigh Moped to Yamaha FJ1200 in 8 not-so-easy stages, each bike fully appreciated for the increased power and sophistication it brought. If you can afford the best on day 1, you're missing out on a lot of fun. (Not that I'm suggesting a Cobra III is the 'best' ship in Oolite, but it's no 'Raleigh Moped', for sure).

Disembodied wrote:

...the earning potentials would need to be reworked as well as the ship prices... it would require a major ground-up overhaul of ship and equipment prices, and the in-game economics, and pirate behaviour too... we'd need to get rid of mass-locking and move to a time-acceleration system instead... which means a radical rewrite of most of the game ...

An interesting take on the situation. I assume there are no plans to undertake such sweeping changes in Oolite? Hopefully Elite IV will have all this sorted.

Albee wrote:

That would be fantastic, if it could be arranged -- a bit like my motorbike progression, from Raleigh Moped to Yamaha FJ1200 in 8 not-so-easy stages, each bike fully appreciated for the increased power and sophistication it brought. If you can afford the best on day 1, you're missing out on a lot of fun. (Not that I'm suggesting a Cobra III is the 'best' ship in Oolite, but it's no 'Raleigh Moped', for sure).

[...] I assume there are no plans to undertake such sweeping changes in Oolite? Hopefully Elite IV will have all this sorted.

I don't have any such plans, no ... I think we'd be talking about at least Oolite 2.0, if not Oolite II, to make this feasible. Mind you, both are more likely to arrive within my lifetime than Elite IV, I fear.

Disembodied wrote:

My Qutiri-Isinor flights bring me about 400Cr in profit per trip, right enough. But flying back, empty, that can net a lot more. Usually I'm doing away with around 10 pirates or so on the trip, averaging around 150Cr on raw bounties, and filling up with prime booty

Wouldn't you earn more by operating in pure bounty-hunter mode, therefore? In the Devil's Triangle, maybe?

Albee wrote:

Wouldn't you earn more by operating in pure bounty-hunter mode, therefore? In the Devil's Triangle, maybe?

Out-and-out Anarchies are still a little hot for me at the moment: the sort of action I get at Qutiri, a multi-government system, is hectic enough, and I've only 10 tons to fill! Maybe with a Military laser and a shield enhancement ... although really what I'd want would be Poor Agricultural anarchies, where both Luxuries and Computers are regularly worth over 100Cr. Mind you, it's the Rich Industrials that tend to pay top whack for the precious metals.

Another good thing about the Isinor-Qutiri run is that there's Tionisla and Zaonce right next door in case I need to limp off somewhere quiet and high-tech for some running repairs. Although Qutiri itself is TL9, which is high enough for a lot of the gear that might get broken.

Qudira and Malama, on the fringes of the Pulsar Worlds, look just about ideal. Nice and close, a perfect mix of low-tech Poor Ag and high-tech Rich Industrial! I can probably soup up the good ship Proton ("she's small, but she's positive!") on the way ...

Disembodied wrote:

Another good thing about the Isinor-Qutiri run is that there's Tionisla and Zaonce right next door in case I need to limp off somewhere quiet and high-tech for some running repairs.

You've really got me itching to try this, Disembodied. I've reached Elite with my main commander, so probably it's time to start over again in any case.

Can I ask those of you who've gone down the Cobra Mk 1 route, did you keep the cash you made when trading in the Cobra III, or did you hack the save file to drop it back down to 100 Cr? There's obviously a big difference in starting the game with several thousand credits as opposed to 100.

Albee wrote:

[Can I ask those of you who've gone down the Cobra Mk 1 route, did you keep the cash you made when trading in the Cobra III, or did you hack the save file to drop it back down to 100 Cr? There's obviously a big difference in starting the game with several thousand credits as opposed to 100.

I didn't. That start-up money is needed for a few upgrades just to get you going.

An out-of-the-factory Cobra Mk I doesn't even have carpet on the cabin walls nor a beer-can holder. And the so-called 'HUD' on a MK I is just stickers on the inside of the windscreen. And as for the so-called 'sound system' ... One poxy looped tape of some poxy olde worlde waltz music. It's an outrage.

Albee wrote:

Can I ask those of you who've gone down the Cobra Mk 1 route, did you keep the cash you made when trading in the Cobra III, or did you hack the save file to drop it back down to 100 Cr? There's obviously a big difference in starting the game with several thousand credits as opposed to 100.

I just stuck with my Cobra Mark III myself, a Griff model one with a custom paintjob and symbol on it, but exactly the same specs as the stock game version. Its been hard because of ht lack of a massive cargo space but it helps you to have to resort to new ways of making money like missions, mining (although small cargo space doesn't help again!), bounty hunting, sun-skimming, piracy... But the Cobra III is the classic ship and although some would say its a bit boring never changing ship, I just like it and it works for me!

Albee wrote:

Can I ask those of you who've gone down the Cobra Mk 1 route, did you keep the cash you made when trading in the Cobra III, or did you hack the save file to drop it back down to 100 Cr? There's obviously a big difference in starting the game with several thousand credits as opposed to 100.

I kept the money: I'm not a total masochist!

Edited to add: if you do take this route, be careful what OXPs you have riding along with you. The core ships can provide a Cobra 1 pilot with plenty of challenge by themselves: some of the OXP ships – without even getting very far up the über scale – could have you on toast.

When I traded down to the Mk 1 I used the cash to buy equipment mostly to help me survive. I traded until I could afford a Python.

another_commander wrote:

Albee wrote:

At the risk of asking a question that's no doubt been asked before, why doesn't Oolite start new Jamesons in a Cobra Mk 1? [...]

I guess starting with anything less than a Cobra MkIII and 100 Cr would make the game too tough for Jamesons [...]

SandJ wrote:

Having done so (immediately start off by selling the Cobra Mk III and buying a Mk I) I can tell you it is boring and tedious. It takes forever to make any money and buy back that Cobra Mk III. For a newbie, it would be too slow a start. [...]

Well, I've given it a try, and I have to say I agree with both these commanders -- it's too tough and too tedious a challenge. I kept the money from the part-exchange, but even with a few essential enhancements, I couldn't live with the Cobra 1: it's too slow and fragile, and the 10 t cargo hold just isn't big enough to be economically viable. I officially withdraw my suggestion, therefore. Those of you who have stuck with it and eventually upgraded have my respect and admiration -- you clearly have more tenacity than me.

While I remember, apologies to OneoftheLost for seriously derailing his thread.

Its no problem. My questions all got answered. For what its worth I tried the Cobra 1 route as well, and traded into a Python I believe. I ended up just going back to the Mk. III because I didn't want to keep trading just to get into a decent fighting ship, when I already had one available.

What I mean to say is I can't give up the Mk. III

Thanks to everyone who answered all my questions! I had read the Dark Wheel, back when I first started playing actually. I liked it, while the story was ok, I liked how he discussed each area. It gave me a feel for what the inside of a station and Cobra 3 looked like. Even if it isn't entirely on-line with the game.

Thanks again! Some of the links posted I'd never seen before. Great stuff.