Oolite Bulletins

Cpt wrote:

Although in my defence the wiki said "These commanders have put together a list:"

Your quote omitted the previous sentence: "Everyone has their own idea of what OXPs should be in a starter pack."
There are several OXPs in your list that I personally wouldn't recommend for a new commander - for various reasons.

El Viejo wrote:

Cpt wrote:

Although in my defence the wiki said "These commanders have put together a list:"

Your quote omitted the previous sentence: "Everyone has their own idea of what OXPs should be in a starter pack."
There are several OXPs in your list that I personally wouldn't recommend for a new commander - for various reasons.

There are even some which I would actively discourage any player to install ever, not just as a starter pack.

<nods> As it happens, I wonder about the wisdom of having such a section on the OXP front page.

El Viejo wrote:

<nods> As it happens, I wonder about the wisdom of having such a section on the OXP front page.

I have to agree - I don't think it is a good idea. However this section has been added to the page and does exist. I have taken the liberty of editing it into what I feel is a less misleading form. It seemed more diplomatic than deleting it.

<nods at Smivs>

General guidelines should be ok though. I think there is a general consensus that one should start with eye candy, and be wary of equipment and anything that changes the balance of the game until you get a feel for what you want. There are also certain missions that are specifically designed for a new player. Tionisla Reporter, Long way round and Lave Academy comes to mind. So general guide lines on where to start (eye candy) with some examples and a short list of which missions are aimed at a new player should be ok. Feel free to disagree.

I certainly failed at selecting appropriate OXP's for my game when I started out and I'm now very careful with my game balance. Far too many OXP's make the game too easy, and those that make it harder, in many cases, just increase the amount of opposition. That does not work for me. I prefer the opposition there is to become tougher, not more numerous. I have selected OXP's accordingly.

Perhaps a difficulty rating entry in the sortable OXP list?

Even the ambiance/eye candy OXPs can add many ships and objects to the game, seriously screwing with the game's balance-of-fairness.

These OXP ships often displace and remove the regular ships. The few pirates placed in a system by the core game may have to face fuel tankers with escorts (Buoy Repair OXP), giant and tough Cruise Liners with assorted escorts (Liners OXP), and even Galactic Navy OXP randomly adding entire strike fleets to systems that nothing short of a large Thargoid invasion could beat. So although fewer pirates will attack you, the survivors that do are probably more capable of killing you. Good luck getting to Elite status quickly.

Commies! OXP adds so many huge cargo ships that you'll probably end up 1 masslock away from a mass murder if you go to communist systems often. ConStores from Your Ad Here OXP, Fuel Stations OXP, and Gates OXP all tend to mass-lock you on exiting witchspace as well. Or there may be much tougher and larger asteroids (Asteroid Storm OXP) that are an absolute pain to kill but give crap for bounty. Or, on exiting witchspace, you crash into one of the large Your Ad Here OXP billboards and die.

Interstellar space can come to resemble a constant bar brawl no matter where or when you visit there. Galactic Navy OXP, Behemoth OXP, Commies! OXP, and a bunch of others can make any visit feel like you're a minor character in Clash of the Titans. I've been waxed by all the Thargoids and Thargons, shot to pieces by the "flak" from Behemoths trying to shoot the Thargoids, and even died from getting incidentally rammed by one of the many ships there.

I was often getting into fights at the main station in the past.. Pirates would attack me out of the blue there in a fight to the death or I'd die trying to dock because a defending Viper would launch from the station and ram me. The bugs in Free Trade Zone OXP that caused that have since been fixed, but it means you better pick your OXPs carefully based on their readme/FAQ/forum message thread or at some point one will probably kill you!

Switeck wrote:

... but it means you better pick your OXPs carefully

For a new commander, that is very sound advice - I played the first few weeks after I'd found this game (Oolite 1.65) with nothing added but Fighter Hud. Then I started to add Griff's ships, one by one, as they became available - then some system eye-candy (System Redux). Looking back, I think I did myself a great favour by this approach - but then I like to play as close to the core game as is possible (with a few minor exceptions). I was/am an Elite fanatic!

<...continues thread derailment...>

I think you are highlighting a particular problem here, namely that many OXPs considered by some to be 'eye-candy' are simply not that at all.
YAH, Galactic Navy etc go way beyond being just eye-candy, and even a fairly innocuous OXP like Liners could have an affect on say the number of pirates in a system as you say.
Pure eye-candy OXPs are fairly small in number, and would be mostly straight replacements for standard Oolite objects. So we're looking at shipsets*, planet re-textures and things like Star Jelly which just add inert objects which do not displace significant core-generated items.
*Even some shipsets have a very mild effect - Griff's Constrictor has a rear laser unlike its core counterpart, and Smivs'Shipset actually adds a few more alloys than the core game on destruction of an NPC. However these are hardly game-changing or un-balancing features.
It just goes to show why we need to be careful when recommending OXPs to newbies.

Smivs wrote:

I think you are highlighting a particular problem here, namely that many OXPs considered by some to be 'eye-candy' are simply not that at all.

Which is why in my previous post I've mentioned at least 2 OXPs found here:
http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Category:Ambience_OXPs

As an asteroid miner, I can safely say that anything that adds really huge asteroids to a system certainly changes how profitable a mining laser can be...

Extra stations tend to add profit as well, or even outright exploits if their price differences are great enough. I might make over 1000 credits just moving cargo from 1 station to another.

Smivs wrote:

even a fairly innocuous OXP like Liners could have an affect on say the number of pirates in a system as you say.

A semi-fast, unarmed trader that tries to avoid combat, doesn't have escorts, and runs straight to the main station can create a worse scenario -- it can "pull along" behind it every pirate that can keep up. And if they finally manage to kill that trader off, these pirates all end up in relatively close proximity waiting for their next victim. It might be one heck of an ambush.