TAF in v1.77

[Captain Patrick]

Thanks for your comments.

I do use Escort Contracts OXP, and so do see NPCs using Jump Drives - but only when they're with me. Again, _everyone_ else is "standing still".

The Mass Lock was only a Minor Annoyance on top of the Major - that nobody else ever seems to deal with it. Especially: once I'm out of Scanner Range, I always can run away on Jump Drive, but nobody ever seems to be able to run away from me by that means: I can invariably run them down whenever I wish.

I'm familiar with the usual rationalizations for Jump Drive, and have made up a few of my own. But what I'm looking for now is a substitute, as described, for a more satisfactory simulation and gaming experience.

[Commander McLane]

Unfortunately, time acceleration as implemented in Oolite is a very poor substitute, because for the accelerated time it sacrifices accuracy. Thus it is not a gameplay feature, but only meant as a debugging feature. And therefore it's only implemented in the OXP-developers' version of Oolite, not in the version for the general public.

[Captain Patrick]

I know that too, and am still willing to try an OXP that will only ever work in the Developer's Version, and decide for myself whether it's a game-breaker.

Since I would only Fast Forward through the boring bits when "nothing seems to be happening", I'm not really worried about inaccuracies that I probably couldn't notice anyway. And even then, I could tolerate an occasional bit of strangeness that could be attributed to cryonap hallucination or other of its own handwaving.

[DaddyHoggy]

I'm hoping that, eventually, that the in-system trip, along the space lane is so full of life and exciting (and necessary?) that it becomes an integral part of the game.

I used to use TAF and deliberately stay in the lanes because I've never been able to justify the Jump Drive in a game which is no longer player centric in almost all other respects - it's the same reason I also never used the E-bomb.

[pagroove]

I'm hoping that, eventually, that the in-system trip, along the space lane is so full of life and exciting (and necessary?) that it becomes an integral part of the game.

I used to use TAF and deliberately stay in the lanes because I've never been able to justify the Jump Drive in a game which is no longer player centric in almost all other respects - it's the same reason I also never used the E-bomb.

I hope that in the future traffic generation is everywhere (so also outside the lanes) in the core game. That would be cool.

[BuggyBY]

[snip] I was thinking about something analogous to the Retro Rockets from 16bit Elite: one keypress gives you a sudden boost in your current direction of travel by manipulating player.ship.velocity (for instance multiplying it with, say, 25). The risk is that you lose part of your control over your ship. The inertial movement drives you in the same direction as long as it persists, and your engines can only counteract it over time. Until then you can't really change direction. So the effect is similar to what you're experiencing with time acceleration: you can run into something and not be able to avoid it.

This can also be used for some newtonian fight features: you could pass by an enemy and turn your ship to face another direction than you're flying to, constantly firing sideways with your forward laser. The downside is the same as with dogfights in FE2: only long after overshooting can you turn your ship around and return to the site.

That's pretty much what Thargoid's Military Fuel Injectors OXP did in version 1.0, and thus prompted him to develop a separate Retro Rockets OXP to counteract the Newtonian aspects.

[Thargoid]

Indeed, and it can make for some "interesting" flights if used for a long time, as the underlying code seems to have some difficulties in restoring things at times when velocity is played with.

It's all too easy to end up turning your Cobra3 into a pinball...

[Diziet Sma]

It's all too easy to end up turning your Cobra3 into a pinball...

The minor difference being that pinballs bounce somewhat better than Cobra3s..

[Thargoid]

A fun game is installing ooCheat and using the limited invulnerability plus the Newtonian stuff from Mil Injectors and/or Retro Rockets. Then you can go bouncing around with a lot of impunity. Makes the Cobbie nice and bouncy too...