Oolite Bulletins

@aegidian: Is there a solution in the works for people who would like some way to speed up the cooling of lasers?

I'll remove the laser cooling feature from my next release.

@winston: I'll try and do that ASAP. Need a little time, might get some this evening. Still haven't had broadband installed yet so all my net stuff has to happen at work.

@dajt: Glad you got things going The commit I did yesterday was all that I dared to do (and I still c*cked that up a bit ). So it's still not as easy as it might be to get a windows build built. I'll have to work on that.

I had a couple of problems with classes not knowing about the resource manager, so needed to include ResourceManager.h.

I thought I put in a fix for that. D'oh!

-Nic

Nic wrote:

@aegidian: Is there a solution in the works for people who would like some way to speed up the cooling of lasers?

Not planned. Because it breaks an important gameplay element, namely managing your laser temperature. Coolant schemes, no matter how expensive they are, stop the player worrying about this.

Yes, some people find the way lasers overheat and cool slowly irritating, but some people will complain about anything ("why isn't there a kill-everything-teleport-cargo-to-my-hold-and-instantly-auto-dock-with-clean-reputation-button?" to which the answer would be a blank screen with the words "You Win" in the middle and no game).

</RANT>

The main problem for me has never been Oolite code, it has always been GNUstep. Although I don't know most of the Oolite code either - only enough to take out the Cocoa and replace it with SDL!

For example, after the original porting work I could no longer build an exe that included sound. Even building all of GNUstep, SDL*, and ogg from scratch, as I always do, it would compile but crash before reaching main.

Now, I can't even *build* SDL_image.

So now I compile in a completely broken env, and have a script to copy the exe and any updated resources to an installation of your build from a while ago. Weird, but it works.

How did you set up your dev env?

aegidian wrote:

Yes, some people find the way lasers overheat and cool slowly irritating, but some people will complain about anything ("why isn't there a kill-everything-teleport-cargo-to-my-hold-and-instantly-auto-dock-with-clean-reputation-button?" to which the answer would be a blank screen with the words "You Win" in the middle and no game).

You know, I was thinking about allowing the player to script their own actions... take off, fly 14 kms, jump, take the dog-leg route to the station, quick-dock, refuel. I spent a long time over the last couple of days doing this to get my new commander equipped.

I guess you'd not go for that? ;)

@aegidian: The problem is currently dogfighting with multiple targets doesn't feel at all right, because after your first kill you invariably have to wait around until your laser cools down. Otherwise your military laser ends up acting like a slow pulse beam.

I think from the number of posts mentioning this issue, that i'm not the only one feeling this way.

Would you be against a poll where people could vote on whether they'd like this feature or not? It could be implemented the same way I did it by having an optional OXP, so people that want it can have it and people that don't will just ignore it.

Or are you completely against the idea?

@dajt: GNUStep is a pain. My build environment is a real hash. I install GNUStep as well as a separate MSYS and MinGW to build the libraries. Then just dump the libraries and header files where needed and modifiy the GNUmakefile to include different libraries. It's a bit of a mess. With the new GNUstep I couldn't get "openapp" to work at all. If you need any more info or a copy of my files or anything let me know Congrats on the baby

-Nic

You don't need 'openapp'; in the context of Oolite it's entirely redundant. Just run oolite.app/oolite (or in the Windows case, oolite.app\oolite). Or even add the oolite.app to your path (or make a desktop icon). The Linux installer doesn't even bother packaging openapp - the 'oolite' startup script just runs oolite.app/oolite.

As for extra laser cooling, I'm entirely with aegidian on this one - it would break an important area of gameplay tactics and make combat FAR too easy. The laser heat/cool cycles of the military laser I think are absolutely spot-on. People complaining about it need to learn how to use their rear laser, or develop tactics to avoid lasers overheating (such as, say, using missiles - perhaps actually spend the money on hardheads). Increasing the cooling rate would remove much of Oolite's tactical play (especially when there are multiple bandits).

@winston: Ok, i'll follow you and aegidians lead on this then. I won't mention laser cooling again.
I didn't explain myself in regard to openapp. I know it's not needed (windows build doesn't package it either), but I was just giving it as an example of something I tried in the new GNUstep that failed. Looks like the whole new GNUstep backend doesn't want to work........

Thanks for your input

-Nic

Perhaps it's time again to revisit the idea of getting rid of AppKit altogether (there are still a few small places where it's used). Getting rid of the GNUstep GUI will also get rid of the backend (and then there will only be GNUstep base needed, which at least in my experience is pretty straightforward to deal with -- mind you, I've not had to develop anything on Windows, so I have at least kept my sanity <g>)

You know, I was thinking about allowing the player to script their own actions... take off, fly 14 kms, jump, take the dog-leg route to the station, quick-dock, refuel. I spent a long time over the last couple of days doing this to get my new commander equipped.

I guess you'd not go for that? ;)

Why not script trading and combat too?

Oolite: the screensaver 8-)

winston wrote:

As for extra laser cooling, I'm entirely with aegidian on this one

Me firmly so too.

I never considered the overheating a problem, just part of life.
I mean: if you add a megagazillionCoolingBooster, you inevitably end up in a space-shooter game, now you have to make sure every shot counts (more or less).
Not just blasting away randomly. If you *could* do that, it would take away *a lot* of the gameplay: the fight-or flee decisions, the risk-calculating stuff, I'd be Asteroids-3D with some trading on the side, bleh.
Also: consider that if YOU could retrofit the cooler, the enemies would be able too, and if one of them could successfully sneak up on your 6, you'd be dead, dead, dead. Now NPShips have to fire intermittently, too. Their lasers overheat too.

But of course, as an OXP I see no objections, everyone has its own 'limits' wrt playing, heh.

New vid driver

now oolite 1.63 is fine and not clunky

Holds head in shame javascript:emoticon(':oops:')
Embarassed

Escorts act dumb if take out the main ship, will try this next I see a behometh
javascript:emoticon('')
Wink

Good cheer
Leadslug

I must admit, I used to want the laser cooler. Now I've learned to fight without one. There are lots of options:

- witchdrive fuel injectors - great for a quick burst to break an enemy's lock, or a sustained one to escape and wait for your ship systems to regenerate.
- shield upgrades.
- energy unit upgrades.
- missiles.
- Q-bombs.
- energy bombs. If you really must.

My personal must-have are the fuel injectors. That way, you can escape from a situation you don't have the hardware to deal with yet. Always sssuming you've remembered not to shoot yourself in the foot by making a maximum range jump, of course

I do agree with Giles et al about the game balance as relates to the Cooling Booster, but I don't see the harm in including it as an OXP, to be honest.

The main reason I would like to see it available is this: I like to take a quick pop at Oolite during whatever free time I have. Usually to test OXP devs or to check out the latest builds. However, if a battle starts, the overheating of the laser makes the battle last much much longer as I try and let the thing cool. This means that the majority of my time is spent in combat instead of doing the trading thing seeing new places or trying to investigate the OXPs. With the increase in the amount of encounters that are had, it is making the game seem more like a combat simulation than a space/trading sim.

So how about a middle ground? How about including the booster, but make it a toggle on/off item, so that it actually has to be activated? When running, it could draw a little power from the energy banks to offset the benefit it provdes. It could maybe even prevent the laser from firing when it's running! This way, it could be another management thing. Fire away for a bit, then during the evasive maneouvering phase, hit the cooling booster to speed up the cooldown, then switch it off again to start another attack run.

Plus which, if it was an OXP, then it could be removed and added at will.

winston wrote:

As for extra laser cooling, I'm entirely with aegidian on this one - it would break an important area of gameplay tactics and make combat FAR too easy. The laser heat/cool cycles of the military laser I think are absolutely spot-on. People complaining about it need to learn how to use their rear laser, or develop tactics to avoid lasers overheating (such as, say, using missiles - perhaps actually spend the money on hardheads). Increasing the cooling rate would remove much of Oolite's tactical play (especially when there are multiple bandits).

Gameplay tactics and strategies are one of the reasons that Elite and all it's derivatives (Oolite is way out in front know) is still so popular it combines shoot em up and strategic open ended gameplay brilliantly, allowing each commander to go in whatever direction he wants.

It's all a question of balance, from reading old posts about the 1.3-1.4 ish versions, killing seemed to be fairly easy, and of course it shouldn't be, and Giles rightly upped the ante to become Elite.

I totally agree that you should not become invincible and that a too powerful ML would upset the game balance. I also think that energy bombs and QCM's are a bit of a cop out too, I would much rather dogfight

EDIT - Oops clicked submit instead of preview while talking on the phone.

My most treasured memory of Elite years ago was a 2 hour plus adrenilin pumping journey, being attacked non stop by Vipers and pirates, not in droves but small groups and individuals continually. I had to nurse my shields, use front and rear lasers, act docile, conserve laser temperature try and run etc etc. What a buzz when I hit C to autodock when my energy banks were clanking and almost entirely gone.

Oolite now has ECM hardened missiles, or even up to 4 QCM's, with witchdrive injectors you can now run for cover, but on the other hand some of the new OXP ships like the Iguana are also tooled up and really tough, so you need the better equipment, and they come at you in greater numbers.
So as far as gameplay is concerned you have more tactical options, stronger offensive and defensive weapons, but fighting tougher opponents in greater numbers. I am still however of the opinion that the ML power is still not quite right to fit the balance. Nic's windows build OXP has made it a little too strong, and IMHO it's current power level is a tad too low, I would think that a 10 or 20% increase would be about right.

Nevertheless AFIC Giles walks on water and can shape Oolite whichever way he thinks best, and will always get my total support, he and the other wizards have done an incredible job and have just made this old man very happy.
Hmm I've never used that line to blokes before!

TGHC wrote:

I also think that energy bombs and QCM's are a bit of a cop out too, I would much rather dogfight

I definitely consider energy bombs a cop-out. Totally risk free, blast everything in sight, completely unrealistic. I do carry a Q-bomb, though - for me, the risk of blowing yourself up if you get it wrong is a good thing, gameplay wise. Besides, Q-bombs aren't guaranteed to work - the NPCs always seem to run away from them, for some reason...