Oolite Bulletins

spara wrote:

I agree that this information, if shown in the core game, should be vague. The reason I would like it to show is that currently I feel that it's a bit too hidden factor that really affects the game in ways that are not obvious to all.

At the moment it affects the game in ways that are not obvious because they're really really small. You have:
- a slightly greater chance of taking system/cargo damage if hit without shields
- marginally higher refuelling prices
- worse trade-in price on your ship (quite substantially worse ... but it's not as if trading in the ship happens very often)
- at very low service levels (quite a bit below what's needed to offer servicing) a marginally increased misjump chance

So long as you can cope with the occasional misjump you can probably save money and not bother with the servicing at all.

Diziet Sma wrote:

it would be nice if the devs could add the capability in core, so that all HUDs could make use of it, if desired.

Being able to define a HUD dial with a value tied to a custom variable is already in the nightly builds.

If it has almost no effect why is it in the game? Just askin'.

Cody wrote:

Disembodied wrote:

... rather than finding themselves halfway to trouble in a rattly-but-not-quite-due-for-repair-yet vehicle.

This though is something one takes into account when accepting time-critical contracts - if I could 'primp' my ship whenever I wished, some of the risk would be averted.

Yes, although the primping could take a fair chunk of time itself - and depending on the cost it might not be worth it, given the decay of your reputation.

cim wrote:

At the moment it affects the game in ways that are not obvious because they're really really small

One possibly interesting effect your maintenance level could have would be if it influenced pirate attack odds calculations a bit. If pirates regarded well-maintained ships as harder targets (on the grounds that rich, successful commanders will be better armed), then this might have the added benefit of giving brand-new Jamesons a slightly easier ride, for their first few trips at least. (Brand-new commanders in brand-new ships could, arguably, be such a rarity that Jamesons could plausibly be mistaken for someone quite a bit more prosperous and experienced).

cim wrote:

not bother with the servicing at all.

This was why I put a risk into [wiki]ShipVersion[/wiki]: if service level hit the bottom then all lasers will be broken and you can not buy another until not fixed a bit.

The mentioned warning ideas are good also imho.

cim wrote:

Being able to define a HUD dial with a value tied to a custom variable is already in the nightly builds.

This is what my Original HUD use to show the Hull bar ("Service level" is simply too long to fit there).

streb2001 wrote:

If it has almost no effect why is it in the game? Just askin'.

Taking it out entirely would affect OXP compatibility and so doesn't seem worth the effort, but there's been no accepted proposal on how to make it more interesting either.

spara wrote:

I agree that this information, if shown in the core game, should be vague. The reason I would like it to show is that currently I feel that it's a bit too hidden factor that really affects the game in ways that are not obvious to all. I can tell about my car if it has scratches, runs erratically and sounds funny. The ship always looks the same and sounds the same no matter what has happened, so some info about the real condition would be nice.

What would be more believable than e.g. "ship condition: 96%", IMHO, would be a counter of the number of witchspace jumps since last service, or hours spent in witchspace since last service. Also, a counter of the number of times you've been shot is perfectly believable; I think you'd notice those sort of things.

another_commander wrote:

IMHO, some things should be left unseen in core, such as ship service level and commander reputation. Can anyone tell me the exact service level of their cars,

Well, we are not talking about cars but about very high cost space ships. Working in the aviation industry, I can tell you that we do everything to know about an aircrafts service level anytime, to schedule maintenance in order to avoid unlucky or simply expensive surprises. I think the idea fits quite well.

ralph_hh wrote:

Well, we are not talking about cars but about very high cost space ships. Working in the aviation industry, I can tell you that we do everything to know about an aircrafts service level anytime, to schedule maintenance in order to avoid unlucky or simply expensive surprises. I think the idea fits quite well.

Ok, but the point is how do you actually express the service level of an aircraft in numbers? I would be really interested to know that and then maybe we can see if there is a reasonable way to port something similar into the game. Percentage seems just too simplistic and, for me, detracting from the scope of the gameplay. That's why I prefer to have it as OXP only.

ralph_hh wrote:

Well, we are not talking about cars but about very high cost space ships.

I'm not sure that's true. These ships are built down to a price - that's how plebs like us can afford them - and are probably better related to ships than aircraft. Some of them are hundreds of years old, so they are certainly durable, but consider them to be more like an old tramp steamer than a shiny new 747.

I think the car analogy is more apt. I see the tech in our ships as being well established and well known throughout the Ooniverse. Any mechanic in a 2 horse town could service your car or you could go to a large metropolis and also get it serviced. The difference? cost,maybe quality of the service ? gone are the days you had to know how your car worked because it always broke down on the side of the road. cars nowadays are far more reliable and get serviced every 10k to 15k kilometers.

Our ships are the same well known tech that hasent changed in centuries. the things that need a service are the things that wear in use like lasers and injectors your engines too a lesser degree. maybe all we need is a "service due" light or a "check engine" light....starts out light yellow then progressively as the service is more critical changes to orange then red? at which point things can break if the service interval is pushed too far....

spud42 wrote:

maybe all we need is a "service due" ... light.....

My Airbag light has been on for ages - I hope it doesn't fail its MOT!
On a serious note, this is quite a nice idea.

spud42 wrote:

maybe all we need is a "service due" ... light.....

I like it .

another_commander wrote:

ralph_hh wrote:

Well, we are not talking about cars but about very high cost space ships. Working in the aviation industry, I can tell you that we do everything to know about an aircrafts service level anytime, to schedule maintenance in order to avoid unlucky or simply expensive surprises. I think the idea fits quite well.

Ok, but the point is how do you actually express the service level of an aircraft in numbers? I would be really interested to know that and then maybe we can see if there is a reasonable way to port something similar into the game. Percentage seems just too simplistic and, for me, detracting from the scope of the gameplay. That's why I prefer to have it as OXP only.

It's hard to put the aircrafts service level into numbers. Its fairly easy with the engines:

Items that are constantly monitored are e.g. the engine parameters: turn rate of the two shafts, exhaust gas temperature, air pressure and temperature at various stations, vibrations, fuel and oil temperature and pressure, oil consumption. In addition to that, you have a look inside every now and then. In the end you are able, not only to see if an engine degrades but also where in that engine a problem arises.

If the efficiency degrades a bit, more fuel is needed, this can be seen in exhaus temperatures. Transferred to oolite, this could mean that the range of 7.0 LY is not fix but dependant on the condition of the ships engines. Or in order to compensate this, you take more fuel on board, reducing the payload. In reality, the main effect are higher fuel cost, which is not an issue in oolite. (In contrast to 25.000 Cr overhaul cost for my military shields yesterday)

Same is true but hard to put in numbers for the condition of the paint. If you don't paint (or polish) and wash the aircraft, the fuel consumption increases.

Wheels profiles are measured, so are the brakes disk thickness. No immediate effect, simply avoiding failures.

But in general, there are very few systems that are allowes to degrade to a point where tey don't work anymore. Unlike in my Cobra MKIII, an aicraft features multiple redundancies in every important system, so in the end wear and tear first of all means : cost. But to admit this: we don't do dogfights with our aircrafts. Those who do nowadays suffer complete losses, not just accumulated minor dmages.

spud42 wrote:

maybe all we need is a "service due" light or a "check engine" light

We sort of have that already, in that the option pops up on the F3 screen when it's due. It doesn't indicate how badly it's required, but it's pretty much there. What we don't have is the ability to get a maintenance overhaul before it's strictly necessary. If there were noticeable differences in price and in quality of overhauls, depending on a system's TL and economy, though, then this might become a desirable option: you could choose to have an early service in a top-of-the-line system, or pick somewhere because they're cheap. It would all help make individual systems different from each other.

I'm not sure how the pricing could work. Maybe an Industrial world would be cheaper than an Agricultural world (because the parts are more easily available) ... the pricing, from cheapest to most expensive, might run something like

Poor Industrial
Average Industrial
Mainly Industrial
Poor Agricultural
Mainly Agricultural
Rich Industrial
Average Agricultural
Rich Agricultural

The TL of the planet could affect how quickly the maintenance level decayed: a high TL overhaul would last longer than a low TL one.

Smivs wrote:

spud42 wrote:

maybe all we need is a "service due" ... light.....

My Airbag light has been on for ages - I hope it doesn't fail its MOT!
On a serious note, this is quite a nice idea.

yeah.. mine too.. but it is a 2002 Volvo.... apparently there is a sticker inside the door that says something about changing the airbags around 2013... never heard of that before.. got a 2001 car with airbags and nothing about changing them... would cost more than the car is worth!!!