Oolite Bulletins

What if GalCop doesn't know?

How many ships jump in and out of a system every day? Hundreds, at least-- thousands for a busy system. Direct scanning of a Witchspace cloud takes a few seconds. Do they track every jump? How? Even if they monitor which station you arrive at, who's to say you didn't misjump?

Maybe the rule about penalties for changing flight plans should only apply if the jump is made within the main station Aegis, where the station sensors can directly observe your transit, compare it to your filed flight plan, and /then/ sound a red flag flapping in the breeze of criminal activity? Criminal activity bears a bitter breeze.

Cody wrote:

and this OXP doesn't affect the player, yes?

That's correct. The player's ship appears in the dock list, but that's all. The player's ships is always added with a status of "Docked". I only show destinations once ships actually have a departure time, so the player's destination would never be shown anyway.

Edit: Although whatever destination is set on the F6 screen would obviously be available and known to GalCop.

This appeared in the log just now: I am playing Oolite deployment version 1.80.

Thanks, CaptSolo. Bug found and squashed. New version is on the way shortly.

Version 0.4.0 has just been uploaded. Download link here, or in first post: https://app.box.com/s/nqzefpnlhnk9gx51erxsowbg752zw1uh

In this version:

• Better protection against null station error when checking for ships docking.
• Fixed bug with adding escorts directly to the system.
• Added shuttle destinations to view.
• Added the possibility that a ship will change their destination on launch (ie. the lying option).
• Added a method to track primary roles I haven't seen before (in escort ships at present) so that those ships can be docked with their escort leader.
• Stability improvements

If you have a save game with the previous version, shuttles won't have destinations yet. You should see them when you enter the next system, or if the data in the current system gets refreshed (eg you buy something expensive).

maik wrote:

If GalCop asks for flight plans, shouldn't filing false ones be an offense?

Does GalCop ask for flight plans? Are they organised enough to be able to check up on this? They could scan every outgoing wormhole, I suppose (if they have the technology in place), and match it up with posted flight plans, but what then? In the assumed absence of any form of FTL communication beyond sending a message with a ship (hence no market data from other systems, the existence of couriers, etc.) they'd have to write up a ticket and send it in the next ship heading to where the first ship had jumped to, and hope that the first ship's transponder could get updated with a small fine before it's jumped on again to who knows where. And what about misjumps? If you survive a misjump, you might have to jump again to a system other than your originally intended destination. A bit rough to come through all that and get a ticket.

Personally, I see the filing of flight plans as an act of courtesy and friendliness, an invitation to share a wormhole and convoy (at least as far as the next system WP), plus a bit of advertising for any passengers or packet contracts that might be going that way - and even simply the opportunity for someone to say, "You're heading to Aronar? If you see Bo Veesle there, tell him I haven't forgotten his birthday/he still owes me C*20/I still love him/'Aoogah!' - he'll understand/etc."

With that in mind, I'd think that ships most likely to advertise their destinations are larger haulers (Pythons and up). Lone-wolf types might be more inclined to let people know their destination if they're travelling to somewhere dangerous (Dictatorship and lower). Couriers would routinely not file plans. And all Commanders might be a lot more tight-lipped generally in unsafe systems (who knows who is listening?). But not posting a destination shouldn't be seen as anything more than a mixture of lack of definite plans, laziness, unsociability and caution. It would be good if the system picked up the player's current F6 destination and marked this as where they're outbound to, but the player should be free to change this when they launch, without penalty.

phkb wrote:

Added the possibility that a ship will change their destination on launch (ie. the lying option).

When it comes to NPCs filing false plans, there's a risk that, on the rare occasions when the player follows an NPC who's done this, the player will see it as a bug, not a feature. I'd be tempted just to leave this out, except in very specific and probably mission-oriented circumstances - where the player thinks they're following someone to A and ends up at B - and even then this would need to be flagged through some in-game message to the player.

Disembodied wrote:

phkb wrote:

Added the possibility that a ship will change their destination on launch (ie. the lying option).

When it comes to NPCs filing false plans, there's a risk that, on the rare occasions when the player follows an NPC who's done this, the player will see it as a bug, not a feature. I'd be tempted just to leave this out, except in very specific and probably mission-oriented circumstances - where the player thinks they're following someone to A and ends up at B - and even then this would need to be flagged through some in-game message to the player.

I agree with Disemobodied on this point. I don't like what this "lying" thing does to gameplay.

No lying then, no false flight plans - everyone is honest.

Cody wrote:

No lying then, no false flight plans - everyone is honest.

It's not that everyone is honest, it's that - in the game - the player has no access to the various cues and clues that could tell them that someone might be lying. There's no difference, from the player's perspective, between an untruthful NPC and a buggy OXP. It's the sort of nasty surprise that would need to be explained to the player when it happens, to make it clear that this was a Cunning Plan and not a programming error.

I suggest when the player select request launch before or after a ship then the ship's commander can change his mind meantime when somebody in the canteen offered a better business to him, so stop the time forward in a random moment and display the change.

In the other case when filled a false plan (small chance imho) then a commsmessage right before his jump can make clear that this is not a bug: I'm lied about my destination, haha!

Disembodied wrote:

It's not that everyone is honest, it's that - in the game - the player has no access to the various cues and clues that could tell them that someone might be lying.

If we were talking about the core game, I'd completely agree - but should OXPs never have a trick? No potential cost to the player to balance the benefit?

Cody wrote:

If we were talking about the core game, I'd completely agree - but should OXPs never have a trick? No potential cost to the player to balance the benefit?

No, the same reasoning applies. Without a cue, e,g, as proposed by Norby above, there's no way to tell the difference between a sneaky NPC and a buggy OXP. If I get misled in real life, when I realise what's happened I can understand that somebody conned me. If it happens in a game, without any cues, my baseline assumption is that it's a bug.

Just like in fiction, there needs to be a reveal - a point where the protagonist (or at least the reader) realises that a con has been pulled. Otherwise it just looks like a mistake in the fictional world.

Norby's solution would work, but it would still require "sneaky" NPCs to come clean before they actually jump. In this case, just an announced change of destination would be enough. If you want actual sneaky NPCs, who are trying to lure the player to some other location, you'd have to first ask, "For what purpose?". There's no in-game way for these sneaky NPCs to invite the player to follow them - to set up the con, in other words - and it assumes that players won't check the wormhole destination before following. The game doesn't have the necessary mechanics to make this kind of con likely.

At best, there could be occasional "bait" ships that look tempting - announcing a long jump to a distant system, maybe - which are actually going somewhere close and anarchic where a pirate snatch squad is ready and waiting. Even in this case, it would still be necessary to announce the con in some way when the player arrives - have the ship they're following announce, "Here it is, boys! Fresh meat!" or something. But it's such a specialised set of circumstances, requiring an inattentive player (one who doesn't use, or doesn't have, a wormhole analyser) to go along with it, that I wonder if it's worth it. The simplest solution is just to avoid the issue altogether and have NPCs either post their true destinations, or not post any destination at all.

Edited to add: if you're looking for a cost, then there's no reason why it might be extra-dangerous to follow an NPC into an Anarchy system: who knows what they might do when they get there? They might be a law-abiding trader looking for company - but they might also be a badass pirate heading home. That's a legitimate in-game con, in my view: being attacked by someone is understandable, non-potentially-buggy behaviour.

Aye well, we disagree on that - there you go.

It seems to me that 'Destination' could be a number of things.

• declared hyperspace target
• current hyperspace target
• contracted target system (i.e. delivery destination rather than delivery route)
• likely hyperspace target (factoring role, cargo, ship, rating etc.)

...and I expect there are others.

We seem to be considering mostly the first one. Not my oxp of course but the others all have reasons to surprise the player without issues of in game legality or masquerading as bugs.

If the player expectation is given a little more room then perhaps there is also more room for the design mechanic.

From an in-game point of view, I think there are several stages in the build of such an announcement system.

Firstly, and it may still be the case in underdeveloped systems, some pilots share their destination point on a radio wavelength. Something equivalent to CB. In this cas, some could lie, and nobody would fine them, but why bother to lie?

Secondly, stations would relay these messages to let pilots hear them from further, and clearer. The interest to lie/con would grow with the percentage of pilot hearing them when near the station. Then lawyers would crash into the party. Some noble/rich/VIP would have been conned/murdered/etc because of such a message. The station would be judged guilty and responsible, and would have to award damages.

Thirdly, stations would provide this service only through an authentified service, where you guarantee your data is truthful.

Finally, when it is realized having a lawsuit would cost too much on the justice system, they would implement fines.

When would a delinquent prefer to lie rather than merely shuting up? Only in the second stage, for underdeveloped systems, and anarchy systems of course. So I think lying should not be implemented in the general case, only perhaps in anarchy systems and underdeveloped systems.