Oolite Bulletins

The mass lock could conceivably be a combination of mass and density. Asteroids are more massive, but thier structure is more open, with craters, caves, tunnels and the like. A ship's structure, however, is more shell-like, with denser refined metal surrounding a largely hollow interior.

dictionary.com wrote:

A property of matter equal to the measure of an object's resistance to changes in either the speed or direction of its motion. The mass of an object is not dependent on gravity and therefore is different from but proportional to its weight.

This definition allows for an explanation: the mass is equal to the measure of an object's resistance to changes in speed or direction. An asteroid (at least in OOlite/Elite) is easily shot to bits and is thus more susceptible to changes in speed or direction. A ship is more resilient due to the hull strength (or energy level) and the shields. Hence the mass lock property could be in relation to the ability of a laser to cut through the object in question. It's also dependent on the weight to mass ratio, which is much higher in ships than in asteroids.

Well, why not split the difference? If the pirate has to power down to run silent, it's a fair bet that there'll be some systems running. A silent-running sub doesn't just go dead in the water, after all. Perhaps the mass lock effect is reduced, not obviated entirely.

Another way to do it would be to have a 'squealer': an unmanned vessel running at low drive that would mass-lock the player's ship. Bearing in mind that the time it takes the pirate to start up could be similar to the time it takes the player to slow down, thus balancing things out.

I don't want to teach physics, but:

The mass lock could conceivably be a combination of mass and density.

Density is a function of mass. It's how much mass there is in a given volume.

It's also dependent on the weight to mass ratio.

The weight to mass ratio IS the gravitational field strength.

Also, the definition of mass above is a bit of reverse engineering. Yes, more massive objects require a larger force to accelerate them or change their direction. (Force = mass x acceleration). The best definition of mass is just "stuff".

Also, either mass lock locks, or it doesn't. It can't work "a bit".

However, this is our Ooniverse, and we make the laws of physics here!

All this talk is simply to provide an explanation for allowing dead or un-powered ships not to mass lock other craft. And the explanation is essentially secondary to what actually happenes in the game.

I'll shut up now.

This may have been mentioned before, but couldn't we make a stealth mode that makes it so that your ship doesn't show up on your tagets' scanner until you're one or two kilometers away?

There will still be mass lock, but only when the ships are near.

Lucidor wrote:

This may have been mentioned before, but couldn't we make a stealth mode that makes it so that your ship doesn't show up on your tagets' scanner until you're one or two kilometers away?

There will still be mass lock, but only when the ships are near.

There is a cloaking device you can gain from an inbuilt "mission" (it's not really a mission per se). It makes you invisible to the eye and scanner. You still mass lock though.

Selezen wrote:

The mass lock could conceivably be a combination of mass and density. Asteroids are more massive, but thier structure is more open, with craters, caves, tunnels and the like. A ship's structure, however, is more shell-like, with denser refined metal surrounding a largely hollow interior.

Abandoned ships do not mass lock since power is down..

Bump!


Would this be a pain in the unmentionables to implement?

Rock Hermits do not mass-lock and they can launch ships which do mass-lock.

Since there's already Pirate Rock Hermits in the game, I've already been ambushed by these where I could torus up to it but ships would emerge before I could torus out-of-view...and those mass-locked me.

As for why a derelict/powered down ship doesn't mass-lock, my theory is they use incredible energies when powered up to create an internal singularity...a little negative space wedgie or sometimes called a microscopic black hole. They use the internal singularity both to create wormholes to jump and to move at significant fractions of the speed of light...akin to the Alcubierre drive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive

The torus drive requires a more even space curvature with no hard kinks in it to slide along. So even a planet or star won't mass-lock until you get relatively close to them where the gravitational gradients start increasing rapidly.

The creation of a wormhole doesn't care as much about nearby high gravitational gradients unless they're almost touching the wormhole's sphere-of-influence because it creates its own intense gravitational curve.

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Sun Jan 02, 2022 12:47 pm

Would this be a pain in the unmentionables to implement?

Probably! You can hide an NPC ship from the scanner, but to have it masquerade as white...

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Sun Jan 02, 2022 12:47 pm

Would this be a pain in the unmentionables to implement?

I don't think so, see here where I unwittingly asked a very similar question...

You can change the lollipop colour and even make it invisible.
You can change it again once some condition changes.
You can also change the scan class (temporarily in this case) in order to prevent masslocks.

How is this to be experienced by a player?

It seems to me that one would be jumping along merrily and then at some point masslocked by pirates who would then "come online" and attack. This strikes me as almost identical to the current behaviour in which you are merrily jumping along and are suddently masslocked by a group of pirates who attack you.

Is the requested functionality "briefly before attacking, but after being masslocked pirates are marked as white on the scanner"?

I just dont see the point.

Cmdr James wrote: ↑Sun Jan 02, 2022 8:37 pm

I just dont see the point.

Depends yow much creativity is applied and how well it is implemented.

Imagine you're masslocked and all that shows up is a derelict and some asteroids, a pilot might wish to be investigate thinking it safe to do so.
To then be surprised upon getting close to the derelict by a short-range pirate ambush (and further by the fact they were there all along) is, to me at least, rather different than

Cmdr James wrote: ↑Sun Jan 02, 2022 8:37 pm

merrily jumping along and are suddently masslocked by a group of pirates who attack you

The key difference being that the latter is expected, the former is not.

Surely no oxp is for absolutely everyone. If someone tries it and ity turns out to be dull then that will soon become apparent I think.

<grins> For it to be a "surprise" you'd have to hide it in an oxp which advertises itself as doing something else.

Cody wrote: ↑Sun Jan 02, 2022 9:05 pm

<grins> For it to be a "surprise" you'd have to hide it in an oxp which advertises itself as doing something else.

Or for it be part of a mission. You only expect the opening blurb for a mission in advance, right? Not the entire plot.

Besides, the above was only one example. I very much doubt there aren't other ways in which it can be imagined to be useful. In fact I think I might have the beginnings of one already...

Redspear wrote: ↑Sun Jan 02, 2022 9:26 pm

Or for it be part of a mission.

Exactly - hidden!