Redspear wrote: ↑Mon Jul 10, 2023 1:13 am
Cholmondely wrote: ↑Sun Jul 09, 2023 9:05 pm
The Corporations are going to have the money to buy the Viper Interceptor. The pirates and GalCop will not.
Where do you get the idea that the corporations run the police in their systems?
I don't.
As I thought I'd explained, GalCop runs the police, but the richer states chip in
much more (
and dictate what happens to their money). This means that GalCop has the dosh to augment the police forces, but only in their states.
Qudira (768MCr) pays in
nothing (no government, no tax revenue). GalCop provides minimal cover: police at the Main Orbital Station and the very occasional patrol. GalCop also paid for the Coriolis (probably from back before the collapse, when GalCop had more money, and Qudira may have been a functioning political state able to contribute). You yourself created something with a similar flavour with your proto-Coriolis in your rejig of Solos Alt Stations.oxp
Ceesxe (56,320 MCr) pays in oodles. GalCop can afford police with Interceptors all over the show. But just
that show, not Qudira's.
And this explains the disparate cover-arrangements as one progresses from the less stable to the super-wealthy states.
If GalCop had more clout, it would not need to knuckle under to Ceesxe and the Corporates. It would move the Viper Interceptors to the Anarchies and wipe out the pirates. But it doesn't. ("The Cooperative's police force, concentrated near a few influential planets, can no longer maintain order.") Now, I'm pretty sure that I read that the Corporates pay GalCop for a better police service in their states. I may be mistaken. But surely it is irrelevant? The Corporates dominate GalCop and will anyway force GalCop to protect them (with their own tax money) rather than send the Interceptors to the anarchies. Who knows, maybe that was tried earlier when GalCop was stronger, but did not succeed.
OXPs change the flavour, naturally.
With
Commies.oxp & Dictators.oxp, those states gain their own police/navy forces too. I note that Imperial Censors and Junta Enforcers are both refurbished Viper Interceptors. These are presumably the most impressive "navy" ships. I presume that the Giant & Military Rays are equivalent.
With
Feudal States.oxp, there is no police/navy, but there are lots of wealthy aristocrats bumbling about in their own craft, not all of whom are law-abiding.
With
Anarchies.oxp, there are occasional monitor stations in the space lanes. These are sometimes suborned by the pirates. Where does the money for these monitor stations come from? One presumes that this was from the once-larger discretionary part of the GalCop budget, and that the placement of these was a matter of both dire need and of politicking. And that as time goes on, none will be added and more will be captured.
Reference:
Ceesxe - 56,320 MCr - TL15, Corporate
Onrira - 52,800 MCr - TL14, Corporate
Xexedi - 41,760 MCr - TL14, Confederacy
Ensoreus - 45,760 MCr - TL12, Corporate
Zaonce - 41,976 MCr - TL12, Corporate
Tionisla - 37,440 MCr - TL12, Democratic
Vetitice - 28,800 MCr - TL12, Communist
Digebiti - 10,240 MCr - TL8, Feudal
Lave - 7,000 MCr - TL5, Dictatorship
Laenin - 4,608 MCr - TL4, Communist
Riedquat - 1,920 MCr - TL4, Anarchy
Qudira - 768MCr - TL1, Anarchy
Redspear wrote: ↑Mon Jul 10, 2023 1:13 am
Elite Manual wrote:
Your kills are photographed and transmitted by TS ComDirect to the nearest GalCop Federal Law Center...
police Vipers (the ships of the GalCop Police Force)...
the Viper was specifically designed for GalCop Space Policing purposes...
Individually, any of the above lines suggest that GalCop might own and operate the police force but collectively they make quite the case I think.
Was there some fundamental change from elite to oolite?
The viper interceptor may not have been
specifically designed for GalCop Space Policing purposes but it is employed by them exclusively. At the very minimum I'd expect them to be leased by GalCop.
I don't think it's the corporations paying for them, or at least not directly (given that GalCop, as I've argued elsewhere, likely profits from every trade everywhere). I further don't think it's a matter of sponsorship from a wealthy government either; if a corporate system is making more money from trade then so is GalCop.
Elite Manual wrote:Coriolis stations are "neutral" territory, controlled equally by GalCop and the Planetary Government
So in Oolite, we are told that the Elite Federation of pilots polices the numbering of kills - and presumably also collects the photographs:
The Elite Federation of Pilots, an independent body linked to most of the major organisations in Galactic space, introduced the Elite Rating in a drive to spur pilots towards self-defence. The Galactic Co-operative, at the time stretched to the limits of the police force by pirate activity, fully supported this move, even introducing combat training into their flight training programme.
The Elite Federation has come under fire from human rights protesters in recent years due to their policy of not questioning what sort of kills are made. They will award kills to pirates and lawful pilots alike without issue. This has opened up many claims that they support piracy and terrorism. The EF answer these charges with the same defence every time: "...it is not our job to protect against lawlessness or to assign blame for actions beyond our control. Our job is to assign ratings. A pirate is still a pirate no matter what his Elite Rating - it is up to the police and the Navy to deal with their crimes".
(from the
wiki - written by Selezen (under Elite Rating) in 2006. See the links there for debates about this.
And. The Elite Manual also adds this in:
Galactic banks, which insure the larger trading convoys, will pay a large bounty for each pirate ship destroyed. A ship's computer will transmit photographic evidence of any kill to the GalCop Bank Federation Monitoring Authority. The IR signature of the destroyed ship is then tallied with all known pirate vessels and the bounty hunter pilot credited accordingly.
(- together with a note that most bounty hunters fly Cobras so that they look like traders... p44)
One presumes that the "nearest GalCop Federal Law Center" would tag one as illegal for destroying an innocent ship. Or, at the very least, tie one up in an unending legal case for doing so...
Hence, I think the Oolite understanding of Elite Rating awarding makes more sense. Maybe the Classic Elite wording dates back to the days when GalCop was more in control - and with the collapse, the Elite Pilto's Federation wrested control of the photographic evidence?
Your other two quotes seem to work for both of us.
If it's not clear already, I'm essentially arguing that the advent of the viper interceptor would hail the slow demise of pirates everywhere when the game blurb has it the other way around.
Unless pirates developed/captured similar ships or at least had military lasers then they'd be the ones clinging on, not the police. None of those things are true in game but I'm guessing that the only reasons pirates are plentiful is that the oolite populator script generates them all upon the players arrival, meaning that the interceptors haven't had a chance to decimate them all yet while the player torus drives on to likely encounter them first.
My understanding is that the Viper Interceptors only appear in Corporates and maybe Democracies too. So a patrol of Viper Interceptors will not appear in the less stable states.
This squares with the Oolite.space introduction:
The two thousand star systems of the Cooperative once enjoyed a golden age of peace and prosperity, and perhaps the wealthiest of them can still pretend to. The trade ships that once safely travelled between planets now have to be well armed and escorted to fend off pirate attacks, from small-time criminals desperate for their next meal, to powerful robber barons extracting tithes from everyone who passes through their space.The Cooperative's police force, concentrated near a few influential planets, can no longer maintain order. The mercenaries they hire for a few credits a kill are too few, too unreliable to do so either. And in the darkness between the stars, an old enemy lurks, fearless, perhaps waiting for order to collapse entirely.
And this explains why there are few pirates found in Corporate states.
I understand your logic, that should more Interceptors be built, then the pirate domination of the anarchies would be over. Or that of the Interceptors were sent to the Anarchies, piracy would be nobbled. But that does not happen in-game - and the Oolite.space introduction explains why (The two thousand star systems of the Cooperative once enjoyed a golden age of peace and prosperity, and perhaps the wealthiest of them can still pretend to).
It is rather like the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. Towards the end, you still had the legions (but of mercenaries), and the glorious roads and aqueducts and all of that. But their upkeep was not happening as the tax income was reduced and the mercenaries took more and more of the shrinking budget.
I see the Ooniverse in a similar light. GalCop had the money to develop the interceptor, but does not have the money to build more and deploy them in the anarchies.
And as regards the Constrictor mission, that is under the aegis of "Her Majesty's Space Navy". Not GalCop. Or GalCop (police). There are two takes on this as you well know, that of the syncretist Galactic Navy (tied in with GalCop) and the other of the more purist HIMSN. And HIMSN has a
very different lore/background from GalCop.
I hope that this gives you a better idea of what I am trying to say.
Edited to add:
This is all based on the presumption that the Interceptors are not found in the poorer/less stable systems. Am I wrong?
There are some two dozen mentions of interceptor (including pirate interceptors) in the vanilla game's oolite.populator.js
These seem relevant to this dumb pilot:
Code: Select all
...
/* high-tech systems will send interceptor wings out specifically
* to deal with incoming heavy pirate packs */
var interceptors = 0;
if (system.info.techlevel >= 9)
{
interceptors += pflightremote/2 + pfmediumremote + pfheavyremote*2;
}
this.$repopulatorFrequencyOutgoing.policePacks = police;
this.$repopulatorFrequencyOutgoing.policeInterceptors = interceptors;
...
// police - included in this post to give context
// 5/6 go route 1, and back.
initial = police * 5/6 * (l1length*2 / 900000) * (1.0-0.1*(7-system.info.government));
system.setPopulator("oolite-police-route1",
{
priority: 40,
location: "LANE_WP",
groupCount: randomise(initial),
callback: this._addPolicePatrol.bind(this)
});
initial = police * 1/6 * (trilength / 900000) * (1.0-0.1*(7-system.info.government));
system.setPopulator("oolite-police-triangle",
{
priority: 40,
location: "LANE_WPS",
groupCount: randomise(initial),
callback: this._addPolicePatrol.bind(this)
});
system.setPopulator("oolite-police-stationpatrol",
{
priority: 40,
location: "STATION_AEGIS",
callback: this._addPoliceStationPatrol.bind(this)
});
// interceptors
initial = interceptors / 2;
// half on way or returning
system.setPopulator("oolite-interceptors-route1",
{
priority: 40,
location: "LANE_WP",
groupCount: randomise(initial),
callback: this._addInterceptors.bind(this)
});
// half on station
system.setPopulator("oolite-interceptors-witchpoint",
{
priority: 40,
location: "WITCHPOINT",
groupCount: randomise(initial),
callback: this._addInterceptors.bind(this)
});
...
/* repopulate outgoing traffic */
// police
if (Math.random() < this.$repopulatorFrequencyOutgoing.policePacks)
{
if (system.countShipsWithPrimaryRole("police") < 30)
{
this._debugR("Launching police patrol");
this._addPolicePatrol(this._policeLaunch());
}
}
if (Math.random() < this.$repopulatorFrequencyOutgoing.policeInterceptors)
{
if (system.countShipsWithPrimaryRole("police-witchpoint-patrol") < 30)
{
this._debugR("Launching police interception patrol");
this._addInterceptors(this._policeLaunch());
}
}
...
this._addPolicePatrol = function(pos)
{
var role = "police";
if (9+Math.random()*6 < system.info.techlevel)
{
role = "interceptor";
}
var h = this._addGroup(role,Math.floor(Math.random()*2)+Math.floor(Math.random()*2)+2,pos,2E3);
for (var i = 0 ; i < h.ships.length ; i++)
{
h.ships[i].bounty = 0;
h.ships[i].homeSystem = system.ID;
h.ships[i].destinationSystem = system.ID;
if (h.ships[i].AIScript.oolite_intership)
{
h.ships[i].AIScript.oolite_intership.initial_group = h.ships.length;
}
if (system.info.techlevel >= 14)
{
this._setMissiles(h.ships[i],1);
}
}
}
this._addPoliceStationPatrol = function(pos)
{
var role = "police";
if (9+Math.random()*6 < system.info.techlevel)
{
role = "interceptor";
}
var p = system.addShips(role,1,pos,0)[0];
p.primaryRole = "police-station-patrol";
p.group = system.mainStation.group;
p.group.addShip(p);
// p.switchAI("oolite-policeAI.js");// autoAI gets this
p.bounty = 0;
p.maxEscorts = 16;
if (system.info.techlevel >= 14)
{
this._setMissiles(p,1);
}
}
this._addInterceptors = function(pos)
{
var h = this._addGroup("interceptor",Math.floor(Math.random()*2)+Math.floor(Math.random()*2)+1+Math.ceil(system.info.techlevel/6),pos,2E3);
for (var i = 0 ; i < h.ships.length ; i++)
{
h.ships[i].bounty = 0;
h.ships[i].primaryRole = "police-witchpoint-patrol";
h.ships[i].maxEscorts = 16;
h.ships[i].homeSystem = system.ID;
h.ships[i].destinationSystem = system.ID;
// h.ships[i].switchAI("oolite-policeAI.js"); // auto AI
// only +1 as core already gives police ships better AI
this._setSkill(h.ships[i],1);
if (system.info.techlevel >= 14)
{
this._setMissiles(h.ships[i],1);
}
}
}
