Oolite Bulletins

Zark Montor wrote:

... going near main stations as a "fuge" is nigh on suicide.

Hitting the aegis as a fugitive is certainly interesting - but not necessarily suicidal, if you can fly your ship. It's the fines that hurt (as can time lost to 'attitude adjustment'). As long as the dodgy passenger fees exceeded the inevitable fines by a considerable amount, then it would be okay - but not for the faint-hearted.

It might also be cool if passenger was running from corporation/mob/aliens, any of these scenarios set up the potential for conflict without as great a risk of offender/fuge status being a factor. The Vector OXP has a part like this although the chase might involve offender status.

I think most of these ideas are in the realm of oxp/zable if we can implement these affects with an oxp/z I believe it should be done that way,The devs are doing an awesome job of maintaining and upgrading the game, and I would rather see more developments like the new f4 interface screen which allows oxp/zs to be more versatile, thanks devs . The core game is an excellent platform to build off of and the fact that it is so vanilla makes it more customizable I believe. Some commanders may not wish to listen to thier passangers complaints of space nausea while docking after trying a few snifters of lethal brandy Always test product quality.

Did anything ever come of this idea? i'm just an ideas man, not a coder, those days of ploughing through lines of text ended around the same time as Big K magazine! (look it up on Wiki) Way back when i was a little c64 owner with a little bit of BASIC knowledge. Bloody sprite graphics!! SYS64738

anyway...

If anyone wants to use any of my ideas in any of my posts to build an OXP, go ahead. Also, feel free to message me through the board message thingy if you want any idea expanded upon.


Regards

ZM

Something that bugs me is that regardless of damage to a ship the passengers are never killed/injured. It might be interesting if this was a rare event but possible, with injuries to passengers causing delays (for medical treatment and repairs to the cabin) or a part payment if the traveller has to leave the ship, and some loss of reputation. Loss of all remaining fees and some reputation if a passenger is actually killed.

Passenger-related events while docked might be fun, but again should be rare:
"Your passenger ----- has changed his plans and decided to end his journey here; since you have travelled 2/3rds of the way he will pay xxxx credits."
"Your passenger ----- is suffering from space shingles and will need hospitalization. Treatment will take two days; you can wait, or you can leave him here without loss of reputation" (cue time loss or an empty cabin)
"Your passenger ----- went ashore while you were refuelling and did not return to the ship. It took you x hours to find him in a seedy spaceport bar." (clock adjusts)
"Your ex-passenger ----- trashed his cabin before leaving the ship. Repairs will cost xxx credits, the cabin is not usable until repaired."
"Galcop troopers have arrested your passenger -----; pay his bail of xxx credits or leave him here with loss of his fee."

One that could come up in flight:
"Your passenger ----- broke into the secure vault and has stolen xxx kilos of platinum, xxx kilos of gold, xxxx grams of gems, and your escape pod." (cue loss of cargo and escape pod)

and so forth.

futures wrote:

...and so forth.

Nice ideas.
Some more:
"Your passenger ----- has changed his plans and wants to go to yyyyy he will pay xxxx extra credits for you to take him."
"Your passenger ----- has disappeared in flight, you suspect another passenger has killed/disposed/eaten them" Loss of reputation and no final credits.

Venator Dha wrote:

"Your passenger ----- has disappeared in flight, you suspect another passenger has killed/disposed/eaten them"

Said passenger had smuggled trumbles aboard, they ate him, and infested the whole ship.

There could be the occasional perk, too:

"Your passenger ----- enjoyed travelling with you, and has posted a very positive review of your ship on the Galactic net." (increase in reputation)

"Your passenger ----- disembarks. Clearly impressed with your piloting skills, they have added a substantial tip of X credits to your account."

I am thinking about talking passengers since I took the first one with me. It would only be an "ambience" thing, but they could complain or ask what's happening when the player gets engaged in combat, especially when he is maneuvering wildly, if the shields break down and cargo gets destroyed around the passenger cabins, or if it gets too hot during sun skimming. And yes, they should be able to die (albeit with a less possibility than, let's say, the fuel scoops), that would make a "risky" fighting style even more risky.

(But what I would love even more would be passengers (parcels too!) that want to be delivered to rock hermits. This would be logical because many of the passengers seem to be rather shady characters, and it would add a difficulty to the game because the player would have to find the rock hermit, which isn't easy if he doesn't know the system yet. Some (but not all) passengers could give a hint "between sun and planet" or "between witchpoint and planet". This would need naming rock hermits, like with the OXP "Random Ship Names", but the naming would have to happen earlier, during contract creation.)

"Your passenger ----- got scared of pirates and ejected with YOUR escapepod"
"Your passenger ----- has religious reasons against AI and disabled your docking computers"
"Your passenger ----- hacked your ship and has fired a missile on ..."
"Your passenger ----- hacked your ship and has fired a missile on ... and then ejected with your escapepod"

"Your passenger ----- was eager to get to his/her destination and repaired the ..."
"Your passenger ----- used to be a diplomat and got you 1 LJ fuel"

The rock hermits point is good - even if there are rarely people wanting passage or mail _to_ rock hermits, you'd think that there would be people and parcels (and possibly freight contracts) from them. Even if it's just "xxxx needs to get to the Coriolis station and will pay 25cr" or "Ferry 25 tons of minerals to the Coriolis station and we'll fill up your fuel tanks."

Maybe it would be easier to design if it's the pilot that talks to its passengers instead. For instance "fasten your seatbelt" when you engage the Torus drive. Or "We are safe now" after a fight. "Babysitting" them well could get you a tip.

It's probably a good idea - given some of the combat moves in the average flight you probably want to go round with sick bags and free booze occasionally too.

Fritz wrote:

This would need naming rock hermits, like with the OXP "Random Ship Names", but the naming would have to happen earlier, during contract creation.)

Possibly not, what if the contract just states "Passenger desires passage to the xyz system. Final directions will be given en route." Then when you reach xyz system and the naming has happened you can then say "Passenger wishes to be dropped at xxxxxx, located between the star and planet" or something to that effect. My point being that you wouldn't need to know the name until you actually reached the system.

Of course I'm new to OXPs and making some assumptions that it is possible to keep track of the fact that you need to give the pilot the final information when you reach the destination system.

Neal.

It might be easier to script the OXP to create the RH where you want it. You could give it a name when the contract is offered and spawn it where it is needed upon arrival at the target system.
This would leave nothing to chance and avoids the potential problem of somebody wanting to go to a RH in a system that doesn't have any.

Smivs wrote:

... and avoids the potential problem of somebody wanting to go to a RH in a system that doesn't have any.

All systems have at least one rock hermit.