Oolite Bulletins

Lestradae wrote:
Subentities could have death actions, Charlie made use of a lot of these with his ships, but wasn`t there talk on the Forum that Ahruman & co. took the death action command out or replaced it or whatnot?

*sigh* no. It is deprecated for post-1.65 stuff, but still works. Just like the other legacy scripting stuff.

Sorry, my error. I stand corrected ...



L

I also think that an overhaul of the Thargoid Carrier seems to be the most promising idea. Giving it a couple of plasma turrets has been suggested more than once. And why not a Thargoid Laser as well?

And the other issue of the Thargoids attacking each other instead of the Navy should be fixed, too. Eric is currently on a lead, as far as one facet of this issue is concerned.

By the way, people on this board seem to refer to Thargons as Tharglets or even Thargoid Robot Fighters. What's that all about?

Thargons: The Alien race
Tharglets / Thargoid Robot Fighters: the small robot craft that the bigger ships launch during a battle.

davcefai wrote:

Thargons: The Alien race
Tharglets / Thargoid Robot Fighters: the small robot craft that the bigger ships launch during a battle.

Wrong!

Thargoid: the species
Thargons: the original drones
Tharglets: Thargorns out of an OXP, IIRC so named because of interference with the native ones.
Thargoid Robot Fighters, I don't know...

Wrong again! Thargon, Tharglet and Thargoid robot fighter all refer to the built-in, er, Thargoid robot fighters. :-)

Ah, finally right!

I don't know whether this name confusion could be inherited from an inconsistent naming in previous incarnations of Elite? One day some Thargoid historians will dig it all out...

The confusion clearly comes from the inherently confusing nature of the alien technology, and the difficulty for humans to understand Thargoid ship naming.

Added to this we have limited information gathered from captured equipment -- The Galactic Navy request that pilots resist the desire to kill orphaned robot fighters, and deliver them for analysis.

Well said!

Although it's much more fun to shoot'em!

Commander McLane wrote:

I also think that an overhaul of the Thargoid Carrier seems to be the most promising idea. Giving it a couple of plasma turrets has been suggested more than once. And why not a Thargoid Laser as well?

And the other issue of the Thargoids attacking each other instead of the Navy should be fixed, too. Eric is currently on a lead, as far as one facet of this issue is concerned.

Have a look at my post here:

https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?t=4657

"What's missing is little ships that can remain operational even if a mothership is destroyed. That's the advantage the Navy has."

what about if once they lost the "command signal" from the mother, they went into suicide mode and exploded, a fairly biggish explosion that would damage ships close by? the Thargs would have programmed them to do this to prevent wily traders scooping them to flog to the Navy, and thereby learning Thargoid secrets.

That would completely change the economics of Alien Items... they'd need to become much more expensive.

I'm all for making the bugs a bit more challenging in the face of Navy advancements but we have to remember that there are Jamesons out there too, who don't all have iron up the wazoo. Reducing the amount of Thargoid "civil war", and giving the big ships plasma cannon equivalents, would probably be a big step forward. But it needs to be a balancing operation -- otherwise we'll just end up with the bugs on top in every contest, and then we'll have to beef up the Navy in response.

Ultimately the aim should be to make things more fun for the player -- which means a sliding scale of difficulty. This is best managed by restricting any changes to the various Thargoid OXPs, so a new(ish) pilot can have a chance to tackle the basic bugs without being overwhelmed, before installing Thorgorn Threat or whatever when they feel a bit braver. I suppose changes to Tharglet behaviour could be restricted to the OXP, but to me the risk is that it's a bit random: you could be dodging about inside a cloud of the little swine when someone else takes out the mothership; suddenly, BAM! you're dead, through no real fault of your own. I do like the way that Oolite is non-player-centric, but there's no point in carrying this too far. I think I'd prefer tougher, better-armed capital ships with a "secret weakness" which the player can go after (at some considerable risk, or at least requiring some fancy flying and shooting).

but that's the whole point. you got "jameson" traders in commercial ships, and you got Thargoid *warships*. to me, there SHOULDN'T be a trade-off to make it easier, you go up against a military battleship w/out proper weaponry/defenses, it's game over, simple as that. bit like deciding to trade in Anarchies when you start off and have nothing but three missiles and a pulse laser - you just don't do it. to me, having no-go areas like that and ships you have to run from, make the game all that more realistic. it makes it so much more satisfying and fulfilling when you finally afford that Mil laser and blat a bug into oblivion after months of having to run and make panicky jumps out the system etc.

True, an enemy warship should be something people run from, unless they're part of an attacking squadron... but for me at least the basic in-game Thargoid fulfilled that role until I got me my military laser and at least half of an iron ass!

If the carrier is genunely weak (I don't have much experience of fighting them, I have to say) then it should be beefed up. But it might be easier just to give it some more escorts. After all, a carrier isn't something that should be out on its own anyway!

Selezen and me are now working on it.

Please be just a little patient.