Oolite Bulletins

But does that mean that players might need the Fuel Tank OXP installed in order to succeed?

AND the amount of available fuel tanks needs to be taken into account.

As far as I understood, there are three factors that influence the speed in relation to each other in such a race:

1. The ship`s speed (can be anywhere from 0.08 to 0.999 LS)

2. Fuel Tanks used or not?

3. If Fuel Tanks used, how many? Possible amount installed could be anywhere between 0 and 16.

There are also three possible solutions, methinks:

1. You restrict the speed of the ships and if they may use Fuel Tanks and if yes, how many, before they are allowed to participate at all.

2. You add NPC participants to the race that have comparable equipment to the player.

3. You create different leagues of race with different spans of ship speed and fuel tank usage which are allowed to participate.

Personally, I`d like solution 3 best, but it`s not for me to decide, just imho.

Good idea that someone finally does something with those racers

L

Commander McLane wrote:

Wasn't the basic idea that everybody races for himself, and then may post his time here on the board? So there is actually no "winning", as far as the OXP is concerned. It doesn't give you a message in the end, that you are winner, or have the second or tenth rank. It just gives you your time.

I think it would be a shame if that's all this OXP was for... I'd rather it offered something to everyone who plays the game, not just the (relatively small) number of forum members! To that end, there needs to be some in-game reward for success -- i.e. prize money, or a badge for the F5 screen, or elevated cargo-transportation reputation, or some combination of the above.

I think the simplest solution would be to make the run(s) knuckle-bitingly difficult in an unmodified Cobra III with no in-system fuel points -- i.e. a virgin setup with no OXPs installed at all. Players should be free to use other OXPs, including faster ships, fuel tanks, Con Stores etc. to make things easier for themselves. No harm in that! That's what a lot of OXPs do anyway, one way or another: make thing easier for the player, at least in providing more money-making options and so on. It won't make that much difference: at best it might turn the run from something that you can manage with thirty minutes to spare into something you can manage with a couple of hours to spare.

There has to be a reasonable mount of leeway, if only because some players might get lucky and scoot through stone-empty systems to the checkpoints; others might get involved in eight-way furballs, pursued by witchdrive-injecting bad guys, etc., who have to be fought off. There should be a decent margin to make it doable. Nothing is more frustrating than a challenge where you need to be lucky, as well as good, to succeed.

None of the above, of course, would prevent us boasting of our times here on the forum!

Well it would be of course mean MORE FUN when an oxp also add ai racing opponents but Cmnd Mc. Lane is right. The basic idea was to make an oxp to add time points. So for example you start at lave and fly to a hoop. Then the time recording starts (because you see the time on your display) Then hyperspace. Then fly through a hoop, dock at a station OR con store. (the OXP sets the way point and dictates what you have to do) On finish the time is automatically outputted to a .txt file. Then you can post it ( along with the ship used but this can read out from the save game/?)

But the other ideas are just to add up to the fun. I like the ideas of putting a gate in the middle of a dangerous Anarchy. And if ai's are added you get additional points of eliminating the enemy's.

Besides Oolite I play a lot of racing sims like GTR2 and Rfactor (have a wheel for that sort of games) so different racing classes are cooler. What if you could take place in the 'Cobra Courier 25 jump race or the MAMBA Racer Killer 15 or the Krait eliminator 5) In these examples the number is the number of systems.

And you want to use smart tactics!

I first suggest to do a short race. Let's say through 3 systems. With use of the already made rings? Good idea?