Oolite Bulletins

Arexack_Heretic wrote:

I am thinking of anarchies and several of the larger oxp's that add renegade outposts and the like.
The problem with this approach is then that a player may never find the little hollowed out rock far outside the spaceways and this then only adds uneccesary strain on the CPU..

Well Littlebear seems to have a solution to that,

LittleBear wrote:

I think with the new Java Script it would be possible to spawn ships near the player (random chance, and types with the odds weighted by govenment type) outside the space lanes. .

Well yes, that would then be the old-skool player central solution.

I feel the commoonity prefers the independent interactive universe model, even if it offers less arcade-action.

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Don't get me wrong: player triggered 'ambushes' etcetera are fine by me.
It would just be better form, if they are spawned at the WP or launched by a dockable only to intercept and attack the player with extreme preference. (Not ignoring being attacked by others naturally)

Including randomised NPC victims of such orchestrated attacks might be a good idea too.

(this is just an example of a playercentral, non-spacelane based encounter event, not a suggestion for an OXP or anything.)

Arexack_Heretic wrote:

Well yes, that would then be the old-skool player central solution.

I feel the commoonity prefers the independent interactive universe model, even if it offers less arcade-action.

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Don't get me wrong: player triggered 'ambushes' etcetera are fine by me.
It would just be better form, if they are spawned at the WP or launched by a dockable only to intercept and attack the player with extreme preference. (Not ignoring being attacked by others naturally)

Including randomised NPC victims of such orchestrated attacks might be a good idea too.

(this is just an example of a playercentral, non-spacelane based encounter event, not a suggestion for an OXP or anything.)

I think the point here is that you can have both. The space lanes stay as they are but you trigger a small number of nasties right in front of you if you deviate from the true path. These small nasties can then behave like the rest and either attack you, head off to the planet or fight each other if they like.

This would at least be less of a milk run and if the baddies are bad enough could explain why everyone hugs the space lanes even in Anarchy systems with no police.

EDIT: I guess another solution would be to sprinkle a few ships all around the space station so you have a fair chance of meeting them which ever direction you arrive from. Doesn´t explain why everyone sticks in the space lanes but makes them less obvious.

I hope this will be an OXP at most, as it would mean to loose the ability to reach the stations fast if you want to. And I am always for having choices.

krombart wrote:

I hope this will be an OXP at most, as it would mean to loose the ability to reach the stations fast if you want to. And I am always for having choices.

Personally I´d prefer it needs an OXP to remove the non-space lane ships as I really find the current situation really unrealistic. I´d like them in by default. On the other hand, that´s probably much more difficult and extremely unlikely to happen I presume.

Maybe putting them in would be a good first OXP for someone. Hmmm..

Scoopy wrote:

krombart wrote:

I hope this will be an OXP at most, as it would mean to loose the ability to reach the stations fast if you want to. And I am always for having choices.

Personally I´d prefer it needs an OXP to remove the non-space lane ships as I really find the current situation really unrealistic. I´d like them in by default. On the other hand, that´s probably much more difficult and extremely unlikely to happen I presume.

Maybe putting them in would be a good first OXP for someone. Hmmm..

Interesting idea of creating encounters in deep space. I just played with the idea and wrote a quick code to do this. When installed it will occasionally give an encounter with pirates outside the famous space lane.

Download: DeepSpacePirates v0.1

I hope you will survive it. (Minimum version Oolite 1.71)

Very cool!

Perhaps this could be made into an Add-On that lets you encounter everything you could encounter in the space lanes in deep space, player-centric, just much less common?

I would find that more realistic too, even if it makes reaching stations fast automatically more difficult.

I do wonder what all these people will be [i]doing[/i] out there in deep space though? Pirates won't be waiting in places where they don't expect victims, and people tend to be traveling [i]to[/i] somewhere. We've probably all switched on the jump drive to see how small the planet goes, but do we want bored NPCs out there trying the same thing?
One thing that deep space DOES have is the element of hidden-ness... one could have [i]serious[/i] hermits out there, or transfers of illegal cargoes from offenders who've launched with illegal cargoes to "clean" ships to make the jump. Or communities of fugitives. Or comets! That'd be a fun use of all these shaders and glowers and clever maths I keep hearing about!
*cat

*cat wrote:

I do wonder what all these people will be doing out there in deep space though? Pirates won't be waiting in places where they don't expect victims

I disagree, were would you expect, logically, to find a pirate hideout? Right in busy, patrolled, spacelanes (like pirate coves are now), or out somewhere safer, away from civilization? Would make more sense to find deep space dredgers here too.

Definitely should be player centric, to increase chances of an encounter/decrease load on the system. Should spawn anywhere in a 25km hemisphere in front of the player. And if you want to get to the station quick, then just turn about til out of masslock range. The chance of encounters should be low enough that the jumptrick is still worth doing. If player centric spawning is done clevery enough, then you should not be able to tell the diference.

I agree, with the addition that pirates will probably fight each other and the less connected/powerful individuals/clans are likely to be pushed to the outer edges of the space lanes/into deep space to pick the remains like coyotes and vultures.

Space Dredgers in deep space makes sense too, as well as more asteroid miners and maybe secret government type bases. (experimental craft, etc)

I know there are a lot of ideas here, but please don't let as push the pendulum to the other side and over-populate deep-space completely. That would be completely unrealistic.

Absolutely. Deep space should be populated, but populated thinly. Personally I feel like I'm cheating a bit when you go out of the space lane and there's nothing to encounter (even in anarchies etc.). In old elite (Acorn Electron and Spectrum versions for me) I loved the sense of flying as far away as possible and still encountering life. I know it's not exactly realistic, but it kept me on my toes.

Also, as an aside, surely if you knew about the space lane thingymabob and how to fly outside it, then surely everyone else would have an idea about it too resulting in encounters out of the space lane.

Just my 2cr worth.

Cheers!

Frame wrote:

Would that not contradict the thargoid nature, which is attack and destroy all human vessels on sight. Since they do not understand the human langauge as reflected by theire jibberish when being killed... it would not make sense for the suddenly to have developed co-existance skills with the pirates, just because they are pirates...

In theory, yes. I only mention it because I remember encountering Thargoid Invasion Ships being accompanied by Sidewinders in the original Elite games. I think it was the Spectrum version, but it might have been the Amiga version.

Of course, Thargoid 'collaboration' has been encountered before - FFE bases much of its plot on it, and I think there was a story in the "Further Tales of Life On The Frontier" book that mentioned it. "Genuine Thargoid" I think.

Why not have some sort of OXP that creates a specialized group of pirates that lure the deepspace jumptraders into traps using a sort of long range scanners, scanning drones, or scanning stations. Then you can get police missions at the stations to root out t pirate nests in deepspace. (This is actually the kind of missions the game Freelancer had and I liked these missions)

Also (using The Dark Wheel as a reference) wasn't Rafe's Anaconder situated in deep space (i.e. out of the space lanes) couldn't something like that be encountered (not his ship specifically though).