Oolite Bulletins

@L: IIRC, the NPC ships don't have shields - all shots go straight to the energy banks, and damage.

IIRC, the NPC ships don't have shields - all shots go straight to the energy banks, and damage.

Yeah, but if the e-bomb was made available for NPCs it would be relevant what happened to the shields! So the shields thing would be relevant.

If you just deduct 300 energy from the energy banks no matter if a player or NPC is hit by an e-bomb small and medium ships up to and a bit beyond a Cobra MkIII would be destroyed.

Bigger ships as Anacondas, Imperial Couriers, Thargoid Warships, carriers in general would survive the blast but be damaged - and players could go on, but with shields down and in "RUN!" mode only ...



L

Lestradae wrote:

IIRC, the NPC ships don't have shields - all shots go straight to the energy banks, and damage.

Yeah, but if the e-bomb was made available for NPCs it would be relevant what happened to the shields! So the shields thing would be relevant.

So, you want someone to fiddle with the core to alter the bomb behaviour, redefine the whole NPC energy code and then also fiddle with almost every OXP ship AI.

IMHO, it's not happening...

Energy Bombs are in fact available to NPCs

If a ship is given the key "has_energy_bomb" then there is a small chance it will deploy one when fleeing. Most of the native ships have zero chance and none of the OXP ships have them (apart from a few in certain OXPs such as Random Hits and UPS) so its a very rare event to encounter one. The NPC E-Bomb works like a q-mine but without the cascade (and does not show on the scanner). Its not instant death for the player if one is used but you have to react very quickly once you see that sphere coming towards you.

LittleBear wrote:

If a ship is given the key "has_energy_bomb" then there is a small chance it will deploy one when fleeing.

The presence of the bomb is already mentioned in the readme file of the 1.65 release. Despite of the name "has_energy_bomb" in shipdata, it runs the internal q-bomb routine.

Or better: it launches a mine (ship) with the role: "energy-bomb". When one looks in the shipdata one sees that this is one of the roles of the q-mine. But if ramirez also has a bomb with this role, oolite could select one of them in the usual way as with other roles and chances.

And after launch of the energy bomb, the ship uses fuel injectors or it will die in its own blast. So better equip the ship also with injectors when it has a bomb.

It is just strange that Giles already put the code in with 1.65 and it took till 1.70 before oxp's like random hits and UPS started using it.

Energy Bombs are in fact available to NPCs

If a ship is given the key "has_energy_bomb" then there is a small chance it will deploy one when fleeing.

Bwaha. Bwahaha. Bwahahahahahahahaaaaaa ... BWAHAHAHAAAAAHAAABWAAAWARGLAAAHAAAAAHAAAAHAAHAHAAAA ...



L

PS: Future Realistic Shipyards players, here it is: The recipe for game balance with player carriers and perhaps even player escorts in. Bwahaha.

PPS: Sometimes I get afraid of myself.

PPPS: Bwahaha.

The recipe for game balance with player carriers and perhaps even player escorts in.

No. It's the recipe to make the game unplayable for anyone who don't have player carriers and perhaps even player escorts.

Players usually only install the hotrods, renegades and military ships OXPs after they have reached some maturity; doing it too soon usually leads to instant game overs. By the time the player can access these very expensive add-ons, the game will become somewhat easy, so I think it better to create some OXPs for this particular level instead of making it almost impossible for everybody else.

It would be pretty much instant death in a carrier as you'd have no chance of avoiding it! Remember you get NO warning at all as it doesn't show on the scanner and there no count down to detonation. There you are happly chasing down an badly beat up Anaconda thats pleading for its life and your just lined up nicely to cut it in two and scoop the goodies, when suddenly an expanding sphere of death appears behind it. The blast will destroy any ship caught regardless of shield strength, so you got seconds to pull away and hit the injectors.

Also, be careful not to use this lightly or the system will be emptied of ships in chain reactions. . The chance of deployment is called whenever the ship executes "performFlee" in AI. This is something traders do an awful lot. Most ships AIs will try to flee when nearly dead and traders may do it from a single laser blast (sometimes the fight sometimes they flee). If lots of NPC have this, they'll just wipe each other out. Eg: Pirate fires at NPC trader, single shot hits, trader enters Flee, trader drops bomb, up goes the whole pirate squarden! Condor fires on Mamba Offender knacking it, flees, drops bomb, bye bye whole police fleet!

If any more than a smattering of ship have 'em then Systems will just be empty, so very low chance keys should be given (like 0.1 or less) or only give to a very small number of ships.

If any more than a smattering of ship have 'em then Systems will just be empty, so very low chance keys should be given (like 0.1 or less) or only give to a very small number of ships.

Aww ...

Low chance key it shall be, then.



L

L, messing with the e-bombs is a bad idea.
Don't - if you change that and make the game harder, you'll just be forcing everybody to tell the noobs to stay away of RS regardless of its good points.

@Cmdr Maegil:

Even if the chance of an e-bomb being deployed was 0.01 or so?

Seriously, if it could occur that a trader nukes his surroundings (even if very improbable) it would right a wrong for me: Why do players have e-bombs and NPCs not at all? I would really like to put that in, but I do follow your and LittleBear`s arguments, too - my first reaction was a bit too sadistic enthusiastic, and I should just think a bit reconsider before deciding something like that too spontanously ...

What do you think? Small risk that it`s not you activating that e-bomb acceptable or totally ruining the game for you?



L

Frankly, it's not for me - I can deal with it, my concern are the beginners. Oolite has a stiff learning curve, and for them even docking can be traumatic. If you make it any more difficult, people would simply not play it, as it happened to the (IMO) excellent if hard Rainbow Six 1: most people couldn't even open the first door without the guard inside quickly turning around reflex-shooting them, so after 10 attempts they'd give up and write a rude e-mail...

I'll say again: don't tweak it. Let the players decide when they want it harder, and add tougher OXPs, but do not penalize the beginners.

A further bit of advice: try to debug RS, make the lite version and stop trying to add more features - not everybody likes everything you may come up with, and it only takes one of these being too disliked to make people remove what even they might consider an otherwise great OXP.
This has been said before, but instead of a mammoth OXP, try splitting the ideas into smaller packs - it gives people freedom of choice, and should also be easier to debug. If you really want to raise the NPC ships' abilities, do so in a RS Blood and Guts edition and the let the current stand as the RS Young Jameson edition, or something.

my concern are the beginners

Gonna think about it ... perhaps another vote coming up ...

Let the players decide when they want it harder, and add tougher OXPs, but do not penalize the beginners

I concur completely ... the problem with the big RS version for me was/is to find a way to keep it playable for newbies (who actually have more options at the beginning, let`s not forget that, they can buy a Cobra MkI at Lave and start out with 50.000 Cr for example) while still presenting a challenge for those people who bought the decomissioned Navy Flagship for 15 million credits ...

This e-bomb business cuts right into this problem.

try to debug RS, make the lite version and stop trying to add more features

I am debugging RS atm with a lot of help from Svengali - actually, massively reworking it as it develops - and when Oolite 1.72 comes out, there will be a lite version.

The big version came into existence simply because I thought "what would I like to have in my game" and created that. I will definitely continue working on the big version and even continue adding features - but only after the bug-hunt and repairs have ended for now.

It is also my plan to completely split it. "Realistic Shipyards V1.1" will feature only the price & TL-rewrite via shipyard-override.plist. The big version will be renamed into "Oolite Ships Extension", as a basically new OXP, that will include the future "Realistic Shipyards V1.1".

As I can see the download rates in my box account, I will be able to see how many people want to play the future "Realistic Shipyards V1.1" or "Oolite Ships Extension". The choice will be the players, as it should be ...

This has been said before, but instead of a mammoth OXP, try splitting the ideas into smaller packs - it gives people freedom of choice, and should also be easier to debug.

The solution above is not bad, I think. Lite version and mammoth version.

Perhaps it should also be noted that RS including any bugs it might (yet) still have is actually improved from the many ship oxps it was merged with. The next mammoth version will have removed countless bug inheritances from countless ship oxps ... so, lite version + old ship oxps in means you are not getting the repaired versions ...

If you really want to raise the NPC ships' abilities, do so in a RS Blood and Guts edition and the let the current stand as the RS Young Jameson edition, or something.

That is actually an interesting idea ...

The ideal thing would be some sort of sliding scale, making the Ooniverse slowly ever more dangerous as you, the player, proceed in rank, with some in-game explanation perhaps (mafias growing, con-wars, thargoids preparing for invasion etc. etc.) but I have no idea if or how this could be done.

Let`s keep throwing ideas around, some will be good, some bad, some ??? - but some might stick, and this game can only get ever better!

Cheers

L

the problem was/is to find a way to keep it playable for newbies while still presenting a challenge for those people who bought the decomissioned Navy Flagship
This e-bomb business cuts right into this problem.

No, it doesn't.
An e-bomb will much more easily destroy a green Jameson's bare hulk than a fully armoured, military shielded flagship - in fact, it'd most likely be little more than an inconvenience for the later and an assured Press Space event for the former.

Increasing the amount of ships carrying e-bombs and q-mines will only reduce the survivability of the small ships instead of doing any real damage to a large ship.
If you want the large ships to have proper challenges, create them on a separate OXP that increase the police garrisons to include Condors, send attack squadrons to hunt down renegade carriers, specialize pirate gangs in dredger-jacking, issue orders to assemble all the navy reservists for a pre-emptive attack against an incoming Thargoid force, etc.

That way the pilot has the opportunity to freely enjoy his new ship's abilities before installing it and go looking for trouble (if at all).

If you want the large ships to have proper challenges, create them on a separate OXP that increase the police garrisons to include Condors, send attack squadrons to hunt down renegade carriers, specialize pirate gangs in dredger-jacking, issue orders to assemble all the navy reservists for a pre-emptive attack against an incoming Thargoid force, etc.

That way the pilot has the opportunity to freely enjoy his new ship's abilities before installing it and go looking for trouble (if at all).

Ya, you`re right.

Perhaps a "Battle Fleets" oxp as an add-on for the mammoth version for very experienced, veteran players who have upgraded from the iron ass, with missions and a tougher new "situation" than before - thargoid fleets starting to invade, trader convoys with armed escorts, pirate fleets with stolen carriers as flagships and police/military founding a new, supposedly super-secret unit called INRA to combat the new pirate and thargoid threats with fleets of their own ...

That way, newbies aren`t exposed to *woosh* - game over - scenarios, and veterans have a new challenge.

... Away from dreaming --> bug removal ...



L