Oolite Bulletins

Where are you guys finding all these derelict ships? Every ship I've ever seen out in space seemed to have somebody on board. At least they react when I shoot at them. (Or they shoot at me first, whatever.)

@Caracal - They're the ships that are abandoned in battle once the pilot has ejected.

If the NPC uses his escape pod, the ship he was in turns white on the scanner and just floats about. Not killing a pirate outright and giving him the odd tap of laser when he's venting plasma can encorage him to eject. Scoop him up and hand him in for his bounty and then blast the derlict ship to get the bounty on the ship. It would be quite fun if rather than blasting the abandoned ship you could salvage it.

@LB - I like it.

relating to the value of the ship based on its mass - could factor in a random, erm, factor to take into account internal damage - little damage - ship is actually quite valuable as its easy to repair and sell on (becoming a "rusty"?), high damage and the ship is a barely flying husk with little or nothing salvageable so you only get scrap alloy prices.

Finally, there should be a small percentage chance that when the mini-missile fires up the ships computer the ship goes KABOOM! (one too many safeties overridden to get the engines fired up and the computers back on line)

LittleBear wrote:

If the NPC uses his escape pod, the ship he was in turns white on the scanner and just floats about. Not killing a pirate outright and giving him the odd tap of laser when he's venting plasma can encorage him to eject. Scoop him up and hand him in for his bounty and then blast the derlict ship to get the bounty on the ship. It would be quite fun if rather than blasting the abandoned ship you could salvage it.

Ahhhh! I haven't seen escape pods except occasionally after the ship is destroyed. Usually I'm so unnerved by the time I'm at the end of a battle that I don't think of subtleties like coaxing the pilot to eject.

And I agree, salvaging the ship makes a lot of sense. Another option might be to simply tag it with a "salvage beacon" (similar to the ETT beacon missile) and when you next dock, you get paid the fee. Maybe it would be, um, less reliable in less "civilized" systems, where somebody could "jump your claim" and you'd get nothing. In those, physically taking the ship might be a better choice.

Thanks LB and JohnnyBoy for clueing me in to yet another fascinating aspect of the game!

It's very much a "last ship in the line" game. I certainly wouldn't play tweezer out the pirate whilst 3 of his mates were lighting up my ass.

ClymAngus wrote:

It's very much a "last ship in the line" game. I certainly wouldn't play tweezer out the pirate whilst 3 of his mates were lighting up my ass.

Of course. I can barely play "explode the pirate" when there's more than one of them.

Y'know what I hate, is when I've gotten mixed up with, say, three of them, and have gotten the advantage. Whack one of the low-end wingmen, no problemo. Grease the next one, and he leaves a nice little pile of white dots, probably some fragments but also probably booty and maybe an escape pod. Then just as I'm slamming the last one, he launches a hardhead at me, and I have to run away and leave all the goodies just floating in space. Sometimes I can find it again, usually not. I guess the solution is to do a Shift-F, note the position, then navigate back to it after the missile has burned itself out or whatever.

But they're persistent buggers ... I had one follow me all the way to the main station once. Thankfully it wasn't there when I launched later. And thank Giles for docking computers!

caracal wrote:

I have to run away and leave all the goodies just floating in space. Sometimes I can find it again, usually not. I guess the solution is to do a Shift-F, note the position, then navigate back to it after the missile has burned itself out or whatever.

If you get the chance to target one of the white dots you can find it on the very edge of the scanner range.

Since mounting the rear military laser I've found the run away option to have a good kill rate of it's own. Sure the controls are reversed but in a prolonged chase your probably only talking mild changes to line up.

The thing which really heffs me off is the "game of chicken with a side order of missiles." It works something like this, you get 5 of the little buggers on your scope. You do 2 or 3 at a distance (sure their lighting up the sky around you with fire as you pop them but they're not hitting much) The second to last one you've wacked a bit so he's running. Nice and easy, cut his tail pipe in 2 with a burst of laser fire.

The last one however he's tricksy. He's got a bit of distance on you now he's coming in hard. Normally this wouldn't be a problem but your guns are already glowing red, so you want to make every trigger press count. Watching your gun temp, you get closer and closer then..... Bang! 2-3 km away he empties his missile silos straight into your cockpit! ECM doesn't help you if your already sucking on a missile like a Churchill Cigar. Ok valid tactic and serves me right for getting cocky with number 4 but still;

I once lost 70 of looted gems 30 of looted platinum and 10 kills that way. Didn't play for a week it pissed me off so much.

When fighting close up, active your ECM as a precaution before any missiles are launched. Sure it uses a bit of energy but means if your foe does launch, you have his missile covered.

Interesting, does ECM have a timed effect then? Not just an "oh it's a missile, I'd better try and do something about it".

What I'm asking is can it be used pre-emptively? If it can, how much time does it give you? I know that it forces a random check 4 times, but I take it from what your saying that that these 4 checks are staggered?

Cool.

The ecm fires 4 (i think 4, maybe a different number) of pulses over a few seconds. It should be active more or less while you heard the sound. So its not exactly timed, it is just active for a period of time.

In fact, maybe npc ships should notice when ecm is active and hold off on firing missiles.

Each pulse has a probability of destroying each missile in range, I think normal missiles are always destroyed, ecm hardened are less likely, and there are some OXP missiles that are rarely or never detonated.

NPC are 75% likely to fire a standard missile (cheapskates!), unless the ship's shipdata entry arms it with a set type. Standard missiles are always destroyed by ECM.

Cmdr James wrote:

In fact, maybe npc ships should notice when ecm is active and hold off on firing missiles.

Totally agree. Right now, ships will just fire a missile as soon as their energy has dropped enough. If the player is preemptively tapping ECM, then he can easily avoid problems, but that reduces the fun and challenge of combat.

I'd like to see this implemented, but maybe make it so that the NPC hold- off-on-missiles-on-player-ECM doesn't happen always, maybe something like 80-85% of the time instead.

another_commander wrote:

Totally agree. Right now, ships will just fire a missile as soon as their energy has dropped enough. If the player is preemptively tapping ECM, then he can easily avoid problems, but that reduces the fun and challenge of combat.

I'd like to see this implemented, but maybe make it so that the NPC hold- off-on-missiles-on-player-ECM doesn't happen always, maybe something like 80-85% of the time instead.

Good idea. I (after learning through bitter expereince) also use the tactic of a pre-emptive ECM burst if an incoming/overflying enemy looks like he's going to try squirting a missile at me close in. I don't do repeated bursts, though – just a quick blip if I think he's looking a bit missiley, because it's those up-close-and-personal buggers you've really got to watch for. I think it's a valid tactic, not cheating: but this way the tactic remains valid. In fact, if the enemy has hardheads, it's maybe even better for the player that he's put off from launching altogether...