Oolite Bulletins

Smivs wrote:

I'm not trying to justify anything here, but having test-driven this thing a lot lately, the speed is really only a minor point. The bottom line is it's not much help in combat (targeting another ship at such high speed is all but impossible), and it really only becomes useful if you need to run away!

I disagree. Although I've not yet flown this ship, I have flown other similarly fast ships and it makes a huge difference in combat, especially against vessels like the Hydra and Rattlecutter, where my preferred tactic is to close range VERY quickly and get behind them, so I can avoid their multiple military lasers.

High speed is also handy for keeping the bigger thargoid vessels at range while you pew away at them with a rear military laser.

Smivs wrote:

I'm not trying to justify anything here, but having test-driven this thing a lot lately, the speed is really only a minor point. The bottom line is it's not much help in combat (targeting another ship at such high speed is all but impossible), and it really only becomes useful if you need to run away!

I think this might depend (as Sendraks suggests) on your combat style. I tend to vary my speed a lot in combat, slowing right down to make a sharp turn and speeding up again, even using the injectors when I want to shift position in a hurry. A fast ship is hard to hit, too, and can outpace missiles – and is at a big advantage when it comes to Monty-Pythoning (running away and shooting with the rear laser ). Being so much faster than any of the opposition, you have total control over when and where any dogfight takes place.

I don't like 'Design by Committee' as a concept, but clearly this ship has caused some concern, and I do accept that much that has been said is valid. I did put a lot of thought into this and felt I could justify the ship as it stands, and actually still do.
Having said that I want it to be 'Right' in all respects (and not just in my opinion), so...

Proposed changes to the Contractor
1) Increase the base price to 950,000 Cr (so even a half-decent one will cost well over 1 Million Credits).
2)Reduce top speed to 0.525LM (The Viper Interceptor's speed is 0.52LM and is the nearest Core ship in terms of speed/performance/size etc).
3)Reduce cargo space back to the Constrictor's 15 Tons (or maybe down to just 10 Tons).
4)Remove the option of side lasers.

These changes would go some considerable way to addressing the concerns raised. Do you all think this would be a good move?
I personally feel that these changes are the the most I'd consider without devaluing the whole concept.

Smivs wrote:

Proposed changes to the Contractor
1) Increase the base price to 950,000 Cr (so even a half-decent one will cost well over 1 Million Credits).
2)Reduce top speed to 0.525LM (The Viper Interceptor's speed is 0.52LM and is the nearest Core ship in terms of speed/performance/size etc).
3)Reduce cargo space back to the Constrictor's 15 Tons (or maybe down to just 10 Tons).
4)Remove the option of side lasers.

Pretty much what I had in mind .

Or keep the speed as you originally decided, but drop the rear gun mount too, so you'd need to use different tactics than with Cobby.

Like I said, it's your ship and your concept ... personally speaking this is not so much "design by committee" as "design for me specifically"! For myself, I'd put the price up to a good round million (if you're spending that sort of money anyway, why quibble over a measly 50,000 Cr?). 10 tons of cargo would be challenging, but I still think 0.525 is way too fast for a player ship. The Viper Interceptor is a specialised pursuit fighter: it's all about speed. If you're going to make something that's faster than the Interceptor, then it should be even more Interceptor-y, i.e. have no cargo, forward lasers only, and comparable (maybe even lower) energy and recharge rates.

Side lasers are neither here nor there for me. If I'm in a battle against battleships it's as part of a Navy group. If it was just me against a capital ship, I'd expect to have to flee (or lose). If you made it front laser only, that's a real tradeoff.

How about making two versions: the Contractor Courier and the Contractor Corsair? The Courier could have 10 tons cargo space (unexpandable), forward lasers only, energy banks and recharge comparable to the Interceptor, and a top speed of 0.5 (and maybe no space for an extra energy unit, either). The Corsair could have 10 tons, expandable to 20, forward and rear laser mounts, be a bit beefier in the energy and recharge departments and have a top speed of 0.4. Give the Courier a price tag of 950,000 and the Corsair 1.1 million.

Disembodied wrote:

Like I said, it's your ship and your concept ... personally speaking this is not so much "design by committee" as "design for me specifically"!

What I meant was I don't want to go down the line of 'So and so wants this so it goes in, Such and such wants that so it goes in'. I didn't design it for myself either (I'm sticking with my Boa Clipper for the foreseeable future).

Disembodied wrote:

For myself, I'd put the price up to a good round million (if you're spending that sort of money anyway, why quibble over a measly 50,000 Cr?). 10 tons of cargo would be challenging, but I still think 0.525 is way too fast for a player ship. The Viper Interceptor is a specialised pursuit fighter: it's all about speed. If you're going to make something that's faster than the Interceptor, then it should be even more Interceptor-y, i.e. have no cargo, forward lasers only, and comparable (maybe even lower) energy and recharge rates.

Re the price, if you've worked in retail you'll understand Price Points, and I discussed the argument against an overly high price earlier.
Remember this ship is for Assassins and Bounty Hunters, not couriers and 'taxi drivers' (although it would be quite good for that). It's a 'Fast in-Fast out' smash-and-grab type ship. Energy banks and recharge rates could be reduced, I agree.

Disembodied wrote:

Side lasers are neither here nor there for me. If I'm in a battle against battleships it's as part of a Navy group. If it was just me against a capital ship, I'd expect to have to flee (or lose). If you made it front laser only, that's a real tradeoff.

I agree. However if your 'Hit' is in a tough ship, you don't want to hang around while your laser cools down to finish him off, particularly if he has escorts. The rear laser has to stay.

Disembodied wrote:

How about making two versions: the Contractor Courier and the Contractor Corsair? The Courier could have 10 tons cargo space (unexpandable), forward lasers only, energy banks and recharge comparable to the Interceptor, and a top speed of 0.5 (and maybe no space for an extra energy unit, either). The Corsair could have 10 tons, expandable to 20, forward and rear laser mounts, be a bit beefier in the energy and recharge departments and have a top speed of 0.4. Give the Courier a price tag of 950,000 and the Corsair 1.1 million.

This is a tempting idea, and one I will consider. I think the names are the wrong way round...the courier would be the slower, tougher one with the cargo space, but it's worth thinking about, even if it does get a bit away from 'The Point'.

This has been a real eye-opener for me, and has shown me that however long and however hard you think about a subject, you can still get it wrong. You get so wrapped-up in it you develop a sort of blindness that prevents you from seeing just that which you are looking for.

I have just uploaded version 2.0 of Contractor, which features a substantially altered specification:

Top speed is now 0.525LM (0.05LM lower. I really wanted to keep it a tiny bit faster than the Viper Interceptor).
Cargo capacity is now 10 Tons.
Recharge rate is still 5 (very good), but there are now just three energy banks (down from seven).
There are now just front and rear laser mounts, no side mounts.
The base price is now 1,250,000 Credits.

Thanks to everyone for your comments...this is now a much better OXP I'm sure, and whereas you can never keep all the people happy all the time, I hope the consensus will be that this ship/concept/oxp is now truly worthy of a place in this great Ooniverse of ours.

PS If you are one of the 20-odd people who have already downloaded the 'Uber' Contractor, guard it well and cherish it. It's like will not be seen again. And what a bargain

Just to give you a comparison on the price.

Illicit Unlock sells the Constrictor for 10,000,000 Cr

Realistic Shipyards sold the Constrictor for 3,470,000 Cr.

Yay! The sensible erosion that is the new ship process. I would be interested to see how people find fighting this thing. It's no monk but it certainly looks up there with the rattlecutter for sheer annoyance.

Smivs wrote:

This is a tempting idea, and one I will consider. I think the names are the wrong way round...the courier would be the slower, tougher one with the cargo space, but it's worth thinking about, even if it does get a bit away from 'The Point'.

Hmmm ... I was thinking of a Courier as something that gets small packages quickly to other places, and a Corsair as a raider or a privateer. Of course, since there's already a Cobra Courier, maybe the fast version could be called the Contractor Cutter?

Only just installed the Contractor (new version) since Smivs uploaded it onto his website (box is not working for me currently). Just been playing and saw the ship for sale at the first high-tech world (lvl 13) I came to. Thought these ships were supposed to be rare?

Also, it's just the standard customer model. Thought that Smivs had fixed an issue with equipment which wasn't getting included in the shipyard? Not sure if it's a problem as it's the first one I've seen.

Looking at the shipyard.plist, I see: Not very rare, eh?

Setting it to 0.025 would make the ship rare.

and further: I think that the last comma should be removed to make this (having those items as standard equipment in all Contractors sold at shipyards) work.

JazHaz wrote:

Only just installed the Contractor (new version) since Smivs uploaded it onto his website (box is not working for me currently). Just been playing and saw the ship for sale at the first high-tech world (lvl 13) I came to. Thought these ships were supposed to be rare?
Also, it's just the standard customer model. Thought that Smivs had fixed an issue with equipment which wasn't getting included in the shipyard? Not sure if it's a problem as it's the first one I've seen.

Hi JazHaz,
Chance is a funny thing. I've been playing with the OXP installed for 2-3 weeks now (during development) and have only seen two for sale, none since the release of version 2.
I've set it so that they are available from tech 12 and above, and then with only about a 1 in 3 chance of one appearing. A quick look on the Wiki tells me that around all eight galaxies there are 2046 planets, of which 224 are TL12 or above. So in a nutshell there should be a 1-3 chance of one occurring on about every tenth planet you visit.
The New Ship populator always seems to offer a standard model, and sometimes a few with equipment as well, so with the Contractor and its rarity it occurs to me you may only ever see standard models, although the possibility is there for 'equipped' versions to be offered.

This does raise an interesting general point, namely how rare do you want things? A ship you never see is not worth having really, but obviously you don't want 'rare' ships coming along all the time either.
I have tried to make them scarce in-game. The Bounty Hunter version is spawned as a 'Hunter' with a setting of 0.1, which as I understand it means that about 1 in 10 Hunters will have Contractors. I assume Hunters are only generated quite infrequently. The Pirate Contractors have a setting of 0.01 which I believe translates to about 1 in 100.
I'd be interested to know what the general view is, and also to hear other OXP developers' thoughts and experience of this. What do you think is an appropriate frequency for 'rare' ships, and what settings have you used to achieve this?

Smivs wrote:

I have tried to make them scarce in-game. The Bounty Hunter version is spawned as a 'Hunter' with a setting of 0.1, which as I understand it means that about 1 in 10 Hunters will have Contractors. I assume Hunters are only generated quite infrequently. The Pirate Contractors have a setting of 0.01 which I believe translates to about 1 in 100.

Not quite. If the populator is called upon the spawn a ship with the role "hunter", it will first make up a pool of all the ships in-game which have that role. The (0.1) or whatever comes in here, as that's the weighting of the ship within that pool, as compared to standard trunk ships (which usually have a weighting of 1) and other OXP ships (with whatever weighting their authors chose to give them).

So for example if there are only 2 ships with the hunter role, a Cobra (weighting 1) and a Contractor (weighting 0.1) the chance of a contactor is 1 in 11. If there are three ships (Cobra (1), Adder(1) and Contractor(0.1)) there would be a 1 in 21 chance etc. But if there was only the Contractor, then you would get it every time (0.1 in 0.1 chance). Equally you could give it a role of "Smivs_Contractor(0.00000001)", but as it's (hopefully) a unique role then the weighting doesn't matter as it's the only choice in the pool.

Hope that's clearer - the number is the weighting within the pool relative to other ships that have that role, it's not the absolute chance of it appearing.

Thargoid wrote:

Smivs wrote:

I have tried to make them scarce in-game. The Bounty Hunter version is spawned as a 'Hunter' with a setting of 0.1, which as I understand it means that about 1 in 10 Hunters will have Contractors. I assume Hunters are only generated quite infrequently. The Pirate Contractors have a setting of 0.01 which I believe translates to about 1 in 100.

Not quite. If the populator is called upon the spawn a ship with the role "hunter", it will first make up a pool of all the ships in-game which have that role. The (0.1) or whatever comes in here, as that's the weighting of the ship within that pool, as compared to standard trunk ships (which usually have a weighting of 1) and other OXP ships (with whatever weighting their authors chose to give them).

So for example if there are only 2 ships with the hunter role, a Cobra (weighting 1) and a Contractor (weighting 0.1) the chance of a contactor is 1 in 11. If there are three ships (Cobra (1), Adder(1) and Contractor(0.1)) there would be a 1 in 21 chance etc. But if there was only the Contractor, then you would get it every time (0.1 in 0.1 chance). Equally you could give it a role of "Smivs_Contractor(0.00000001)", but as it's (hopefully) a unique role then the weighting doesn't matter as it's the only choice in the pool.

Hope that's clearer - the number is the weighting within the pool relative to other ships that have that role, it's not the absolute chance of it appearing.

Thanks, that's interesting. A quick scan through the core shipdata.plist revealed that eight ships have the role Hunter, so presumably this means that my Contractor will only show up very rarely. Is that right or am I being dim (again)?
There are an awful lot of role 'Pirate' ships, so again I hope mine will be extremely scarce. Do you think I've set this about right, or should I be looking to change things?
Thanks for help/advice.