Oolite Bulletins

I'm having to do something similar at the moment to stop the player jumping out of the system. I was going to do down the simple 'remove fuel' route, on the basis that if you want to keep someone close you'd probably also want to stop them using fuel injection anyway. Making use of density would be more elegant though so I'll have to look at that.

Keep in mind, altering density that high will (I believe) have a a significant effect on scrape / collision damage.

Commander McLane wrote:

I also tried to jump faster after launching from a main station. But if I have the buoy in front of me when the countdown is up the jump fails. Therefore in my experience the 10 km rule is pretty accurate. There may be a couple of meters missing, but certainly not four kilometers or more.

I veer off from the line from the buoy to the station at about a 30 degree angle. And I've even successfully done a witchspace jump at only 4.9 km from the main station.
...in Oolite v1.74.2 (Windows version).

To alter the density for something to prevent ships (especially the player's ship) from jumping...would seem to require an INSANELY high density!

Switeck wrote:

To alter the density for something to prevent ships (especially the player's ship) from jumping...would seem to require an INSANELY high density!

Of course. The whole thing is only a very simple scripting trick in order to simulate the behaviour of a certain Star Wars ship Ragged wants to emulate in Oolite. Nobody has claimed that a ship with a high density as such would make sense.

Read the thread.

It has certain tactical applications. Hit and run tactics can be effective against slower moving, indivisible targets with superior firepower.

Say you have a convoy protected by a couple of warships with fighter escort. Your attackers zoom in, inflict maximum damage in the time available, and then witchspace out. Depending on the system, there can be up to a dozen other systems in witchspace range. Sure, you will leave wormholes, but what is the defender going to do? Split up and chase you? Leave the ships they are escorting?

Some sort of interdiction technology negates hit-and-run. It forces the attacker to either flee quickly out of interdiction range, so he can inflict less damage, or stick around and go head to head with you.

(This is exactly what it is used for the the SW universe. The rebels have hyperspace-capable fighters, while the Empire does not. The rebels use hit-and-run against the slower moving Imperial targets. The interdictor cruisers were developed to combat this).

However, Oolite isn't Star Wars.

In Oolite you cannot witchspace out instantly, but you have to wait 15 seconds, during which time you are basically a lame duck (at least NPCs de facto are). This makes quick-attack-and-witchspace-out uttely useless as a tactic in Oolite. Oolite's AI knows that and never attempts to flee via witchspacing out. I hope you are aware of that, so don't make a big effort to counter a tactic which doesn't and cannot exist in the first place.

Commander McLane wrote:

However, Oolite isn't Star Wars.

In Oolite you cannot witchspace out instantly, but you have to wait 15 seconds, during which time you are basically a lame duck (at least NPCs de facto are). This makes quick-attack-and-witchspace-out uttely useless as a tactic in Oolite. Oolite's AI knows that and never attempts to flee via witchspacing out. I hope you are aware of that, so don't make a big effort to counter a tactic which doesn't and cannot exist in the first place.

Actually, the Random Hits marks do witchspace out occasionally in order to survive a wee bit longer. I once chased a mark across four or so systems!

Commander McLane wrote:

Read the thread.

I was pointing out that to simulate this would require an insanely high density as a result of my findings. This doesn't mean I haven't read the thread.

Apart from anything else, in Oolite once a ship jumps out, they're out of the battle for good. Witchspace travel is never instantaneous! It makes much more sense for a ship to go out of scanner range, and wait for its shields/energy banks to recharge fully. At worst they will be out of action for minutes, rather than hours...

Still, the jump-in & out tactic might seem feasible with twinned star systems: their distance is 0, so there's effectively no fuel or time penalty for jumping...

However, docking & undocking, refuelling & repairing systems do all come with an in-game time penalty, making such tactics a bit futile - IMO, at least...

Commander McLane wrote:

However, Oolite isn't Star Wars.

In Oolite you cannot witchspace out instantly, but you have to wait 15 seconds, during which time you are basically a lame duck (at least NPCs de facto are). This makes quick-attack-and-witchspace-out uttely useless as a tactic in Oolite. Oolite's AI knows that and never attempts to flee via witchspacing out. I hope you are aware of that, so don't make a big effort to counter a tactic which doesn't and cannot exist in the first place.

In my pre-iron ass days I regularly activated the jump before engaging in battle. If things were going my way I'd hit H twice to extend my stay. If I got shot up, I only had a couple of seconds of dodging to do before I left the system.
Still use it sometimes in large pirate battles.