Oolite Bulletins

There is certainly some good room for discussion on the subject, but I doubt that anything can be changed now, code freeze and everything being in effect.

Cool... something for the EMMSTRAN then.

We all know there are inconsistencies in Elite/Oolite versus our own earthly perceptions:

Size of objects, size of Galaxies, non Newtonian flight, being immune to your own energy bombs, having an identically fitted out ship waiting for you after escape podding.

Cleaning up your status by escape podding is just another, it's no big deal really just part of this great game,

We all know the game (and this Forum) are a bit mad in all sorts of ways. It's why I feel so at home here.

TGHC wrote:

We all know there are inconsistencies in Elite/Oolite

Very true, o silver spacer... but I reckon that this is one inconsistency that can, and should, be sorted.

I think it would be relatively trivial for "new ships" to give a random bounty to you, with the bounty typically being 0...but going as high as 255. May have something to do with the system you buy it in too.

Switeck wrote:

I think it would be relatively trivial for "new ships" to give a random bounty to you, with the bounty typically being 0...but going as high as 255. May have something to do with the system you buy it in too.

Or the other way around: We keep the NewShip=Clean thing, but with a variable bounty threshold above which you're not allowed to trade in your ship. So that with a bounty of let's say 25Cr on your head, the shipyard will not sell you a new ship in a Corporate State or Democracy, but a Confederacy won't be so picky.

Or combine the two: Not only will you have to travel to a less reputable system to get a new ship; you might still not end up clean afterwards.

CheeseRedux wrote:

Or the other way around: We keep the NewShip=Clean thing, but with a variable bounty threshold above which you're not allowed to trade in your ship. So that with a bounty of let's say 25Cr on your head, the shipyard will not sell you a new ship in a Corporate State or Democracy, but a Confederacy won't be so picky.

Or combine the two: Not only will you have to travel to a less reputable system to get a new ship; you might still not end up clean afterwards.

That's a thought ... another possibility for the EMMSRAN (or for an OXP) would be to offer occasional pirate amnesties. This was done quite often in pirate hotspots like the Carribbean: if you made it to certain ports before the deadline (and probably paid a bit of a fine/bribe) you could get your slate wiped clean.

You could hear that such-and-such a system is offering an amnesty, with a deadline of X: if you want to get your record expunged, you'd have to make it there in time. Could be interesting for bounty-hunters, too, as they try to pick off the guilty before they make it home!

Disembodied wrote:

That's a thought ... another possibility for the EMMSRAN (or for an OXP) would be to offer occasional pirate amnesties. This was done quite often in pirate hotspots like the Carribbean: if you made it to certain ports before the deadline (and probably paid a bit of a fine/bribe) you could get your slate wiped clean.

You could hear that such-and-such a system is offering an amnesty, with a deadline of X: if you want to get your record expunged, you'd have to make it there in time. Could be interesting for bounty-hunters, too, as they try to pick off the guilty before they make it home!

I like that idea.
Lots of bounty and lots of "free" cargo

Another alternative could be to have a probationary period for the player, giving him/her a chance to redeem themselves by assisting police, or defending trader fleets (and so on).
Each time the player receives an acknowledgement of assistance, or hands an escape capsule over to the authorities, (s)he would be given a score (of sorts). Once a certain score is reached the player would receive a clean status again.

However, committing any offences within the period would result in the player instantly becoming a fugitive.

Disembodied wrote:

CheeseRedux wrote:

Or the other way around: We keep the NewShip=Clean thing, but with a variable bounty threshold above which you're not allowed to trade in your ship. So that with a bounty of let's say 25Cr on your head, the shipyard will not sell you a new ship in a Corporate State or Democracy, but a Confederacy won't be so picky.

Or combine the two: Not only will you have to travel to a less reputable system to get a new ship; you might still not end up clean afterwards.

That's a thought ... another possibility for the EMMSRAN (or for an OXP) would be to offer occasional pirate amnesties. This was done quite often in pirate hotspots like the Carribbean: if you made it to certain ports before the deadline (and probably paid a bit of a fine/bribe) you could get your slate wiped clean.

You could hear that such-and-such a system is offering an amnesty, with a deadline of X: if you want to get your record expunged, you'd have to make it there in time. Could be interesting for bounty-hunters, too, as they try to pick off the guilty before they make it home!

I think that could be incorporated in Anarchies.oxp as well. I'll have a look into it.

gogz69 wrote:

Another alternative could be to have a probationary period for the player, giving him/her a chance to redeem themselves by assisting police, or defending trader fleets (and so on).
Each time the player receives an acknowledgement of assistance, or hands an escape capsule over to the authorities, (s)he would be given a score (of sorts). Once a certain score is reached the player would receive a clean status again.

Something very similar already exists in Anarchies.oxp. As long as you're not clean, each time you kill another offender or fugitive there is a certain chance that, instead of receiving their bounty, you get a reduction on your bounty. You can become clean that way. And it help a lot in the process of going from fugitive to offender.

Commander McLane wrote:

I think that could be incorporated in Anarchies.oxp as well. I'll have a look into it.

Cool! It might be something that poor systems would be more likely to offer, rather than rich ones: "amnesty registration fees" might be a valuable addition to a struggling economy ...

There would probably be a trail of Offenders and Fugitives moving down the spacelane, but behaving like traders ... and a swarm of bounty hunters lurking. Numbers might even be determined by time remaining: if you get there early it should be a quiet(ish) run, but if you leave it to the last minute then things could get really hairy.

Disembodied wrote:

Commander McLane wrote:

I think that could be incorporated in Anarchies.oxp as well. I'll have a look into it.

Cool! It might be something that poor systems would be more likely to offer, rather than rich ones: "amnesty registration fees" might be a valuable addition to a struggling economy ...

There would probably be a trail of Offenders and Fugitives moving down the spacelane, but behaving like traders ... and a swarm of bounty hunters lurking. Numbers might even be determined by time remaining: if you get there early it should be a quiet(ish) run, but if you leave it to the last minute then things could get really hairy.

I am thinking along the lines of:

• GalCop offers an amnesty for all pilots willing to enlist for a special mission (something Thargoid-related, I guess). All is needed is an announcement randomly popping up at a main station (or perhaps not at main stations, but rather at the less tidy places: Salvage Gangs, Hacker Outposts, Free Trade Zones, and the like).
• The script picks a system where to report at random, calculates the travel time it takes to get there, and adds between 12 and 72 hours to that in order to establish a dead line. I think that should be doable with the current JS methods. All of this is stored in mission variables. Until the deadline has passed, no other offer pops up.
• In the destination system, a special station is created where you have to report (this is mainly to avoid that you have to dock at the main station and get informed on your report screen that you just licked the hangar clean or have been sent for correction, and now you're clean).
• If the player arrives in the system during a certain time window before the deadline (let's say 12 or 24 hours), he will find other offenders and fugitives heading for the special station. He may decide to have a blood-fest with them instead of going for the station.
• If he docks with the special station before the deadline, he gets a mission offer. On docking again after finishing the mission he becomes clean.
• When the deadline arrives, regardless whether the player went for it or not, the mission variables are cleared and another offer can randomly be made.

I've always wanted to do something where the game time plays a role as a factor in the setup. This seems like an ideal opportunity.

Commander McLane wrote:

I am thinking along the lines of:

• GalCop offers an amnesty for all pilots willing to enlist for a special mission (something Thargoid-related, I guess). All is needed is an announcement randomly popping up at a main station (or perhaps not at main stations, but rather at the less tidy places: Salvage Gangs, Hacker Outposts, Free Trade Zones, and the like).
• The script picks a system where to report at random, calculates the travel time it takes to get there, and adds between 12 and 72 hours to that in order to establish a dead line. I think that should be doable with the current JS methods. All of this is stored in mission variables. Until the deadline has passed, no other offer pops up.
• In the destination system, a special station is created where you have to report (this is mainly to avoid that you have to dock at the main station and get informed on your report screen that you just licked the hangar clean or have been sent for correction, and now you're clean).
• If the player arrives in the system during a certain time window before the deadline (let's say 12 or 24 hours), he will find other offenders and fugitives heading for the special station. He may decide to have a blood-fest with them instead of going for the station.
• If he docks with the special station before the deadline, he gets a mission offer. On docking again after finishing the mission he becomes clean.
• When the deadline arrives, regardless whether the player went for it or not, the mission variables are cleared and another offer can randomly be made.

I've always wanted to do something where the game time plays a role as a factor in the setup. This seems like an ideal opportunity.

Sounds sensible! I'd suggest making the "special station" something like a Behemoth, so players don't wonder where these stations come from/go to. Obviously it (and any accompanying escorts) would need custom AIs, or things could get messy ...

Might there be the chance of tying this in with e.g. Random Hits? A Clean but bounty-hunting player could hear about the amnesty offer and maybe look to get in there and make some money picking off the miscreants before they make it in ... maybe seed in one or two named high-value targets in there. If there are some custom-AI cops around the place too it might make things interesting – a player could shoot at any offenders or fugitives with no legal penalty, but the patrolling Vipers might not like it and might turn on the bounty-hunters.

Disembodied wrote:

Might there be the chance of tying this in with e.g. Random Hits? A Clean but bounty-hunting player could hear about the amnesty offer and maybe look to get in there and make some money picking off the miscreants before they make it in ... maybe seed in one or two named high-value targets in there. If there are some custom-AI cops around the place too it might make things interesting – a player could shoot at any offenders or fugitives with no legal penalty, but the patrolling Vipers might not like it and might turn on the bounty-hunters.

The offer would be put up purely randomly, regardless of the player's legal status. So he could indeed just fly to the system and kill incoming fugitives.

I don't know whether a direct tie-in with Random Hits (as in using Random Hits target ships) would be possible. Normally a target is only created when you visit a Space Bar and accept a contract.

One could contemplate random based creation of Random Hits targets (plus bounty hunters being after them) independent of the player taking a contract, but I feel that should be done in Random Hits.oxp. It would also create powerful opponents even in places where the player didn't call for them.