Oolite Bulletins

Matti wrote:

I had my first encounter with Rogue Frigate. Sure it blasted GalCop Vipers left, right and center, but plasma balls are... little inaccurate against player controlled ship. And such big target is easy pickings for military laser outside effective plasma range. So how about replacing half of the plasma weapons with lasers? Beamers maybe?

I think the conventional wisdom is that a ship of this size is so slow to maneouvre that lasers would be pointless. Frigates have missiles as well as the plasma guns.

Smivs wrote:

I think the conventional wisdom is that a ship of this size is so slow to maneouvre that lasers would be pointless.

Wasn't too slow to fire broadside of plasma at my direction knocking reinforced shield down in process.

[edit]
Hey, can't lasers be turret mounted?

Matti wrote:

[edit]
Hey, can't lasers be turret mounted?

Let's hope not!

Smivs wrote:

Matti wrote:

[edit]
Hey, can't lasers be turret mounted?

Let's hope not!

If stock lasers (Pulse/Beam/Military Laser) can't be used in turrets as is, then how about making new laser weapons for that purpose that have equal statistics with hull mounted ones?

Put simply, game balance. Player ships could not have them and you'd get annihilated the first time you came across a ship which did, and every time thereafter no matter how good a pilot you'd become.

Smivs wrote:

Put simply, game balance. Player ships could not have them and you'd get annihilated the first time you came across a ship which did, and every time thereafter no matter how good a pilot you'd become.

Yes, and we have already OXPs which are adding entities with super-stats + multiple lasers + plus turrets + missiles. Even more of them and I really start worrying about the future of mission scripting (or was the funeral already?).

Smivs wrote:

Put simply, game balance. Player ships could not have them and you'd get annihilated the first time you came across a ship which did, and every time thereafter no matter how good a pilot you'd become.

Roll, evade and boost as usual, and fire broadside of ECM proof missiles. Could someone test it out, tell results and provide OXP for those who want try themselves?

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To me it is no less silly for one single Cobra Mark III blasting frigate several times of its own size. Destroying frigate should take pack of totally pimped smaller ships with ECM hardened missiles, or another frigate or Behemoth.

Svengali wrote:

Smivs wrote:

Put simply, game balance. Player ships could not have them and you'd get annihilated the first time you came across a ship which did, and every time thereafter no matter how good a pilot you'd become.

Yes, and we have already OXPs which are adding entities with super-stats + multiple lasers + plus turrets + missiles. Even more of them and I really start worrying about the future of mission scripting (or was the funeral already?).

I'd disagree. It just means that going hell-for-leather in with guns blazing isn't always the best way to do the job and come out with your iron ass/arse intact. Some of mine are designed that way - as a head-to-head fight the player has little chance, but with a little tactical combat and picking things off, then their chances are better than good.

The occasional mission involving tactical planning and thinking can be quite refreshing.

Thargoid wrote:

I'd disagree. It just means that going hell-for-leather in with guns blazing isn't always the best way to do the job and come out with your iron ass/arse intact. Some of mine are designed that way - as a head-to-head fight the player has little chance, but with a little tactical combat and picking things off, then their chances are better than good.

The occasional mission involving tactical planning and thinking can be quite refreshing.

Yes, I know Thargoid - in the last days I've destroyed a couple of your Aquatics platforms which is fun. But I think they are appearing way to often (chance to appear in all systems on WP and/or MainStation + Interstellar) and the other Military/Police vessels are spawned in all systems too (role police). For the player it doesn't matter, if really necessary he/she/it can avoid them. But I'm really talking about Missions and their NPCs, they will run into trouble.

Do you see a chance to give missions a switch to disable the spawning for a period of time or for a specific system?

Have any of you played game TIE Fighter? Know what is great on it? That player with unshielded TIE Fighter/Interceptor/Bomber is insignificantly small element in massive engagements between large capital scale ships. Player could frak up but his side would win anyway. Oh yes, player with his small TIE Fighter could not take on some large ship with its own fighters. Just keep incoming X-Wings at bay (while just trying to survive) and let the TIE Bombers and armed transports do the ship busting. Overpowered TIE Defender and Missile Boat took best elements out of the game.

Yeah, Missile Boat. I remember this one mission with that and I totally cleared the space with it: Space Platform, Interdictor Cruiser, ~4 Nebulon B(2) Frigates, 2 Imperial-class Star Destroyers and droves of TIE Defenders and other fighters. Yup, I blasted them all, and friendly cargo ship provided payload reloads. Do we really want to do something like that in Oolite? I had much more fun with unshielded TIEs with no hope of destroying anything bigger than standard CRV Corvette. And more often than not that was possible only becouse something else was drawing fire away from me.

So I propose this: Renegade Frigate with turret mounted lasers, if player alone shoots at it, player's dead. So just tail it and wait for something else to attack it. Like Vipers from local Coreolis station. Then fuel inject in, fire missiles and overheat military laser, maybe turn your tail and overheat aft laser too and hope it's enough. When Renegade Frigate is tough enough against player alone (with Cobra Mark III armed with 2 military lasers and hardened missiles) but soft enough against sufficient swarm of other ships (~10 local Vipers + player, or 2-3 Thargoid Warships + their fighters), then balance is closer where it should be. Rigth now balance does not feel right (to me)

Svengali wrote:

Yes, I know Thargoid - in the last days I've destroyed a couple of your Aquatics platforms which is fun. But I think they are appearing way to often (chance to appear in all systems on WP and/or MainStation + Interstellar) and the other Military/Police vessels are spawned in all systems too (role police). For the player it doesn't matter, if really necessary he/she/it can avoid them. But I'm really talking about Missions and their NPCs, they will run into trouble.

Do you see a chance to give missions a switch to disable the spawning for a period of time or for a specific system?

Yup, should be do-able. I'll add it to the list of to-do's. Their appearance in interstellar space I think is quite low, and the others is random (they don't necessarily appear together). With a low-chance exception they won't affect the player unless provoked though, as you say.

I'll add a switch into the spawning script when I get a moment. But if all else fails there's nothing to stop a mission-script checking for their presence (they have a unique role in their role-set) and removing them again.

Matti wrote:

So I propose this: Renegade Frigate with turret mounted lasers, if player alone shoots at it, player's dead. So just tail it and wait for something else to attack it. Like Vipers from local Coreolis station. Then fuel inject in, fire missiles and overheat military laser, maybe turn your tail and overheat aft laser too and hope it's enough.

It's very important for even SUB-capital ships to be able to survive overheating a military laser on them at least once. True capital ships should require overheating more than 2 military lasers (front and back)...otherwise they're still too easy. They're big and massive...they could have sufficient shield generators to be 10 or even 100 TIMES as tough as a Cobra 3! The player's Cobra 3 with just non-OXP equipment has 256 energy and 384 or 512 shield points for shield boosters + military shields. So that total is 640 or 768. I've seen NPC Boa 2's and regular Thargoid warships barely survive an Energy Bomb blast, as they should at least be able to do...both being borderline sub-capital ships. That's also roughly the same level needed to survive 1 military laser overheating on them.

But to be semi-fair, keep regen rate on capital ships low enough to eventually whittle them down -- roughly 20 energy/second is tops. If not, you just encourage the player to q-bomb them or give up in frustration.

Thargoid wrote:

Yup, should be do-able. I'll add it to the list of to-do's. Their appearance in interstellar space I think is quite low, and the others is random (they don't necessarily appear together). With a low-chance exception they won't affect the player unless provoked though, as you say.

I'll add a switch into the spawning script when I get a moment. But if all else fails there's nothing to stop a mission-script checking for their presence (they have a unique role in their role-set) and removing them again.

Very cool - muchas gracias .-)

I had my first Navy contracted sortie against thargoids. So there was this BIG thargoid fleet coming, and opening shots were not fired until thargoids were on top of the front ships of the Navy fleet. Witchpoint beacon was one of the destroyed targets, and becouse I had drifted away from the main battle (pursued by 10 Invaders and Cruisers), I could not find way to the graveyard to pick more loot. Two MilLasers and Sniper Sight came in handy.

Has anyone had successful navy mission against thargoids yet? In two sorties I have scored tens of kills, yet both have ended to destruction of navy fleet, departure of thargoids and more containers and inactive robot fighters floating around than my Cobra3 has room to pick them up.