Oolite Bulletins

me three, on what norby wrote. It would give a nice and free realistic feel to it, if an destroid or relocated hermit isn't at its stored location. "Wow, it's gone." I don't know how the beacon system works, but if it is just another spawned object, you could go with the following suggestion:

If the players ship arrives at the empty location and the beacon gets 3/4 max radar width, give a "Station is gone"-error message of the shipscomputer over the comm for 15 seconds and delete the beacon for good.

Also, about that delayed spawning. I fear, that leaving the system without a hermit, that is supposed to be there, even after loading a savegame or reentering the system, might break other OXPs. On the other hand, I would prefer them to be gone for a while, as this would make logical sense.

Smivs wrote:

Fritz wrote:

How long does a galactic round trip take?

35 minutes 29 seconds (game-time) is the time to beat

Alternatively, using no OXPs, 8 days, 6 hours, 13 minutes, is the time to beat (if I've got the math right).

Cody wrote:

abandoned proto-hermits dotted around the charts

Great idea! For variety some could be partly unusable, in different combinations of:
- no market,
- no shipyard,
- no equipments,
- no fuel,
- no save game option,
- no dock (will hit the back wall when go through).

If you spent some time within these risky places then could be a chance to get pirates awaiting for you when you undock.

Norby wrote:

Cody wrote:

abandoned proto-hermits dotted around the charts

Great idea! For variety some could be partly unusable, in different combinations of:
- no market,
- no shipyard,
- no equipments,
- no fuel,
- no save game option,
- no dock (will hit the back wall when go through).

And free (left) commodities. maybe even a pirate stash.

Abandoned hermits as treasure chests? Why not.
Something like this?

spara wrote:

Abandoned hermits as treasure chests?

<grins> Or as meeting places for very shady deals, perhaps?

Fritz wrote:

...But perhaps even a combination would be possible: Pirates relocate, miners rebuild, and chaotic hermits can behave in either way. The appearance of relocated hermits could be delayed too.

I'm talking about relocation, because that's what I'm technically doing. The player observes that a hermit is destroyed and on re-entering the system the hermit isn't there. An average player should not be aware of the technicalities, so he/she probably assumes that the hermit is just gone. He/she might stumble on another one and supposedly believe that it's a new one even thought it's the old one just been relocated. It's all about illusion. And from this perspective, I don't see any point in delaying relocation. Only if the hermit is returned to the original position, then some building phase would be interesting.

I've been pondering this treasure chest idea a bit and it could have potential.

There could be something like 3 abandoned hermits per system. One of them could be spawned using inner_system_offplane and the other two outer_system_offplane with a few asteroids to help finding them out. There could be variants: an old mining base, an old smugglers' den and an old pirate base, that look the same but spill different contents when destroyed. Destroying one will cause the next spawn to be in a different place like spicy hermits are.

They would probably be very difficult to find, so the constant number ensures the player that there is something to find and a trip to the outer reaches might be fruitful. Actually a new career option, Treasure Hunter, would come available.

spara wrote:

... that look the same but spill different contents when destroyed.

Like a forgotten QCM, perhaps? Booby-trapped abandoned hermits... nice!

spara wrote:

outer_system_offplane with a few asteroids to help finding them out.

There are two areas where asteroid fields could be placed: around the L4 and L5 stable lagrange points in the planet's orbit, with 60 degree ahead and after the planet.

These could be flagged with waypoints as common knowledge but rocks spread in very large space around these so still a challenge to find a hermitage.
The pretty large path of an asteroid locked by Earth and Sun:

Last one out, lights turned off. It looks so sad .

And seal the docking bay with scrap metal.

Looking good, spara!

A few small tweaks and testing the treasure chest idea here. Version 0.12 for those interested.

A few abandoned hermits are spawned randomly around the system, usually away from traffic. Upon shooting they'll spill their contents for you to salvage.

I'm very interested in your opinions if they too easy/hard to find location vice and is the reward enough or too much for finding them.

This version spawns a constant number of chests per system. This will be randomized, but for this test version, every system has three

Download: https://app.box.com/s/j6rovtn5vj8p9g7b323d2w5z8np5m30j

spara wrote:

A few abandoned hermits are spawned randomly around the system, usually away from traffic. Upon shooting they'll spill their contents for you to salvage.

This could be a mission in Bulletin Board system: GalCop pay some bonus if you fight off pirates by destroying these.