Oolite Bulletins

I have to say that 0.7c ships kind of blow my suspension of disbelief out of the water: relativistic effects would start getting very noticeable at that kind of velocity. While capping ship stats is rather extreme, it would be nice if certain limits flowed out of the game naturally.

I was curious about it, so I put them in once. Trying to shoot those down is pretty damn tricky. And you can get from the witchpoint to the planet fairly quickly!

Needless to say they didn't stay in the ooniverse for very long...

On the plus side, they had very little energy! They seemed to be a ship designed for running away, not combat! Which made their pirate versions a little odd...

Edit: just re-read my post and noticed I didn't say that I was talking about the Swift/Firefly/Tepiu/Lampyris set, which have a max speed of 0.755LM

Phantom Hoover wrote:

I have to say that 0.7c ships kind of blow my suspension of disbelief out of the water: relativistic effects would start getting very noticeable at that kind of velocity. While capping ship stats is rather extreme, it would be nice if certain limits flowed out of the game naturally.

I don't think any ships approach that kind of speed - I know Rob Holdstock called the ship speeds Light Mach (LM) but I think it is generally agreed that this doesn't relate to the speed of Light in the same way that Mach refers to the speed of sound - otherwise even a Cobra III on Injectors is approach 1c and on Torus drive is many times faster than c.

DaddyHoggy wrote:

Phantom Hoover wrote:

I have to say that 0.7c ships kind of blow my suspension of disbelief out of the water: relativistic effects would start getting very noticeable at that kind of velocity. While capping ship stats is rather extreme, it would be nice if certain limits flowed out of the game naturally.

I don't think any ships approach that kind of speed - I know Rob Holdstock called the ship speeds Light Mach (LM) but I think it is generally agreed that this doesn't relate to the speed of Light in the same way that Mach refers to the speed of sound - otherwise even a Cobra III on Injectors is approach 1c and on Torus drive is many times faster than c.

Indeed. Just to repeat my mantra once more again: sizes and distances in Oolite are out-of-scale (or broken, if you prefer this nomer), and are not fixable. Speed is a function of distance and time (or the other way round, but it doesn't matter; the point is that they are related), therefore it is out-of-scale (or broken) as well.

Practically this means that you don't have an absolute scale to compare speeds to. There is no 'c' in any sensible definition. 1LM in the game equals 1000 m/s, which you can easily see with SHIFT-F, if you fly along the WP axis. I don't think that in the Ooniverse the speed of light is 1 km/s. Therefore 0.7LM is not 0.7c.

The only scale you have is the relative scale given be the speeds of the existing ships. This scale tells you that 0.2LM is relatively slow, while 0.4LM is quite fast. And that's all you're ever gonna know. Whether it makes sense, given this existing scale, to make a ship with 0.7LM is mostly up to your own sense of balance. In my personal Ooniverse there is not much room for speeds like this.


And one word about the argument of technological advancement. On the face of it there seems to be a point. Ship design will get better over time. However, the core ships are thought to be in service for a long time. Some of them for hundreds of years, other for shorter periods. But there is not that much of a performance boost between the older and the newer ships, even if the designs are centuries apart. This indicates that performance develops very slowly in the Ooniverse. If performance used to get a little better over the course of centuries, there is no real justification for huge boosts in very few years.

To be honest, saying that there is no justification for the march of technology is like condemning a 10mph locomotive in 1820 for being too radical in the speed department. We all know that 40 years later they had trains zooming across the breadth of the US and Euro landmasses at five times that speed. So if a primitive society like that of the 1800s can move quickly, why not in the 3100s, where computers are self aware and alien tech is a factor too? But I will agree that sudden leaps between the CobraIII and Liberator might seem kind of odd, but I guess some role playing element creeps in. Perhaps some commanders just love the classics!

Law of diminishing returns is what kills constant improvements.
I kinda want to try out one "super ship" found in Galactic Navy as a personal ship:
The militarized version of the Anaconda!
http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Navy_Transport
Ridiculous speed for its size, (0.32 LM vs 0.14 LM for original Anaconda) decent firepower and shielding...and it still has a massive 400 TC cargo capacity.
Lack of maneuverability ironically makes it a better long distance sniper.
I'd price it at ~800k credits.

"Ridiculous speed for its size"

see, that's my yardstick for stuff. i can put up w/ ships that have "fantastic" speed/power/whatever, but once the best description becomes "ridiculous", then it's time to stop considering adding it to my AddOns.

While "Ludicrous speed" and "They've gone to plaid!" come to mind, the actual problem I find with ships being too fast or too manoeuvrable is that one sort of loses the feel of the ship being a massive spacecraft. One of the things I've found rather addictive about the Griff Boa proto is that it *feels* like a freighter. The slower yaw/pitch/roll make it feel bigger than flying a Cobra MK III. Ships that are more nimble than the Cobra tend to make the game feel too "arcade-like" to me.

Since the GBp is also not one of the fastest ships in the game, picking a fight takes a bit more.. commitment? Being able to run isn't much of a likely option once things get rough. Once you're in a fight, you pretty much have to tough it out. The weaponry on it is a long way from being an uber-ship, in my opinion. What it does have eats up the energy banks fast and with only one laser, you have to use short bursts and make your shots count.

But it *feels* like a good sized ship with a belly full of good cargo. Well, and maybe room for a bit more good cargo, if one finds the opportunity, fortune, and a lack of witnesses. LOL

"The slower yaw/pitch/roll make it feel bigger than flying a Cobra MK III. Ships that are more nimble than the Cobra tend to make the game feel too "arcade-like" to me. "

that's one reason i was hoping for a damper value in shipdata, so big heavy things would seemt o have more inertia etc that a nimble fighter.

If uber-players wish to have restricted play, I think it should be a toggled option. So we are not all forced to adhere to masochist "Elite" mentality in gameplay.
I really think we should leave it to the player to make a choice. Let me underline the point that in a single player game it matters not a bit if the other guy is in
an ubership or not. Naturally in a Multiplayer, concerns about limits and such would indeed be relevant. What I see in some posts comes down to an almost
theocratic desire by purists to try and make us all share their views...An Oolite player should be allowed to decide...

curtsibling wrote:

If uber-players wish to have restricted play, I think it should be a toggled option. So we are not all forced to adhere to masochist "Elite" mentality in gameplay.
I really think we should leave it to the player to make a choice. Let me underline the point that in a single player game it matters not a bit if the other guy is in
an ubership or not. Naturally in a Multiplayer, concerns about limits and such would indeed be relevant. What I see in some posts comes down to an almost
theocratic desire by purists to try and make us all share their views...An Oolite player should be allowed to decide...

True, sort of - because it's when the requests come in to the development team that change the underlying balance of game to enable/encourage uberness that even some of us who aren't purists start to feel a little uncomfortable...

DaddyHoggy wrote:

True, sort of - because it's when the requests come in to the development team that change the underlying balance of game to enable/encourage uberness that even some of us who aren't purists start to feel a little uncomfortable...

I completely agree. I would hate to see the suggestions put into practice that disrupt the game balance. Isn't that what oxp's are for? As with an oxp it is a take it or leave it approach. But altering the core game... it can be beneficial to have the odd "purist" to stop the odd hooligan from going too far

So if the key is - choice - then the only real and workable option is to have a balanced game with the -choice- to alter with the oxp.

CheeseRedux wrote:

Thargoid wrote:

Editted to add - just found your original report - I'll test it next week when I get some time. Blame the divergence away about talking about graphics cards, and also my jetlag at the time.

Ah, good. I was just about to point you in that direction. Yes, the whole thing was a bit muddled with my graphics issue (which I still don't understand, but at least it's solved).

I think I see the issue in the script, it's a simple one to fix. Details are in the OXP's thread - if you could try it please and see if it cures the glitch without introducing any new ones.

curtsibling wrote:

If uber-players wish to have restricted play, I think it should be a toggled option. So we are not all forced to adhere to masochist "Elite" mentality in gameplay.
I really think we should leave it to the player to make a choice. Let me underline the point that in a single player game it matters not a bit if the other guy is in
an ubership or not. Naturally in a Multiplayer, concerns about limits and such would indeed be relevant. What I see in some posts comes down to an almost
theocratic desire by purists to try and make us all share their views...An Oolite player should be allowed to decide...

You can already create a ship so fast and agile that it is impossible to use, and with as much energy and firepower as you want. What do you propose to make toggleable?

As far as I know there are relatively few limits on what you can do in an oxp, and those are largely limits of the game and the controls rather than impositions of the dev team.

DaddyHoggy wrote:

curtsibling wrote:

If uber-players wish to have restricted play, I think it should be a toggled option. So we are not all forced to adhere to masochist "Elite" mentality in gameplay.
I really think we should leave it to the player to make a choice. Let me underline the point that in a single player game it matters not a bit if the other guy is in
an ubership or not. Naturally in a Multiplayer, concerns about limits and such would indeed be relevant. What I see in some posts comes down to an almost
theocratic desire by purists to try and make us all share their views...An Oolite player should be allowed to decide...

True, sort of - because it's when the requests come in to the development team that change the underlying balance of game to enable/encourage uberness that even some of us who aren't purists start to feel a little uncomfortable...

I see you are assuming I am in the "pro-uber" faction? Well, not at all. I just am eager to see Oolite retain the current enjoyable balance.
Not having the game changed at the behest of those who want it made restricted and difficult so they can display some kind of elitism.

As I have said numerous times - We should allow people to edit the game any way they wish, as it does not affect anyone else.