Oolite Bulletins

No ghosts for this OXP. It's was a fun experiment, that might yield something else. Maybe.

Anonymissimus wrote:

This is probably just personal preference, but my ooniverse shall contain only scientifically explainable things

What! No planets (too small), no suns (ditto, plus they are flat), no ships (impossible non-newtonian handling and move without fuel and can scoop-up objects bigger than themselves). Wouldn't be much of a game!

Indeed!

A new version (0.14). I'm slowly getting better with this AI stuff. Quite a few details are still a bit fuzzy, but now it looks like I've actually made something that at lest seems to work as intended.

* pirate hermit now has it's own pirate group hanging around with an appointed leader. These pirates use a modified pirate AI that keeps them close to the hermit. Otherwise they should roughly behave as pirates elsewhere do except that they attack hunters instead of running away.
* added "INNER_SYSTEM_OFFPLANE" as one of the possible spawn places for abandoned hermits.

https://app.box.com/s/6df88luzzz7n61b003qml2v6gdu7zwqu

About detecting abandoned hermits. Some of them could get spawned at sane places while others might get spawned to insane distances. Those I would consider as lost ones. Sure they can be searched, but it's not worth the trouble. I would rather like to see it so that rarely the player sees a glitter in the sky and wonders if it could be an abandoned hermit. To investigate or not, that's up to the player.

However, with ZygoUgos ambiance, visual spotting is quite hard and if no-one ever sees/finds one, then we have a problem. As always, I'm all open to suggestions about ways to hint their existence and whereabouts. I'm not very hot about mission screens here, something more corey would be needed. Odd ship communication perhaps? From a miner? How to announce the direction is also a bit of a problem in space.

Have to think about it. Maybe I'll put in a ghost ship constantly flying between the sun and the abandoned hermit .

I've got an idea to help find those abandoned rock hermits. Upon meeting, a miner could send a message to the player saying something like "Hello there. A rumor says there is an abandoned rock hermit about one OU that way." and turn it's heading to the correct direction for a while.

I still think you'd need hermit rep (or something similar) - and are waypoints not usable for finding them?

Is it safe for me to install version 0.14 - or will they still be after my blood?

Cody wrote:

I still think you'd need hermit rep (or something similar) - and are waypoints not usable for finding them?

Waypoints are possible of course, but who would set them? The miner per chance. Would there be some interaction somewhere to get them? Some in-game explanation would be needed here. About the rep, maybe filling the market the hermit market with minerals could trigger the event? Something like: "Thanks for help. If you're interested, I know the location of an abandoned rock hermit a little over two OUs away. Would you like me to setup a waypoint for you?"

Cody wrote:

Is it safe for me to install version 0.14 - or will they still be after my blood?

Hopefully so. If there's still something wrong, then I'm running fast out of ideas.

spara wrote:

About the rep, maybe filling the market the hermit market with minerals could trigger the event? Something like: "Thanks for help. If you're interested, I know the location of an abandoned rock hermit a little over two OUs away. Would you like me to setup a waypoint for you?"

<nods> Something along those lines, yes - though it would certainly need some thought.
I fill hermits' markets with liquors and wines at every opportunity - they like a drink!

I tested finding abandoned hermits by visual scanning (my eyes) and after 45 minutes and about dozen systems later I found one. I'm not sure that's fun. I would like them to be findable, so that if you rally start looking for them, you can find them. For that, I think that limiting them to INNER_SYSTEM_OFFPLANE would be sensible. It's still a huge sphere with center in the sun and radius all the way to the planet.

After vigorous testing, the abandoned hermits are now positioned on planetary orbit. Fun on actually finding them was the primary factor here. It's still not easy, but it's possible.

* Abandoned hermits spawned on planetary orbit. Look closely for glittering around the planet, when you enter the system and you might have found one. Break it, and collect the loot. All systems have these.

Version 0.15: https://app.box.com/s/stxjtwhin1n8gw72mfsxjnttxhgi27o5

I hope this is about it. Let's see how it feels. Are pinatas now too easy to find? Are the drops too generous? And most importantly, is Cody still being hunted by the Killer Pirates From Outer Space?

spara wrote:

And most importantly, is Cody still being hunted by the Killer Pirates From Outer Space?

I'll find out soon enough, I expect. Right now though, my problem is heavy assassins at the Isisan witchpoint - and I ain't got any hardheads!

About fifteen mixed pods per hermit, yes? The few I've seen so far are certainly close-in to the planet - barely beyond the aegis in one case, which was easily spotted.

As for killer pirates - so far, so good. Just got jumped by a heavy bunch, and they all turned yellow when I dropped cargo - though a Wolf continued to fire on me for too long a time. I took exception to that, so I came about sharpish and scooped nearly all the pods I'd just dropped. The strange thing is, they didn't seem to mind - let me go on my merry way, they did. Ideally, they should've objected to that and turned on me again.

spara wrote:

Would you like me to setup a waypoint for you?"

How about if not set to the exact location, but just point to the right way using two lined up waypoints from the player to the target? If you set the orientation of a waypoint then arrows show the direction but in practice this is not enough alone to find anything, but if you place two waypoints in line, for example one at 5km and another at 20km then worth a try. The success depends on the player's accuracy in following the line long way over the second one.

Usage:
1. Select the first waypoint in your advanced compass, go exactly into the blue visual mark and stop.
2. Select the second waypoint in your compass, turn accurately to the mark, then go through and over up to an estimated distance without touching your controls.
3. If you think you are far over the possible destination then stop before turn around to check the size of sun or planet. If you think you are not enugh far then turn until the waypoint shown exactly in the middle of your aft crosshairs before give any speed to your ship again.

Cody wrote:

About fifteen mixed pods per hermit, yes? The few I've seen so far are certainly close-in to the planet - barely beyond the aegis in one case, which was easily spotted.

5-15 random pods. Too easy to find obviously. PLANET_ORBIT is 1-3 radii from surface and I believe the station is at 1 radii. Overall I think that some zone around the planet is the way to go. Then sun positioning won't affect it and you roughly know where to look. Maybe I'll limit the zone to 2-3 radii. Or even 2-4 radii. Then the pinjata wouldn't be right next to the station.

I tested a bit with waypoints and decided to let them go. The whole idea of the miner and waypoints ventures a bit too far from the core game to just be in the spicing zone. It and other non-used ideas discussed here could be part of some other OXP. You know, "Ghost Miners from Outer Space."

I found one using a "cheating" method possible because of a inconsistency of the core game: If you go inside the atmosphere, the sky turns blue and the stars disappear, but you can easily see all the asteroids on your side of the planet, even if they are located halfway to the sun...

Something to consider: If there is one (or even more?) abandoned hermit in every system, and if they keep reappearing randomly, finding them could be a very fast way to make money. My test hermit released 11 pods, including 1 with gold and 2 with gem stones.* For a Jameson, this would be a fortune!

So they should be more difficult to find, more dangerous in some way**, and/or much rarer. And of course they shouldn't reappear, at least not during the same galactic "cycle".

* I did ram a boulder while scooping the pods... that would have killed a Jamson Cobra. Perhaps something in this direction could be made to create danger.

** What I didn't find is a treasure map with hints how to find the ultimate abandoned hermit in the galaxy!

And now I'm off to the pirate hermit, checking the new pirates!