The Oolite NPC ecosystem (and other questions)

[CheeseRedux]

Burn the heretic!

[cim]

Hmm ... it's verging on heresy but perhaps it would be worth introducing a low-value Industrial trade good?

I think "no", to this specific idea, because any noticeable changes to pricing structure would be an implicit [1] compatibility break for a lot of OXPs (station-adding OXPs most obviously). Therefore I think a change the way commodities worked would need to fix all the problems with the current set up, not just this one, and even then it might not be worth the cost. And, of course, there's the heresy aspect too.

I don't think the lack of a low-price Industrial good is necessarily that big a deal: it's really only a problem until you've made your first thousand credits: after that point you can afford to drop a few TCs of Computers and still probably break even from the rest of your hold.

[1] I don't think I've distinguished them this way before, so:
Explicit compatibility break: a function or method an OXP previously used is either gone or works sufficiently differently that it can't be said to be "doing the same thing". These are almost completely forbidden for stable releases even if doing it would make other things easier. (Not completely: I'd put "energy bomb removal" in this category, for instance)
Implicit compatibility break: the context of an operation has changed so that a piece of an OXP which did one thing still pedantically does that thing, but the meaning of that is different and not in keeping with the original intent - e.g. most of these. These are somewhat inevitable as a result of changing anything between stable versions other than perhaps adding new JS methods and properties (and might even be intentional), but are still generally to be avoided where possible.

[Disembodied]

I think "no", to this specific idea, because any noticeable changes to pricing structure would be an implicit [1] compatibility break for a lot of OXPs (station-adding OXPs most obviously). Therefore I think a change the way commodities worked would need to fix all the problems with the current set up, not just this one, and even then it might not be worth the cost. And, of course, there's the heresy aspect too.

Yes - it would be opening a very big can of worms to crack a very small nut (heretics love mixed metaphors ...).

[Switeck]

Umm.. this is GalCop we're talking about...

a) They don't pay retail prices
b) They probably manufacture their own

Okay ... let's call it 200Cr. a time, then. Still too expensive to be useful. A hardhead or a hundred hardheads; either way it's only going to destroy an unprepared and under-equipped attacker - and the Viper patrols can do that more cheaply.

Hardhead missiles represent a considerable threat to me even at range. I am forced to flee and attempt to ECM and/or shoot it, or likely die on its impact. I often drain ~2 energy banks (~64 energy?) trying to ECM it.

The loss of even a single "plain" Viper (and pilot!) is easily more costly than quite a few hardhead missiles. Against a serious attacker, the number of Vipers needed to effectively deal with it makes the cost comparison worse.
The issue isn't either/or -- if GalCop has more than trivial issues with Thargoids, they'd want Viper Interceptors and hardhead missiles to defend their main stations from Thargoid swarms.

Even regular missiles force a would-be attacker to waste energy on ECM or evasive maneuvers that might give more time to launch Vipers. A mix of regular and hardhead missiles could keep costs down.

A head-on pass with a pirate can result in near-instant death if the pirate fires a regular missile at or near closest approach -- there simply isn't enough time to manually activate the ECM. Automatic anti-missile countermeasures can reduce the risk, but those are all OXPs...varying from very effective to a sad joke, with their costs often not matching their effectiveness.

A new, poorly-equipped player doesn't need to run into a pirate group to get screwed over.
Any fight a new player has with a pirate is likely to cause "press space" if the pirate fires a missile.
Economics and rational-actor-wise, a pirate should generally flee before wasting a precious missile that they probably can't just go to the main station to replace. Some pirates should be low or out of missiles from earlier fights even if their ship is capable of carrying them.

Thargoid groups to me are far less of a risk to fight than pirate groups due to non-OXP Thargoids lacking "real" missiles.

[cim]

Hardhead missiles represent a considerable threat to me even at range. I am forced to flee and attempt to ECM and/or shoot it, or likely die on its impact. I often drain ~2 energy banks (~64 energy?) trying to ECM it.

Or a few deci-LY of fuel injecting out of range, waiting, then returning, which is what well-equipped NPCs do in that situation. (That said, if you have a group of attackers, they can overlap ECM coverage and overwhelm even hardheads pretty easily - lock up 4 ECM-equipped targets with your Multi-Targeting System, and then fire all four missiles in succession: you'll be lucky if any of them survive the initial ECM burst)

The issue isn't either/or -- if GalCop has more than trivial issues with Thargoids, they'd want Viper Interceptors and hardhead missiles to defend their main stations from Thargoid swarms.

And if Galcop could afford to do that they'd probably have Interceptors at more than the higher-TL systems in the first place. Hardheads are a bit superfluous on an Interceptor, when their military laser will do the same amount of damage, more reliably, in just over a second. Of course, the military laser is pretty expensive too...

Any fight a new player has with a pirate is likely to cause "press space" if the pirate fires a missile.

Maybe. Most pirates with missiles stand a fair chance of also having ECM, so firing one back can be a usable early-game countermeasure. (Probably a better one in 1.79, where group members will ECM for each other)

Economics and rational-actor-wise, a pirate should generally flee before wasting a precious missile

That's pretty much what they already do - they won't usually fire a missile until fairly low on energy, by which point it's pretty clear that they're not going to win the fight any other way.
That said: while NPCs don't currently take equipment damage while shields are down for the obvious reason, there's a convincing argument economically that you should be using your missiles before it gets too bad: repairs to pretty much any single ship system will cost more than one hardhead or any plausible number of ordinary missiles.

Also, rational-actor-wise: lone pirates should not attack a Cobra Mk III in the first place unless they know it's underequipped, and they won't in future.

Some pirates should be low or out of missiles from earlier fights even if their ship is capable of carrying them.

Yes, that's certainly true - at least in the safer systems where they're not in big enough packs to win by intimidation. I hadn't added that to the populator yet, but I will. Thanks.

[Diziet Sma]

Umm.. this is GalCop we're talking about...

a) They don't pay retail prices
b) They probably manufacture their own

Okay ... let's call it 200Cr. a time, then. Still too expensive to be useful.

Actually, if it's anything like the real-world situations I've seen, it's more like this:

Manufacturer builds item for cost A
Manufacture sells to to distributor for A+A=B
Distributor sells to retailer for B+B=C
Retailer sells to customer for C+C=D

100% markup at each stage seems typical, at least in the areas I've worked in.

Therefore, actual cost to manufacture a missile which sells to the public for 350Cr would be 43.75Cr. Even if GalCop don't make their own and instead buy direct from the manufacturer, the cost would be 87.50Cr, and that's assuming they don't negotiate for a bulk discount, which they'd be crazy not to.

[Disembodied]

Therefore, actual cost to manufacture a missile which sells to the public for 350Cr would be 43.75Cr. Even if GalCop don't make their own and instead buy direct from the manufacturer, the cost would be 87.50Cr, and that's assuming they don't negotiate for a bulk discount, which they'd be crazy not to.

Hmm ... military costs can be a special case, though:

In hearings before the House Committee on Armed Services in 1984 – and in addition to showing that $750 was paid per toilet seat – the prices of ordinary tools at retail level were compared with defense contractors’ prices, for 21 items. At your neighborhood hardware store, screwdrivers, wrenches and the like all sold for less than $13, and many under $5. The defense contractors sold none for less than $225 (a screwdriver, retailing for under $3), and their highest price was $1,150 (a wrench, retail price $4.88). The total retail price for the 21 items was $92.44; but from the contractors, $10,168.00.
—W. Adams & J. Brock, The Bigness Complex: Industry, Labor, and Government in the American Economy (New York: Pantheon, 1986)

[JazHaz]

Hmm ... military costs can be a special case, though:

In hearings before the House Committee on Armed Services in 1984 – and in addition to showing that $750 was paid per toilet seat – the prices of ordinary tools at retail level were compared with defense contractors’ prices, for 21 items. At your neighborhood hardware store, screwdrivers, wrenches and the like all sold for less than $13, and many under $5. The defense contractors sold none for less than $225 (a screwdriver, retailing for under $3), and their highest price was $1,150 (a wrench, retail price $4.88). The total retail price for the 21 items was $92.44; but from the contractors, $10,168.00.
—W. Adams & J. Brock, The Bigness Complex: Industry, Labor, and Government in the American Economy (New York: Pantheon, 1986)

Hmm that might explain this quote from the Independence Day film from 1996:

You don't actually think they spend 20,000 on a hammer, 30,000 on a toilet seat do ya?

[Diziet Sma]

You beat me to it, JazHaz!

Those prices were about burying Black Ops spending.. not overcharging.

[CheeseRedux]

Then, on the other hand (and this is all from memory, so may not be all that accurate):

There's a scene in West Wing where the "military pays $$$$ for $ items" issue came up. One of the characters whips out a hammer and smashes the glass ashtray on his desk, breaking it cleanly into two or three big chunks. He the proceeds to explain that the ashtray came from a submarine, where it would be rather Bad News™ to have ten gazillion tiny glass pieces flying around after performing a crash dive.

In short: Sometimes there's a good reason for that price tag.


ETA: Looks like memory is still in working order: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7R9kH_HOUXM

[Disembodied]

There's a scene in West Wing where the "military pays $$$$ for $ items" issue came up. One of the characters whips out a hammer and smashes the glass ashtray on his desk, breaking it cleanly into two or three big chunks. He the proceeds to explain that the ashtray came from a submarine, where it would be rather Bad News™ to have ten gazillion tiny glass pieces flying around after performing a crash dive.

Hum ... I would have thought it rather Bad News™ to have people smoking on a submarine, myself - enclosed environment, limited oxygen supply, a desire for a reduction in unnecessary fire hazards, etc. – but I see from a quick Google that the USA only introduced a smoking ban on its submarines in 2011. Smoking used to be allowed on Royal Navy submarines, but they've recently done away with that too.

There is another reason why the military pays huge sums for regular items, and it's not got anything to do with burying black ops spending: that is just the cover for spectacular, hysterical amounts of incompetence and corruption and more incompetence. Hence: aircraft carriers that don't carry aircraft, submarines that rust if you get them wet, boots that melt, etc. etc.

But to drag things back topic-wards: it's perfectly possible that GalCop is paying well over the odds for hardheads. Or even, perhaps, is unwilling to use hardheads on their stations and ships because of other factors, e.g. military conservatism/inertia (the continued attempts to use cavalry in World War I would be an example). Or perhaps they're reluctant to launch powered ordnance in busy docking areas. Or perhaps planetary governments are unwilling to let Galcop ships and stations pop off missiles in orbit.

Ultimately, justifications can be made either way. The important thing is to make the right gameplay decision - are hardheads more fun than Vipers, or vice-versa? - and justify it afterwards.

[Cody]

... are hardheads more fun than Vipers, or vice-versa?

Oh Vipers are much more fun - and they'd be even more fun if they had escape pods.

[cim]

... are hardheads more fun than Vipers, or vice-versa?

Oh Vipers are much more fun - and they'd be even more fun if they had escape pods.

I added those on Monday. They're surprisingly reluctant to actually use them, because the ejection code only really works on NPC ships with at least 4 energy banks. Some retraining is in progress...

Hardheads certainly aren't a fun way to defend anything - as an occasional surprise in combat from a ship that should be a little tougher to destroy, and to reward anti-missile measures other than automatically hitting E, yes, but as a defense mechanism they're frustrating without being effective.

[Cody]

I added those on Monday.

Sweet!

They're surprisingly reluctant to actually use them [...] Some retraining is in progress...

Ahh... poor Viper jocks!

[cim]

Okay - here's my current thoughts on the player role assessment based on what's been said so far: any further comments?

There's a list, starting with 16 entries, increasing in size to 32 at Competent and to 64 at Elite. Initial start for a new savegame: all entries filled with "player-unknown"

Assessment: ship retrieves role list, processes according to AI needs. "player-unknown" is a pirate victim role. Most likely tests are "get largest role", "pick random role" and "check for any presence of role". It's fine for the ship to do this once when spawned; while the role could change while the player is in a system, no-one has to pay attention to it.

There's a system list 4 systems long, of recently visited systems. At "Above Average", "Dangerous" and "Elite" the length of this list doubles. Every time you visit a system not on the list, one of the entries at random gets turned back to "player-unknown" (it might already be that, of course). Exception: trader-courier cannot be reset this way, and there will be a way to mark OXP-generated roles as similarly "long-range".

If you buy a new ship or use an escape pod, 50% of entries go back to "player-unknown"; 90% get reset on galactic witchspace. (Reduced to 25%/50% if Deadly, 10%/25% if Elite)

The following actions will take a random entry and turn it to the role stated (again, it might already be that). Remember that these actions are not (much) about assessing competence at the role, as there are other better mechanisms for that:
trader: +1 for entering witchspace with only legal goods on board, if bought some legal goods in that system. Extra +1 if carrying >20TC or full hold (still requires buying in-system). +1 for accepting legal cargo contract, +1 for completing it
trader-courier: +1 for accepting passenger contract, +1 for completing passenger/parcel contract on time, +1 for accepting parcel contract if previously had none.
trader-smuggler: +1 for entering witchspace with illegal goods on board (only if bought some illegal goods in that system), +1 if bounty increased on launch as result of cargo, extra +1 if carrying >20TC or full hold of illegal goods. +1 for accepting illegal cargo contract, +1 for completing it
hunter: +1 for attacking an offender/fugitive ship not currently in combat (max twice per system)
pirate: +1 for attacking a pirate-victim-role ship (or escort) not currently in combat (max twice per system)
pirate-interceptor: +1 for attacking a hunter/police ship not currently in combat (max twice per system)
miner: +1 for destroying an asteroid with a mining laser (max twice per system)

In addition to the main question of "who attacks the player", other core uses could include:
- accidental-looking friendly fire more likely to be ignored if the player's role matches (or nearly matches) the NPC's role
- if the police see a Clean (or minor Offender) pirate, and it won't take them too far off their patrol, they'll follow them.