Oolite Bulletins

Gimi wrote:

...but with the amount of work I will have to load upon others It will, at best, take a while.

Well, that's OK!
Xeptatl's Sword was a team effort, with much of the work ultimately done by the team rather than myself alone, and that took about a year to do even with a fairly intensive work rate for most of it.
Quality doesn't come quickly

Gimi wrote:

In good Navy tradition, any Naval pilot that leaves his wingman deserves whatever is handed to him/her.

Oh yes. The few times I win that fight, it's because I manage to get one of the three before the other two have weakened my shields significantly. 2:1 gives the advantage to the Cobra III just because it's so much tougher a ship. 4:1 gives the Sidewinders a huge advantage. (I find 4:1 a pretty tough fight even with the Sidewinders downgraded to pulse lasers, if I play fair)

Gimi wrote:

While I like your design, this is really much to big for what I have in mind. I haven't made my mind up yet, but something the size (or slightly larger) than the current Behemoth is probably closer to the mark. I have thought of a design with a side launching port on either side at the bow and a single rear docking port. But I am still not sure. But something more than twice the size of a Coriolis station is a but much I think. Please see post below to see where I am with HIMSN at the moment.

Scale in Elite (and by extension of course Oolite) has always been a bit... out of whack. According to the original manual information on the Coriolis, it was supposed to have berthing facilities for two thousand ships per face. That's really another discussion though so don't want to derail this thread.

I agree though, was thinking that 2.5km long was a little large myself though. Halving the size of the Komodo, and comparing to a Sidewinder, looks about right. Asps and Constrictors, Transporters for general cargo transport, and Worms for lifeboats and shuttling personnel, still easily fit the docking bays. I had already added four side-facing dedicated launch bays as well, for rapid deployment of squadrons in combat situations.



And a little flavour background text for perusal...

Komodo-Class Fleet Carrier

There were eight of the 1250m long Komodo-Class Fleet Carriers built for service in Her Imperial Majesty's Space Navy, though two have been lost over the decades in the ongoing conflict with the Thargoid menace and one, the HIMS Celeste, vanished without trace after making a witchspace jump. The still undisclosed government designers of the Komodo were given specifications which included the ease of retrofitting, which have meant that the oldest of these Fleet Carriers and Navy's flagship, the HIMS Argus, whilst being over 180 years old, is still kept up-to-date in terms of technological advancement.

The five remaining Komodo-Class Fleet Carriers travel between the various intergalactic hot spots of Thargoid activity throughout the Eight galactic charts and are rarely if ever seen by civilians, except on the 20th of September when one of the Fleet Carriers is displayed in the Galactic Navy parade through Lave and nearby Old World systems, the large public attendance of which is said to generate a large amount of the HIMSN's annual revenue.

The Komodo has two docking bays on the forward prongs and a third docking bay on the stern below the control tower and main crew service area. In addition, four smaller dedicated launch bays along the prong sides to port and starboard are for available for rapid deployment of squadrons.

(Historical fact: The HMS Argus was the first ever aircraft carrier so thought it would be a good name to use)

Storm wrote:

I agree though, was thinking that 2.5km long was a little large myself though. Halving the size of the Komodo, and comparing to a Sidewinder, looks about right. Asps and Constrictors, Transporters for general cargo transport, and Worms for lifeboats and shuttling personnel, still easily fit the docking bays. I had already added four side-facing dedicated launch bays as well, for rapid deployment of squadrons in combat situations.

Storm, this is a lot closer to the picture in my mind. How much am I allowed to ask for in the form of experimentation and changes?

Would you consider removing the front bays and adding sensor and antenna related bits and bobs there and maybe flatten the bow a bit?
Shorten the ship some more.
Make a stern docking bay of standard size so that any core player ship can dock. (Future missions)
Maybe even join the two front talons to narrow it.

(I feel very much like I'm stepping on your toes here Storm. Feel free to inform me with four letter words if I'm out of line.)

Gimi wrote:

-It shall be a navy, not police. This means that if you are a fugitive, the navy won't bother you. However, if you do commit a crime in their presence they might report you to the police and you could find that your legal status changes suddenly when the report reaches GALCOP.
-Navy presence in the Ooniverse is limited. They are off fighting the Thargoids. You won't see much of them unless you actively seek them out.

If you're opening fire on nearby ships, I'd expect navy ships to to be more likely to defend them than to just toss a fine your way. Thargoid menace may also include Thargoids that have suborned non-Thargoids and their ships. This doesn't mean I expect you're likely to see any Navy ships anywhere besides at (or heading to) their few bases/stations. So you might see one or 2 in the same system as a base, heading to it...or extremely rarely in another system making a quick pit-stop before they jump to the next system. From the bases, navy ships might go to the main station, scoop fuel off the star, or just hyperspace out from near the base. Depends on how they manage their infrastructure and logistics as to which navy ships scoops fuel.

Gimi wrote:

-No special weapons beyond what is already in the core game.

Which still leaves hardhead ECM-resistant missiles as a common weapon to support the probable military lasers they use...or the occasional q-bomb for really nasty work. And there's also the cloaking device that a couple (but not all!) Constrictors might have in a very special mission. Military Jammer is remotely possible, but needs a plot purpose rather than "Hey that's cool, let's add it too!"

Gimi wrote:

To make this plausible, and also to prepare fore future missions in the OXP, I have concluded that some type of dockable capital ships (carriers) are needed.

Dockable carriers only work *IF* you're using them to create the illusion of galactic hyperspace misjumps or a means to reach normally "unreachable" places like Ditere (in Galaxy Chart 3)...though that may not be possible in v1.77, cross the Great Rift (in Galaxy Chart 7), or Oresrati (in Galaxy Chart . A carrier can do multiple jumps/misjumps via clever scripting to reach such systems, assuming game bugs don't cause the whole game to crash-to-desktop. I've been working on extremely complex "superjump" logic for my unfinished (for other reasons) Null Gates OXP that can be converted to work with carriers.

Gimi wrote:

Navy stations. (HQ and Outpost)
Basic scripting and and AI behaviour.

Version 2: (Thargoid Interaction)
War zones with the Thargoids
Capital ships
Additional stations (Navy Shipyard and maybe some mission related type of station)

As for stations, even canon Elite doesn't preclude the existence of some other stations...like what the Navy might have. But I think the Navy mostly just uses the regular main stations for much of their logistics. Only a few locations will have a special Navy station and small local defense force. Basically small ships that can't jump, like Sidewinders...and maybe (sometimes) a recently arrived small task force. Up to you how big such a task force will be.

Remote outposts can consist of little more than barely-modified Rock Hermits, possibly hidden in large asteroid fields in extremely remote places. You don't find these places...you only reach them if taken there!

This sounds highly interesting! If someone could send me basic textures for the ships used, I could give it a nice paint job. Small modification of my 249th stellar camo pattern for the SPECOPS ships oughta work just fine, and I'll have to look at the textures and ships to figure out the others...

Rese249er wrote:

This sounds highly interesting! If someone could send me basic textures for the ships used, I could give it a nice paint job. Small modification of my 249th stellar camo pattern for the SPECOPS ships oughta work just fine, and I'll have to look at the textures and ships to figure out the others...

The textures don't exist, we are not there yet. Also, to keep things uniform I don't think a camo pattern is the way to go. I'm leaning towards just white / very light gray and dark gray/black for the constrictor (At least for the shaded Griff version). For the Smivs ships version I'm rather unsure what will work well.

Switeck wrote:

Gimi wrote:

-It shall be a navy, not police. This means that if you are a fugitive, the navy won't bother you. However, if you do commit a crime in their presence they might report you to the police and you could find that your legal status changes suddenly when the report reaches GALCOP.
-Navy presence in the Ooniverse is limited. They are off fighting the Thargoids. You won't see much of them unless you actively seek them out.

If you're opening fire on nearby ships, I'd expect navy ships to to be more likely to defend them than to just toss a fine your way.

I want there to be a distinct diffrence between the Navy and the Police, so I'm not going to yield on this one if I have a say in it.

Switeck wrote:

Gimi wrote:

-No special weapons beyond what is already in the core game.

Which still leaves hardhead ECM-resistant missiles as a common weapon to support the probable military lasers they use...or the occasional q-bomb for really nasty work. And there's also the cloaking device that a couple (but not all!) Constrictors might have in a very special mission. Military Jammer is remotely possible, but needs a plot purpose rather than "Hey that's cool, let's add it too!"

The Military jammer is not supported in Oolite and will not figure in HIMSN. Appart from that I expect that all the constrictors will have cloaking devices, but there won't be many constrictors.

Switeck wrote:

Gimi wrote:

To make this plausible, and also to prepare fore future missions in the OXP, I have concluded that some type of dockable capital ships (carriers) are needed.

Dockable carriers only work *IF* you're using them to create the illusion of galactic hyperspace misjumps or a means to reach normally "unreachable" places like Ditere (in Galaxy Chart 3)...though that may not be possible in v1.77, cross the Great Rift (in Galaxy Chart 7), or Oresrati (in Galaxy Chart . A carrier can do multiple jumps/misjumps via clever scripting to reach such systems, assuming game bugs don't cause the whole game to crash-to-desktop. I've been working on extremely complex "superjump" logic for my unfinished (for other reasons) Null Gates OXP that can be converted to work with carriers.

I don't fully agree with you regarding the illusion of galactic hyperspace misjumps etc... Where battles take place is still unknown, and could just as easily be 2 hours on torus out from Diso as in interstellar or intergalactic space. The illusion I want to create is one of navy fleets, mobility and the Navy being capable of bringing the battle to the Thargoids rather than the other way around. In addition, carriers will allow for flexibility when/if creating missions.

Switeck wrote:

Gimi wrote:

Navy stations. (HQ and Outpost)
Basic scripting and and AI behaviour.

Version 2: (Thargoid Interaction)
War zones with the Thargoids
Capital ships
Additional stations (Navy Shipyard and maybe some mission related type of station)

As for stations, even canon Elite doesn't preclude the existence of some other stations...like what the Navy might have. But I think the Navy mostly just uses the regular main stations for much of their logistics. Only a few locations will have a special Navy station and small local defense force. Basically small ships that can't jump, like Sidewinders...and maybe (sometimes) a recently arrived small task force. Up to you how big such a task force will be.

Remote outposts can consist of little more than barely-modified Rock Hermits, possibly hidden in large asteroid fields in extremely remote places. You don't find these places...you only reach them if taken there!

I disagree. The Navy, in my view, is very careful to stay out of GALCOP buisness and try to avoid using GALCOP facilities as much as possible. (Clear distinction between Navy and Police/GALCOP again). As for locations of Navy stations, they will be far and few between, but at least one facility pr Galaxy, hidden or visible. Navy logistics and replenishment during deployment and operations is a diffrent matter, and I have some ideas, but nothing substantial. (Do a picture search "Navy RAS" for a clue.)
I fully agree with your point on remote navy outposts though.

Gimi wrote:

Rese249er wrote:

...dark gray/black for the constrictor...

The 249th sports a dark coat of paint with very faint fractal patterns to further confuse the eyes.

Gimi wrote:

For the Smivs ships version I'm rather unsure what will work well.

Well, I did an Asp for Ramirez' Iron Raven in black and white which turned out quite well, so that is a possibility.



The standard Constrictor is already a dark grey, and with a few mods will fit the bill nicely I think.

Smivs wrote:

Gimi wrote:

For the Smivs ships version I'm rather unsure what will work well.

Well, I did an Asp for Ramirez' Iron Raven in black and white which turned out quite well, so that is a possibility.

The standard Constrictor is already a dark grey, and with a few mods will fit the bill nicely I think.

Black and white is too much like old fashioned Police cars, so that does not work. Your constrictor is in my view the best ship in your ship-set. You cold try to do a "negative" of that paint job on the Asp with the tine yellow stripes along the welds just to see what that looks like.

Gimi wrote:

I want there to be a distinct diffrence between the Navy and the Police, so I'm not going to yield on this one if I have a say in it.

[fictioneer mode] Navy don't give a monkey's cojones about GalCop - they've got their own agenda! [/fictioneer mode]

Gimi wrote:

could just as easily be 2 hours on torus out from Diso as in interstellar or intergalactic space.

2 hours * 0.35LM * 32 ~= 8*10⁷ oometres. That's far enough out from the witchpoint that the fabric of space-time is beginning to break down. You probably shouldn't put anything there.

cim wrote:

Gimi wrote:

could just as easily be 2 hours on torus out from Diso as in interstellar or intergalactic space.

2 hours * 0.35LM * 32 ~= 8*10⁷ oometres. That's far enough out from the witchpoint that the fabric of space-time is beginning to break down. You probably shouldn't put anything there.

How far can I go?

El Viejo wrote:

Gimi wrote:

I want there to be a distinct diffrence between the Navy and the Police, so I'm not going to yield on this one if I have a say in it.

[fictioneer mode] Navy don't give a monkey's cojones about GalCop - they've got their own agenda! [/fictioneer mode]

I think that's valid. Which is not to say that the Navy might not get involved in rooting out a nest of particularly troublesome pirates, if (say) those pirates had started to threaten vital supply lines in the war against the bugs. But day-to-day, they should have other things on their minds.