Oolite Bulletins

Have a look at the  Factions OXP, ioannis.

El Viejo wrote:

Have a look at the  Factions OXP, ioannis.

Looks great, thanks. Infighting, then.

Interesting idea.. somebody (with lots more talent than me) might be interested in OXPing that.. or.. why not take a shot at it yourself? If you do, there's loads of help available here..

Diziet Sma wrote:

Interesting idea.. somebody (with lots more talent than me) might be interested in OXPing that

I know that feeling!

The interstellar wars idea made me think of a particular type of table-top wargame: the "meat grinder". This is where when one unit is destroyed, it is replaced back on the table edge as a new unit. (Score is kept of who wipes out most units to determine the winner.)

An OXP equivalent may be a ship from one system (or a random pirate or a random Thargoid) hyperspaces into a fixed point in the space lane and a ship from another system (or a random GalCop or a random Navy ship) hyperspaces at a fixed point 30 km away. Every time one is killed, it is replaced. Start out with between 2 to 5 of each to begin with, and just let it keep running all the time the pilot is in the system. A never-ending furball.

A downside is the amount of cargo and alloys floating about will eventually slow the game right down.

SandJ wrote:

Every time one is killed, it is replaced. Start out with between 2 to 5 of each to begin with, and just let it keep running all the time the pilot is in the system. A never-ending furball.

clever! me like.

SandJ wrote:

A downside is the amount of cargo and alloys floating about will eventually slow the game right down.

No big problem - have them ships not carry any cargo, not produce debris (or exploding debris) (not sure about that one), use custom roles not being pirate victims.

El Viejo wrote:

Have a look at the  Factions OXP, ioannis.

Hmm.. how'd I miss that one? Looks fun!

Teams from anarchy, feudal, dictatorship, and communist systems approach the midpoint of the space lane and start fighting, They only fight with ships of opposing factions.

Shouldn't democracies be in there mixing it up as well?.. they always seem to want to enforce their way of life on others tell other societies how they should live..

Diziet Sma wrote:

Shouldn't democracies be in there mixing it up as well?.. they always seem to want to enforce their way of life on others tell other societies how they should live..

<chortles> Shouldn't you have a custom avatar by now, Diz? Mind you, I don't miss your previous sig... heh!

Yeah.. been thinking about that very thing.. (not the sig, though..)

cim wrote:

What Elite doesn't have (and so nor does Oolite) is a large combat vessel. Freighters/Traders go right up from tiny scavengers like the Adder, light trader vessels like the Moray or Cobra I, up to proper bulk freight ships like a Python or Anaconda. Combat ships, on the other hand, there's plenty of light fighters like the Sidewinder or Mamba, and plenty of medium/heavy fighters like the Asp or the Viper Interceptor.

What there isn't is the sort of battleship role - slow, deadly, with heavy shields. Something like that has to come from OXPs, and most of them aren't flyable by the player (most of them won't fit in the docking bay) - [wiki]Galactic Navy OXP[/wiki] has the Navy Transports - Anaconda hulls completely stripped and rebuilt for combat, and it really does make a difference to their performance! - and Frigates, and there's also the [wiki]Behemoth[/wiki] for a carrier vessel. (It also lets you fly missions alongside these ships against Thargoids, which is a nice way to see some of those "heavy battleship versus pack of tiny ships" fights, as the Thargons start swarming...

There is one semi-large vessel that's slightly more suited for heavy "slugging-it-out" combat than the Cobra 3 -- the Boa 2 Light Cruiser. It's faster than some fighter types (Gecko, Krait, Moray, Fer-de-Lance) and slightly more maneuverable than a Cobra 3. The amount of beating it can take when fully decked out with equipment (extra shield boosters, naval energy unit, or npc equivalents...especially NPC-shields OXP by Commander McLane) is considerably greater than all other regular ships. Only the Anaconda, Boa 1, and Python have nearly as much base energy...but none of them can (normally!) have military shields. You could overheat a military laser on one, never missing a shot, and not kill it. A maxed-out Boa 2 can survive an energy bomb. (...which will soon be removed from regular games.) Where many of the "fighter" types carry only 0-2 missiles, it carries 5. You can find maxed-out Boa 2 pirates in ToughGuys OXP by Smivs. A slightly weak Boa 2 pirate or freighter (beam lasers instead of military lasers and not always both shield upgrades) can be found in my Switeck's Shipping OXP. IMO, these are more appropriate in the "medium-to-heavy" ship role for Galactic Navy than the Frigates actually found in Galactic Navy OXP...simply because unlike Frigates, Boa 2's are still small enough to dock at regular stations. Likewise, if Boa 2's were Galactic Navy ships, they would vastly outnumber the rare, very expensive Behemoths. If 1 wasn't dangerous enough, a small fleet of them would be!

A hypothetical heavy cruiser or battleship would need something stronger than a standard military laser as its main weapon. Multiple military lasers for each facing might do, but that still seems weak. A secondary battery of plasma turrets and/or missiles would be appropriate as well.

ioannis wrote:

As for shields, perhaps some equipment that immediately empties, say, two energy banks in order to immediately "fill" one shield (front or rear or half of each, perhaps some equipment in combination with the "shield equalizer", or standalone) could exist. Something like an "Emergency Shield Energy transfer", perhaps? it would be cheap, but it would in effect be useable almost completely by large ship pilots (Player Ships).

There's a couple OXPs that can fill that role. I use Naval Grid OXP, which increases shield regeneration at the price of considerably higher energy consumption. It reduces how long shields take to back to max, but if I'm constantly taking hits...it won't prolong the fight by much. It's only available (and only works?) if you have BOTH a naval energy unit and military shield boosters.

snork wrote:

SandJ wrote:

A downside is the amount of cargo and alloys floating about will eventually slow the game right down.

No big problem - have them ships not carry any cargo, not produce debris (or exploding debris) (not sure about that one), use custom roles not being pirate victims.

My Switeck's Shipping OXP can reduce that as well...lots of traders and most pirates scoop cargo, alloy, and escape pods if they see it.

Switeck wrote:

There is one semi-large vessel that's slightly more suited for heavy "slugging-it-out" combat than the Cobra 3 -- the Boa 2 Light Cruiser. {...} IMO, these are more appropriate in the "medium-to-heavy" ship role for Galactic Navy than the Frigates actually found in Galactic Navy OXP...simply because unlike Frigates, Boa 2's are still small enough to dock at regular stations. Likewise, if Boa 2's were Galactic Navy ships, they would vastly outnumber the rare, very expensive Behemoths. If 1 wasn't dangerous enough, a small fleet of them would be!

I'd forgotten that they could fit Military Shields - with that, yes, they can do the heavy fighter role quite well. Energy recharge rate is a bit low for a fighter, though that appears to be their only weakness on the Cobra 3 (well, and they're bigger targets, but that's to be expected). They'd make excellent blockade runners, too, with that cargo bay.

The Frigate is just a really badly-designed ship for the "heavy fighter" role, because its only weapons are plasma turrets. Anyone with a laser can just sit outside its range and there's not much it can do. This is partly an AI deficiency, though. It usually comes with 4 Navy Vipers, each with their own military lasers. If those Vipers stayed close-in to the Frigate, or even slightly behind it with respect to the action, then they could use the superior range and firepower of their lasers to concentrate a lot of damage on enemy capital ships. Meanwhile the Frigate uses its plasma turrets and strong hull to cover them from dogfighters and Thargons. Not really possible with the current AI commands, unfortunately.

Switeck wrote:

A hypothetical heavy cruiser or battleship {...}

Have you seen the Raptor Assault Frigates from "To Catch a Thargoid"? They fit this description pretty well.

cim wrote:

I'd forgotten that they could fit Military Shields - with that, yes, they can do the heavy fighter role quite well. Energy recharge rate is a bit low for a fighter, though that appears to be their only weakness on the Cobra 3 (well, and they're bigger targets, but that's to be expected). They'd make excellent blockade runners, too, with that cargo bay.

Keep in mind the default energy regeneration of 3.2 is the value BEFORE adding a naval energy unit or military shield boosters. After the naval energy unit, energy regeneration is 8.32 ...I'm not sure how much the military shield boosters adds or multiplies that by.

cim wrote:

The Frigate is just a really badly-designed ship for the "heavy fighter" role, because its only weapons are plasma turrets.

Giving the Frigate lots of hardhead missiles can make its short-ranged plasma turrets a non-issue. However without using .js scripting it's impossible to give an NPC ship more than 32 missiles.

cim wrote:

Switeck wrote:

A hypothetical heavy cruiser or battleship {...}

Have you seen the Raptor Assault Frigates from "To Catch a Thargoid"? They fit this description pretty well.

I haven't played most (or really any) mission OXPs.

cim wrote:

The Frigate is just a really badly-designed ship for the "heavy fighter" role, because its only weapons are plasma turrets. Anyone with a laser can just sit outside its range and there's not much it can do. This is partly an AI deficiency, though. It usually comes with 4 Navy Vipers, each with their own military lasers. If those Vipers stayed close-in to the Frigate, or even slightly behind it with respect to the action, then they could use the superior range and firepower of their lasers to concentrate a lot of damage on enemy capital ships. Meanwhile the Frigate uses its plasma turrets and strong hull to cover them from dogfighters and Thargons. Not really possible with the current AI commands, unfortunately.

It's been a long time since I used Galactic Navy, but from memory I believe the Navy Frigate also has missiles, although I'm not sure if they are standard or HardHeads. I would assume the Navy use HardHeads as the standard missile is a bit of a waste of space really.

Switeck wrote:

Keep in mind the default energy regeneration of 3.2 is the value BEFORE adding a naval energy unit or military shield boosters. After the naval energy unit, energy regeneration is 8.32

True, though a Cobra3 or Asp would be 10.4 in the same circumstances, and get up to a respectable 7.2 with only a standard energy unit. A Fer-de-lance with a standard energy unit would be 8.1, which is basically the same as a naval-equipped Boa II. It's not a particularly major weakness, anyway.

Switeck wrote:

cim wrote:

The Frigate is just a really badly-designed ship for the "heavy fighter" role, because its only weapons are plasma turrets.

Giving the Frigate lots of hardhead missiles can make its short-ranged plasma turrets a non-issue. However without using .js scripting it's impossible to give an NPC ship more than 32 missiles.

True, though then you're more talking "static support platform" than "fighter". (It does have a nice number of missiles, but sadly not hardened ones)

Switeck wrote:

cim wrote:

Switeck wrote:

A hypothetical heavy cruiser or battleship {...}

Have you seen the Raptor Assault Frigates from "To Catch a Thargoid"? They fit this description pretty well.

I haven't played most (or really any) mission OXPs.

If you add the OXP, they can occasionally appear in system, and also in witchspace (both most especially if alien ships are also around). This is entirely independent of having done the mission.

The ships are designed and written as anti-alien vessels, with any mopping up of fugitives etc being entirely co-incidental.

Hm, asking around does yield interesting results, it seems. A good number of OXPs I did not know about.
Regarding the wars oxp, however, I think it would take an experienced modder to actually pull it off. It would require some link to the Bloomberg oxp, as well as other oxps, such as behemoths (if the war was to escalate from skirmishes to full scale, I assume the big guns would be called in).
Another suggestion to create a more changing envirorment would be placing a tax. This could vary according to the system. For example, Corporate (safer) systems would have a higher tax, whereas less safe systems would have a lower tax. This could be payed upon entering a station, and it could be based on the ship and/or the value of goods that the cargo has. I think there is already an oxp that makes the player hand over slaves, firearms and narcotics for consumpt.... er, confiscation from the Galcop.
Such an oxp could change many things, since the player would have to calculate the intermediate stops he would make (if any, the extra fuel tanks could be very helpful here), as well as the net profit from the sale he would eventually make.
It would also be very profitable (even more so than it is now) to go and sell goods in anarchies (perhaps no tax would be imposed there), but one would not net a good profit trading from one corporate world to another.