Split: Cheat OXPs

[Smivs]

Smivs targeted his words to the new players, I think the best place to these is the Recommended OXPs section of the wiki...

That is what I was thinking. This text could replace the existing text, and then the current text and the 'personal' lists could be relocated either after this section, or further down the page. The actual list of recommended OXPs does not exist yet, but depending on what we end up with it could go under my text on the page, or be a linked sub-page if it is very long.

[Commander McLane]

…Long Rang Scanner …

This may very well also be on my personal list of cheat OXPs. However, I haven't compiled an actual list. I haven't even taken an accurate count, because my usual way of dealing with "smells like cheat" OXPs is to lose interest in them and try to ignore them best as I can. The only thing that I know is that I have invoked this on a great many OXPs during the last few years; and a couple of them had to do with making the system transparent and accessible to the player above and beyond the scanner range.

But this demonstrates an inherent danger in releasing "cheaty" OXPs without clearly declaring them as such: it moves the sign posts and obscures the cheaty nature of cheats. The next member with newfound OXPing powers comes along and takes a look at the existing OXPs. "Oh, OXPs A and B and C are cool. They're not marked as cheats, so they must be perfectly balanced. If I do something similar, everything will be fine." Thus it reinforces the attitude of not-caring-about-balance or not-even-knowing-that-balance-is-an-issue in new OXPers. OXPers lose (or never develop in the first place) the ability to tune their OXPs to the balance of the core game, or to even care about balance at all, because the unbalanced precedents have begun to become the norm.

It is suggested that players new to the game should be careful when choosing OXPs. The basic game is extremely well-balanced and has stood the test of time, but many OXPs change the balance and dynamics of the game.
To make an informed choice as to what OXPs you might want, you do need to understand the way the standard game works first, so it is recommended that new players should consider playing Oolite without game-changeing OXPs for a while.
However many OXPs will just enhance eye-candy and ambience - they make the game look better, or add features which make the Oolite experience more enjoyable without affecting the way the game plays.
The list below is of OXPs that will not affect gameplay but are worthwhile additions for the new player who wants a diverse and visually exciting Ooniverse.

This is good, provided it's placed somewhere where new players will actually read it, and be inclined to consider the advice.

However, it doesn't suffice. Regularly, new players also show up on the boards and ask for beginners' advice, and not necessarily for advice regarding OXPs only. They want to get an understanding of how the game basically works. And still, it usually takes only one or two considerate replies before some OXPer (the "newbies" seem more prone to this—see my remark about "over-excitement" elsewhere) chimes in and advertises their latest and greatest game-changing or game-breaking creation, like it were the first thing everybody had to install. They just can't help it, as evidenced in many threads throughout the boards. Which makes the considerate suggestion above—if it's noticed at all—utterly moot. So, we also need some sort of gentlemen's agreement among all OXPers (past, present, and future) to stop spamming their game-changing OXPs to new players. My common sense is telling me that we're not going to get that.

Also, "game-changing" is too loose a category. For instance—to name one of my own—[wiki]Total Patrol OXP[/wiki] is "game-changing", which is why it's listed under the "Mechanics" category. It largely increases the area of the system that is patrolled by police; and adds some more police ships in order to compensate for the increased patrol area. But it can't by any stretch of the imagination be called a "cheat". Reading the list of my OXPs it appears that I'm all about the "game-changing" category: Anarchies, Auto Eject, Interstellar Help, NPC-Shields, Offender Traders, Railgun, Sell Equipment, Status Quo Q-bomb, Total Patrol, and Wormhole Restoration are all "game-changing" in one way or another. That's roughly half of my output. There are some that offer exploits: Sell Equipment allows you to make money, if used in conjunction with other OXPs that make equipment dirt cheap on their special stations. But the "cheaty" part is in making equipment dirt cheap, for which I'm not responsible. Railgun offers an exploit if used on asteroids, because it acts like a very effective mining laser, with no need to sacrifice another laser. That can be called a cheat. Offender Traders allows you to safely attack ships that you otherwise couldn't. But none of this is even close to "OXP A gives your ship instant super-capabilities" or "OXP B gives you instant extra information about things way outside scanner range", especially if combined with "and NPCs can't have it".

Also, because I'm making a huge conscious effort of balancing my "game-changing" OXPs, I have a problem with the OXP level indicator as it is. I have no idea where to put my OXPs. They're not made for "competent" or "deadly" commanders. They're not designed to adjust the difficulty of the game for the player. They just change some aspect of the game in a way you can either like or not. In my opinion this has nothing to do with levels. And even where it seems to be clear, it isn't: I would not advise a novice player, or a player without a fully equipped ship to take on a [wiki]Thargoid Carrier[/wiki]. So this would put the OXP in level 5 or 6. On the other hand, nothing forces you to take on the carrier. You can follow it around, it doesn't attack you. You can watch it attack a station and enjoy the fireworks (although you should do that from some distance). In that case it only adds some ambience, an extension to the Thargoid threat, but without doing you as the player any harm. Level 0 or 1. So, what is it? I honestly can't place it. And that's the reason why I'm not using the indicators for my OXPs.

[Smivs]

It is intended that the proposed text here will be added to the wiki OXP page, which is the page the Wiki front page links to so it should catch the eye of all newcomers to the game.
So we need a list of recommended OXPs. I have read through some of the other threads that touch on this and have come up with this so far.

Planets:-
Deep Horizon Systems
Famous Planets
Povray planets
System Demux
System Redux
(Normally you would choose one of these only, but some will work together)

Replacement Ships etc:-
Accessories + Smivs'Shipset
Deep Horizon Nav Buoy
Griffs all-in-one
Griffs non-shader set by Capt Solo
(More than one shipset can be used together. Choose a 'replace' set (to replace the standard ships), and one or more 'addition' sets to get more variety)

Extra ships*:-
Liners

General ambience:-
BGS (+ Better Screens for alternative screen backgrounds)
Delightful Docking
Escort Formations
Explorers' Club
Random Ship Names
ZygoCinematic Sky and Nebulas

Other eye-candy:-
Aliens
Giant Space Pizza
Star Jelly
Tionisla Chronicle Array
Tianve
TOGY (+ TOGY memorials)

* NB There are numerous 'ship' OXPs, some of which are well-balanced and many of which are not. Novices should add these with caution, paying particular attention to the ship specs - if it looks noticeably better than a Cobra 3 it is probably not going to fit into standard Oolite very well.

This is not put forward as a definitive list, but as a starting point based on the suggestions of many board members. There will certainly be other OXPs that could be added, and possibly some that could be removed although (to the best of my knowledge) they all fulfill the criteria of adding to the look and ambience of the game without affecting gameplay. Delightful docking does slow the stations a little of course, for visual appeal rather than to make docking easier. Does this disqualify it from the list? This is the sort of judgement we will need to make.
Also we will need to decide how long this list should be. Is it supposed to be just the 'bare basics' or should it include all harmless OXPs (like for example my Giant Space Pizza)?
I don't think it is worth trying to sift through all the 'ship' OXPs to isolate the neutral ones as there are so many, hence the note at the bottom of the list.
Any more suggestions or thoughts?

[Cody]

I ain't too sure about inflicting the giant space pizza on new players, Smivs - it's a bit brutal.

[Gimi]

It is suggested that players new to the game should be careful when choosing OXPs. The basic game is extremely well-balanced and has stood the test of time, but many OXPs change the balance and dynamics of the game.
To make an informed choice as to what OXPs you might want, you do need to understand the way the standard game works first, so it is recommended that new players should consider playing Oolite without game-changeing OXPs for a while.
However many OXPs will just enhance eye-candy and ambience - they make the game look better, or add features which make the Oolite experience more enjoyable without affecting the way the game plays.
The list below is of OXPs that will not affect gameplay but are worthwhile additions for the new player who wants a diverse and visually exciting Ooniverse.

This is good, provided it's placed somewhere where new players will actually read it, and be inclined to consider the advice.

Good point McLane. Maybe some words about game balance and OXPs, including a link to further information on creating balanced OXPs, should be included in the main game documentation.

[Smivs]

I ain't too sure about inflicting the giant space pizza on new players, Smivs - it's a bit brutal.

<chuckles>

[Cody]

The trouble with any list, as above, is getting a consensus - I mean, even Liners offers docking and additional trade, yes?

[Smivs]

The trouble with any list, as above, is getting a consensus - I mean, even Liners offers docking and additional trade, yes?

Yes, consensus is the issue really, as people are bound to view things slightly differently. How 'strict' are we going to be? Liners is a good case in point I suppose. They are quite rare so will not impact upon gameplay often, if at all. Some (but not all) do allow docking (which in itself is not a bad thing) and yes, the dockable ones do currently have a market. In fact I'm thinking they could be set to

Code: Select all

market = "none";

in shipdata anyway. I'll have to consult with the other authors about this.
I hope that a balance will emerge which will allow us to recommend OXPs to new players that are not going to skew the game noticeably, but will give plenty of options to improve the look and ambience. A few small compromises might be needed to achieve this, but that is what this debate is all about.

[Eric Walch]

That said ... Sourceforge stats say that there have been around 11,000 downloads of some Oolite package since the release of 1.77..... I don't know what the figures are like for the really popular OXPs, but I suspect that very few of them get that sort of use.

As reference, I have 7500 downloads of Random hits. (the biggest download number in my account) That are all downloads since the translation into JS. But there are a lot of double downloads as there is no differentiation into versions.

[Svengali]

Also, because I'm making a huge conscious effort of balancing my "game-changing" OXPs, I have a problem with the OXP level indicator as it is. I have no idea where to put my OXPs.

*grins* Yes, the LevelIndicators are not perfect (and as you can see they are marked as stub since I've created them and nobody contributed so it's still what it was in the beginning). No simple system can perfectly match all aspects and it's far beyond their scope. The goal was to offer OXPers a way to give users a visual hint about the expected difficulty.

That said I'd think a new system to set marker would need to split things in more than one aspect, showing different icons. A new system should also push SemanticMediaWiki properties to allow generating tables based on specific requests. But even then it wouldn't be perfect.

[cim]

Escort Formations

Escort Formations does actually make a difference to game difficulty, at least for relatively new players: I originally wrote it so that it would take me longer than a fraction of a second's glance at the scanner for me to tell the difference between an Anaconda with escorts and a pirate pack.

It's marginal, but it just goes to show how easy it is to affect game balance...

[spara]

A couple suggestions for non-balance breaking ambiance/eye candy:

* Snoopers
* System Features: Rings & Sunspots
* Famous Planets

And as the market information is already in the reference sheet and it helped my poor brain a bit before I wrote something else to entertain me:

* MarketAide

[Commander McLane]

It is intended that the proposed text here will be added to the wiki OXP page, which is the page the Wiki front page links to so it should catch the eye of all newcomers to the game.

Well, here's the point: it doesn't.

Case in point: just a mere week ago Duggan posted a link to an archived(!) version of Oosat here, convinced that he had made a discovery on the internet. I replied that the original site (not some archive) is alive and kicking, and properly listed on that very [wiki]OXP[/wiki] page. To which he replied, and I quote verbatim:

The link is not so prominent as one as one would have thought to me personally, I concede I may have gone a round about way of finding it, but if I am not mistaken.. the New Pilots very first port of call, and quiet rightly, will be;

http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/OXP_List


The link you kindly provided is, as is evident not immediately apparent

(emphasis added by me)

Which I'm for this discussion translating into: the [wiki]OXP[/wiki] page is not the immediate or obvious place where players look for information.

[Diziet Sma]

Okay - here's a start on that: [wiki]OXP howto Game Balance[/wiki]. Please contribute to it.

Excellent document..

One thing, though.

The NPCs don't (yet) know how to deal with plasma turrets (stand back out of range...) so fitting even one to a ship makes it incredibly dangerous.

Eh? On the odd occasion I take my Falcon out for a spin, the NPCs make quite a point of trying to stay out of range.

[cim]

The NPCs don't (yet) know how to deal with plasma turrets (stand back out of range...) so fitting even one to a ship makes it incredibly dangerous.

Eh? On the odd occasion I take my Falcon out for a spin, the NPCs make quite a point of trying to stay out of range.

Depending on other factors (their armament, their accuracy level), it may be that they naturally hang back out of range, but there's nothing specific that would make them do that for the Falcon over a Cobra.