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.
