Oolite Bulletins

The bit that ties it all up is CCL_BioExtended. Some samples:

Known to friends and family alike as 'the old jongleur', Tixenes Hamilton - a blue fat insect - First served as an assistant cook on the Boa The Coruscating Effulgence under Commander Ben.

Tonaar Ol'Bransen, a red slimy lobster - Sometimes known as 'the little old alligator' - First shipped as a scutter's assistant on the Moray The Serene Mist, at long last receiving command of the Adder The Strange Mischief. Ol'Bransen is a Serious follower of Howamedles of the Seven Heads, and a Member of the Sungrazers' Society.

Exteriakus Eric, a red bug-eyed lizard, First took a position as a purser's assistant on the Moray The Gallant Invincible under Commander Clem. For the last two years, reliable reports suggest Eric Has connections to a bloodline involved in the control of the trade of Blanching Brain's Tongue Teaser. Eric has issued a string of denials.

Moritz Lourson, a black fat feline - Known to close friends as 'Rawhead' - First took a position as an assistant engineer on the Python The Good Raptor. Lourson is a Communicant of Splendid Exdior of the Four Limbs, and a Member of the Gold-Traders' Co-prosperity. The Commander Saw action in the Azaqu Division during the second battle of Azaqu. Lourson's Accomplishments include zero-G cricket and crossword puzzles. For the last seven years, rumours suggest Lourson Has connections to a fabled guild implicated in the import of Illustrious Gut. Lourson neither confirms nor denies this.

Dicky Darling Served as a courier in the Atage Guardians. A red bug-eyed lizard, and Member of the Dealers' Commonwealth, Darling is Sometimes referred to as 'the beggar'. The Commander's Interests are listed as 'astrobiology and playing shuggy'. For the last four years, several sources suggest Darling Has been involved with undercover cargo runs for a banned bloodline. Darling refuses to comment.

One problem is that PhraseGen forces capitalisation whenever a new sample is dropped in, so we get things like "The Commander Saw action ..." instead of "The Commander saw action ...". This, I'm sure, can be fixed, but not by me ...

Look like the current systems have static locations. Every planet has the fixed coordinates. I visited all galaxies twice and when returned to galaxy 1 found that all planets have exactly same coordinates as in the very begining.

What about the following idea - in every system main planet with another planets/moons/asteroids/hermits changes its coordinates depending on the time. Moon's should move around it's planet. Witchpoint beacon should also move around the sun.

I.e. when player is visiting the system every day, he will see different locations and sometimes he will have to fly around sun in order to connect with main station.

Mad Hollander wrote:

Whichpint bacon

Such a hilarious typo. Is it edible?

Oh, I'll fix it

Mad Hollander wrote:

sometimes he will have to fly around sun

Good idea, I like it. Especially with the planned 2500 times larger suns like in your picture.

Mad Hollander wrote:

Look like the current systems have static locations. Every planet has the fixed coordinates. I visited all galaxies twice and when returned to galaxy 1 found that all planets have exactly same coordinates as in the very begining.

What about the following idea - in every system main planet with another planets/moons/asteroids/hermits changes its coordinates depending on the time. Moon's should move around it's planet. Witchpoint beacon should also move around the sun.

I.e. when player is visiting the system every day, he will see different locations and sometimes he will have to fly around sun in order to connect with main station.

I believe there was an OXP called Orbits which accomplished this in a way, but I don't think it is compatible with 1.77 let alone 1.79. Worth checking out, though.

If we have planets orbiting their star, then I'd think it only logical that the witchpoints orbited the planet.. having them sometimes located on opposite sides of the system from each other makes no sense.

The tricky things with orbits are:
- there's probably an OXP or two out there placing ships at exact coordinates rather than coordinates relative to the system objects. That's not recommended but sometimes OXPs still do it.
- to allow saving at a non-main station, that station has to be in the same place when the game is reloaded. They're positioned relative to the three main objects (witchpoint, planet, sun) so moving those objects breaks that. That doesn't make it impossible but it makes it harder - you can't simply apply the orbit based on the time, but you also have to ensure that nothing moves while the player is still in the system, even if they close and reopen the game while they're there.

cim wrote:

- to allow saving at a non-main station, that station has to be in the same place when the game is reloaded. They're positioned relative to the three main objects (witchpoint, planet, sun) so moving those objects breaks that. That doesn't make it impossible but it makes it harder - you can't simply apply the orbit based on the time, but you also have to ensure that nothing moves while the player is still in the system, even if they close and reopen the game while they're there.

Wouldn't having the position based on "game time" mean reloading a game would put these locations in the same places or negligibly different?

Edit: OK a stay in a station can be a few hours which would be enough to move a station significantly. If this is a problem I don't see why. (Then again I have been out of the loop for a while.)

Phantor Gorth

PhantorGorth wrote:

Wouldn't having the position based on "game time" mean reloading a game would put these locations in the same places or negligibly different?

Well, it depends how fast they orbit. Buy a naval energy unit and military shields for a new ship, save the game, load the game ... it's now 12 days since you entered the system. To avoid breaking load/save the station can't have moved more than 25km relative to the witchpoint in that time or it won't be recognised as the same station, which really limits how fast the orbits can be.

The alternative is that you do it FE2-style and have all the objects in actual somewhat plausible (ignoring the scale...) orbits, so the station actually moves around the planet as you watch. Then, however, you start running in to interesting reference frame problems when trying to dock. Again, not unsolvable, but not straightforward to get to from the current engine either...

It's funny how the phrase generator looks like spam generator code.

Another source of radio chatter could be what the ships see, essentially other ships and pirate ships. This would be useful as well because their radar coverage being different than yours if you cruise at a certain distance, it would give you some useful information ahead of time. Also messages that appear in the chat window could have a voice counterpart. It could be nice even if it sound like some alien gibberish like one can hear when in aegis range.

I'd also like to take a different approach to the initial problem, that flying the space lanes can be boring because it's long because mass locks. I assume that the idea of applying time acceleration at will, like many flight/space sims do either is technically difficult or is considered a lazy way to solve the problem.

When we are bored and want to escape a mass-lock faster, the usual solution is to hit the fuel injectors if we can afford the fuel. This is also the solution adopted by the escort contract OXP: it made up the concept that if you're close enough to a ship that hits the fuel injectors, you benefit from the speed increase (iirc).
The second observation I'd like to make is that fuel in the Oolite universe, while being cheap is a vital element: No fuel no jump no trade. However there is no fuel market and all ships have enough tank capacity for 7LY jumps, period.

Various OXPs try to "fix" this aspect. I think that enhancing the fuel economy in the game could globally enhance the experience. I suggest several modifications:

• Fuel prices are determined per system, based upon the government type and the tech level.
  Fuel canisters are normal cargo that can be traded. Those canisters being specially crafted for obvious security reasons, they can only be of a relatively small capacity.
  Fuel canisters can also be used "en route" in order to refill the main tank. However, for obvious security reasons, the ship has to be at full stop in order to perform this operation.
  The content of the main fuel tank can be emptied and sold at stations.

The last two possibilities might be made available only if some dedicated equipment is fitted on a pylon, like the fuel tanks OXP does, if one considers they are too advantageous.

Those modifications have several implications: one can use a fuel canister in order to be able to escape boring mass locks after a long jump, at the expanse of cargo space, though. But this cannot be done in an emergency in order to escape pirates. It also improves the return-on-investment of the heat shield, because one can do sun-station trips for fuel scooping not only to save money but also to make some.

One more idea -
1 apply kill count and legal status changes only when the ship is docking to some station.
2 any kill(attack) can impact on legal status
3 legal status is cleaned much longer

1 - the reason that the rating is tracked by some inter-planet/inter-galactic organization. Current implementation looks like the rating is tracked in real time which is the nonsense !

2 - current implementation - only several cases impact on legal status
- attack viper
- attack station
- attack buoy
- attack any ship with Clean status near the station
- attack any ship with Clean status when some vipers are on the radar

I suggest to add another case - when some group is attacked, the legal status changed if some ships stay alive. I.e. player attack an anaconda with an escort when all of the ships are Clean. If some whips from this group stay alive, the legal status is changed to Offender/Fugitive

3 - current implementation - status is cleaned after some hops. Look strange - having killed some vipers a couple of days is enough to become clean again

Mad Hollander wrote:

2 - current implementation - only several cases impact on legal status
- attack viper
- attack station
- attack buoy
- attack any ship with Clean status near the station
- attack any ship with Clean status when some vipers are on the radar

Actually, there's only one case, and it's quite simple:
- attack any clean ship while the police is watching

Police can be found in police ships and in the main station. Police ships themselves (Vipers), the station and the buoy are also clean ships, thus they're not special cases. Note that the police doesn't need to be on your radar in order to notice your crime. They need to be in scanner range of the victim.

Mad Hollander wrote:

3 - current implementation - status is cleaned after some hops. Look strange - having killed some vipers a couple of days is enough to become clean again

That was exactly the reasoning that led to the development of [wiki]Anarchies OXP[/wiki]. You should try it out, if you haven't yet. The OXP adjusts Oolite's getting-clean-by-jumping mechanism, making it much harder to lose a fugitive status and get back to offender.

Mad Hollander wrote:

Current implementation looks like the rating is tracked in real time which is the nonsense !

How exactly is this "nonsense"? We are, after all, talking about a universe which apparently has some kind of FTL communications.

Diziet Sma wrote:

Mad Hollander wrote:

Current implementation looks like the rating is tracked in real time which is the nonsense !

How exactly is this "nonsense"? We are, after all, talking about a universe which apparently has some kind of FTL communications.

I don't know that in core the game actually has any FTL comms shown. I think of the decaying bounty in part as an 8-bit attempt to simulate that it doesn't.

However ... it's not hard to handwave anyway: the rating displayed by your ship is an estimated one based on your confirmed rating plus your ship's computer's kill log (i.e. the information it will be sending to the EFP as evidence). It might be a few weeks after you reach a rank before the EFP is able to confirm it, but since the majority of the EFP processing must be automated anyway, most people are reasonably happy to trust a provisional rank a little higher than the confirmed one, especially if you provide the kill log of the difference.

People probably do occasionally attempt to commit fraud on this basis, but committing fraud against an organisation which measures the size of the shoulder chips of a bunch of Dangerous and Deadly bounty hunters is almost certainly even riskier than just getting the kills honestly.