Oolite Bulletins

Since I installed version 1.80 Oolite became more and more frustrating to me. As said before there is an increase and decrease in difficulty compared to 1.77 depending on the government of your current system.
For me as non hard core player I now have the choice between two types of missions:
1. The boring ones, with no encounter at all. Just do your trade and fly off.
2. The deadly ones, when I usually encounter 4+ ships at once and die a few minutes later.

There is no in-between anymore and that's disappointing.

Yes, I know about the "improved" tactics necessary to avoid the dangers (first fly in another direction, escape with your fuel injectors etc.).

But is it fun? I think no!

I tend to agree that it's all or nothing now.

I had a look in my Log and in the last 100 jumps I've made 13 kills, I've had many more fights as I am a courier so get jumped by assassins quite a bit, but many of these end with one of us injecting away. If I wasn't carrying parcels I think I wouldn't have many encounters.

Perhaps the pirates are a bit too sensible and will only attack when the odds are heavily in their favour. I've met many singular and pairs with offender and fugitive status that ignored me. Which I sort of like as one of the frustrations of 1.77.1 was being attacked by everyone even if I totally outgunned and outclassed them).

Do we need a number of 'rogue' pirates who will attack anyone, anywhere, anytime?

My frustration goes so far that I considered cheating to regain the game balance I prefer...
I understand the hardcore players, they want the challenge. On the other side "normal" players like me are left behind.

What about introducing difficulty levels like easy, medium, hard?

aen32 wrote:

Since I installed version 1.80 Oolite became more and more frustrating to me. As said before there is an increase and decrease in difficulty compared to 1.77 depending on the government of your current system.
For me as non hard core player I now have the choice between two types of missions:
1. The boring ones, with no encounter at all. Just do your trade and fly off.
2. The deadly ones, when I usually encounter 4+ ships at once and die a few minutes later.

There is no in-between anymore and that's disappointing.

I have to say that's not been my experience: for me - and I wouldn't class myself as hard-core - I've had a number of exciting encounters with a variety of bad guys in (eye-candy OXPs only) 1.80. As a brand-new Jameson, I was able to survive, reliably, and trade my way up to some decent kit. After that I've had big encounters, which I've had to run away from, and small encounters, where I've won the day (sometimes I've destroyed my opponents, and sometimes they've fled). I've visited a few Dictatorships, Multi-government systems and one Feudal, but no Anarchies yet.

Compared to a similar fresh start I ran under 1.77, it's a much better game, in my opinion. In 1.77, just reaching the station - any station - alive, was difficult: even if I did everything right, I could get attacked and killed, no matter how hard I tried. I might survive against one or two pirates, after a long stern chase, being fired at all the way in to the dock. More than two pirates, I was pretty much guaranteed to be dead. Working my way up to being able to afford to fight back was a long, hard slog, and I only stuck at it because I'm fairly obsessive about this game. Once I'd got the requisite kit, though, suddenly pretty much everything was very, very easy, and I was racing up the rankings as pirates obligingly queued up to be killed.

For me, I think - although I've not yet explored the depths of somewhere like the Tortuga Worlds, in the south-east of G1 - the difficulty levels are already there, in the game, in what type of system you visit and what its neighbours are like. Big pirate packs are definitely very dangerous, now, but in my experience they are rare. My Commander is still on the "learning and growing" track: it may be that, once I reach the first big plateau on "Dangerous", that my opinion will change. But the early game, for sure, is hugely improved.

I suggest a well equiped ship before starting the parcels/passengers contracts. You still have to do a lot of running but not all the enemies are that strong. Use your injectors to move away from the pack and try to isolate your opponents. You must apply a lot of snipping tactics (here the new joystick configuration utility works wonders). Also whatch out what oxp ships you install in your game.

StathisR wrote:

I suggest a well equiped ship before starting the parcels/passengers contracts.

^^I don't really agree, once you have injectors (always my first upgrade) you can do parcels/passengers contracts if you take a little care over the systems you visit. I've just upgraded from a Hard Start Adder to a Cobra MkI doing parcels/passengers contracts. But everyones gameplay is different so if it's not working for you don't do it

StathisR wrote:

You still have to do a lot of running but not all the enemies are that strong. Use your injectors to move away from the pack and try to isolate your opponents.

^^I agree with this.

StathisR wrote:

Also whatch out what oxp ships you install in your game.

^^I agree with this. I only run core ships (with griff's replacement shaders) as I find OXP ships unbalancing to the game.

Venator Dha wrote:

^^I don't really agree, once you have injectors (always my first upgrade) you can do parcels/passengers contracts if you take a little care over the systems you visit. I've just upgraded from a Hard Start Adder to a Cobra MkI doing parcels/passengers contracts. But everyones gameplay is different so if it's not working for you don't do it

You are right here. I was speaking from ny own perspective. I make cross galaxy trips with multiple passenger berths and i don't want to avoid any system. Plus i have installed some pretty powerfull ships.

Yes, beside the game balancing problems and the increased uselessness of normal missiles (it seems that _every_ ship you encounter has an ECM system installed), Oolite 1.80 has been improved in many ways. Especially the new joystick calibration features are a relief.
And I agree, game difficulty is chosen implicitly by the government types you visit.
I will take a look to my installed ship oxps. Maybe I'll find the reason for my problems there. Do you have any advise which oxps are the most problematic concerning game balance?

aen32 wrote:

Do you have any advise which oxps are the most problematic concerning game balance?

Post a list of your installed OXPs for us to peruse. Like Venator, I run with only the core ships (more or less) - and one notable exception!

aen32 wrote:

(it seems that _every_ ship you encounter has an ECM system installed)

Relatively few of them do in the core game - but, if one ship in a group has an ECM, it'll use it on missiles fired at its friends too, if it notices.

(There's also a slight issue where they use the ECM far too soon after missile launch - you should be able to catch the slower-reacting ones with a point-blank missile even if they have ECM - which is on my list to fix for 1.82)

aen32 wrote:

Do you have any advise which oxps are the most problematic concerning game balance?

You will probably find it's most of them! Very few OXP ships are as well balanced or even weaker than the core ships - I suppose it is human nature to make something 'better' and in many people's mind this means faster/stronger/more deadly.
As a general rule anything 'better' than a Cobby III or Boa CC is likely to unbalance the game one way or another. You can check the specs on the wiki, so a bit of research might help you here.

aen32 wrote:

Do you have any advise which oxps are the most problematic concerning game balance?

I can't help with many OXPs never having installed them, but when playing on 1.77 I had Random Hits installed which introduced may high end ships that kept turning up in pirate packs, those with two front lasers are bad. I commented out and removed most.
When the Ooniverse had a reset with 1.80 I decided not to have any non-core ships.

Thanks for all the help. I do remember having Random Hits installed and Commies, Big Ships, Clippers and some DTT ships....
Currently I have no access to my PC. I review my oxps and tell you in a few days.

Some of the combat AI design decisions do seem a bit odd. For example I had a go at the combat simulator recently and picked a harmless pilot in a Mk III Cobra, and got a bit disconcerted when he started tearing me to shreds with his side lasers. Anyway, I've just found this document on the wiki - apparently, while a completely n00b AI would be not very good with the rear lasers and hopeless with the side lasers, an AI who's got a couple of kills but is still harmless would be totally proficient with the rear laser and only slightly impaired with the side ones.

Maybe I'm just hopeless and everyone else is mastering their side lasers after a handful of kills, or maybe this is totally unrealistic.

kanthoney wrote:

Maybe I'm just hopeless and everyone else is mastering their side lasers after a handful of kills, or maybe this is totally unrealistic.

You're not alone. The only thing I can hit with side lasers are stationary objects, so I put mining lasers in them if I can. I can generally hit an asteroid, but have been known to miss boulders