Oolite Bulletins

mohawk wrote:

many times I have been hunting down a foe for like 3 minutes where he is one nick away from death

In that instance you could argue that it's fair enough for the NPC to continue to try to escape, rather than surrender, as he's managed to last at least 3 minutes! If he still has injector fuel, there is still hope of escape.

In that instance you could argue that it's fair enough for the NPC to continue to try to escape, rather than surrender, as he's managed to last at least 3 minutes! If he still has injector fuel, there is still hope of escape.

well I do have to agree there but the more you aggregate your pursuer, the less chance you have to survive. It is gamble between remaining fuel, pursuer fuel, pursuer determination/aggression, and remaining energy

Anyhow my opinion is that they run because there is nothing else they can do in the current state of the game.

and the "I surrender" messages would be cool if they could have actual impact in the game

ps: After all I might have exaggerated a little bit on the duration of the pursuit. because it frustrates me!

A question with regard to surrendering to police: Would it unbalance the game for police to accept the surrender of the player? If the police demand that the player shut down their weapons, would that be enough? What should happen to the player after they surrender and it's accepted by the police?

phkb wrote:

A question with regard to surrendering to police: Would it unbalance the game for police to accept the surrender of the player? If the police demand that the player shut down their weapons, would that be enough? What should happen to the player after they surrender and it's accepted by the police?

If the police are willing to stop firing after a surrender is accepted, then one of two things may happen:

If the fine is small, offender rather than fugitive status, I suggest the ability to pay it off right there by a direct transfer of credits to the officer, much like the 'bribing a pirate' option.

If the fine is large, then the officer demands you /immediately/ turn yourself in at the system Main Station for rehabilitation. If it's possible to code, then the officer may even attempt to follow you there and watch that you don't do anything funny. The 'escort' only stops after you've docked and cleared your criminal record.

Past a certain fine, say more than a hundred credits? Probably the police shouldn't accept a surrender at all. If you can't get docking clearance to begin with because of fugitive status, why bother? You're space dust by that point.

Layne wrote:

ability to pay it off

I think the fire should be suspendend only when the player pay as much credits as the bounty, and the bounty is not cleared by this but only give some time (5 minutes?) to leave the hot space. Like if your car has a serious problem and all cop can fine you again and again if you are unlucky and meet more than one in your way. The bounty clearing should be remain as hard as before.
Fugitives can't do this, a simple refuse is enough imho. LIke a message which tell to use your escape pod if you really want surrender.

If the fine is small, offender rather than fugitive status, I suggest the ability to pay it off right there by a direct transfer of credits to the officer, much like the 'bribing a pirate' option.

think the fire should be suspendend only when the player pay as much credits as the bounty, and the bounty is not cleared by this but only give some time (5 minutes?) to leave the hot space.

Fugitives can't do this, a simple refuse is enough imho. LIke a message which tell to use your escape pod if you really want surrender.

short of agree with all that, at the same time.
small offender: pay fine and clear status. Wipe the floors of the station upon arrival.
fugitive: pay bigger fine, and not clear status. but get a free pass for some minutes and permission to dock in main station. failing to do that, or docking in any other station may result in bounty increasing. maybe in the station you pay a s***load of money for lawyers, and maybe do some days in prison, resulting in loss of time. (and contracts)
bigger bounty: only bribe can save you or ejecting if the cop is not dirty!

mohawk wrote:

maybe in the station you pay a s***load of money for lawyers, and maybe do some days in prison, resulting in loss of time. (and contracts)

Like a 6400Cr fine and some days undergoing attitude adjustment (as in the core game)?

Like a 6400Cr fine and some days undergoing attitude adjustment (as in the core game)?
Post

well what do you know!! I just now realised that I have never had a fugitive status.
Didn't ever pay the fine at least.
I didn't know that you can dock and pay a fine as fugitive!

It might be even more expensive now, as docking without clearance is 5000Cr (max). Would that be in addition to the max fine/punishment, I wonder - cim?

Cody wrote:

It might be even more expensive now, as docking without clearance is 5000Cr (max). Would that be in addition to the max fine/punishment, I wonder - cim?

Yes, separate charges.

However, you only get the fine if you were scanned and marked for fines by a police ship, and if you're fugitive (or a higher offender level than the system-dependent crime threshold) they'll just shoot you. I suppose you could go in with an offender level record, get marked for fines, then blow up the police ship which fined you and dock without clearance with the subsequent fugitive rating, though.

Running as a fugitive, I often had to dock under fire from Vipers* (which is how I copped the 6400Cr fine and AA).


*Not recommended for Jamesons - you gotta be iron-assed!

Version 1.0.18 has been released, and available via the download manager or via the links in the first post.
In this version

• Fixed issue with the MFD being too chatty and sending unnecessary updates to the console.
• Fixed issue with police responding to surrender like a pirate. If you're not a fugitive they will now wait for the player to disable their weapons systems, and if the player responds in time, they will (probably) accept the surrender.
• You can now also attempt to bribe a police ship. Police may accept a bribe, if they're not in the station aegis, and the chance increases with lower government types. They might also fine the player.
• Fixed issue with surrending to thargoids. They will now curse you. And probably continue shooting.
• Bug fixes.

I've gone for a simple approach to surrendering to police for the moment. I can always make it more complex, but for the moment I thought it best to keep simple. You can surrender to police if you're not fugitive, and if you do they'll ask you to disable weapons. You'll be marked for fines when you dock.

I'm still working on how to demand a surrender of another ship. I thought I'd get the bug fixes out first.

that was fast!

BugBear wrote:

A second question to Zireal and pkhb (authors of the MFD Broadcast OXZ) - as a Fugitive, when under attack, I have no way of saying to my attackers "Hey, cool your jets, I've got no beef with you". The possible broadcasts I can make in that scenario are either aggressive (i.e. taunt or threaten) or submissive (bribe or drop cargo). Would you think it feasible/internally consistent to provide a neutral broadcast option?

That's actually not as simple as it sounds. I'm trying to avoid forcing the AI to do something it wouldn't normally do. When you're a fugitive the AI has a particular read on you, and your actions will dictate what they will do. I think I'm right in saying that if you continue down the fugitive path, shooting up police and innocent traders, then pirates will begin to see you as one of them and allow you to join them. I'm not sure how I can jog the AI here without either (a) breaking something, and giving the player an easy way out of bad situations, or (b) being completely ineffectual.

Thinking a bit more, we'd have to look at the different AI's and create a map for what the responses should be in that scenario. For the purposes of this idea there are, in broad terms, police, hunters, assassins, pirates, and traders. If we can come up with a reasonable set of responses for each of those scenarios it might be possible to achieve something.

Thanks for the follow up. I'm not really sure what one could hope to achieve pleading neutrality to someone that has already decided to open fire, so feel free to not spend much time on this scenario.

About the only effect I can come up with would be for a neutral broadcast to have an effect on those not already hostile - but that would be dependant on whether the transmission is truly wideband or narrowband.