Oolite Bulletins

In Diablo II (My apologies for freuquently mentioning my former favorite game) there was a so called "hardcore" mode. Once you die, it's over, you have to start a new character. Soon there was a hack called chicken, which aborted the game and disconnected you from the online server, as soon as your life was too low. It was considered cheating. That auto escape OXP sounds very similar..

My honest respekt for everyone who starts from scratch after being killed. I could never find any fun in that way to play.

Disembodied wrote:

Whilst the tactic of heading off the spacelane isn't cheating, it is exploiting a loophole in the (current) game.

I disagree. The Wiki FAQ describes it very well: It already requires a lot of handwavium to explain why you meet any other ships at all. Space ist huge and mostly empty. The chance to meet a ship in a space that stretches for million miles is close to nothing and the game reduced that million miles a lot to compensate for this. It seems logic, that ships take the shortest route and everything else is far less populated. So if pirates would wait in a position off that main lane, they would die of boredom.

The loophole is the use of the Torus Drive that allowed you to use that off the main line track in the first place.

ralph_hh wrote:

Disembodied wrote:

Whilst the tactic of heading off the spacelane isn't cheating, it is exploiting a loophole in the (current) game.

I disagree. The Wiki FAQ describes it very well: It already requires a lot of handwavium to explain why you meet any other ships at all. Space ist huge and mostly empty. The chance to meet a ship in a space that stretches for million miles is close to nothing and the game reduced that million miles a lot to compensate for this. It seems logic, that ships take the shortest route and everything else is far less populated. So if pirates would wait in a position off that main lane, they would die of boredom.

The loophole is the use of the Torus Drive that allowed you to use that off the main line track in the first place.

Going offlane exploits a loophole in the game, beause it allows players to travel to and trade with pretty much any system they like with minimal risk. Logically, if it's possible to travel from the WP to the station and not meet any hostile ships, then everybody would do it and there wouldn't be any lanes or traffic to speak of. But logic isn't part of the issue: this is a game, not a simulator.

It's an issue which didn't exist in the original Elite, because that was wholly player-centred and the game automatically generated traffic in front of the player whichever direction they went. Oolite doesn't do that, so we are left with the problem of how to make sure that ships encounter each other - without which, there's not much of a game. Personally, I think this is one area where it's worth dropping the non-player-centric part of the game design (like we already do, by giving the player a Torus drive), and allow in-system pirates the chance to "teleport" (off-screen) and intercept an off-lane player. Although there are problems about how this might work with OXP stations: presumably a system with multiple stations would need multiple lanes.

Speaking of loopholes... Do you find it better, that you can evade enemies because you can SEE them? I mean, honestly, my eyes catch a 10x10 Meter Object at a distance of ... 100km(?) where the highly sophisticated radar is limited to just 25km? You can SEE laser fire in vacuum? Games are never realistic, they would be either boring or frustrating. So making them playable, you also get loopholes.

A possible solution to the spacelane would be to cancel the idea of witchpoints, generate ship entries everywhere in a distance of some 1000km around the planet at random. To ensure encounters, you may need thousands of ships, no idea, what computer power this calculations require.

But: Wouldn't it scare new Jamesons away if they can't find a way to escape the enemy fleets?

I'd think that maybe for beginners sake, a new Jameson could start at a Democratic Planet with equally peacefull planes close by. Tune down the pirate numbers in Democracies, so you have a beginners paradise. Or establish a Gal Cop enforced safe zone in lower left of Galaxy 1.

I think the current system is about right. It is entirely logical that most traffic would take the direct route, and therefore that is where the pirates are likely to be. Travelling off-route should be safer, but should also perhaps have a time penalty as the obvious reason for the 'direct route' approach is that this would normally be the quickest route. Fot traders, time is money so they will want to get to the station ASAP.
So, with less time pressure a player could decide to avoid problems by going off-route. There should still be a chance of pirates of course, but a much reduced one.
So far so good, but then we (players) have the Tous drive which saves time whereas the 'off-route' path should take longer. You could therefore say that the system would be right if it wasn't broken by the Torus drive. Remove the Torus drive from the game and this problem would be fixed. Yes, it would, but does anybody really want to lose Torus? No, of course not.
So, a couple of alternative suggestions:-
1) Re-name Torus (or Hyperspeed as it is described in console messages). Call it 'TimeSaver Mode' or something that implies it is a player-centric feature rather than being a factor common across all the game's entities. In a sense, call it a cheat, but a good cheat.
2) At the moment the ship's clock is not affected by using Torus. Maybe when using Torus the clock should accelerate as if the player hadn't used Torus so the elapsed time would be the same with or without using it. In practice this would not be noticed by many though so would have little impact. Those players on time-sensitive jobs would suffer though, so it's not a totally fair solution.
Alternatively perhaps the clock should advance more under Torus, so using Torus would cost game-time even though it saves RL time. This could balance things out a bit, but again descriminates against those for whom time is an issue.

Personally, I would favour the re-name option, but I do also feel that the clock should advance to reflect Torus as well. Anyway, just a couple of ideas...

Disembodied wrote:

It's an issue which didn't exist in the original Elite, because that was wholly player-centred and the game automatically generated traffic in front of the player whichever direction they went. Oolite doesn't do that, so we are left with the problem of how to make sure that ships encounter each other - without which, there's not much of a game. Personally, I think this is one area where it's worth dropping the non-player-centric part of the game design (like we already do, by giving the player a Torus drive), and allow in-system pirates the chance to "teleport" (off-screen) and intercept an off-lane player. Although there are problems about how this might work with OXP stations: presumably a system with multiple stations would need multiple lanes.

This is what  DeepSpacePirates pretty much does.
I personally agree that it's a loophole in the standard game and dislike it. Having a player orientated solution, as an OXP is probably the only way to resolve this. As I play with extra planets & stations in my systems, I can hand-wave that they are on a route from one to another. It also means that trips to other stations have some risk involved.
There's also a WIP in-system traders by spara that adds some player independent traders on routes between extra stations (if installed).

ralph_hh wrote:

But: Wouldn't it scare new Jamesons away if they can't find a way to escape the enemy fleets?

That's an issue with the way the game is set up, and is better addressed by modifying the design. New commanders should be able to (and, in my experience with 1.80, generally can) avoid trouble by sticking to safer systems; running away at the first sign of trouble, dodging and weaving as they go; and dumping a few TCs of food to buy off pirates when absolutely necessary. New commanders should not expect to be able to head off just anywhere: there should be safe places, not-so-safe places, and actively dangerous places. Currently, though, going off-lane makes it possible for anybody, new commanders included, to travel and trade wherever they like, for little or no risk: that's broken, in my opinion.

ralph_hh wrote:

I'd think that maybe for beginners sake, a new Jameson could start at a Democratic Planet with equally peacefull planes close by. Tune down the pirate numbers in Democracies, so you have a beginners paradise. Or establish a Gal Cop enforced safe zone in lower left of Galaxy 1.

That, or something similar, is a possibility: again, it requires a little bit of player-centricity.

Smivs wrote:

I think the current system is about right. It is entirely logical that most traffic would take the direct route, and therefore that is where the pirates are likely to be.

Personally, I think it would be more logical for everyone to avoid the places where the pirates are: most voyages aren't so massively time-important that it's worth risking destruction just to save an hour or two (and if they were, logically, most traders would refuse the job, and renegotiate the time limit: there are only so many people willing to risk death to make a delivery). But like I said, I don't think logic has anything to do with this. We want to make sure that the game happens: at the moment, it only happens in a tube of space running from the WP to the planet/station. Going off-lane is a massive exploit which invalidates the idea that some systems are safe and some are dangerous, and that some journeys should be carefully planned to avoid trouble spots. Currently, none of that matters: just go off-lane.

Smivs wrote:

Remove the Torus drive from the game and this problem would be fixed. Yes, it would, but does anybody really want to lose Torus? No, of course not.

I do. If we could replace the Torus with a TAF it would solve a whole load of problems. But we've been through this before and it doesn't seem to be a practical solution, not least due to AI issues and collision detection.

I agree that adding in thousands of extra entities into the game would not be practical. I think the sensible solution would be to automagically create enemies off-lane (similar to the Deep Space Pirates OXP, but with the option of chucking some Thargoids in there too), who might possibly have the ability to call in support of their own. That way, the lane would exist because it is patrolled, by Vipers and by the traders themselves, and because striking out off-lane on your own is potentially more dangerous. Again, this could vary from system to system: you can go off-lane in a Corporate State or Democracy without much risk of any hostile encounter (Thargoids excepted, perhaps); but try the same trick in a Feudal or Anarchy system and you'll very probably get swarmed.

Another alternative would be to make the Torus only work when the compass is pointing at some sort of beacon. This would make going off-lane harder, although players could still work around this by, say, aiming at the sun, torusing off in that direction for a bit, then aiming at the planet/station. This would depend on where the sun was, of course. But this has potential consequences for people who want to head off towards e.g. a distant asteroid.

There's an issue with how these would work with OXP stations: it might require some method of creating new lanes which run from nav point to nav point. It would also have to cope with sunskimming.

Venator Dha wrote:

I personally agree that it's a loophole in the standard game and dislike it. Having a player orientated solution, as an OXP is probably the only way to resolve this.

There are a lot of potential issues here, and I know that the devs have been playing around with a number of ideas (although I don't know what conclusions they've come to). But I think that going off-lane is a massive exploit which punches a great big hole through the middle of the game, and it's something which we should try to resolve at the core-game level.

What's wrong with an exploit? It's a single player game after all. So if I like to play it strict, then I go by the space lanes, shoot some pirates, wait endless hours with injector fuel exhausted, till some traders have finally vanished from scanner range and finally reach the base.

I feel free to have fun in any way I like, the one day I like to do some trading, I happily evade the space highways. The other day I like to fight, I go to an Anarchy System and head directly to the planet.

In the moment I find Oolite is very well balanced. Just the perfect level of difficulty. Closing this loop hole is about making the game less easy. This affects mainly beginners. For the deadly pro, the effect is simply more or less time spent. In my case it would mean, that if these bloody Anaconda Convois start showing up everywhere, I'll start blow them all up. Today, I leave about half of them alive because I can circumnavigate them.

If the game is too easy, you can always tune things up by OXPs.

ralph_hh wrote:

What's wrong with an exploit?

Nothing, in this case. It's not even an exploit really, is it, being able to take a longer alternative route to avoid problems. Drivers make such decisions every day to avoid bottlenecks and roadworks etc. It's perfectly normal, natural and acceptable. Even the most patient of us sometimes don't always feel like spending hours watching a slow old trader go past, so there needs to be some in-game mechanism to overcome this.
The obvious answer is to make the 'dead' time pass more quickly.

Disembodied wrote:

If we could replace the Torus with a TAF it would solve a whole load of problems. But we've been through this before and it doesn't seem to be a practical solution, not least due to AI issues and collision detection.

TAF is never going to work properly for normal game-play, so is irrelevant, but adapting Torus into a kind of TAF might. If you accept my point above about needing an in-game way to reduce the 'dead-time', then this has to be the way to go. As I suggested, rename Torus to TimeSaver Mode and advance the clock in line with the increased speed so that elapsed journey time is the same whether you use it or not. With changes to the documentation this should make it clear that this is an in-game feature designed to save 'wasted' time for the player with no other effect on the game other than avoiding boredom during the quiet bits.

Yes, I know that this doesn't address the issue of whether this is a 'makes the game easier' exploit. But the ability to leave the spacelane is a different thing to the speed/boredom issue although they clearly do touch on each other.
I think there is a good case to formally accept Torus as a cheat feature, and maybe change it as I suggest above. As for other off-lane traffic, well there should be some. There certainly should be other off-lane ships, but they should be quite rare, and they could be anything. I really don't like the idea of artificially adding other ships just to thwart players who are trying to avoid traffic. And I really, really don't like the idea of arbitrarily dumping pirates ahead of the player off-lane (or anywhere come to that). We've moved on from such crude tools (I hope!) .

Disembodied wrote:

I agree that adding in thousands of extra entities into the game would not be practical. I think the sensible solution would be to automagically create enemies off-lane (similar to the Deep Space Pirates OXP, but with the option of chucking some Thargoids in there too), who might possibly have the ability to call in support of their own. That way, the lane would exist because it is patrolled, by Vipers and by the traders themselves, and because striking out off-lane on your own is potentially more dangerous. Again, this could vary from system to system: you can go off-lane in a Corporate State or Democracy without much risk of any hostile encounter (Thargoids excepted, perhaps); but try the same trick in a Feudal or Anarchy system and you'll very probably get swarmed.

This raises an interesting possibility, the space lanes exist because of Thargoids, going off lane is just as dangerous for pirates as traders. Create a (largish) number thargons off lane that are passive probes. Going off lane and encountering one will alert a Thargoid ship to jump in and attack. High security systems have sweeps of their space to clear the thargons out so are safer, but some will be missed or replaced. There could be a timer for each system for how long ago the sweep was done, so changing the risk over time.

Disembodied wrote:

Venator Dha wrote:

I personally agree that it's a loophole in the standard game and dislike it. Having a player orientated solution, as an OXP is probably the only way to resolve this.

There are a lot of potential issues here, and I know that the devs have been playing around with a number of ideas (although I don't know what conclusions they've come to). But I think that going off-lane is a massive exploit which punches a great big hole through the middle of the game, and it's something which we should try to resolve at the core-game level.

I agree from my perspective a core game solution would be ideal. I also however like the flexibility OXPs give the game.

Disembodied wrote:

I agree that adding in thousands of extra entities into the game would not be practical. I think the sensible solution would be to automagically create enemies off-lane (similar to the Deep Space Pirates OXP, but with the option of chucking some Thargoids in there too), who might possibly have the ability to call in support of their own. That way, the lane would exist because it is patrolled, by Vipers and by the traders themselves, and because striking out off-lane on your own is potentially more dangerous. Again, this could vary from system to system: you can go off-lane in a Corporate State or Democracy without much risk of any hostile encounter (Thargoids excepted, perhaps); but try the same trick in a Feudal or Anarchy system and you'll very probably get swarmed.

So...

How would you handwavium the (theoretically) hundreds or even thousands of pirates that would have to exist in (most) systems to explain their presence everywhere you went?

Smivs wrote:

ralph_hh wrote:

What's wrong with an exploit?

Nothing, in this case. It's not even an exploit really, is it, being able to take a longer alternative route to avoid problems. Drivers make such decisions every day to avoid bottlenecks and roadworks etc. It's perfectly normal, natural and acceptable. Even the most patient of us sometimes don't always feel like spending hours watching a slow old trader go past, so there needs to be some in-game mechanism to overcome this.

It is an exploit. It means that I, as a new commander, can take any route I want, and trade with any system that I want. That's something which, I think, should be fought for, and earned, not automatically available to anyone. Going off-lane could remain a viable way to avoid traffic in a safe system; but being able to be perfectly safe in an Anarchy is clearly cockeyed. I agree, in a single-player game, that nobody is being cheated - if players want to, they can edit their ship and their universe to their heart's content. But that doesn't mean that being able to avoid all trouble and go wherever you like whenever you want to, in an unmodified game, isn't a weakness in the core game design. You could just as well let the player trigger the Torus drive whenever they want, masslock or no masslock: the end result would be the same.

Smivs wrote:

If you accept my point above about needing an in-game way to reduce the 'dead-time', then this has to be the way to go. As I suggested, rename Torus to TimeSaver Mode and advance the clock in line with the increased speed so that elapsed journey time is the same whether you use it or not. With changes to the documentation this should make it clear that this is an in-game feature designed to save 'wasted' time for the player with no other effect on the game other than avoiding boredom during the quiet bits.

I think it would be a better idea to remove bits from the game that players might find boring - or alternatively give them something else to do during those periods.

I think that the whole on/off-lane issue isn't just about "avoiding traffic": it's about avoiding the game. it seems downright odd to me that players should scoot from planet to planet to trade, dodging all chance of encountering any ships, until they've built up their ship to a level where they want to go off and fight people. Why not just edit the save file and give yourself the equipment, and save yourself the faff?

Whether people go off-lane or not does not, of course, affect me: we can do what we like. But if people are doing this, because they find the game too hard at the beginning, or because they find chunks of it boring, then that suggests that there are problems with the core design, and that we should try to fix them.

Disembodied wrote:

Another alternative would be to make the Torus only work when the compass is pointing at some sort of beacon.

This idea (or a variant thereof) is attractive - it's the best of the bunch, I reckon.

Venator Dha wrote:

I agree from my perspective a core game solution would be ideal. I also however like the flexibility OXPs give the game.

Yes, people can fit themselves out with WonderWorms if they want to, and the core game will let them. But going off-lane is a non-OXP method of dodging the game.

Diziet Sma wrote:

How would you handwavium the (theoretically) hundreds or even thousands of pirates that would have to exist in (most) systems to explain their presence everywhere you went?

That's the least of my concerns. Really, it doesn't matter, any more than it matters that lasers are really short-range, or that NPCs don't have Torus drives, or that everything is so incredibly dangerous. But you could argue that there are pirates on the lookout for lone prey, who will move to intercept (because "something something Torus something") a single ship which has strayed away from the lane. It's easy meat, and there's no chance of being interrupted by Vipers (or by anybody else, for that matter).

Cody wrote:

Disembodied wrote:

Another alternative would be to make the Torus only work when the compass is pointing at some sort of beacon.

This idea (or a variant thereof) is attractive - it's the best of the bunch, I reckon.

I think it might have some mileage, although how it could be implemented, and what unexpected consequences it might have, I don't know ... it would make the Constrictor mission a lot tougher, for example (perhaps justifiably), but that could have its AI tweaked.

How to go about letting the player go to places without beacons would be another matter: I wouldn't want to make distant rock hermits hopelessly distant, and I wouldn't want to give them all beacons, either. Perhaps the ASC could come with, or be upgraded with, some sort of active sensor system? The player could initiate a scan in a particular direction, and gradually build up a series of waypoints that mark the position of any inhabited (and not deliberately off-grid?) dockable locations, which they could then set as targets on the ASC and use the Torus drive to get to. It would still allow players to go off-lane, but it would take more thought and effort to do so, and make it harder to perform the big parabolic loops at Torus speed which dodge everything.

Disembodied wrote:

Perhaps the ASC could come with, or be upgraded with, some sort of active sensor system?

I was thinking of something along those lines - make it an expensive upgrade for the ASC.