First experiences / difficulties

[cim]

Most hostile encounters end up in dogfights, something I usually did only against the Thargoids on the C64.

You probably want dogfights, if you're finding things difficult. The NPCs have much better aim in mid-range jousting than they do in a close turning dog fight.

Is there a trick to find the buoy after it went out of view?

Easiest way is to spend a few hundred credits on the Advanced Space Compass. Then you can press '\' to cycle between navigation targets of interest. The entry buoy is early on the list and labelled 'W'.

So shouldn't the player have a big advantage in these head-on fights?

While the NPCs don't have shields, they also don't have the same internal equipment model as the player, so you lose shields and you start taking potentially very serious internal damage, whereas they just lose energy. In a 1-on-1 fight with both of you hitting equally (but you having a military laser to their beam) then you'll certainly kill an NPC Cobra III but you will also lose your forward shield and probably take equipment or cargo damage as a result.

Certain NPCs (Pythons, Fer-de-Lances, some Kraits, some Asps) are considerably tougher than the basic Cobra III and even with a military laser probably shouldn't be taken on head-on.

You can - at great expense - upgrade your shield generators twice. With both upgrades fitted you have more shields on a single side of your ship than the majority of NPCs have total health, and head-on attacks become more practical.

[Diziet Sma]

I don't recognize that HUD, phkb, but I like the minimalist quality it has. Which one is that?

What I like is that lovely clean font.. which one is that?

[Norby]

I've encountered up to 9 attackers at once

A nice part of the game when you increase your limits by upgrading your ship, up to about a few million credits. After this if you still want to win against more enemy then you can look after addons like shield capacitors or hired/bought escort ships, but always will be a limit when you are outnumbered, for example if you carry many wanted parcel and passenger contracts and jump into an anarchy system (ask Cody ).

I should have stronger lasers than most (or even all?) NPC ships

Ther are some NPCs with military laser, for a spoiler you can search in the shipdata.plist file. For even better lasers you can look around in the weapons category, at the end of the addon list within the game.

I'm flying a Cobra III, a relatively big and solid ship

Big: yes, but this is a drawback in combat due to more shot will hit you than in a small fighter.
Solid: not the strongest, many ships exists with more energy. In Oolite this is a starter ship, you can buy another when you will have enough credits.

the number of hits a NPC needs to destroy my ship is only a fraction of what I need to destroy him.

Sometimes it is possible, for example against an Asp or Boa Cruiser, more often if you install [wiki]Custom Shields[/wiki] which give shields to all NPCs.

I don't see how an Thargoid encounter can be survivable on Oolite!

I keep long distance and hit motherships from far before tharglets surround me, then run away and repeat.

Is there a trick to find the witch space buoy after it went out of view?

-Buy [wiki]Advanced Space Compass[/wiki] equipment then press "|" or "\" keys until the witchcpoint (as cim said).
-Put down an [wiki]ETT Homing Beacon[/wiki] when you arrived into a system.
-In development builds you can see your coordinates next to the FPS, origo is the place of the buoy.
-[wiki]Telescope[/wiki] addon list it together with all bouys in the system but contain much more so probably too complicated for a new player.

travel in the safety of a convoy and still use the time saving hyperspeed

Imho the only thing which help in this case is a development build feature named to time acceleration (TAF).

it is possible to communicate with other ships

Via [wiki]BroadcastComms MFD[/wiki].

Another thing I'm still not really used to are the fuel scoops.

Try it in external views (press v a few times) at very low speed: when the cargo box arrive below the nose of your ship then the scoop will attract the box to your ship like a magnet.

is wiki.alioth.net down every night?

Yes, from 2h30 to about 4h15 GMT for nighly backup.

[Layne]

@Layne: In this post I gave a link to a modified 1.82, which reverts the change that caused the FPS drop on your system (or I hope it does). You may want to try to install 1.82 and then run the executable from that post instead of the official one and see if that helps with performance on your system. If it does, you should be able to enjoy all the 1.82 goodies and all the expansion packs written for it.

I'll give that a try, AC, and will let you know. Have to tinker a lot of older OXP's for it, first. (I use a lot of things like Free Trade Zones and such that will need upgrading to the new market system.)

[another_commander]

I'll give that a try, AC, and will let you know. Have to tinker a lot of older OXP's for it, first. (I use a lot of things like Free Trade Zones and such that will need upgrading to the new market system.)

There is no real need to do extensive modifications for this test and waste too much time. You can install on a separate folder without any OXPs and you should be able to tell immediately after launch if your FPS have improved or not.

[Diziet Sma]

While the NPCs don't have shields, they also don't have the same internal equipment model as the player, so you lose shields and you start taking potentially very serious internal damage, whereas they just lose energy.

Are there any plans (even long-term) to address this difference in treatment between NPCs and players?

[Norby]

While the NPCs don't have shields, they also don't have the same internal equipment model as the player, so you lose shields and you start taking potentially very serious internal damage, whereas they just lose energy.

Are there any plans (even long-term) to address this difference in treatment between NPCs and players?

Many Asps and pirates has shield booster which is added to the energy like has a free [wiki]Shield Equalizer[/wiki] also.

[Diziet Sma]

While the NPCs don't have shields, they also don't have the same internal equipment model as the player, so you lose shields and you start taking potentially very serious internal damage, whereas they just lose energy.

Are there any plans (even long-term) to address this difference in treatment between NPCs and players?

Many Asps and pirates has shield booster which is added to the energy like has a free [wiki]Shield Equalizer[/wiki] also.

Well, I was thinking in terms of other NPC ship's equipment, that could take damage in combat.. not the shields so much..

[Layne]

I don't recognize that HUD, phkb, but I like the minimalist quality it has. Which one is that?

What I like is that lovely clean font.. which one is that?

Looks like this one, Diz: http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/File:Xolonium_font.png

[cim]

While the NPCs don't have shields, they also don't have the same internal equipment model as the player, so you lose shields and you start taking potentially very serious internal damage, whereas they just lose energy.

Are there any plans (even long-term) to address this difference in treatment between NPCs and players?

I've considered it a few times, but with NPC cargo damage being basically irrelevant and most NPC equipment damage being invisible in a fight (lucky hit on injectors would probably be noticeable; a hit on ECM could be very significant in the fight but you probably would never notice you did it; everything else would be subtle or no effect) it probably wouldn't actually be that different in practice to just giving every NPC 256 extra energy and starting their "flee" behaviour at a higher energy level than current - which I don't think would particularly be a positive change.

[Norby]

just giving every NPC 256 extra energy and starting their "flee" behaviour at a higher energy level than current - which I don't think would particularly be a positive change.

Especially not when a new player said above that NPCs already seems to be stronger than the player ship.

[Diziet Sma]

Looks like this one, Diz: http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/File:Xolonium_font.png

Thanks!

(lucky hit on injectors would probably be noticeable; a hit on ECM could be very significant in the fight but you probably would never notice you did it

Those are pretty much the ones I was thinking of.. equipment that wouldn't have much effect isn't worth bothering with, but it would be nice if the significant items could be modelled..

[spara]

(lucky hit on injectors would probably be noticeable; a hit on ECM could be very significant in the fight but you probably would never notice you did it

Those are pretty much the ones I was thinking of.. equipment that wouldn't have much effect isn't worth bothering with, but it would be nice if the significant items could be modelled..

The player could receive a message about NPC equipment being damaged. Or there could be some visual effect, noticeable flash or something. Or it could be some sound effect, like something breaking.

[phkb]

Looks like this one, Diz:

Yep. Xolonium.

[Norby]

The player could receive a message about NPC equipment being damaged.

But not in the core game imho. The current internal equipments mean damages are not detectable from outside, as an important info what every commander would like to keep in secret.

An OXP could change the equipments to external like in dertien's High Poly Modpack where each give detectable feedback when damaged. In this case the AI should be improved to use this advantage against the player also. The cost of x-ray sight is when your ECM is damaged then you will be attacked by a dozen of missiles instantly. Those players who like this challenge will install this OXP, others could stay with the current hidden equipments.