Oolite Bulletins

It came to me while reviewing the characteristics of the core ships on the Wiki that one solution to the lane length is to globally buff the speed of the ships. Give +0.1LM, which would make the fastest ship 0.5LM. Does it have unintended consequences?

Of course it won't even half the duration of the trip, but that may be part of the solution.

With regard to getting extra speed by switching off shields, the justification is very simple. Propulsion by reaction works by ejecting mass at high speed. Usually the acceleration of the mass is obtained by burning it so that it expands and gains speed. But engine designs already exist (Vasimr for instance) in which the acceleration is performed with a magnetic field, hence energy consumption. Because shields are probably the #1 energy eater (it's likely that their energy consumption is function of the surface or the volume), switching them off is the best option. Lasers can continue to work because they normally use energy only when fired.

And it looks like a very good idea because it gives us what we want (speed) but is dangerous if used carelessly.

With regard to occupations, with the ideas on trading we came up with, browsing news and local markets works almost directly (we already have Market Inquirer MFD, maybe add a "newsfeed MFD" for sector-wide news). Doing that in my current setting (1 extra planet + a solar station) keeps me busy for the first couple of minutes upon arrival already. Broadcast MFD can be enhanced to inquiry other ships about nearby good deals. However, they by default have no reason to help you, so we could provide a more "aggressive" option: hacking into the computer of an another ship in order to get juicy information. Conversely, security checks/tuning (damn Windoows updates!) on your own computer security could become an activity.

A broadcast channel available during flight with broader news coverage, cargocontracts, news, bounties, shipnews, where to find certain equipment, can be viewed as mfd
And a more personalized expanded one when docked

Astrobe wrote:

Lasers can continue to work because they normally use energy only when fired.

I'd turn off all weapons, missiles included, at cruising speed, myself, to make the ships really defenceless: no zooming past attackers and keeping them off your six with a rear laser. The justifications can be worked out later, but the point would be to have high straight-line speed (essentially, a watered-down torus with no masslock, and where steering is very sluggish) = no combat options at all; if you want to defend yourself (or attack someone else) you have to be at battle speed. Battle speed could include toned-down injectors as per Cim's suggestion, producing cabin heat rather than consuming fuel (and/or perhaps using energy?).

As regards buying ships, equipment etc. - I still think debt is a very promising game mechanism. Allowing the player to borrow money, and for interest to pile up, has a lot of advantages. Amounts available can be scaled to player reputation (so no newbies flying off with a brand-new ubership and a mountain of debt), interest payments act as a useful factor to keep chivvying the player onwards, and an element of flexibility allows for more financial gambling: losing money on a trade deal gone wrong would be bad but not terminal, and therefore could be made a more common option. This would mean that, in the game, the player's finances wouldn't always slowly accumulate (currently, if you take Furs somewhere where you're losing money on them, it's no big deal: you just take them on another hop and cash in at the next system over): the player could receive bigger gains when things go well, offset by actual losses when they don't.

Astrobe wrote:

I'd go full nostalgia mode and activate wireframe graphics for this. At 10 FPS

Love it!

Disembodied wrote:

Astrobe wrote:

FWIW I'm fine with the slow pace, except perhaps the lane is a bit too long on average, so I do use the Torus where possible (but rarely do I use injectors to escape masslocks; I can wait - plus the AI does a good job now at stepping aside too). An average lane distance of 5 minutes (at .35LM) instead of 15 would be just fine I guess.

This is a good point: there is a place for a game where the action is relatively rare, but exciting when it happens, and made all the sweeter by the pauses in between. As Cim has said before, maybe what we should be thinking about is not how to skip past "the boring bits" but instead to give the player something else to do rather than stare out of the window.

Slow is one thing but tedious is another. The 'light and shade' is important I think but the same ship masslocking you repeatedly, or crawling past one ship immediately after crawling past another one is not just slow, it's repetitive and frustrating in a way it wasn't in elite.

Astrobe wrote:

plus the AI does a good job now at stepping aside too

I was forgetting that however, which has improved things.

Disembodied wrote:

1. Peruse the news
2. Bid for cargoes and contracts, in advance - perhaps with time-dependent elements, so there would be pressure/reward in reaching the station by a certain time
3. Communicate with nearby ships
4. Enable further interaction with other ships - side-to-side docking, perhaps, and inter-ship trading
5. Run system checks and perform onboard repairs and tune-ups
6. Run long-range scans, and try to discover information about what other ships and stations are out there, and where
7. Look back over the ship's log

Of the above, I think 3 and 4 have potential and I like the sound of #6 as it could be strategic. 5 could be... well, I'm really not sure about that one being fun.

cbr wrote:

Why only one witchpoint per system ( if in multiplanet system par example )

Multiplanet systems are oxp of course.
I think the witchpoint was made a 'thing' in order to justify the space-lane: 1 WP, 1 Station, 1 lane.
More than one entry point and you could ditch the idea of a WP altogether (at least in terms of anything requiring a beacon). With just one station, lanes would converge nearer to the planet.

Might give a nice sense of space being empty however, slowly getting busier as you head towards the station. Does result in less masslocks but (without tinkering) means less combat too so everywhere is a little safer. It would also require the system populator allocating incoming traffic to random entry points.

Astrobe wrote:

It came to me while reviewing the characteristics of the core ships on the Wiki that one solution to the lane length is to globally buff the speed of the ships. Give +0.1LM, which would make the fastest ship 0.5LM. Does it have unintended consequences?

Yes. If ships are faster then combat is faster. This could be tempered by adjusting the laser ranges and the scanner range but in the case of the latter you also increase the mass-lock radius...

Redspear wrote:

Disembodied wrote:

5. Run system checks and perform onboard repairs and tune-ups

Of the above, I think 3 and 4 have potential and I like the sound of #6 as it could be strategic. 5 could be... well, I'm really not sure about that one being fun.

It would depend on how it's done. They would need to be gamified somewhat - essentially, take some minor timewaster games like Minesweeper, Hunt the Wumpus, Freecell, Pipe Mania etc. and repurpose them (simplifying/streamlining where necessary) into "purging the energy grid", "isolating a damaged interlink", "smoothing the plasma flow", "improving energy distribution", and so on. The advantage in doing these things would be to delay the next maintenance overhaul a bit - possibly important on a long, time-critical journey, but not compulsory by any means.

You might ask, why not just play a timewaster game? I would argue that - given an in-game purpose and context - these wouldn't feel like timewasters. There's lots of precedence for this sort of thing - a variant of Pipe Mania is used to simulate hacking in BioShock, for example.

Disembodied wrote:

The advantage in doing these things would be to delay the next maintenance overhaul a bit - possibly important on a long, time-critical journey...

Sold! Especially if that would enable me to side-step the damn RNG occasionally!

Disembodied wrote:

Astrobe wrote:

Lasers can continue to work because they normally use energy only when fired.

I'd turn off all weapons, missiles included, at cruising speed, myself, to make the ships really defenceless: no zooming past attackers and keeping them off your six with a rear laser.

Ok. Taking Redspear's points into account, what about:

When the Torus Drive is in use, shields deplete quickly and weapons go offline. Slowdown to injector speed instead of masslocking.

Looks like something I can prototype, but is it worth prototyping?

Astrobe wrote:

Ok. Taking Redspear's points into account, what about:

When the Torus Drive is in use, shields deplete quickly and weapons go offline. Slowdown to injector speed instead of masslocking.

Looks like something I can prototype, but is it worth prototyping?

For a test, that might work - although there would have to be a mechanism to enable the player to voluntarily drop to "battle speed", putting their shields and weapons quickly online. And hostile AIs would need to be capable of closing in on and shooting the player at high speed … is it possible to limit the player's manoeuvrability, as well as cutting weapons and depleting shields? It would need to be quite severe, otherwise players could just dodge past any opposition.

Disembodied wrote:

You might ask, why not just play a timewaster game? I would argue that - given an in-game purpose and context - these wouldn't feel like timewasters. There's lots of precedence for this sort of thing - a variant of Pipe Mania is used to simulate hacking in BioShock, for example.

Indeed I might but to be fair I'm unaware of the precedence that you mention (at least in a modern sense - haven't played BioShock), so perhaps it could be more entertaining and less jarring that I imagine.

Astrobe wrote:

is it worth prototyping?

My big concern about high speeds within masslock is whether or not it always gives pirates/police sufficient opportunity to engage you; not something I ever really tested adequately.
A pretty minor quibble here, but it would make it even more obvious that non-player ships don't have similar facility.

But yeah, if it's not too much trouble than it could well reveal or clarify something important.

I expect there's a surprisingly simple 'solution' to all of this but it's escaping me thus far



EDIT:

...Perhaps because the problem is not mass-lock and the torus drive but rather the populator and AI (kindly bear with me if you will...)

Mass-lock worked in elite because (amongst other things) most of the traffic was headed in the opposite direction to you.
That didn't appear to make a lot of sense but it did work in a gameplay sense.
So mass-lock was brief and it didn't matter if you were in a slower ship.

In oolite it is the other way around: most of the traffic is headed in similar direction to yourself.
Makes much more sense but is less playable. It does enable a believable non player-centric experience however.
The MkIII in oolite was given a speed boost, but if you're in a slower ship...

So, to keep the non player-centric elements (and I think we should) traffic with a reason to head to the witchpoint as well as the station would be helpful.

Possible reasons:

• Assassins - perhaps they jump in but they could also arrive from the station (with a full tank for their injectors)
• Police - if assassins can learn your heading...
• Bounty Hunters - similar reason to the above
• Escorts - reinforcements for a depleted convoy or by contact for a shipping company
• Transports - cargo shipments (escorted perhaps) for big ship traders who can't dock at a station
• Medical Ships - emergency response to a new arrival
• Mechanics - Need maintenence in a hurry? It'll cost ya...
• Traders - We'll buy those goods from you. Bit risky you taking them to the station, all on your own... (but not for as good a price as the station will offer)

Would there then be any type of ship currently travelling WP to station that then couldn't have reason to travel in the opposite direction as well?

That last one might even be the wiser (if more boring) way to trade for many companies or less adventurous (non-player) pilots. It could be handwaved that it's for licensed companies or their lackeys only; and of course, not every ship needs to explain its heading or motivation to the player.

True, many would then need to either wait at the WP or head back, potentially after feigning some interaction with a non-player ship or offering similar to the player but of the list above, only the last two would need any real player interaction - the rest could be hinted at by broadcasts.

Escorts could follow a trader through a wormhole (on a contract run perhaps).
Assassins would likely linger, bounty hunters and police could head back or patrol.
Medics and Mechanics couild head back after several broadcasts.
Transports and Traders could be the tricky ones but they only constitute a quarter of the above list.

So yes, some might head back in the opposite direction but the opposite could also be true from the station and if population/lane width were adjusted accordingly then mass-locks could be just as frequent but less frustrating. Maybe the witchpoint would be more interesting too?...

Redspear wrote:

My big concern about high speeds within masslock is whether or not it always gives pirates/police sufficient opportunity to engage you; not something I ever really tested adequately.

Ships moving at "cruising speed" - straight line/very low manoeuvrability, no shields, no weapons, any hit results in uncontrolled drop to "battle speed" and a temporary tumble - could be made easier for the AI to hit, by increasing AI accuracy when they're targeting a cruise-speed ship.

Cruising speed would be slower than the torus drive is at present, so an uninterrupted flight from WP to station would take a bit longer: but, because there's no masslock effect, players aren't compelled to crawl past non-hostile NPCs. They can just - if they think it's safe - stay at cruising speed. A trip from WP to the station in a friendly system, with moderate traffic, would probably take less time than it does at present.

A possible variant could be that encountering another ship does automatically drop both ships down to battle speed. They can then either fight, or they can both adjust their drives and both accelerate back up to cruise speed. This would probably require something like a 5- or 10-second pause while shields are lowered, and require the ship to fly straight and level on a fixed bearing, to make it very risky to activate in the middle of battle. This pause, with shields dropping, should give hostile NPCs time to attack the player.

This doesn't have to be a player-centric system: NPCs can do this as well. Because there's nothing physically stopping ships from being near each other in cruise speed, there wouldn't be the mass-lock traffic-jams which would result from giving NPCs torus drives: non-hostile NPCs could cruise along with each other, and with the player, without any problem. Fast NPCs could meet and overtake slow players, too, without causing any huge delays. And if cruising speed was the same for everybody (like hyperspace jumping is) then there shouldn't be too many inbound ships catching up with other ships.

Disembodied wrote:

This doesn't have to be a player-centric system: NPCs can do this as well. Because there's nothing physically stopping ships from being near each other in cruise speed, there wouldn't be the mass-lock traffic-jams which would result from giving NPCs torus drives: non-hostile NPCs could cruise along with each other, and with the player, without any problem. Fast NPCs could meet and overtake slow players, too, without causing any huge delays. And if cruising speed was the same for everybody (like hyperspace jumping is) then there shouldn't be too many inbound ships catching up with other ships.

Soooooo...
You're imagining no mass-lock but rather ships being removed from "cruising speed" by either choice or a hit from combat?
Everyone has this cruise facility and only hostile ships are likely to delay you?

Big question: How fast is cruising speed?

IIRC, injector speed = x7, base torus speed = x32 (max torus being factorially higher)

If this is to result in equal or shorter journey times then you would need a multiplier of, I would suspect, at the very least x16 (i.e. approx double injector speed)
That would take some hitting from a x1 speed ship (the attacker couldn't be in cruise, right?) and indeed some catching if being used to escape!

Disembodied wrote:

A possible variant could be that encountering another ship does automatically drop both ships down to battle speed. They can then either fight, or they can both adjust their drives and both accelerate back up to cruise speed. This would probably require something like a 5- or 10-second pause while shields are lowered, and require the ship to fly straight and level on a fixed bearing, to make it very risky to activate in the middle of battle. This pause, with shields dropping, should give hostile NPCs time to attack the player.

Yeah, I've considered similar before. This alone could be applied to the standard torus/mass-lock system and make things much better.
Bizarre as it might sound, coming from me, I don't like the thought of just 'skipping' encounters. I'm not sure there's currently enough outbound traffic for my ides in that link and I'm not sure that speeds are right for yours.

Am I missing something?

A "Supercruise" OXP is possible based on the ideas above. I think to these features:

- Slowdown to injector speed in yellow alert but without fuel consumption.
- Collision prevention: back to normal speed when something appear in front center in your scanner.
- Red alert force to stop also, hostile ships prevent escape until maintain target lock on you.
- Velocity vector is fixed as in Bullet Drive, controls works only as you turn the camera around.
- Depleting shields until speed is high. Note shields try recharging which slow down energy recharge.
- Shield Capacitors if installed can recharge a part of shields when you slow down.
- Direction is selectable from a list of planets, sun and custom navpoints, the ship turn to the selected target.

Weapons need a decision:
- either must toggle offline by the player using underscore key to enable Supercruise,
- or could be removed by script when step over normal speeds and awarded back when slow down.
First is less smooth during play, last is problematic with OXPs which use the same way like LMSS, Laser Cooler or Sniper Gun.

I see the following 4 ways to make the main "no masslock" feature.

1. Torus without masslock (change scanClass as in VariableMasslock)
Imho wrong way due to purge the yellow alert from the game. To allow activate with "j" key even if a ship is next to you, the masslock range must be 0 so your alert will always be green or red.

2. Injectors without fuel usage
Set injectorBurnRate to 0 if conditions are true for Supercruise (like weapons offline) and increase injectorSpeedFactor from 7 to 32 in green alert. Easy to make and in green alert you can lock your speed by "j" key but in this case you will receive masslock message near ships when you must hold down "i" again. Alternatively you can forget "j" and hold down "i" in the whole trip but this maybe tiring after a while.

3. Dynamic maxSpeed
If conditions are ok then maxSpeed can change to injector speed, moreover thrust and maxThrust to enough high to the next press on speedup key accelerate your ship to injector speed in short time. Changing maxSpeed appear in speedbar as an instant reduction of displayed bar lenght, for example if you travel at maximal normal speed then change to 1/7 due to the new maximum is 7 times more than the current speed. If your HUD can display the speed as numeric value (like HUDSelector's HUDs) then you can see that your speed is not changed but you have more space to accelerate so a press on speedup key sounds logical, otherwise a message about "Supercruise is available" can help.
In green alert maxSpeed will increase again from 7x to 32x so the bar will reduce again to about 1/5 without change in speed. You must press the speedup key again to reach the speed of Torus.
If Supercruise set injectorSpeedFactor to 1 and injectorBurnRate to 0 and disable Torus by instant masslock when turned on then no clashes with these.
An advantage that you have full control over your speed, for example you can slow down lightly when you approach your target.
A drawback is every time you left behind a ship you must press the speedup key again.
Sounds better if there is one level only: either 7x or 32x.
-7x if combined with Injectors then could give 7*7=49x speed for fuel.
-32x is good with lower thrust so must build up the speed by holding down the speedup key for a while.

4. Velocity manipulation
Q-Charger use this way to reach higher relative speeds without changing anything else. Allow to do full automatic up and down steps in speed between the different alerts but you have not much feedback about what is happen if there is not a nearby object in your view which help to guess about your speed.
There are side effects like very long exthaust plumes or sliding ship when you try control it. These could be good if you like it or bad if not.

Norby wrote:

... either must toggle offline by the player using underscore key to enable Supercruise...

That way would be best - some minor prep is good. This supercruise - should there be any spool-up time?

Redspear wrote:

Mass-lock worked in elite because (amongst other things) most of the traffic was headed in the opposite direction to you.
That didn't appear to make a lot of sense but it did work in a gameplay sense.

It makes perfect sense, if you assume that
a) everyone is using a torus drive
b) torus-speed is the same for everyone

The torus problem and mass locks discussed here can easily be remedied by skipping the lane. It's so natural that it's against all logic that the NPCs don't do it. Yes, they don't have torus drives, but that's wrong too. The relative safety of the lane is insignificant compared to skipping the lane. I can't seriously see any activity so luring that I would not skip the lane.

For me the biggest "wrong" in Oolite is NPCs not having torus. In the original Elite you could imagine others having it too. In Oolite that's pretty darn hard.

The second "wrong" comes from the lane. I feel like a superman when I fly past everyone when skipping the lane. And please don't say I should not do it. If I can do it, of course I do it. I'm there to sell computers, not sightseeing .