Oolite Bulletins

Redspear wrote: ↑Thu Feb 22, 2024 1:39 am

What if rating enabled:

• Access to the more valuable trade goods (rather than creating new ones)?
• Access to the more powerful ships e.g. Adder at harmless, Moray at average, Cobra at dangerous (could still require considerable cash)?
• Access to better equipment (you need the rep to get the contacts for the best gear)?

Harmless to elite is a slow climb. Poor to rich, not so much.

I think that's a fantastic idea, actually. Rating leads to recognition leads to licenses leads to access. (Obviously this would be compressed in gameplay from rating -> access but it could be articulated in more complex ways for the purposes of storytelling.)

Actually, I have the urge to say a bit more on this subject (which is your cue to stop reading if you're easily offended):

Wildeblood wrote: ↑Thu Feb 22, 2024 1:16 am

The F4 screen has a list of a half-a-dozen predefined categories. The problem is it is not an enforced list - when defining an interface for the F4 screen, you can write anything in the "category" field. OXP authors discovered on day one that writing:

category: expandDescription("[interfaces-category-uncategorised]"),

puts the interface for their cheat menu at the end of the list, but writing:

category: "AddOns",

puts it at the top of the list. This had a double benefit for them of putting their stuff where they "could find it", and saving 60-300 seconds checking in descriptions.plist what the "official" categories were. The result was the inevitable mess you have now.

What I describe above is a "red flag" for me, when I'm trawling through the contents of OXPs, which I've been doing every day recently. (A "surprizing" number are broken in simple ways, requiring only easy fixes.)

Gratuitous invention of new interface categories scores one (1) muppet point. A second muppet point and I stop reading and delete it. What I'm saying is I, personally, consider this among the more egregious crimes against the player that an OXP author can commit. YMMV.

Just to mention Alnivel's OXP which allows you to redesign your F4 screen however you wish:

Interface Reordering OXP






I wonder if it might be possible to add in (for example) "Arquebusian Arranged F4 docked screen", "Wildebloodian Wrangled F4 docked screen (de-Muppet-ificated)" and "Redspear's Reordered F4 docked screen" as options?




Reference: F4 page (ship and system interfaces) - has a list of all but the very most recent additions to the category list

Pretty colours. Coincidentally, I was experimenting with the GUI colours for the first time last night. I didn't get as far as cyan, though.

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Thu Feb 22, 2024 8:21 am

Reference: F4 page (ship and system interfaces) - has a list of all but the very most recent additions to the category list

For some definition of "all" that doesn't include the Wildefire SE-X Drive. I'm only laughing because there's no crying emoji available.
Or "Station self-destruct", categorized as "DANGER!" (Okay, that one is an exception to what I write next. It's okay when I do it.)
I just looked again; that one was listed. You're doing amazing work with that wiki, Cholly.

On that page is mentioned a perfect example of what I meant by gratuitous category invention:
G.E.T. (Guild of Elite Traders)
This category is added by the Elite Trader OXZ
G.E.T. Best Trade Resetter: resets your "Best Trade" statistics
G.E.T. Master Advisory: advice from the local guild master. If you had previously selected a commodity on the F8 markets page, you get information for that commodity for all markets in the system with a guild presence.
G.E.T. Ship Status Report: report on how Guild engineers have improved your ship's performance

So Reval wanted to keep his three links together. Okay, I understand the urge. I don't understand how grown adults can't suppress the urge when they publish something for other people to see.

Down the end of the list in "Uncategorized", with the other miscellaney, thanks >>> G.E.T. Best Trade Resetter: resets your "Best Trade" statistics
"Organizations", duh. >>> G.E.T. Master Advisory: advice from the local guild master. If you had previously selected a commodity on the F8 markets page, you get information for that commodity for all markets in the system with a guild presence.
"Ship Systems", obviously. >>> G.E.T. Ship Status Report: report on how Guild engineers have improved your ship's performance

Categories cease to be categories if they are allowed to proliferate uncontrolledly.

arquebus wrote: ↑Thu Feb 22, 2024 3:08 am

I think that's a fantastic idea, actually. Rating leads to recognition leads to licenses leads to access. (Obviously this would be compressed in gameplay from rating -> access but it could be articulated in more complex ways for the purposes of storytelling.)

Thanks.

Don't worry about the details of the following too much but rather consider this a first pass...



A quick welcome message when you next dock, "Welcome Trainee 2nd Class. Congratulations on acheiving an upgrade to your pilot's licence. The Pilot's federation (...or whatever...) has now granted you additional privilages.", and when new stuff starts showing up it should make some kind of sense.

Equipment availabilty would need to be native mission appropriate e.g. no sense in unlocking the extra energy unit AFTER the player has had the chance to gain the naval version.

I'm a bit hazy on the mission timings (re need for galactic hyperdrive etc.) but I don't think I'm too far off with the above (?)

I see achieving the Elite rank as the start of the silly season in this instance. Why not have access to the ships too ridiculously capable for normal play.
Having said that, I've not included the constrictor (perhaps a reward for achieving double elite?) but then that really would be entering 'easy mode' territory I think.

Switeck wrote: ↑Thu Feb 22, 2024 2:24 am

Maybe Oolite could be set up so certain ships are simply not available for any price unless you complete a long campaign?

Likewise, your natural log idea could be employed.

Redspear wrote: ↑Thu Feb 22, 2024 12:33 pm

Don't worry about the details of the following too much but rather consider this a first pass...
...

Would this be part of an Elite Federation OXP? It would be nice to have something done with the scraps of Lore eg.: have an "office" somewhere.


Reference: Elite Federation

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Thu Feb 22, 2024 12:51 pm

Would this be part of an Elite Federation OXP? It would be nice to have something done with the scraps of Lore eg.: have an "office" somewhere.

I was thinking more...

Elite manual (again...) wrote:

Welcome aboard this Cobra Mk III trading and combat craft. The ship has been supplied to you by Faulcon deLacy Spaceways, by arrangement with the Galactic Co-operative of Worlds whose Space and Interstellar Pilot's Exams you have just successfully completed.

Certainly the elite ranking is more linked to the Elite Pilot's Federation (...Elite Federation of Pilots... 'Splitter!') but given that all of this stuff is typically available from GalCop stations then they ought to be involved in some way.

Maybe the EFP effectively forces GC's hand in that if the latter doesn't cater to successful killers then even more successful killers might.

This could also explain why pilots with military lasers are so rare - harder to find places to dock, hard to rack up enough kills (when you'd rather they'd just drop the barrels) and hard to find a suitably equipped vessel to salvage from. GalCop doesn't really want to make them available but if they don't then others likely will, so this would represent a sort of compromise to prevent every Tom, Dick or Lobster from running around with one.
(Would potentially kick Weapon Laws into touch however so I'd better think about that as well...)

Will it be an oxp? I'm thinking so.
It seems to be a fairly logical, even classic, form of game design and I'd really just be switching currencies in terms of player progression.

I'm already thinking a transporter start is too limiting (gameplay wise) however and maybe I should make it an adder start (which many some a few already seem to enjoy) and get a version of the Mamba in there somewhere a la  Fighter-Explorers.

A bit more stew time required in the old cranium before I make a billion corrections to it after release.

Narratively you could say that every ship is fitted with a telemetry recorder that sends data back to the "DMV" which then assigns your license based on "skill." (Otherwise it would be a touch weird to say you've "passed your exam" when you have in fact not sat for one at all.)

One of the difficulties would be in accommodating the range of OXPs. (I guess that's always the difficulty...) A new OXP that adds a ship wouldn't be recognized by the licensing system; the licensing system doesn't know about that ship. Could licensing be based less around specific ships/weapons and more around levels of "power"? Like ad hoc calculations of damage, cargo space, etc. That way the licensing system wouldn't need to explicitly know about every weapon and every ship available to the player's game.

arquebus wrote: ↑Thu Feb 22, 2024 2:48 pm

Narratively you could say that every ship is fitted with a telemetry recorder that sends data back to the "DMV" which then assigns your license based on "skill." (Otherwise it would be a touch weird to say you've "passed your exam" when you have in fact not sat for one at all.)

Almopst exactly that. GalCop having access to your elite rating and acting on that. The pilot's exam thing was just part of the original passage in the manual, as was starting in the cobra mk III (I probably emboldened too much of the sentence).

arquebus wrote: ↑Thu Feb 22, 2024 2:51 pm

One of the difficulties would be in accommodating the range of OXPs. (I guess that's always the difficulty...) A new OXP that adds a ship wouldn't be recognized by the licensing system; the licensing system doesn't know about that ship. Could licensing be based less around specific ships/weapons and more around levels of "power"? Like ad hoc calculations of damage, cargo space, etc. That way the licensing system wouldn't need to explicitly know about every weapon and every ship available to the player's game.

Yeah, I think it might be even more difficult than that. The usual way of overriding a ship's appearance is via either shipyard overrides or an already present condition script marker. Might be easier to simply dictate availability via a 'fake' shipyard.

I mean if folks want to install lots of playable ships then they would likely either want to tweak things to fit, or simply not favour this hypothetical oxp in the first place. I'd settle for it working without oxp ships to begin with.

Redspear wrote: ↑Thu Feb 22, 2024 12:33 pm

Don't worry about the details of the following too much but rather consider this a first pass...



A quick welcome message when you next dock, "Welcome Trainee 2nd Class. Congratulations on acheiving an upgrade to your pilot's licence. The Pilot's federation (...or whatever...) has now granted you additional privilages.", and when new stuff starts showing up it should make some kind of sense.

I'd definitely put Docking Computers lower skill rating...

Honestly docking computers should be sub-harmless level. A firm requirement until they're sure you know how to land the damn thing.

Switeck wrote: ↑Fri Feb 23, 2024 1:22 am

I'd definitely put Docking Computers lower skill rating...

arquebus wrote: ↑Fri Feb 23, 2024 3:43 am

Honestly docking computers should be sub-harmless level.

Alright, alright!

I suppose I was thinking that those ships were quite a bit smaller than the mk III, whereas the Krait is very wide...

Another table, the product of a bit more thinking time, is pretty much done. I'll post that later and see what you think.

Another consideration would be ship prices. If the gap is too high then there will be little chance to upgrade before the next option is available.

Trade in value is reduced and the smaller ships have less income generation potential, so I might need to do some tweaking there...

So here's a rejig that's designed to be a bit more playable (and hopefully self-explanatary) from the off.



The oolite gecko is quite a potent ltlle ship, so I had to nerf it in some way to justify it's position here. Hopefully I've adequately explained that.

If you see any other questionable choices that I've made then feel free to highlight. Thanks.

Only Elite-rated pilots are allowed to fly Anacondas?

Isn't that just like "only Baron von Richthofen is allowed to fly Boeing's 747-400 DreamLifter Large Cargo Freighters"?