Oolite Bulletins

Star Gazer wrote:

Surely monks of any kind would fit better with feudal systems...? ...just a thought...

True, however:

[url=http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Black_Monk_Monastary]Black Monk Monastary[/url] on the Wiki wrote:

In response GalCop passed the Consumer Credit (Holy Orders) Act 2978, outlawing the loaning of money by any organisation save the religious. The theory being that those with a spiritual conscience would never exploit Commanders in dire need of Credits. Following the passage of the legislation, the number of bankers taking Holy Orders increased by 20,000%.

This being the case, Corporate States would be more 'comfortable' to these ex-bankers.

Captain Hesperus

Little Bear, I have a bone to pick with you!

Having spent some time carefully pushing minesweeper satellites over the radar horizon of a Monastery I dropped a Quirium Cascade Mine by the Monastery and activated my Fuel Injectors.

As I blasted away I was watching for the explosion with visions of of coffers full of used Credits floating in space waiting to be scooped up by their rightful owner (me). Or at least some debris. Or at least the satisfaction of having blown up a Monastery.

Nothing! Fizzle!

Oh Dear! Back to being poor. I haven't even made my second million yet.

Congrats on your OXPs. They're great fun.

@davcefai - Maybe you should have used a cluster of Cmdr Wyvern's Nukes! That'll learn them dratted banker-monks!!!

Captain Hesperus
"Look, stop waving that red-hot poker about, I'll get you your money! I've just got to find a serious buyer for my mother's liver!"

Your scanner range may be 25km, but that dosen't mean the Sweepers are so limited. They can scan much further. He he!

Hi LittleBear,

what about the timer https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?p=31265#31265? Have you been able to have a look into it?

One obstacle could be that the whole thing will last too long if 16 weeks are really 16 weeks. But in that case I have two suggestions: a) Increase the loan and the interest, so even on a longer timescale it will be hard to repay OR b) make the weeks shorter. The Black Monks could follow a week of let's say three or four days according to their religion. Just mention it in the accepted-briefing (or let the debtor find out the hard way, when his counter drops and drops ).

@Commander McLane - The 'short week idea is quite a smart idea. After all the Order of St. Herod is essentially a religious order started by bankers. They may only acknowledge business hours and working days (i.e. 9am-5pm and Mon-Fri). That would certainly cut down the repayment time!

Captain Hesperus
"NO! Don't help them! They're the Anti-profit!"

Captain Hesperus wrote:

the Order of St. Herod is essentially a religious order started by bankers.

Now that reminds me, The collective noun for bankers is a wunch, not a lot of people know that.

Hi Commander, Timer looks good. Think I'd just need to play test to see how many Oolite days making 16 jumps takes on average. This would retain the challenge of the OXP - Make enough cash in time to repay the massive interest rate. If that came out at say 25 days, then the Monks could just tell the player in mission_text, your loan must be repaid by Stardate XXXXXX (ie current date + 25). The jump count could still be used for attacks on the player, but have a condition that the clock is greater than the due date before the jump counter starts counting. The mision_text could just read, You have [due-date - clock] days in which to settle your debt with the Black Monks." Have to finish the Assassins re-write first though. Was playtesting the "Balrog Class Dreadnaught" last night. Nasty!

LittleBear wrote:

Was playtesting the "Balrog Class Dreadnaught" last night. Nasty!

Don't forget, I want stats and screenies for the Wiki once it's passed muster!

Captain Hesperus

Report : Agent Eagle
To : Popular People's Front Central Inteligence.

It is as we feared, the foul Dictator (may his feathers wither), has contuned his reasearch into hyper-plasma technology, despite the prohibition placed upon him by the GalCop Security Council last week.

Even the designation of himself and his Navy as fugitives has failed to deter this evil mis-use of science. I regret to report that "the Balrog" is operational, currently less than two weeks travel from our Home world.

Armed with 12 Hyper Cannons capable of devistating a planartay surface within 30 minutes. In testing, a fully armed Cobra Njx survived 0.3 seconds exposure to the rear cannons. Worse still, the Shield cannot be peneratated by any normal weapon. All our hopes must lie with the Graviton Torpedo. Let us pray that it remains secure. I must confess I will roost easier once the device is delivered to our main base. As our own ships are too well known to the cursed Top Birds Spys I reckomend using a private commander to effect the delivery.

Is this a bug or a feature?:

When a Black Monk gunship attacks a "clean" ship, it the presence of Galcops, the reverend ones remain clean.

I havent given the Gunships any special features to stay clean when *ahem* going about their holy work!

When playtesting near the Station, they did aquire a criminal record if the cops noticed their actions. You don't always become offender for fireing on clean ships. I think it depends whether the Cops AI goes to a "Mark Target for Fines" state. I wanted the Debtors to send approprate debtor type pleas when attacked, but this means they dont broadcast a normal Oolite distress call, so the Cops are probabley less likley to come to their aid. The Cops AI also does a "weigh up the odds" when deciding whether to help. The Cops may be more reluctant to take on a Gun Ship than a Mamba, unless the Cop is also in a powerful ship such as a Condor!

I've just seen a Black Monk's gunship attack an overdue client (who engaged panic circuits! ) within a stations Aegis, become a Fugitive and then proceed to wipe out the Vipers launched by the station! The client got away I think.

Hi, LittleBear,

I just discovered a flaw in BlackMonks.oxp: There is no minesweeperAI.plist in the AI-folder. That means that the minesweepers do just nothing, as long as you haven't installed Anarchies.oxp as well. I haven't, as I'm still far from Galaxy 7.

Easy solution: move a copy of minesweeperAI.plist into the AI-folder in the next distribution of BlackMonks.oxp, and everything will be fine.

I also didn't include the minesweeper-found entry in descriptions!

(I tend to develope will all the OXPs installed to make sure somthing new I do doesn't conflict with an existing OXP by using the same role / model / texture name. - But this is the downside!).

Finished the final release of Assassins (V1.2) and put it on the Wiki, so updating Black Monks will be my next project. Will be having a bit of a break first as Assassins was a big update. (2 new ships, the text adventure, 3 new missions and 2 missions rewritten).

To do:-

- Use in Griffs updated station (more guns!) and docking bay resized.
- Use CM's timer method so weeks are really used rather than jumps.
- Make the "old english" in the mission briefings consitent.