Oolite Bulletins

Am I alone in feeling that a "Space Bar" option simply isn't Elite-like? If we must have a consume time functionality (which I am not sure we need), I'd rather map it to a new key, without justifying it with things like "Go to Space Bar" or "Play a game on the Holodec" or whatever.

@ a_c: I don't feel that a space-bar isn't particularly Elite-like. This may result from my long gaming experience with the Escape Velocity series, which helped me partly over the long time without Elite. EV is itself heavily inspired by Elite, and I always thought of the space-bar par of it as an improvement, because it is a neat anchor for integrating missions into the game. Don't start the mission screen automatically on docking, but let your character walk to a place where he may get some interaction and might meet a mission. In fact I've tried to re-model some of this in Ghosts-from-the-past.oxp (WIP) (which you will hopefully like as much as Cataclysm ). And even in Anarchies, where the possibility of bribing an official is activated only by walking into the equipment section of the station (and staying there for a couple of seconds, do to the "ticklish" nature of the legacy scripting system).

I see, however, a practical problem:

@ micha: There are more than just a handful suggestions and pleas what to do with the F4-key while docked. So far none of them made it into the game. And implementing one of them would of course discard the rest of them.

So--until one suggestion gets a spontaneous and overwhelming support by not only the vast majority here on the board, but the developers as well--it is not very likely that any of them will make it to the MSNR*.


__________
*Mythical Next Stable Release

Ah, well, I wasn't aware of any I'll chuff off and educate myself on that, then.

<edit>searching on f4 reveals no results. anywhere I should start reading, apart from the entire history of the 'Suggestion Box'?</edit>

Micha wrote:

...apart from the entire history of the 'Suggestion Box'?

Yes, that should do the trick.

(Honestly, I don't know. It is even possible that some of the suggestions have been deleted automatically by the board over time.)

And even in Anarchies, where the possibility of bribing an official is activated only by walking into the equipment section of the station (and staying there for a couple of seconds, do to the "ticklish" nature of the legacy scripting system).

Is this in anarchys now or will it be in later or not at all? Just askin.

FSOneblin

FSOneblin wrote:

And even in Anarchies, where the possibility of bribing an official is activated only by walking into the equipment section of the station (and staying there for a couple of seconds, do to the "ticklish" nature of the legacy scripting system).

Is this in anarchys now or will it be in later or not at all? Just askin.

FSOneblin

It's in Anarchies.oxp right now, if you are not clean, and of course only in Anarchy systems. Oh, and there is a random element as well. You wouldn't expext to find a corrupt official in each and every system, would you?

Commander McLane wrote:

FSOneblin wrote:

And even in Anarchies, where the possibility of bribing an official is activated only by walking into the equipment section of the station (and staying there for a couple of seconds, do to the "ticklish" nature of the legacy scripting system).

Is this in anarchys now or will it be in later or not at all? Just askin.

FSOneblin

It's in Anarchies.oxp right now, if you are not clean, and of course only in Anarchy systems. Oh, and there is a random element as well. You wouldn't expext to find a corrupt official in each and every system, would you?

...

FSOneblin

Commander McLane wrote:

There are more than just a handful suggestions and pleas what to do with the F4-key while docked. So far none of them made it into the game.

Something that is missing from the game is a way to keep track of the missions and what their requirements are.

I have tried taking Oolite to some friends to garner their interest, but often the game falls on deaf ears. Why? Because oolite does not exist in a vacuum - people bring their experience of other games to Oolite. What are they to make of the game, attempt to earn credits and increase your rank, but to what end?

What is needed is a way to draw people in, to encourage them towards missions that make playing the game seem worthwhile. Experienced players have some idea about the missions that can be played and have a rough idea of the requirements needed before they are able to participate., but not so experienced people just end up completely lost.

I believe that we need to get information about the missions out to the player. What I envisage is that the F4 key provides a Missions screen, that shows you all of the missions throughout the game, and the requirements that need to be fulfilled before participating in that mission.

The F8F8 screen shows Passengers and Cargo that are available, and shows in grey the ones that you are not yet capable of performing. The F4 screen could use the same idea for showing missions.

When people know more about the mission requirements, they are less likely to wander aimlessly around the game, not knowing what to do or where to go. We don't want people to give up the game up as a bad idea.

The information is even already codified on the wiki at http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Oolite_Missions so all we would need is for certain OXPs to register their missions with the game.

While it is possible for people to find out about missions by exploring the wiki and the bulletin boards, I want people to be able to play the game without being forced to examine their installed OXPs to investigate which missions they may have available.

pmw57: I can see your point, but there is one very importnant detail being missed here: Oolite (and also Elite) are NOT about missions. They are meant to be completely open ended and the players are not even supposed to know that missions exist until they bump on the very first one (Constrictor Hunt under normal conditions). So, putting a mission list on F4 would just be a huge spoiler for players. One of the beautiful things about Elite/Oolite is that just when you think you've seen it all, something new and unexpected happens and renews your interest. I would personally prefer to keep it this way. For those who want a space sim with missions, they can have a look at games designed specifically around missions, like FreeSpace, Wing Commander etc. I like to think that Oolite is much more than just that.

another_commander wrote:

Oolite (and also Elite) are NOT about missions. They are meant to be completely open ended and the players are not even supposed to know that missions exist until they bump on the very first one (Constrictor Hunt under normal conditions).

This here is where I require further clarification.

There are only 5 built-in missions, and presuming that one is lucky enough to make 50 kills on any one day, it would take around 6 months of playing to reach Elite status, at which time you may not have stumbled across many of those built in missions.

The clarification part is on the OXPs. You manually install those with the explicit knowledge that they are there.

Additionally, the vector maps https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?t=6053 are being created and have areas deliberately named to inspire others to create OXP missions for them, which you would then have to deliberately add to your Oolite game.

How does the surprise nature of stumbling across a mission square with the creation of them to be explicitly added to the game?

How would it work if the F4 screen only shows OXP missions, which often have much stricter requirements than the native missions. Then people who want to play and enjoy the native game won't find anything at F4, and people with OXP missions installed will have a useful way to handle them.

Well, then I guess there is no problem, is there? If players install mission OXPs deliberately knowing what's coming, what would be the point of listing them on any screen? I was referring to potential newcomers who know very little in the way of OXPs and just start a clean unmodified game.

Yep, Oolite isn't really about clocking the game, is it. Being told exactly what you need to do in order to 'unlock' missions/oxps would definitely feel like cheating.
It's a bit like adventure games: in those, the main idea is to figure out what you need to do. If you are told exactly what to do - every step of the way - then at least half of the game is gone. The trumble in-built 'mission' is one example: if everyone knows exactly what to expect, and what to do when things start to get out of hand, the point of that mission's existence is greatly reduced.

If you want to impress your friends in a short space of time, why don't you arm yourself with a 'strategic' save game & accompanying OXP... Asteroid Storm is a good one to 'must have a mission' people, it's time limited & if you fail it you still get to see fireworks!
Just save a game at a system close to where the action is, then jump in there. That should whet their appetite. If not, then it's unlikely they'll ever get to like Oolite one way or another.

One other OXP that might appeal to mission-centric people is Random Hits: you find a space bar, and you get a mission or three every time you dock. Again, a save game just near the action, (and/or possibly memorising the route to the space bar) will avoid having long periods where all your friends can see is you flying through space for no apparent reason.

Still, the main idea behind Oolite is that you make your own goals. Even getting mission OXPs is something you need to choose for yourself. That's why there is no list of 'officially sanctioned' OXPs, etc...

Wow, that turned out to be almost a mini-rant. I better get my medications now...

another_commander wrote:

Well, then I guess there is no problem, is there? If players install mission OXPs deliberately knowing what's coming, what would be the point of listing them on any screen? I was referring to potential newcomers who know very little in the way of OXPs and just start a clean unmodified game.

I've been keeping track of my OXPs in a separate text file, where I have 27 missions, 22 world expansions, 11 ship systems expansions, 9 ships, and a trumble eating stores in the hold.

Some of the missions require you to have a set minimum number of kills, a certain legal status, and to be in a certain galaxy at a certain system before that mission will activate. This means that just stumbling across that mission will be impossible if any one of those requirements aren't fulfilled.

Due to the number of other games out there (Oolite does not exist in isolation) a large majority of potential converts will just give up on the game because the game, in their thinking, only consists of trading for small sums of credits, and easy ways of dying.

I used to play this game at school, and now a decade+ later have come back to it again. I want to use my experiences from the start of things again to try and help others find enjoyment with the game.

I want to help people realise the potential that is currently hidden too deeply within the game. I can manage my missions myself, and over the past couple of days have already enjoyed the delicacies that Trumbles bring, but it's a matter of how to keep people attracted long enough to hook them in.

I suspect that a certain amount of it is actually outside of the game itself, with the game just being a way to broaden the experience.

I have been using the keyboard solely for navigation and combat. Currently going into battle means peculiar finger combinations, as I attempt to line up an attacker while keeping a finger near the fire key.

Answers to questions like, does the joystick or mouse bring an improved experience to combat, I haven't seen anything close to being answered in my journeying around the wiki and other places.

IMO, not really, but there's people here who swear on how much better the game is when played with joysticks / mice.

One other 'hidden'* feature for you to at: you can change your key configuration to suit your tastes: google 'oolite key config' to find out how!

*edit: it is mentioned in a couple of readmes, but we might need to be a bit more proactive...

Kaks wrote:

The trumble in-built 'mission' is one example: if everyone knows exactly what to expect, and what to do when things start to get out of hand, the point of that mission's existence is greatly reduced.

This reminds me. If there is no manner within the game itself to discover the solution, is the purpose then to force players to either give up, or go out and ask around about the solution?