Oolite Bulletins

I use Energy Bomb on regular basis. Even if it costs 900 Cr, it destroys multiple targets without missing and it's more convenient that missiles...Missiles are too expensive. Rarely be worth buying it, and the bounty never repays the cost (unfortunately).
Perhaps if missiles will be more cheaper in the future, I would consider stop buying E-Bombs.

Dave McRoss wrote:

I use Energy Bomb on regular basis. Even if it costs 900 Cr, it destroys multiple targets without missing and it's more convenient that missiles...Missiles are too expensive. Rarely be worth buying it, and the bounty never repays the cost (unfortunately).
Perhaps if missiles will be more cheaper in the future, I would consider stop buying E-Bombs.

To each their own...

This debate is mainly about the fact that the E-bomb is a hangover from the original player-centric Elite, and is the only weapon that the Player has that NPCs don't/can't (game breaker from a playability POV)

Sorry if I misunderstand, but I had to pull this teeth off. You know, I'm a fan of military aircraft, and thinking of new missile technologies compared to Oolite missiles...I had just bad feelings :/

On other hand, I agree to give energy bomb to NPC. Perhaps a little less powerful.

Dave McRoss wrote:

On other hand, I agree to give energy bomb to NPC. Perhaps a little less powerful.

Nooo!

Just think how amazingly, perpetually, crotch-clutchingly annoying that would be, all the time: dogfight, dogfight, dogfight, zap, zap, dodge, dodge, weave, turn, zap, zapzapzap "I have you now ..." KERPOW Press Space Commander

Keep them in for those that want them, by all means, but don't give them to the NPCs. Smart bombs should only ever be for players only ...

If I were to be given the right to make one and one only absolute statement about how I see Oolite in the future, it would have to be this:

NPCs will never get the Energy Bomb.

How about rethinking the Ebomb completely?

Reduce damage quadratically with distance from ship, in such a way that only at pointblank range is it instant death to another C3.

Also deplete the firing ship's energybanks, set speed to zero, etc.

make sure it only damages active entities and ignores entities without drives (rocks, barrels, wrecks)

or
drain shields of all ships within range (including player), but don't do actual damage... would
that be possible.

I like the possibility of damaging own ship idea, but it would be strange to lose a cargohold expansion or a trumble... actually that would be a cute sideeffect.

Arexack_Heretic wrote:

How about rethinking the Ebomb completely?

Reduce damage quadratically with distance from ship, in such a way that only at pointblank range is it instant death to another C3.

Also deplete the firing ship's energybanks, set speed to zero, etc.

make sure it only damages active entities and ignores entities without drives (rocks, barrels, wrecks)

Exactly what the buzz and bug bombs do in Armoury (the former mainly against non-Thargoid ships, the latter against mainly aliens). That said neither are instant death, but drain the players (or whoever fires them) energy banks by a random amount and that amount influences how much damage is done. Also to be accurate it's linear rather than quadratic, but same principle (for quadratics it'd probably do almost no damage beyond spitting distance).

If you haven't, give them a go and see if they're along the lines you're thinking of.

Arexack_Heretic wrote:

drain shields of all ships within range (including player), but don't do actual damage... would
that be possible.

Or in NPC case drain suitable energy equivalent to shields? But then that's not really not doing damage...

Arexack_Heretic wrote:

I like the possibility of damaging own ship idea, but it would be strange to lose a cargohold expansion or a trumble... actually that would be a cute sideeffect.

I'm not entirely sure you can damage those two - I think the trunk coding explicitly prevents it. You can remove an ECB I think, although I admit I've never tried it, but you can't damage it. And script-wise you can't do a damn thing about Trumbles other than award them.

I must admit I havent tried your armoury oxp yet, it sounds interesting.

also: yeah I realise (now) that NPCs don't actually have shields, duh.

I think I recall getting a cargohold shot off, but it could just as easilly be remembered from a feverish oodream.
If these two are hardcoded to be indestructable, then that is a good thing. I wonder if it is/could be externalised to a tag in the equipment plist descriptions?

trumble trouble: yeah I remember wrestling with those before oolite went all java on me.

Arexack_Heretic wrote:

I think I recall getting a cargohold shot off, but it could just as easilly be remembered from a feverish oodream.
If these two are hardcoded to be indestructable, then that is a good thing. I wonder if it is/could be externalised to a tag in the equipment plist descriptions?

I think might have been in 1.74.0, and was a bug fixed in 1.74.1 (along with the trumbles also getting damaged or not being script-awardable or something). I recall something was wrong with one or both of them, but not exact details.

The tag wouldn't really be necessary, as we have the JS functions for equipment being destroyed and damaged. So you could set the script up that if a given bit of kit gets damaged then it auto-repairs immediately, and if it gets destroyed in-flight then it is re-awarded (just in case people have OXPs installed for selling equipment when docked). That said I'm not sure equipment can be fully destroyed in-flight?

In unrestricted mode equipment can't be destroyed in-flight, only damaged (though there's some code ready in case we add a small probability of getting destroyed equipment in the future).

In strict mode (not that interesting for oxp makers!) equipment can't be damaged, only destroyed.


In any case cargo bay expansions, passenger berths, lasers & external stores stuff (missiles, bombs, fuel pods, etc) cannot be damaged/destroyed by incoming fire.

This situation might change after (M)NSR: I heard the idea ages ago, but we might well explore the possibility of getting variable amount of damage in unrestricted mode, and/or have different damage probabilities assigned to different 'categories' of equipment, keeping the overall damage likelihood the same, but spreading it to at least some of the now invulnerable stuff...

Kaks wrote:

but we might well explore the possibility of getting variable amount of damage in unrestricted mode, and/or have different damage probabilities assigned to different 'categories' of equipment, keeping the overall damage likelihood the same, but spreading it to at least some of the now invulnerable stuff...

That would get my vote (if I had one, of course).

Kaks wrote:

In unrestricted mode equipment can't be destroyed in-flight, only damaged

…although a script could respond to equipmentDamaged and remove the damaged equipment. At the moment, there will be a “foo damaged” message unless a script un-damages the equipment, but I’m about to fix it so that there’s no message if it’s removed.

Surely we do need that message there in restricted mode? Or did I misunderstand what you just wrote?

Kaks wrote:

Surely we do need that message there in restricted mode? Or did I misunderstand what you just wrote?

That’s a different message in a different case. Check r3676.

Oh, I see what you mean now!