Oolite Bulletins

For the Gunship, I'd look at maybe a Boa. Not as fast as the fighters etc, but big enough to pack a punch and stable enough to be a good gun-platform. Four missile slots as standard, and as it won't be carrying cargo, plenty of internal space for extra energy banks and plasma generators for turrets etc if required.

This is an awesome idea; can't wait to try it out!

On the issue of ship differentiation, though: I could see myself wondering why my Mambas or Morays can have good weapons but my Sidewinders can't.

If you're going to do tough missions also, i'd like to suggest using an anaconda as gunship for those.

(Like the ones described in Status Quo by Drew).

I recon for the bomber a python would be better... but that might be to high a spec for what you are looking for. Just wondering... is the player allowed to keep his ship or is he forced to use the ships that `The Resistance` supplys for him?

A Boa 2 is slightly tougher than an Anaconda and very slightly faster than many middleweight ships like Fer de Lance, Gecko, Krait, and Moray. While it only packs 5 missiles instead of 7, if you're relying on missiles to win fights...you're going to be out of ammo fast in any case. Cheaper than an Anaconda as well, although I really don't know why since besides cargo space and missile capacity it's an all-around better ship. It can have Military Shields, which you'll need if you're taking lots of hits. Because it can turn as fast as the Boa 1, it does NOT make a good long-range sniper unless you're using the mouse or joystick in precision mode.

For the squadron units I was generally thinking of smaller ships, with only the lead vessel being something the size of a python or boa - rather like the way pirate groups operate at the moment. This would fit with the idea of only cheap ships being available to the Resistance in large numbers, with few (if any) having hyperspace capability. However, since I've been using Griff's ship set for the squadron units so far, I did have the idea of maybe putting the player in the Griff Boa, and so having a python gunship under your command would fit quite well.

Alternatively, I might let the player keep their ship but give them access to special command controls using Thargoid's suggestion. In any case, once I've decided which models to use I'm bound to alter the ship stats a bit based on playtesting, so again it's the look and feel that's more important. I can make use of plenty of handwavium to plug the holes in any logic!

Interesting you mention long-range sniping, Switeck. It's about time I gave a shoutout to MrN who wrote the ARMA2 mod 'Guerilla Warfare' that helped inspire the OXP. In the mod you get to equip each of your units with a choice of AK47, AKS + RPG7, RPK (light machinegun) or Dragunov SVD. This creates some great compromises, e.g. if you risk enountering armour you'll want an RPG man but their AKS is no good in a firefight. Arming your whole squad with SVDs places them at risk of being overwhelmed by superior numbers, and kitting everyone with machineguns sounds good at first but they just don't have the accuracy. It's these kind of compromises that I'm (rather ambitously) trying to explore in the OXP.

Now onto some technical stuff. I had an 'advance' command (again pinched from ARMA2) that would put your unit about 20km or so on front of your position. I haven't worked out how to do this - it may be that it's not useful in-game but I'd like to give it a go just to see. Essentially what I need is a bit of script similar that in Hired Guns that does the following:

-if distance between player and NPC < 15km
-establish a new position vector as player position + 20km in direction of player's current orientation
-assign the new position to the NPC

I haven't quite fathomed how the orientation, direction and position js functions all work together (especially mixing quaternions with vectors) so if anyone has some pointers that would be useful.

A good high/low mix of ships is definitely more believable than either all really good ships or all really bad ships. Whether they can fight together remains to be seen, because speed differences alone can break up a group.

OK, here's another quick test OXP along with a savegame to get you started.

At the station, press F8 and you will receive a message. Follow the prompts and you'll get to review your squadron personnel and ship loadout - for the moment I've just done a choice between kraits and mambas.

Once you've done that, return to the menu (use F8 again) and visit the regional commander. I've set the script so that a simple defence mission is triggered. Once the mission's accepted, next time you launch your squadron will be waiting outside for you, along with some enemy asps. I haven't scripted the victory conditions for the mission, so just try taking on the asps with the help of your units.

The control panel works as follows:

Use 1-4 to select individual units; the diamond at the end selects all units. Use the 'Y' button to switch between pylons, T to arm and M to activate.

The command buttons in third row are, from left to right:
Undo (returns to unit selector)
Advance (not scripted yet so at the moment this triggers a distance check used for hyperspace)
Hold
Regroup (ships return to standard formation)
Engage (attacks currently-selected target)

When a unit's in formation, they'll defend themselves if attacked and they'll also attack targets hostile to you. However they won't engage other targets unless given a specific order. The quickest way to cancel any order is to issue a regroup command.

If you lose a unit in action you can return to base and ask the personnel officer for a replacement; if the mission's still active they'll appear next time you launch. You can check the F5 screen for the status of both the current mission and your four units.

Guerilla War v0.1

Ok, I had to give it a try. That was a lot of fun!

I'll start with problems I had. First off, I couldn't figure out how to get to the "command buttons". Probably just a "dumb" on my part, but while I could select units, I couldn't direct them. When I tried m to activate (should it have been shift-m?) I heard the message "mine launched". Which was odd because I didn't have a mine so far as I know and saw no sign of one being used. While I'm pretty sure they scored some kills, I didn't see it reflected in their info after landing.

But the squad flew quite well! They would call out if I had an enemy on my tail, tell me when they were going after my target, thank me when I went after a ship that was attacking them, and sometimes call "Yay I got one!" or words to that effect. They went chasing enemies until the enemy fled out of range, then returned to the group. They seemed to know enough to not cut across my line of fire when I was chasing an enemy ship.

Like I said, I didn't figure out how to get the command menu, so this was apparently just their default behaviour, but it was very good! This was a test, and so the asps were sitting ducks until fired upon. But when the enemy is actually aggressive and multi ship, I think the potentials for mega-furballs will be just fantastic. I did intentionally shoot four asps to get them all going at once to see how the squad did. We lost one ship, but the squad handled it well.

Kudos on what looks like it will shape up to be another excellent OXP.

To use the command icons: Once the mission's underway, press T and the Unit 1 icon will turn yellow - the console should also say 'Unit 1 armed'. Press M and the console will say 'Unit 1 selected' then the command buttons will appear. You can cycle through the command buttons using Y, then press T to select and M to activate. The unit will respond with a brief radio message confirming the order.

Use the savegame as you'll need a specific number of missile pylons - if you're in a different ship the command panel may not work correctly. Also the undo button wasn't working properly; I've fixed that in a refreshed upload.

Originally I gave the asps the pirateAI.plist but they were pretty lethal. You can go into the shipdata and modify it to see what a more aggressive opposition looks like.

testing it now...

for some reason when my ship left the station it froze (the ship not the game) then every time the station rotated it destroyed my rear shield. It might not have been your oxp (I am testing several) just to let you know that it might be

I loved everything else, especially when a krait injects its way towards the asp and starts blowing it up... by my command. its great. the f8 command thing could be improved it was somewhat complicated to understand (but I got there eventually) but seeing as thisi is version 0.1 it is clear that it will be improved greatly.


#edit#

it was not your oxp that caused my (or your python commander) ship to stop, it was the unpluging of my joystick at exactly the wrong time

but I think that it really needs a greater selection of ships and maybe one super powerfull one that can only be given to one pilot, perhaps it could be possible for the pilots to improve if they survive a certain number of battles?

Thanks Staer9. Do you have any suggestions on how to make the F8 menus easier to use? I don't want to change things too much now I've got the basic mechanism working, but if there are any simple things I can do (e.g. giving more detailed instructions when the player first signs up) I'll look into that?

As mentioned previously I'm thinking of offering a selection 3-5 ships so as to keep things managable, particularly the ship selection menu. Otherwise it's just a case of doing lots of copying and pasting to set up the necessary shipdata.

the first time I read the menus I thought I understood, I left the station but the ships wern't there, I then realised that I had to dispatch (or something like that) my team mates... this was the bit I didn't understand very well

Ramirez wrote:

Do you have any suggestions on how to make the F8 menus easier to use? I don't want to change things too much now I've got the basic mechanism working, but if there are any simple things I can do (e.g. giving more detailed instructions when the player first signs up) I'll look into that?

Oolite v1.75.x can do equipment activation so you don't have to resort to clever F8-Fx-Fx key combinations to get your menus to show up. My Misjump Inducer shows how easy it is to do. Its message thread is here:
https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=9551
Download location:
http://www.mediafire.com/?lk7vu1uz4edi7pe

In this case the F8 stuff meant to be limited to when player is docked at a resistance base, not while in flight. I just noticed I left out a player.ship.docked condition somewhere, so I've added that in. I will probably look to use the Shift-N stuff to enable/disable the command panel though, so I'll check out the Misjump Inducer to see how it's done.

Note that your squadron is only launched when a mission is running. I imagine that between missions people will want to do their own thing without having a bunch of newbies to look after. For the demo this means you have to visit the personnel officer so that some pilots can be assigned, then the quartermaster to set up the ship selection.