Oolite Bulletins

Commander McLane wrote:

The offer would be put up purely randomly, regardless of the player's legal status. So he could indeed just fly to the system and kill incoming fugitives.

I don't know whether a direct tie-in with Random Hits (as in using Random Hits target ships) would be possible. Normally a target is only created when you visit a Space Bar and accept a contract.

One could contemplate random based creation of Random Hits targets (plus bounty hunters being after them) independent of the player taking a contract, but I feel that should be done in Random Hits.oxp. It would also create powerful opponents even in places where the player didn't call for them.

gogz69 wrote:

Each time the player receives an acknowledgement of assistance, or hands an escape capsule over to the authorities, (s)he would be given a score (of sorts). Once a certain score is reached the player would receive a clean status again.

Disembodied wrote:

Hmm ... it might be possible though to create an occasional tough fugitive with a suitably high bounty, coming in to look for an amnesty. If they have a custom AI, so they don't attack non-hostile ships, they might be a temptation for bounty-hunting players. If they became a powerful opponent it would be the player's own fault for attacking them in the first place!

Eric Walch wrote:

Something like this is already happening since 1.74: Every time you get a "thank you" message from a police for helping him, your bounty is reduced by 20%. Of course this is hardly noticeable when it changes from offender to offender, and I only remember one such instance when my status visible changed from offender to clean.

Commander McLane wrote:

I'd like to know, though, what the chances are for getting the "thank you" message. I think you get it when you hit a criminal who has already hit a police ship before, at least that's what I recall from playing. Or has this changed when the bounty reduction was implemented?

Eric Walch wrote:

This switch code also raises the bounty of the aggressor a bit.

Commander McLane wrote:

I am thinking along the lines of:

• GalCop offers an amnesty for all pilots willing to enlist for a special mission (something Thargoid-related, I guess). All is needed is an announcement randomly popping up at a main station (or perhaps not at main stations, but rather at the less tidy places: Salvage Gangs, Hacker Outposts, Free Trade Zones, and the like). DONE; suggestions for places to get the offer are welcome
• The script picks a system where to report at random, calculates the travel time it takes to get there, and adds between 12 and 72 hours to that in order to establish a dead line. I think that should be doable with the current JS methods. All of this is stored in mission variables. Until the deadline has passed, no other offer pops up. DONE
• In the destination system, a special station is created where you have to report (this is mainly to avoid that you have to dock at the main station and get informed on your report screen that you just licked the hangar clean or have been sent for correction, and now you're clean).
• If the player arrives in the system during a certain time window before the deadline (let's say 12 or 24 hours), he will find other offenders and fugitives heading for the special station. He may decide to have a blood-fest with them instead of going for the station.
• If he docks with the special station before the deadline, he gets a mission offer. On docking again after finishing the mission he becomes clean.
• When the deadline arrives, regardless whether the player went for it or not, the mission variables are cleared and another offer can randomly be made.

I've always wanted to do something where the game time plays a role as a factor in the setup. This seems like an ideal opportunity.

Commander McLane wrote:

PS: Can someone give me a better word for 'factually' on the first screenshot? What I want is to say laconically that you either succeed or die trying. So either you actually live to get your amnesty afterwards, or the certificate will be stuffed into your coffin. But I'm somehow lacking the short-and-snappy word for the first case.

Micha wrote:

I would advice against using multiple exclamation marks - it reads more like script-kiddy than government official, IMHO.

---iNews Flash!!!

<HEADLINE IN ALLCAPS>!!!

<text>

---Details at 10 on iNews!!!

---INCOMING MESSAGE

<message text>

---MESSAGE ENDS.

Also, amnesty means that they will not be prosecuted during the terms of this deal, it's not something to strike the record clean afterwards.

amnesty |ˈamnistē|

noun ( pl. -ties)
an official pardon for people who have been convicted of political offenses : an amnesty for political prisoners | the new law granted amnesty to those who illegally left the country.

• an undertaking by the authorities to take no action against specified offenses or offenders during a fixed period : a month-long weapons amnesty.

verb ( -ties, -tied) [ trans. ]
grant an official pardon to : the guerrillas would be amnestied and allowed to return to civilian life.
ORIGIN late 16th cent.: via Latin from Greek amnēstia ‘forgetfulness.’

Sarin wrote:

This is starting to sound like beginning of Dirty Doozen OXP