Oolite Bulletins

HI Giskard! I'm like you, as well. Played Elite when it originally came out on the C64 back in the day. I really enjoyed the open game concept of just flying around trying to improve your reputation and increase how much money you had.

I never did make it to Elite!

There was a fellow who had reversed engineered the Elite code a few years ago now, so that it could run on modern day computers. I played his version and it really brought back the memories. Giles' version is inspired by that reverse engineering, and I've been playing Oolite since early days.

I love the fact that Oolite has been architected in a way that allows interested parties to build their own enhancements to the system. It's probably the one reason so many of us keep coming back, and doesn't end up dying on the vine like so many other freeware efforts.

So, my humble and most sincere thank-you to all the OXP developers, OOlite Developers and maintainers, and, heck, even the Forum volunteers. Without all of your help, passion and dedication, I know that my world would be a little less interesting.

Carry on Commanders, you're doing a fabulous job!

El Viejo wrote:

TGHC wrote:

It's certainly less of a cheat than using the escape pod when your light years away from the Coriolis.

But isn't there a penalty for ejecting, in that you lose all cargo, and still keep any combat damage.

Yes you lose your cargo, the financial penalty though is minimal, and only hurts if you have 100's of kilos of gold and platinum.

TGHC wrote:

El Viejo wrote:

TGHC wrote:

It's certainly less of a cheat than using the escape pod when your light years away from the Coriolis.

But isn't there a penalty for ejecting, in that you lose all cargo, and still keep any combat damage.

Yes you lose your cargo, the financial penalty though is minimal, and only hurts if you have 100's of kilos of gold and platinum.

In Oolite 1.75 it may be possible to do other nasty things to the player, should he use the escape pod. Perhaps he may even get scooped by a pirate and be sold into slavery, or at least stripped of all his money.

I haven't explored yet what exactly can be done, though.

Commander McLane wrote:

In Oolite 1.75 it may be possible to do other nasty things to the player, should he use the escape pod. Perhaps he may even get scooped by a pirate and be sold into slavery, or at least stripped of all his money.

I haven't explored yet what exactly can be done, though.

McLane he got his evil on.

When doing the Thargoid Plans mission on C64 Elite, I 'cheated' as I had loads of spare credits at that stage: instead of laboriously fighting my way through waves of Thargoid warships from Witchpoint to Station/Sun to refuel, I simply ejected as soon as I witchspaced into a system, bought a new escape capsule, and went on my way. Did the mission in an hour instead of days.

Discovered later that my combat rating had fallen from Deadly back to Dangerous.
Now, I'm not 100% sure if that is imperfect memory serving me here, or if it really happened, but that would be a more interesting penalty on ejecting, wouldn't it?

For most players, Credits don't really matter much after a certain stage, so ejecting is essentially 'free'. So what is valuable? Their combat rating! Would make people hold on to the last second rather than second-last, eh?

And makes a sort of sense as well - if you get rewarded for killing, you should get penalised for getting killed.

Yep I agree with that idea when you have loads of credits it's not much of a penalty, as na alternative losing kills might well make you think twice before ejecting. The same could apply to an energy bomb too, I think they are both a bit of a cop out, and personally never use them.

To get back to the autodocking, I think it's right to not be able to autodock if you have fugitive status, but if you are clean and fleeing from the nasties, it doesn't seem right that you can't make a dive to safety.

I use the escape capsule occasionly, and I don’t see it as a cop-out. Let’s say 35t of comps @60c, that’s 2,100c, plus 1,000c as the cost of the escape capsule… over 3,000c lost. But more to the point, when I arrive at the station, it’s with a distinct sense of chagrin that I failed to fight (or flee) my way out of trouble.

The energy bomb however is a complete no-no in my game... that is a cop-out.

TGHC wrote:

To get back to the autodocking, I think it's right to not be able to autodock if you have fugitive status, but if you are clean and fleeing from the nasties, it doesn't seem right that you can't make a dive to safety.

Gotta disagree with you there. In the game in my head, autodocking is not some magical teleport device that takes you directly and immediately from open space to the docking bay. Instead it's a labour saving (and paint scrape saving) device that flies your ship to the station. That's how I justify your clock losing 20min when you autodock.

So the dive to safety is a bit of a cheat in my Ooniverse.

So make that a vote in favour of disabling autodock when in condition red.

Bugbear wrote:

TGHC wrote:

To get back to the autodocking, I think it's right to not be able to autodock if you have fugitive status, but if you are clean and fleeing from the nasties, it doesn't seem right that you can't make a dive to safety.

Gotta disagree with you there. In the game in my head, autodocking is not some magical teleport device that takes you directly and immediately from open space to the docking bay. Instead it's a labour saving (and paint scrape saving) device that flies your ship to the station. That's how I justify your clock losing 20min when you autodock.

That is also my opinion. Autodock is not a special docking device, but a shortcut for the player to bypass the boring docking procedure. Therefor the clock is set 20 minutes forward.
Alternative the game could randomly kill the player when autodocking with hostiles around to simulate he was killed during that 20 minutes of queuing and docking. But than I prefer the current change of disallowing to use autodock. What probably is wrong, is that also the normal docking computer is disallowed. To be consequent in above reason, this should still be possible, albeit very unwise.

Eric Walch wrote:

What probably is wrong, is that also the normal docking computer is disallowed. To be consequent in above reason, this should still be possible, albeit very unwise.

Good point, this shall be remedied (unless there are claims to the contrary?).

Sounds reasonable to me.

I used to activate the Docking Computer in the middle of combat on the C-64 Elite, just because unless I was pointing right at the planet/station I would come to an immediate stop. Then I'd turn it off and pivot and fire.

Switeck wrote:

I used to activate the Docking Computer in the middle of combat on the C-64 Elite

Along similar lines, I used it as a lazy way to get my nose pointing in the right direction before engaging the JumpDrive.

You know, I think it makes sense that the ship would not allow transfer of control to the docking computer in the middle of a fight or a few meters before touching the corona of a sun. That would be pretty suicidal and against any safety protocols, wouldn't it?

Yeah, I know I arrived late at the party, the fix is already in and I don't really mind one way or another, it just seems weird that this would be allowed. Anyways.

I agree with Nikos!

(A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, and all that jazz.)