Oolite Bulletins

Ahruman wrote:

Disembodied wrote:

That's true, for time acceleration with no masslocking … If ships do masslock each other

Er, no. The time acceleration would only affect the player’s perception of time. Mass locking would simply mean that time acceleration would stop when the player is in range of another ship. It doesn’t make sense for NPC ships to mass lock “each other”, since from their perspective there is no time acceleration. I don’t see how this is confusing.

Because I'm easily confused? I think my confusion arose from assuming that "masslock" meant "knocked out of torus drive", rather than "turning off the time acceleration". The veil has lifted, however, and all is now clear.

Ahruman wrote:

Top speed would be no more or less important than it is with torus drive.

This may be me being confused again, but ... wouldn't it? At the moment, where the player is the only one with the torus drive, the player is always the fastest ship in the system (when out of masslock), whether they're flying a Python, an Adder, a Cobra III, a Fer-de-Lance NG or whatever. If the torus is changed into time acceleration, and it's a level playing field between the player and the NPCs, then that's no longer the case. The biggest effect would be felt by players flying slower-than-average ships. A player flying e.g. a Python or an Adder would always be caught by faster ships following them. You couldn't inject your way out of masslock, hit the torus and zoom off. If a faster ship chased you, it would always catch you.

It would happen with non-hostiles, too. If the player is in a slow ship, and a faster one arrives at the witchpoint after the player has set off, it'll catch the player up and knock them out of time acceleration. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing: but it does make ship speed a more important statistic than it is now. I think.

How about automatic name generation for NPC ships? Instead of "Anaconda" in the ident computer, why not a proper name, like Waltzing Penguin?

RyanHoots wrote:

How about automatic name generation for NPC ships? Instead of "Anaconda" in the ident computer, why not a proper name, like Waltzing Penguin?

Are you just having a stir, Ryan? Coming soon.

Can I take this opportunity to remind people to always save your work frequently. I was part way through doing this this morning, when my computer without any warning had a "windows moment". There's an hour I'll never get back.

#81. A series of rectangles or some other on-screen visible guide that'd help novices dock.

With regards to timed missions, the removal of torus drive and introduction of time acceleration would make the game slower. As things are now, you can use the torus drive to significantly shorten the in-game(!) travel time from witchpoint to station. Instead of the 10 or so minutes it takes to fly all the way to the station with normal speed, you only need 20 seconds, in real time and in game time. This would no longer be the case with time acceleration. In real time you would still need only 20 seconds, but in game time it would be the full 10 or so minutes. As Ahruman said, time acceleration is only about perception of time, not about the flow of time.

The existing torus drive actually speeds up game time, allowing you to move faster (in game time) than any NPC. This is simply not the case with time acceleration. You need the full 10 game minutes from witchpoint to station, no matter what. And everybody needs the exact same full 10 minutes, given the same cruise speed.

At the same time the whole concept of masslocking becomes meaningless. There is no time acceleration with or without masslocking, because from an in-game perspective nobody ever moves faster than anybody else. The concept of masslocking automatically vanishes together with the torus drive. If you don't actually speed up relative to other ships (which you don't with time acceleration), logic dictates that you are also not slowed down relative to them.

Killer Wolf wrote:

i'd prefer the Torus for all option, for the reason that it makes all equal and adds atmosphere in seeing other ships hurrying on their way or cruising complacently around. if the dynamic stock option is implemented, it could add to the game in you having a race to drop your cargo off first under the threat of the other guy selling first and dropping the prices slightly etc.
I'd prefer the mass lock option not to trigger until something's w/in, say, 7km tho - at the full scanner range of 25km it jut seems way overdoing it. it could also add a new piece of equipment, the Torus Disruptor, that bounty hunters/pirates could have (player too of course).

People like speed, it's fun!

It's all about perception. With the torus drive I perceive that I'm going really fast. That's fun. With TAF I perceive that my time is slowed and everything else appears to be going faster. Hmmm so-so blah boring whatever. Going fast is fun even if it is just a perception. The npcs should also have torus drive and occasionally come in from nowhere at fast speed and stop 10 to 15 km from the player.

Oolite should be player centric(locally) any way to keep things moving. Unless there are plans for multiplayer then. It's all about and for the player, isn't it? Does everything in the ooniverse have to be generated in full detail when the player can't interact with it or is it possible for script emulation to pretend things are happening untill the player shows up at which point everything is then displayed fully. It's all about perception anyway. The game must maintain that fun, thrill-ride atmosphere. Sometimes the fun does require that realism be sacrificed.(Where have I read that before?)

CommonSenseOTB wrote:

The npcs should also have torus drive and occasionally come in from nowhere at fast speed and stop 10 to 15 km from the player.

My mod actually has something like that, but it is rare and you won't see it often.

Zireael wrote:

Ahruman wrote:

Zireael wrote:

#79. Add a rating based on how much money you have (ship's value + credits). It'd be secondary to Elite rating and it'd allow people to progress not only by killing stuff.

When you die, you’re shown both your kill count and your credit balance. Whether you value one or the other more, or care about something completely different, is entirely up to you. Surely imposing a standard overall scoring algorithm would just be limiting?

Then why do we have the ELITE rating?

Because money is a way of keeping score, for those without honour.

Because trophy WAGs want you for your money, but all the girls love a scarred space veteran.

Because money can buy grudging respect, but results earn it.

Because you can inherit, steal or find money, but you cannot buy your rating.

Because in the capitalist, unmeritocratic RealWorld, money is all that matters. In the Wild West escapism of Elite, it is what you have done that says who you are.

Because when you're old, broke, tired and shot up, you don't need money to be served a beer in a Seedy Space Bar ... provided you're Elite. (Suggestion: Elite pilots should get drinks "on the house" in SSBs)


Money should be a means to an end, not an end in itself. There is no glory in having lots of money. Being Elite is an honour system; money is immaterial.

And in the RealWorld I'm an overweight, middle-aged, unemployed bloke with no money. In Oolite I am a somebody who might just possibly become Elite some day.

Zireael wrote:

#81. A series of rectangles or some other on-screen visible guide that'd help novices dock.

Seriously - what is it about docking? Fly as close as you can to the beacon - orient to station - fly in at a decent speed nudging rotation if you need to - and that's it.

DaddyHoggy wrote:

Zireael wrote:

#81. A series of rectangles or some other on-screen visible guide that'd help novices dock.

Seriously - what is it about docking? Fly as close as you can to the beacon - orient to station - fly in at a decent speed nudging rotation if you need to - and that's it.

I concur. Docking is one of the cornerstones of Elite or Oolite, making it the great game it is even today.

CommonSenseOTB wrote:

People like speed, it's fun!

It's all about perception. With the torus drive I perceive that I'm going really fast. That's fun. With TAF I perceive that my time is slowed and everything else appears to be going faster. Hmmm so-so blah boring whatever. Going fast is fun even if it is just a perception.

That's a good point. Using "fast-forward" always feels like an immersion-breaker to me. Fine for something like Sim City or whatever but somehow disappointing in a first-person game.

CommonSenseOTB wrote:

The npcs should also have torus drive and occasionally come in from nowhere at fast speed and stop 10 to 15 km from the player.

If there was a flashy torus-drive-skidding-to-a-halt effect (some big colourful flare-up in the exhaust plumes?) that would give the player a visual cue as to what's happened, too.

CommonSenseOTB wrote:

Oolite should be player centric(locally) any way to keep things moving. Unless there are plans for multiplayer then. It's all about and for the player, isn't it? Does everything in the ooniverse have to be generated in full detail when the player can't interact with it or is it possible for script emulation to pretend things are happening untill the player shows up at which point everything is then displayed fully. It's all about perception anyway. The game must maintain that fun, thrill-ride atmosphere. Sometimes the fun does require that realism be sacrificed.(Where have I read that before?)

You're not wrong, you're not wrong ... it's a tricky thing to balance out though, because stumbling across other peoples' firefights (or even the debris therefrom) is always a pleasure, and makes the universe breathe. To keep the torus system for everyone though needs some fiddling of the whole "masslock" approach (apart from anything else, it would mean that if ships want escorts, they can't use their torus drives – unless they spread way, way out).

Maybe we could move away from the automatic masslock within scanner range? Perhaps instead there could be a gradual slowdown as ships converge: that way a non-belligerent player could curve around other ships, and a hostile one could actively intercept. Hostile NPCs could move to intercept as well. Once a ship is knocked out of torus drive, then it would need a clear scanner before it could re-engage, perhaps. There could also be a torus disruptor kit, as per Killer Wolf's suggestion above.

One other thing that occurs to me about equalising speeds between the player and the NPCs: how would anyone ever catch the Constrictor? At the moment the player can always catch it if it runs because we've got the torus and it doesn't ...

Odd isn't how different people think of different things as immersion breakers.

For me, being the only ship in my Ooniverse with this magical device that makes me the fastest ship full stop, I can buy an Anaconda and as long as I stay out of the space lanes I can travel 32x faster than my normal speed, 10x faster than even the fastest ship in the game, and yet Anaconda's are supposed to be big lumbering giants...

And yet I can easily justify to myself that I sit back in my cockpit seating, and a little probe in the cortex of my brain puts me into a semi-trance-like state where I am only vaguely aware of the passage of time. The probe is tied to the ship's alert warning system and as soon as a potential threat is detected the probe fires me back up to full consciousness ready to fight (or flight).

For me - the Torus Drive has to go - it's not fair - full stop.

(If the argument is simply for a mechanism to cut out the dull bits to get between Witchpoint and Station Aegis - then TAF makes more sense - the Torus drive is an unfair advantage outside that situation - it allows you to briefly use injectors to break mass lock and then hit the Torus drive and NEVER be caught for ZERO fuel use - it also allows you to catch up with any other ship, even if that ship's on full injectors, it injectors away, you lose lock, you hit the Torus drive, you catch it up, mass lock, allow it to injector away again, wait for mass lock to be broken and repeat, until it's ran out of fuel for its injectors and you've got a full tank.

Everybody talks about balancing ships, speed, cargo capacity, energy etc and it's all bollocks because the Torus drive is a player-only piece of magic that is a complete imbalance in a league of its own)

DaddyHoggy wrote:

For me - the Torus Drive has to go - it's not fair - full stop.

I tend to agree, but I'm not sure if I like the idea of replacing it with a TAF-style thingy... I'd prefer that npcs had a torus as well.
The yaw function isn't fair either, so that should go as well.

Why isn't yaw fair?

And I'd like to have some sort of a Stardreamer/TAF/whatever ye call it...

Maybe we could move away from the automatic masslock within scanner range? Perhaps instead there could be a gradual slowdown as ships converge: that way a non-belligerent player could curve around other ships, and a hostile one could actively intercept.

Good idea.

One other thing that occurs to me about equalising speeds between the player and the NPCs: how would anyone ever catch the Constrictor? At the moment the player can always catch it if it runs because we've got the torus and it doesn't ...

Maybe the ship can't go at 100% speed all the time because the engines will slowly peter out...

DaddyHoggy wrote:

Everybody talks about balancing ships, speed, cargo capacity, energy etc and it's all bollocks because the Torus drive is a player-only piece of magic that is a complete imbalance in a league of its own)

I'd say there's a difference between balancing ships in the game, and balancing the game experience for players versus NPCs ... we're the only ones who care, after all! I agree that there's a definite appeal in making things seem equal for players and NPCs: if players can have it/do it, then so, ideally, should NPCs. Obviously there are limits: NPCs don't have the capacity for boredom, for example. The torus (or – if it gets replaced – the TAF) is there purely because the player gets bored without it.

Changing the torus drive to a TAF, making players and NPCs equal in this respect, will make it a different game. The player will not be the fastest ship in the universe any more, making ship speed more important, especially for players flying slower ships. Ultimately I'm not sure that this change would make the game more fun – which is the only valid reason for making a change.

It would be possible(ish) to test this out just now, though: we could try flying different ships using just the TAF and not using the torus. The TAF wouldn't switch off automatically when other ships appear, is the only thing.