Oolite Bulletins

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Sun Jan 23, 2022 6:37 pm

I would like learn how to restrict the gangs to particular areas of Galaxy 1 which I think is more realistic. I'm not sure what else we can do at the moment to improve Hotrods, although I would dearly love to. I do think it's a truly super idea.

You can restrict areas by using a condition script and the system keys. Alternatively, you can set a center system and check the distance of the neighbors to this system.

cbr wrote: ↑Sun Jan 23, 2022 2:44 pm

( left noshaders, right shadered pc )

Don't think I've done many mk1's.
The djagged pattern seems to 'transit' nicely on a phkb factory paintjob

Noble Sir!

Have you retextures for all of the Hotrods! ships? Or are we still missing some?

List taken from demoships.plist, and then reordered as in shipdata.plist, with discrepancies noted

"adder-alternative-ah", which has "name" Adder 'Gen Lee'
missing in demoships.plist: "agr-template" which has "name" Famous Number Five
missing in demoships.plist: "number5-player"
"raceradder",
missing in demoships.plist: "raceradder-player"
"adder-ah-mod1", which has name "Adder-Glider"
"adder-javelin",
"vamp-racer",

"agr-blue",
"agr-copper",
"agr-cyan",
"agr-dgreen",
"agr-green",
"agr-marine",
"agr-multi-l", which has name "AGR-BlueArrow"
"agr-multi-r", which has name "AGR-RedStreak"
"agr-purple",
"agr-red",
"agr-violet",
"agr-yellow",

missing in demoships.plist: : hood-spittingcobra-1 & 2
"krait-xr1",
"krait-xr1-player",
"asteroid-dodger",
"flamekrait",
"grimcobra1",
missing in demoships.plist: "krait-red" which has "name" Krait Blood
"krait-tiger",
"mamba-tiger",
"racermamba",
missing in demoships.plist: "racemamba" which has "name" Mamba Racer
"redkrait",
"stripesidewinder", which has name: "Sidewinder 'Jagged'
"python-tiger" & "python-tiger2", which have name: Python 'Tigers Big Rig'
"gecko-tiger",
missing in demoships.plist: "tiger-gecko"
missing in demoships.plist: "tiger-krait"
missing in demoships.plist: "tiger-mamba"
missing in demoships.plist: "tigermamba"

Reminder: Tigers are a gang. Bloods, Grims, Flames, Hoods sound like gangs. As for "AGR", "Famous Number Fives" ... ? And Asteroid dodgers? ???

I've not checked either list against models or textures, since I can't open the model .dat files.

Alas no, only the shots posted.
As you have found out, there is a serious number of ships mixed in this oxp.

Ideas for improving this .oxp

Please chip in if you have others/disagree with these etc.

My thoughts for what they are worth are this:
This is a very important .oxp because it helps create a believable immersion - ships with "personality" bringing the Ooniverse to life. (Adding just another ship is for me pretty pointless. It has to do something.) Add to that the continual interraction with the player. Hotrods gives the player motive and mission in what to me is a very realistic way. It would also help give more flavour to some of the anarchies where the gangs are based, and help make them more difficult in a believable way.

So I envisage a fair number of these gangs, dotted around the anarchies and raiding the local systems. The tiger gang would have to be pretty big so that they meet the player in a fair number of these system, but would not do so not in all.

Several large gangs (including Tiger) which are prevalent in much of Galaxy 1 (either endemic or visiting). Many more smaller gangs dominating particular systems. Some of the gangs have alliances, or truces, or are at war with other gangs.

How do they support themselves? Trade in illegals. Robbing merchant ships. Dominating and grabbing from the anarchies where they are based (GalCop seems unlikely to intervene on the planet surface). Some may also be in cahoots with Commies/Dictatorships etc where they can find a safe haven - and access to cheap shipyards.

If they get big enough, they could indeed assault a poorly-defended Trade Outpost. But this would draw the attention of GalCop and a possible police raid against them. The big question: is the gang strong enough to survive the police raid?

If not, they won't conduct the assault in the first place, unless so much booty is involved that they can abandon their pirate coves/bases - and have somewhere else to go. Trade Outposts presumably belong to the Corporates who pay for GalCop - there would be consequences. Rock Hermits, on the other hand, have no influence, and if raided just have to grin and bear it.

The gangs might have a "safe pass" to allow unhindered access through the territories of other gangs.



References:
•Carver's Anarchy: Ganelon's 8-part story set in an anarchy
•There was a recent article - in the UK's Economist weekly magazine (Nov 26th 2022) - about gangs in Chicago in the USA ("Two Six" and disparate parts of the "Almighty Latin King Nation") and how the police's arrest of the leadership had destroyed the gangs' internal structure and thus broken down their relationships with other gangs in the area as the various "young turks" did what they liked, leading to an overall rise in violence as safe passes ("a party sweater worn over the shoulder") were no longer respected.

My small summary of the ships in OXP and some thoughts about them

"Tigers" gang
Krait - 2 variants, with and without ECM
Mamba - 2 variants, the small difference is only in the max speed
Python - 2 variants, one for boss role, but they has no no significant difference
Gecko - 2 varians, essentially hard and easy versions

This is the only gang that has more than one type of ship, so I'm assume that other gangs will follow this approach - several types of small and fast ships and one slow cargo. However, the question is, maybe there are any other viable options of pirate packs?
I also doubt such a slow ship for the role of bosses. Is it bosses as a game term or as a significant figure in the gang? Of course, Python is a serious opponent, but it seems that speed is held in high esteem in these guys, so maybe it makes sense to put another ship in this role?

"Jagged" gang
Sidewinder - 1 variant
"Bloods" gang
Krait - 1 variant - they don't seem to be very creative - it's just a Krait dyed all red.
"Grims" gang
Cobra Mk.I - npc and player variants
"Flames" gang
Krait - 1 variant

"Hoods" gang?
Spitting Corba - seems to be not based on any standart ship or other OXP ship - 2 variants with different textures
The name of the ships is "Hood-SpittingCobra", which is rather the name of the ship model than the name of the gang. I think, hoods (and spitting) refers to cobras (animals, not ships) and their notable ability to expand their neck ribs and muscles. However, if there are a few more ships that are fit for the theme, it can be presented as a gang that only uses cobras (ships this time).


If we go by the Cholmondely's concept about large and small gangs, how many gangs do we need? These 5 (or 6) gangs are only enough for the role of large gangs, but there will be more small ones. Can we use the standard texture + one or more decal sets to generate small gangs? I only have a superficial knowledge of how to work with shaders, but I think I can at least try to implement it. Or maybe someone who excels in this technique can help?


Currently I'm working on new AIs for gangs and something like a player reputation system - at low reputation, gangs prefer to rob the player before other npc's or generally attack as they see. Do you have any other ideas of how it might show itself?
I have an old idea that if a player earns a some amount of money in a short period of time, there may be people who will offer to share with them profit for "protection". Non-cooperation can be another reason for them to dislike the player.


There are also a bunch of ships in OXP that don't really fit into the concept of gangs on their own, a result of OXP's forerunners being sets of racing ships. But I think we should try to keep the racing theme of OXP, although this is not the first thing to take on.

"AGR"
Adder - 12 variants in different colors
They don't look like a gang to me, they are just plain race ships without distinctive difference. Maybe they belong to racers who don't belong to any of the gangs and aren't famous enough to have their own designs? But why are they in the same style then?
As one of the justifications, they can be used to participate in competitions where participants are required to be in the same ships / ships of the same class and be rented (or bought for one-time use), if participant doesn't have own one. They also can be, due to the dangerous nature of the type of some competition, one time use ships.

Famous Number Five, Krait XR1 Turbo, Grimcobra
These are the ships that have the player variant - could they be a reward for winning a competition? "Famous" suggests that such a ship may belong to someone famous, have a history behind them, or be just part of some limited and iconic series of ships.

There are a couple more ships that I didn't mention, but they all, as for me, are also more related to racing than to gangs.

Alnivel wrote: ↑Wed Jan 04, 2023 12:07 pm

My small summary of the ships in OXP and some thoughts about them

Alnivel, I've just been trawling through the Random Hits oxp and come across these (which might be of interest):


this.name = "oolite-random-hits-bigboss";
this.author = "LittleBear";
this.copyright = "March 2009 - But do what you like with it in your OXPs!";
this.description = "Gives Big Boss Criminals an indiviual name on the ID computer and sets them to the right AI."


this.name = "oolite-random-hits-bigboss-guard";
this.author = "LittleBear";
this.copyright = "March 2009 - But do what you like with it in your OXPs!";
this.description = "Gives Big Boss Criminals Escorts an indiviual name on the ID computer and sets them to the right AI.";


this.name = "oolite-random-hits-bigboss-fighter";
this.author = "LittleBear";
this.copyright = "March 2009 - But do what you like with it in your OXPs!";
this.description = "Gives Big Boss Criminals Support Fighters an indiviual name on the ID computer and sets them to the right AI.";


this.name = "oolite-random-hits-guard";
this.author = "LittleBear";
this.copyright = "September 2008 - But do what you like with it in your OXPs!";
this.description = "Gives each of a Mark's Guards an indiviual name on the ID computer, sets them to the right AI and stops a kill of an escort being treated as a kill of the Mark.";


There are other AI's which may be relevant. Also, there is a new factor introduced: the "Criminal Hatred Factor" which may or may not be relevant (main .js script).

In the Lore for Oolite, the decline and fall of The Eight is due to both Thargoids and Pirates.

(I presume that at least one of the Thargoid OXPs "organises" the Thargoids. And allows the player to attack the "organisation".)

But the pirates seem purely random.



What might one expect of the pirates?



Pirate gangs with bases and leaders.

1) different sized gangs. Some like the Kray brothers who only operate in-system. Others like the Mafia who span a region or an entire galaxy.
...and whose leaders/lieutenants possibly appear on Random Hits OXP


2) Who fight each other (original unfulfilled wish of this OXP)


3) Who intelligently milk the local trade
...organised attacks on convoys (is this already in Oolite?)
...watching out for highly visible wormhole exits near the witchpoint beacons - and then chase the new arrivals from beyond their scanner limits because they could see them visually
...or have watchers close to the station but beyond the aegis to catch lone traders coming in off-lane


4) Who intelligently wage war on the vestiges of GalCop around them.
... scragging local Viper patrols


5) Whose depredations impact on the local system
... fewer and more cowardly Galcop defenders - Aegis zone loses protective aura - and then pirates can dominate the aegis
... effects on F3 and F8 screens - prices fluctuate, equipment becomes unavailable, "TL level" for maintenance is reduced (if it is available).


6) Whose defeat will impact (temporarily) on trade in the local systems (allowing the player to make a minor difference - and gain kudos in the affected systems - maybe even some sort of local award/medal).