Oolite Bulletins

The stations are much too strong. I can crash a fully loaded Python with injector speed into them, and they still remain intact. The reason is probably that the game would need to keep a list of destroyed stations. And being able to destroy them, especially if NPCs could do it too, would have some effect on the gameplay...

And that's the problem with destroyed rock hermits: I think, the core game doesn't keep track of them and creates them procedurally like the planets and their properties. Only Randomshipnames keeps a list of the names. The reappearance of destroyed objects seems wrong if they have some "personality", like named rock hermits and Spara's pirate hermits. No one notices when a destroyed asteroid reappears, or perhaps even an unnamed rock hermit, but with special rock hermits, this is different.

So, to be perfect, destruction must be made impossible (as with the main stations), or the OXPs making rock hermits special (including Randomshipnames) should keep track of them, at least as long as the player remains in the same galaxy. After a full galaxy cycle one could assume some kind of reconstruction.

I regularly destroy those pirate coves that have been added by the system populator as a rock hermit. Pirate coves have the same energy as a hermit. About 1 and a half overheated laser is enough, if previously cool. Once destroyed, jumped out and jumped in again they are there again and tend to be normal hermits (but not necessarily). They still have the same name though.

I'm trying to keep things very simple here, just spice the core game a bit.

I think the probing thingy is too much as there are ways to find hermits. Even more so, if Comms pack is installed. So it will go. However, I have a fully functional side oxp that adds beacons to targeted hermits and remembers the beacons over saves and jumps. It feels a bit too much for this oxp, but maybe it would have merit as an individual oxp.

Only two things are modified, shipdata and AI of pirate hermits. AI currently does two extra things. First it scans the perimeter and if no pirates belonging to the same group with it, 1-5 get launched from the hermit and get added to the group. The station is the leader, so they patrol around it. No count is kept of the number of ships inside, so there are always pirates around. Then it scans the perimeter for hunters and victims (for player that means that the station randomly takes one of the player roles and acts on that). If one is found, then all pirates belonging to the hermit group get it as a target. Which usually means that they attack, but some pirates are cowards and they might decide not to attack. I kind of like that behavior.

Core game spawns all stations and hermits back if they get destroyed the next time the system is created. I once made an oxp to prevent that, but it's probably somewhat deprecated. However, I'll take a look at toughening pirate hermits. It's a shame, if they get destroyed by friendly fire.

Market is the core market, nothing has been done about it. I think it's fine as it is.

Equipment shop in hermits has 4.5 multiplier by default, so the prices are very high. And I'm not going to change that. However, I'll up the TL to 14 and block most of the equipment out.

Thanks a lot for everyone testing and commenting, it's much appreciated.

but some pirates are cowards and they might decide not to attack. I kind of like that behavior.

I like it too, because it is much more suspense if you don't know if they will attack, and how many of them. Sometimes they even seem to wait a little bit before deciding to attack.

It's a shame, if they get destroyed by friendly fire.

Definitely!

Market is the core market, nothing has been done about it. I think it's fine as it is.

If it isn't a big problem, I would change the market at least for illegal goods: The should be some incentive to dock, but if illegal goods like slaves aren't significantly cheaper than you get paid on a main station, it isn't worth the risk. Or at least the available amount should be bigger than usual: Five slaves for 5 or 10 Cr profit each isn't much, but 50 slaves would be worth the effort.

spara wrote:

Yes, ship's registration is main station only feature.

After a quick, but perilous, dash to the main station and back, Commander Rockingham is now in residence at Rubic's Auger, a fine establishment. It's in close to Bian, a lovely place to do business, but nicely situated around the planet from the main station. An ideal system in which to encounter aegis-raiders, is Bian.

New version (0.3).

* Pirate hermits are now TL15 with selected goods.
* Pirate hermits' max_energy and energy recharge rate have been upped to make it nearly indestructible. Probably.
* Pirate hermits have Q-Bomb countermeasures.
* Pirate hermit AI streamlined.

https://app.box.com/s/a07eqvnyhkbm57i5szsf1rfs4jbz6zr3

Fritz, I'll ponder about the market a bit. I kind of see it as a secondary function. High TL actually means that it's possible to get TL15 service in all eight.

Hm... it survived my military laser, but it didn't survive the exploding star jelly. Because jellys are often located near asteroids and rock hermits, it probably should. Perhaps these log file entries can help (I committed suicide to see how the damage looks in the log):
Of course, even if the hermit survives, the ships around it still can be killed. But if new ones can launch, this isn't too bad.

Cody wrote:

An ideal system in which to encounter aegis-raiders, is Bian.

Laxema too! And it's the fullest system I've ever encountered, I've never met so many ships when going from witchpoint to sun. The big number of ships around the station is normal, and queue positions in the two-digit range aren't unusual.

So the traffic jam of yesterday wasn't only caused by the blocked queue (which didn't happen again) but also from (probably) assassins lurking and waiting around the station without intention to dock.

Regarding destroying hermits.

Currently all hermits are easy to destroy and the game respawns them after game load or on re-entering system. This behavior feels a bit funny. The question is, should this be modified?

I see two modification options here.

1. make all hermits indestructible.
2. delay respawning by for example one month.

Option 1. is dead simple to produce. Option 2. is more complicated and might produce some compatibility issues, for example systems without hermits. I'm tempted to test the second option.

I don't like the idea of indestructable hermits really - they are only a big rock and we all know how easy they are to break. And if like me you think of them as small independent outposts run for and by a handful of miners they are unlikely to have shield generators capable of preventing destruction.
As for replacing them again, to maintain credibility this should either take some time if it is in the same location, or it could be completely elsewhere where it is not an obvious straight replacement.

Rebuilding it elsewhere would be difficult because the position is calculated pseudo-randomly by the core game, and position is the only practicable key for use in a hermit database. You would have to store a chain of new positions for each hermit, because the replacement could be destroyed again and so on.

Randomshipnames stores the name for each hermit position in the save file. The destruction status and date could be stored the same way. After system population, destroyed hermits created by the core game would have to be removed again (or replaced by some boulders or construction ships, depending on the time passed since destruction). This shouldn't be much more difficult than reading the names.

Smivs wrote:

I don't like the idea of indestructable hermits really...

In the realm of OXPs, anything goes... and we're talking pirate bases, not ordinary hermits.

Now to think about it, moving them to another location after destruction sounds like a good idea. I'll just have to keep the offset in store and move the whole hermitage after it has been spawned. If it gets destructed again, I just create a new random offset and use that.

About indestructibility. Pirate hermits have recently been equipped with powerful shield generators and q-bomb countermeasures. They can be destructed, but it requires serious effort.

Destroying a hermit doesn't help the player, so most of these events will probably be accidents. Or do people shoot at hermits just for the fun?

Fritz wrote:

Or do people shoot at hermits just for the fun?

Quite possibly! Just as well Oolite ain't multi-player... if someone started shooting-up the hermit Commander Rockingham is based at, there'd be trouble!