Oolite Bulletins

Cmdr Wyvern wrote:

Speaking of plist hacking, the Xarik is coming along.
Tell me if this armament is overkill: Four turrets (top, bottom, left and right, power level 15) all four laser mounts, missile load of 10 (there's more than missiles and other explosives that mount on missile pylons).

Speed of 360, 6 energy banks, recharge of 5. Base cargo hold a bit less than the Cobby, but enough to do some milk runs on - as if I do milk runs anymore.

Just to keep things equal in the Ooniverse, the police are getting Xariks too.

A bit too slow for my liking. Seeing the Caduceus turrets in action...I'd say remove the side mounted lasers and increase speed instead. Oh, then you've got another Caduceus. Well, maybe keep it the way you intended and just have the police fly them a little bit faster without (or less) cargo space! Never imagined that I'd say "remove the side mounts"...but the Caduceus proved turrets can work well enough, forcing me to change my opinion on that topic!

Concerning missiles: I still fail to see what they're good for, except the cascade missile and salvage ones. I do carry some military missiles with me, but even when I did fly the GriffBoa I only fired them against the Fair Wind as the only laser was overheating and the turrets won't fire on non-hostile ships...

Anyway...I believe the standard set of ships could have some plist upgrades, instead of reducing all more powerful oxp ships. Especially concerning the speed. The ooniverse isn't running on a slow C64!

About the chance to see a Caduceus: As I said, I temporarily increased shipyard probability, because I had to have one. I haven't seen one for sell since then. Once encountered one during the Battle Drone mission, but it had to retreat.

Screet

Cmdr Wyvern wrote:

I know, my modelling and texturing skills suck. Griff, Crow and Simon prove that lots. At least I'm good at plist hacking.

Speaking of plist hacking, the Xarik is coming along.
Tell me if this armament is overkill: Four turrets (top, bottom, left and right, power level 15) all four laser mounts, missile load of 10 (there's more than missiles and other explosives that mount on missile pylons).

Speed of 360, 6 energy banks, recharge of 5. Base cargo hold a bit less than the Cobby, but enough to do some milk runs on - as if I do milk runs anymore.

Just to keep things equal in the Ooniverse, the police are getting Xariks too.

It's a park and kill ship. Fantastic! It's like a hedgehog but with plasma. If your doing that then you need to add about 20 tactical views so the pilot can watch the carnage. I'd be happy to help work out the angles. I think it's a great idea, it's practically a dreadnaught.

We live in uncertain times (especially with thargoid releasing oxp's hell for leather) drastic solutions need to be considered if not implemented.Yay!

@Screet, Clym:

:sigh: No, you've both got the wrong idea.
What I'm aiming for is a multirole spaceplane, something that performs equally well at trade and combat, and handles equally well in both atmosphere and space. Easier to adapt an aircraft for spaceflight than a spaceship to atmosphere in that regard.

"Park and kill"? Where the frak did you get that idea, Clym? Like the Dragon, the Xarik can only aim and fire one turret at a time at a moving target. They work best as a defensive weapon against small evasive fighters, especially good at keeping those annoying injector-happy kamakazis at bay.
It's certainly feasible to perform a combined laser/plasma broadside attack on larger ships, but it may take more than one pass to make a kill that way. Did you think all four turrets, each facing different directions and with limited firing arc, and each having no more power than a pulse laser, can somehow wreak unrelenting havoc upon anything the ship comes across? Not bloody likely.

No Screet, I'm not making another Caduceus. There already is a Caduceus, why reinvent the wheel. You're taken with the thing, I get it already. Good for you.
As for missiles, they have plenty of use. Missiles in the hardhead class - hardheads and military missiles - can usually kill small fighters, and severely weaken Python sized heavies. A multible missile salvo of 3 to 4 rounds is the worse thing you can do to a Dragon M. A nuclear torpedo spells doom for big slow heavies like Anacondas. Any well placed missile shot weakens shields which means less work for lasers when closing for the kill.

EEK! No need to bite off a fat one, we miss understand. It's friday, explain using small words we'll catch on eventually...

Ah, the elusive "all things" fighter. Sorry I thought you were creating more the gun emplacement kind of ship. It's a difficult thing to do. For my money you'd already done yourself proud with the dragon.

OK would be interesting to see your angle you obviously have something slick up your sleeve. Without seeing it and seeing how useful the facings are it sounds like a bit of a brawler. enabling you to forget about most of the facings and pummel on thought to where you need to be.

I'd say there is a spot for a ship that can cover most angles. What were your ideas for a hull?

Still can't download your Caduceus, ClymAngus, just getting the "This page cannot be loaded" treatment

ClymAngus wrote:

We live in uncertain times (especially with thargoid releasing oxp's hell for leather) drastic solutions need to be considered if not implemented.Yay!

Don't worry, I new year resolved to spend less time on OXPs and more on the family. So I'm currently only working on 3-4 things, and they're all quite large longer-term projects.

That said I do seem to be easily distracted by little ideas that tend to mushroom (like PlanetFall)

Lestradae wrote:

Still can't download your Caduceus, ClymAngus, just getting the "This page cannot be loaded" treatment

My bad, typo on the hyperlink (4am tweaks after sharing a bottle of wine, never a good idea). You should be good to go.

Thargoid wrote:

Don't worry, I new year resolved to spend less time on OXPs and more on the family. So I'm currently only working on 3-4 things, and they're all quite large longer-term projects.

That said I do seem to be easily distracted by little ideas that tend to mushroom (like PlanetFall)

That's heartening, so you'll be stepping back on the invasion fleet building then for a little bit then? Cool we might stand a chance of catching up.

ClymAngus wrote:

Ah, the elusive "all things" fighter. Sorry I thought you were creating more the gun emplacement kind of ship. It's a difficult thing to do. For my money you'd already done yourself proud with the dragon.

OK would be interesting to see your angle you obviously have something slick up your sleeve. Without seeing it and seeing how useful the facings are it sounds like a bit of a brawler. enabling you to forget about most of the facings and pummel on thought to where you need to be.

I'd say there is a spot for a ship that can cover most angles. What were your ideas for a hull?

I figure most commanders look for a ship that covers all roles well. Unfortunately, what's usually purchased doesn't fit what they want to achieve, and a few are ridiculously uber; most ships are built to excel in either freight hauling or combat, but few can do both well.

A Griff Boa isn't an attack craft, it's a well defended heavy freighter, and in the role it's designed for it exceeds. A Dragon isn't a cargo shuttle, it's purely an assault vehicle - a tank, as you put it - and in that role it exceeds. I'll dare say the Cad is also more assault vehicle than trader, including using autoturrets in a purely attack posture.

With the introduction of planetary landings, some designers have attempted to take on atmospheric flight, but with little consideration on aerodynamics; they wind up with spacecraft with wings bolted-on as a sort of afterthought.

The Cobra 3 at one time was an ideal multirole craft, and though it's starting to show it's age along with some design deficiencies, it remains an example of what multirole really means.

This is where the Xarik steps in. For atmospherics, a little reverse thought is applied; instead of a spacecraft with wings bolted-on, it's an aircraft designed to take on spaceflight. Autoturrets are deployed to work in the mode they're best at, namely defensive flak cannons.
The Xarik is a fighter that can trade, a trader that can fight; an aircraft that can go orbital, a starship that behaves beautifully in air, and without getting it's wings snagged on the edge of a docking port.
And without being bloody uber about it. The player can hack the specs to their liking, and in fact I'll encourage it. But there will be an ugly surprise awaiting uberhack cheaters.

And now, an ingame screenshot as a preview:

"Oh crap! Quick, dump the megaweed!"

@ Cmdr Wyvern: Sorry to hijack your hijacking of this thread, but I have another remark about the Caduceus, if you don't mind.

@ ClymAngus: I think your definition of frangibility is wrong. If I've understood it correctly, the frangible-key has to go into the shipdata of the main entity, not the subentity.

And on a general note: I've tried the Caduceus out over the weekend. Great looks, but turrets don't seem to be my style of fighting (at least at this point). I prefer four military lasers, so I'm going to stick to my Imperial Courier.

A pic for Screet
I came across my first caduceus tonight

Pretty!

Commander McLane wrote:

@ ClymAngus: I think your definition of frangibility is wrong. If I've understood it correctly, the frangible-key has to go into the shipdata of the main entity, not the subentity.

I shall take a look.

Commander McLane wrote:

And on a general note: I've tried the Caduceus out over the weekend. Great looks, but turrets don't seem to be my style of fighting (at least at this point). I prefer four military lasers, so I'm going to stick to my Imperial Courier.

Fair enough, I do have a small speciality oxp that might be more your flavour. If I can chop the bugs out of it of course. same look 4 facings, and a 2 "sunguns".

Quick question: Just how do you pronounce caduceus?

Haven't had time to play or pop in recently so haven't seen the Caduceus or the Xarik yet, up to my neck in project, got a suggestion for the Caduceus though.
Seeing as they are biomechanical hows about having their stat sets vary to give them personality.
One of them could only have two guns on either side with a little withered non working one where the third should be, but have stronger sheilds.
One could act as a police vehicle and be the 'jobs-worth' of the family.
There could also be an evil one lurking about.. you get the idea, probably a pain to implement but it would really add to the uniqueness of your idea,
so I think anyway toodle pip and all that!