Oolite Bulletins

spara wrote:

... other points of interest...

Sounds like ED-speak, does that! <grins wryly>

<chuckles>
By the way, I did wonder, what are these 'other points of interest'?

Heh. Maybe there are some patrolling near the sun and some might the "protecting" hermitages.

spara wrote:

Maybe there are some patrolling near the sun and some might the "protecting" hermitages.

Pirates, you mean? Aren't those possibilities already in the game in some form?

So, my thoughts can roughly be summarised like this...

Horizontal axis is distance from the space lane, to no particular scale but vaguely logarithmic.
Vertical axis is the chance of encountering a ship hostile to a trader. Also to no particular scale.

The red line is what we currently have. Within a couple of scanner ranges of the idealised space lane, you're very likely to meet stuff if it's there. A single scanner range beyond that ... nothing.

The cyan line is roughly what I think it should be like. Still dangerous on the lane, but if you go a bit off-lane you're more likely to meet pirates as they take the opportunity to intercept you when there's no chance of a patrol interfering. Go out into real deep space, of course, and there's still no-one out there (there's a tiny chance still that someone has been following you patiently for the last ten thousand kilometres, and is moving in for the kill now you've stopped, but that's really a near-lane encounter that you've extended a lot by running away)

Without player-only fast travel, this would be straightforward to achieve - pirate packs on the lane could detect someone trying to sneak round and move to intercept. They're between you and the planet, so even pirates slightly slower than you can probably do this, though skilful flying would sometimes let you evade them anyway, or string them out and punch through at a weak point.

With player-only fast travel, though, even if they can see you (a pirate AWACS ship is OXPable in 1.80), they've no chance of getting in your way - they're far too slow even if you only go a couple of hundred kilometres off-lane.

The options to fix this, I think, are either removing the player torus drive (and so replacing it with some other fast-travel mechanism which can be symmetric, of which I've not seen any suggestions which wouldn't be impractical, unpopular, or more usually both) or adding NPC torus drive. I think the latter approach might work, but it needs trying as an OXP first because it would require significant rewrites to every major AI.


Regarding some of the other points raised in this thread, in no particular order:

• The spacelane is a bit wider in 1.80 - 50km rather than 25km - but this is a marginal change. 10 seconds perpendicular at full torus speed will still get you safely clear - this wasn't intended to stop people deliberately sneaking around it, but to make it less likely that if you went briefly sideways to go around a freighter you'd accidentally end up entirely off-lane afterwards.
• Torus to compass target only has fairly major implications. It makes the ASC a crucial piece of equipment - you can't practically sunskim without it, you have to get close enough to the planet to be easily able to see the station before you can steer to it. Even with the ASC, if a Thargoid shoots out the witchbuoy, you can't go back there to reach them, and it makes certain places very hard to reach at all (how would you get to a station placed - with a beacon, let's make it easier - on the far side of the sun from the planet?).
  I think we'd need to make the ASC standard and undamageable equipment, and even then I can think of a few OXPs it would break.
  It also makes it tricky to fly out to "random bit of deep space" to take a nice sun+planet picture.
• Fuel use for in-system travel makes it very easy to get stranded, which means there needs to be some sort of way to be rescued or the frustration will make the current "being stuck slowly overtaking an Anaconda" seem pleasant. Still, this one is easy to OXP with a frame callback, so try it and see what it's like. I suspect some sort of in-flight refuelling would be needed to balance it out.
• Deep space Thargoids certainly makes sense and even one warship is pretty threatening until you have enough combat upgrades that the pirates shouldn't be making you lose that much sleep ... but it would also make a bounty hunter's profit much easier.
• Players blowing up freighters to clear on-lane space for torus use is absolutely fine as a tactic, I think. Other parts of the game already handle the consequences for such behaviour.
• Ambushers standing a bit back from the witchpoint is a thought, as are ones hanging around near but not too near the station, but it still requires a lot of them. If you want the ambushers far enough back that they can't be scanned from plausible witchspace exit positions, but can provide reasonable anti-torus cover, then you need at least 16 groups. If you want the groups themselves to be a plausible threat, then you probably need two or three in each group, if not more, to pin the player down while the rest arrive ... and then why don't they do the same for ships travelling down the lane?
  If you have 40-ish pirates that organised, they may as well sit on the witchpoint and flatten anything that exits witchspace (or, conversely, they make some nice sitting ducks for a bounty hunter player who can smash a group and retreat before reinforcements can arrive). Even Anarchy systems don't currently have 40 pirates total except in rare situations.
  The station is slightly easier since the planet covers a lot of the approach angles either entirely or by masslocking ... but you also have to stand further back to avoid the aegis, and bounty hunters have very easy access to resupply, so probably ends up harder to cover overall.
• I don't view the off-lane exploit as a major problem; one can, after all, just not use it. It's other things which asymmetry of fast travel breaks which concern me more - escort missions (player as escort or escorted), some sorts of long-distance racing, etc. Lots of extra OXPing possibilities - or existing ones which would work better - if that could be fixed.

cim wrote:

So, my thoughts can roughly be summarised like this...

Horizontal axis is distance from the space lane, to no particular scale but vaguely logarithmic.
Vertical axis is the chance of encountering a ship hostile to a trader. Also to no particular scale.

The red line is what we currently have. Within a couple of scanner ranges of the idealised space lane, you're very likely to meet stuff if it's there. A single scanner range beyond that ... nothing.

The cyan line is roughly what I think it should be like. Still dangerous on the lane, but if you go a bit off-lane you're more likely to meet pirates as they take the opportunity to intercept you when there's no chance of a patrol interfering. Go out into real deep space, of course, and there's still no-one out there (there's a tiny chance still that someone has been following you patiently for the last ten thousand kilometres, and is moving in for the kill now you've stopped, but that's really a near-lane encounter that you've extended a lot by running away)

If this can be achieved in a realistic way I'd be very happy Perhaps the chance of Thargoids could increase towards the right of the graph?

cim wrote:

adding NPC torus drive. I think the latter approach might work, but it needs trying as an OXP first because it would require significant rewrites to every major AI.

It would certainly change the feel of the game. Should the Torus drive be universal, or should only some ships have it? Would be happy to be a test pilot for it

I'm not sure of the gain from giving torus to NPCs. It would take away the possibility to escape and the possibility to overtake. That would definitely change the whole game and would probably need some serious changes to keep the game fun. And it would not solve skipping the lane feature/exploit.

One more thought that sprung to mind from the graph above. How about creating another lane around the current lane. Sort of a cylinder. That would be used for lane intercepting pirates to patrol. These pirates should be positioned so far that they are not outright detectable by patrolling vipers. Pirates on the other hand could have bigger scanner radius so that they can detect ships cruising the lane and attack them. Or if a bigger scanner range feels too much of a cheat, clean ships that in reality are pirate ships ready to call in the actual horde could be used. This way lane skipping player would need to take quite a long detour to safely bypass possible pirates.

spara wrote:

It would take away the possibility to escape and the possibility to overtake.

It would be dependent on ship type given the base Torus speed is based on the top speed of the ship (assuming its not changed). Perhaps an upgrade can be bought that is affected less by mass so it will go faster near planets etc. Could be useful as otherwise it would be impossible to outrun an Asp.

spara wrote:

...if a bigger scanner range [for Pirates] feels too much of a cheat, clean ships that in reality are pirate ships ready to call in the actual horde could be used.

Devious. I like

spara wrote:

I'm not sure of the gain from giving torus to NPCs. It would take away the possibility to escape and the possibility to overtake. And it would not solve skipping the lane feature/exploit.

My thoughts on this would be that:
- torus usage would be visible very clearly at cross-system distances. Go off-lane on torus and being out of scanner range won't help, because they'll see you anyway and use their own drives to intercept.
- group torus would be possible, but would require the group to spend a while preparing for it: all ships would need to begin from a stationary position and relatively close to each other. You could get ready to make a group torus trip well in advance - so a pack could use it to jump into scanner range - but once you've got disorganised by combat it'll take a while to regroup for another jump, so you're not getting out that way (but a lone ship could escape)
- that combination means that most NPCs won't routinely use torus - escorted traders it's too much hassle and attracts attention; hunter and police patrols are on the lane and routinely get mass-locked there, so preparing for a group torus is unlikely to be worth the time; pirates might use it to intercept, but only if they already know you're there, because stealth is important to them too; smugglers it's way too obvious for. Couriers might use it a fair bit, as they tend to be lone ships and emphasise speed, but they're also relatively rare in most systems.
- you would still have trouble outrunning an Asp, but then if the Asp pilot is any good you shouldn't be getting to torus range in the first place anyway.

As I said, definitely needs OXPing first. Probably ends up staying there.

spara wrote:

One more thought that sprung to mind from the graph above. How about creating another lane around the current lane. Sort of a cylinder. That would be used for lane intercepting pirates to patrol. These pirates should be positioned so far that they are not outright detectable by patrolling vipers. [...] This way lane skipping player would need to take quite a long detour to safely bypass possible pirates.

The problem again is the sheer number of pirates needed. The current spacelane is around 10 billion square metres in cross-section. Add another scanner radius around that for safety, and then another one around that for the pirates to actually live in, and you've got another 15 billion square metres of cross-section to fill with a reasonable density of pirate packs.

If you do, you can scan and masslock out to around 100km off the spacelane ... but it only takes 10 seconds of perpendicular torus travel to travel that distance, and requiring 20 instead is hardly going to be particularly burdensome to anyone. Make the outer lane big enough to be a real inconvenience, and it requires an implausible number of pirates.

Space, is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is.

cim wrote:

(a pirate AWACS ship is OXPable in 1.80)
...
adding NPC torus drive

Those together are a combination I'd like to see. Could work well as a solution.

You go away for a weekend, and an interesting topic gets thrashed around

If anyone hadn’t noticed, but wouldn’t the idea of a visible Torus flare be similar to ED’s frame shift heat signature? Not that I have a problem with it; it would be cool to see those streaks across the space lanes

Torus for all? I think cim summed it up fairly succinctly.

I’m happy either way – my game play might change a bit, but that’s what you get with updates… adapt or fall behind. I always considered the ability to go off-lane a feature - if I don’t have a lot of RL time to play, I do a little more off-lane time for expedience, I reason it that my commander’s got a hot date at the station I also go hermit hopping, so it would be a grind not to have Torus as hermits are generally off-lane. In general I haven’t noticed a lack of encounter playing like that.

Effectively it will be the solo cmndr (PC or NPC) that would use Torus. As cim points out, it’s a bit fiddly to get it to work with packs (maybe easier for pairs?). But if there is a solo (NPC) ‘lookout’ trawling the lanes looking for a solo (PC) ‘victim’, and then can Torus in for a mass lock, it’s: 1) good training for a NOoby pilot to increase combat skills, one small encounter at a time (the initial thread topic). 2) no real problem for the experienced pilot other than the inconvenience of time if they so choose to avoid the space lanes - for that reason still a perfectly valid tactic for a courier wanting to get some time up their sleeve, but a game balancer as it wouldn’t be risk free (somewhat addressing Disemb’s concerns for the current cheat potential).

Cim’s little graph works with a little help from AI where ships Torus-ing outside (but close) to the main lanes are more likely to be targeted than those that take the lo-ong way around (visiting hermits or whatever), which takes more time. This way better radar for a NPC pirate is not required; it’s just a function of chance (to ‘see’ the victim streaking across the void) and vector math to determine if an intercept is possible.

Certainly the faster ships have the advantage over the slower, but a single Asp or Ferdie is a reasonable opponent for an underpowered NOob to tackle rather than 2 or 3. You can then add Spara’s ‘call in the hordes’ idea for upgraded players. Maybe it could be a slight redress of the ‘pirate pack’ AI as set in 1.80.

IMO cim’s idea is relatively neat. I don’t think that it would encourage experienced players (or NPC’s) to go off-lane as there’s little profit in it. Also it's not quite the easy work around for the NOob that Gimlet used to suggest. Works for different governments – Corp State is relatively placid, but a pirate would specifically want to target off-lane because it’s safer for them. Anarchy has just as many pirates looking off-lane as on-lane.


But looking at it from another angle, perhaps a way to keep NOobs 'safer' without encouraging the loophole is to have the 'ship's computer' to request a confirmation when targeting a Feudal or Anarchy system with an underpowered ship.

The question is, if we want to give the player the chance to use this loophole or not. If not, there must be a way to tune up the danger level of some systems. But why? Is it wrong to allow a player to use such loophole? Oolite has the big advantage of being 1-a single player game 2-individually configureable by OXPs. I don't know what exactly deep space pirates OXP does, but it seems to be one solution to the "problem".

If modifying the spacelane or generally over-populating space is a problem, then why not generate enemy ships in front of the players ship like in Elite? As a compensation for Torus, give the NPCs a chance to show up right in front of our nose. Maybe with a certain probability, in Anarchy systems you could have an encounter every 100km, in Feudals every 200km, in others: never. Ships do appear and disappear while you are in that system. Why must that be limited to the withpoint?

ralph_hh wrote:

I don't know what exactly deep space pirates OXP does, but it seems to be one solution to the "problem".

Basically it does what you have suggested below.

ralph_hh wrote:

If modifying the spacelane or generally over-populating space is a problem, then why not generate enemy ships in front of the players ship like in Elite? As a compensation for Torus, give the NPCs a chance to show up right in front of our nose. Maybe with a certain probability, in Anarchy systems you could have an encounter every 100km, in Feudals every 200km, in others: never. Ships do appear and disappear while you are in that system. Why must that be limited to the withpoint?

One of the question being discussed here is less
'is there a way to stop going of lane being an easy win?' - already exists - deep space pirates.
rather
'is there a way to stop going of lane being an easy win in a way that fits with Oolites Non-player centric philosophy?' - doesn't exist.