Oolite Bulletins

nothing irks quite like an energy bomb. I've got to admit i'm not sad to see them gone from the core game, if you need to get out a tight spot use an escape capsule

What if it only made other ships immobile for a minute or so? Enough to get out of range. That could make you an offender instead of fugitive.

My 2p

I do not really mind either way, i do not use them BUT my opinion is, it was in the
original so i think they should stay to be honest. (but NO the cpu should not have them)

no one is forcing you to use them, the game is single player anyway, so you are not
cheating anyone out of anything. I just think that everything which was in the original
Elite should be in there, and imo ideally, everything which was in subsequent versions of
elite could be options to switch on on the main menu (such as the wolf Mark 3 or the mouse driven gui when
buying and selling like the amiga version had).

BUT i am not going to argue what ever way it goes

Disembodied wrote:

No, not at all – and the fact that this is removing something from the core game, rather than adding to it, does give me pause. But then again, I think that the e-bomb is such an unwieldy blunt instrument, which sits so badly with [what I perceive to be] the spirit of the game, the proper place for it is in the AddOns folder, where those who want it can have it and those that don't, don't have to.

Admittedly, I don't have to have an e-bomb now (and I don't). I just pretend it's not there. But it's a constant little nagging reminder of [what I perceive to be] a flaw in the game. Not that long ago I somehow managed to buy one accidentally, and had to sail off somewhere really quiet to discharge it. It irks me. Its presence isn't a gamebreaker, as far as I'm concerned, but it irks me.

Sweet, as far as I can see it comes down to this. Itch. A lot of people (ok 55% which is still a majority lets not forget that) see energy bomb as an itch they are dying to scratch. The option is there to leave it in strict. (cool) and if it pains people to see it go I'm sure we can rustle up a new and improved oxp. Hell eventually we might be able to wrangle a bombay.oxp and give the diserning player a choice of detonations hooked up to his tab key. Or just some more missile payloads it's all good.

Thing is, we can fix this (hell we can make it better!). However it turns out. Everybody will get to keep or loose anything they want and no one is loosing anything they don't want to loose.

Earlier this week I let an EB rip in a cloud of (40?) Thargoids, to soften them up a bit. To my surprised they were all killed. In my memory a Thargoid warship couldn't be killed by an EB in Elite. Not sure which version this was (I played it on C64, Amiga and PC).

While I agree it's overpowered, but I would prefer a toning down to a ban. E.g. zapping 300 energy from all ships in range (still enough to kill most small ships?).

Disembodied wrote:

Admittedly, I don't have to have an e-bomb now (and I don't). I just pretend it's not there. ... It irks me. Its presence isn't a gamebreaker, as far as I'm concerned, but it irks me.

That's the thing, Disembodied. You have the choice to simply pretend it's not there. By making this change to core and not making it a switchable option, we don't get that choice. It's enforcing someone else's view of the Ooniverse onto me.

And the whole "Make it an OXP" isn't a valid arguement. Right now, it's "I hit TAB, they go BOOM." As an OXP (unless specific coding changes are made that have been previously and explicitly said would not be - ie. giving OXP's key-press event access) it won't work that way. If we have to 1) Give up a pylon, 2) Select the right slot, 3) Arm it, 4) Possibly target it, and 5) fire it - the end results may be the same, but the gameplay is definitely NOT the same.

Either leave it in as a switchable option (I realize you feel this is poor game design that accommodates a poorly designed game feature, Ahruman), or give OXP's key-press access so we can truly replicate the behavior.

Cmd. Cheyd wrote:

That's the thing, Disembodied. You have the choice to simply pretend it's not there. By making this change to core and not making it a switchable option, we don't get that choice. It's enforcing someone else's view of the Ooniverse onto me.

And the whole "Make it an OXP" isn't a valid arguement. Right now, it's "I hit TAB, they go BOOM." As an OXP (unless specific coding changes are made that have been previously and explicitly said would not be - ie. giving OXP's key-press event access) it won't work that way. If we have to 1) Give up a pylon, 2) Select the right slot, 3) Arm it, 4) Possibly target it, and 5) fire it - the end results may be the same, but the gameplay is definitely NOT the same.

Either leave it in as a switchable option (I realize you feel this is poor game design that accommodates a poorly designed game feature, Ahruman), or give OXP's key-press access so we can truly replicate the behavior.

True. This is true. Its presence is a minor inconvenience to me and I appreciate that its absence is, to some people, a lot worse than that. Because of the history of the e-bomb and the fact that its core-game operation is (in the absence of OXP key-presses) different from how an OXP e-bomb would operate, this may be one instance where the best – or rather, fairest – thing might be to take the otherwise deprecated step of making it a switchable option.

It's rare that I'm ambivalent on an issue, but it wouldn't bother me in the least if they were removed. Then again, I am swayed by those who tell us non-EB proponents to just not buy them if we don't want to use them.

Since a couple of people have thrown in suggestions to balance them out by having various drawbacks - what about making EBs like the seismic charge from Boba Fett's (Star Wars) craft?

The weapon would be limited to a single 2D plane, which the player would have to choose by rotating their craft, thus they have to display some level of skill in analyzing their scanner in order to pick the angle which will take out the most enemies (realistically this would also have a certain thickness so that enemies that look more or less on the same 2D plane on the scanner would actually be hit). This also provides a means of limiting damage to civilian, police, and installations by keeping them out of the blast plane.

They could, I suppose, also have some other disadvantages if they were still deemed too powerful. They could be explained away by claiming that they are terrestial military ordnance (hence the 2D plane) which have been specially adapted for space deployment.

Energy bombs are a part of game balance.
Removing them would require the game to do some more active balancing of enemy forces vs the current ship config.
No more hostile fleets intent on recycling that rusty relic you're piloting.

Remove their necessity as an emergency panic measure, and you don't need to have them. Simples!

Why not keep the E-bomb and make an OXP that changes it to distress call that summons a police ship just out of scanner range and costs 1.0 Cr (or something else harmless & cheap) for those who don't want E-bomb in their game?

allikat wrote:

Energy bombs are a part of game balance.
Removing them would require the game to do some more active balancing of enemy forces vs the current ship config.

I think players should be more ready to run away from fights if they don't like the odds rather than plunge in then just E-Bomb everyone if things don't go their way - mind you, on second thoughts, this is a bit harder to do if you don't have fuel injectors

Griff wrote:

allikat wrote:

Energy bombs are a part of game balance.
Removing them would require the game to do some more active balancing of enemy forces vs the current ship config.

I think players should be more ready to run away from fights if they don't like the odds rather than plunge in then just E-Bomb everyone if things don't go their way - mind you, on second thoughts, this is a bit harder to do if you don't have fuel injectors

Yep, if the raiders have a half dozen or more fast ships, like sidewinders, kraits or eagles, and you have a slow bulk hauler (Python, Anaconda, Boa) without fuel injectors, or out of fuel... you're stuck. No alternative but to try and fight.

The alternative, is to allow bulk hauler pilots to have some kind of robot defense ships.

Just let the players hire escorts like the NPC bulkers do?

Sort of like the Hired Guns OXP, but available at discount to traders?

Pluisje wrote:

Sort of like the Hired Guns OXP, but available at discount to traders?

Spot on, and as a default option in the main game please.
Not entirely sure about the discount for the traders, but certainly at a price that would make hiring a pair of average kraits or similar entirely sensible for the average python commander to consider as they haul the normal fur/food/textiles we do when we can't get decent job opportunities.

Obviously, if you're running an anaconda and are doing those plum long haul runs, then you could afford more/better escorts...

Thargoid wrote:

To ask an obvious question, why not just have e-bombs as a game option like docking permission requirement and fancy planets and that sort of thing? Have the default to be OFF, but if people want them so badly they can just change a config file or do a suitable build (or whatever the requirement is for changing these things) and lo, in their Ooniverse the E-bomb is alive and well.

Then everyone's happy and we can go back to our normal bantering about Griff's lovely paint jobs and suchlike.

I think this is a great idea. Oolite is a one player game and as such, should be configurable to to person who is playing it. One person's complete dislike for e-bombs shouldn't have to be pushed on others.