Feature requests for Oolite 2.0

[Thargoid]

To make another request (if I can digress the TAF discussion for a moment), although it could possibly be a 1.76 quasi-bugfix.

Can the ship exhaust length be made proportional to speedFactor rather than speed? That way a ship that is moving slowly by design (e.g. a bulk freighter) can actually have some exhaust trail behind it? Ideally even speedFactor multiplied by the z-value in the shipdata sextet for the exhaust values.

We now torus-jump back to your regular TAF debate...

[JensAyton]

must admit i can't understand how "handwavium" Torus power is not acceptable but some kinda hypnotic trance is. would Galcop really allow huge ships to be powered by people in a trance? if it's like other equipment, what if we have a breakage factor and you end up not being able to turn it off?

The SchleepMaster 5000¾® must provide a constant stream of tailored Sleepno-Engrams™ in order to maintain the desired Taffitude℠. In the highly unlikely event of a malfunction, the user will revert to full Wakamosity℠ within seconds, with a slight headache as the only SideEffect™.

Seriously, though: a noteworthy aspect of the game is that it provides almost no technobabble or exposition, leaving it in the mind of the player (and/or their third-party fic of choice). I don’t intend to change that.

[kgs]

I have some simple requests which should be easy to implement.

There is mention of aquatic species in various *lite fictions I've read. I've never encountered such creatures though. (But maybe you find them in galaxies other than 1?)

So, I think we should add a race of intellectually-advanced octopus people. Of course, they should come in various different colors. And maybe we can also add some jelly fish races.

I also want purple marsupials. I don't know why, but I think that would be neat. And you know what? I'm not really a cat person, so why don't we add some canines into the mix. Hmm... Dog-men?

And maybe some more planet descriptions while we're at it. I would like to see planets that are plagued by things such as drunkenness, laziness, and estrogen (female hormones).

What do you all think?

[Wildeblood]

I also want purple marsupials. I don't know why, but I think that would be neat. And you know what? I'm not really a cat person, so why don't we add some canines into the mix. Hmm... Dog-men?

And maybe some more planet descriptions while we're at it. I would like to see planets that are plagued by things such as drunkenness, laziness, and estrogen (female hormones).

What do you all think?

I think that Vetitice is renowned for Vetiticean lethal brandy and the beauty of its women. It is also home to the Spacecats zero-G cheer-leading team.

If this is not the case for you, direct your attention to descriptions.plist and planetinfo.plist.

[Bugbear]

Another suggestion: variation in ship servicing quality, and equipment failure due to dodgy maintenance.

Reason: I like going to 'Dodgy Bros Ship Botherers' repair yard, Galaxy 1, Xeaqu (TL: 2). They're always generous with the Evil juice. Even though they go through an inordinate amount of gaffer tape, you can't beat their prices.

Right up to the point where your missiles fail to launch 'cause of good old fashioned 'dodgy' maintenance...

Press space commander...oh shit that's not working either

[CommonSenseOTB]

Another suggestion: variation in ship servicing quality, and equipment failure due to dodgy maintenance.

Reason: I like going to 'Dodgy Bros Ship Botherers' repair yard, Galaxy 1, Xeaqu (TL: 2). They're always generous with the Evil juice. Even though they go through an inordinate amount of gaffer tape, you can't beat their prices.

Right up to the point where your missiles fail to launch 'cause of good old fashioned 'dodgy' maintenance...

Press space commander...oh shit that's not working either

[sholton]

Unless I'm missing something, removing the jumpdrive will require other changes.

I just ran a test with a Cobra MkIII, plus fuel scoops but no heat shields and no injectors. Consider this a simulation of a common ship, heat shields destroyed, and out of witchfuel. The test was to scoop fuel from Gal1:Zaonce without using a jumpdrive.

I couldn't do it.

Cabin temp was red even before the Altitude started to go down. Before any fuel actually got scooped, it was "press space"...

If I'm missing something about scooping, or if Zaonce is a bad example, just tell me I have more to learn. Otherwise, it seems like just removing the jumpdrive and relying on TAF could have other dependencies we haven't thought-of.

[Bugbear]

The test was to scoop fuel from Gal1:Zaonce without using a jumpdrive.

Not quite sure what you're testing here - by 'jumpdrive' I presume you mean the Torus drive; you hit 'j' to engage the drive and it only works when you're not mass locked.

Attempting to scoop fuel without heat shielding is suicide - you would be mass locked way before you get close enough to the sun to scoop any fuel. What you've observed is expected behaviour - your cabin temp would be way into the red before you get close enough to scoop.

Still...I won't rule out the possibility that I'm missing something

[Fatleaf]

The trick is to inject into the collection zone, continue to inject, your tanks get filled much quicker and inject all the way out. Then as soon as your free from the mass lock hit the torus. Works every time. If you have no fuel to inject in, forget it.

[Azured]

I don't believe the removal of the Torus Drive will effect sun skimming/fuel scooping in any way.

When I was just a rookie in Oolite, I first bought Fuel Scoops to my Cobra because it was irritating to see all the free money just floating in space. I also thought that fuel was expensive, so I decided to invest in scooping equipment. I didn't have Heat Shielding and I was a bit afraid to go all the way in with the Torus Drive, so I disengaged it before the sun even filled my viewscreen. I then just followed the instructions in the wiki and ended up with a full tank of fuel and lived to tell the tale. Sure, my cabin temp was redlining even after the witchspace jump (which shouldn't happen as the voyage is far from instantaneous), but I still successfully sun skimmed without using Injectors, Heat Shields or the Torus Drive and lived to tell the tale.

Conclusion: Removing the Torus Drive is irrelevant to the process of scooping fuel from a sun.

[Disembodied]

I don't believe the removal of the Torus Drive will effect sun skimming/fuel scooping in any way.

When I was just a rookie in Oolite, I first bought Fuel Scoops to my Cobra because it was irritating to see all the free money just floating in space. I also thought that fuel was expensive, so I decided to invest in scooping equipment. I didn't have Heat Shielding and I was a bit afraid to go all the way in with the Torus Drive, so I disengaged it before the sun even filled my viewscreen. I then just followed the instructions in the wiki and ended up with a full tank of fuel and lived to tell the tale. Sure, my cabin temp was redlining even after the witchspace jump (which shouldn't happen as the voyage is far from instantaneous), but I still successfully sun skimmed without using Injectors, Heat Shields or the Torus Drive and lived to tell the tale.

Conclusion: Removing the Torus Drive is irrelevant to the process of scooping fuel from a sun.

Might the difference between your experience and Sholton's have something to do with different stellar radii? It would be worth checking out at a variety of different stars.

[Ganelon]

Well, the Torus isn't the only "player only" thing left. How about pause and save-games? NPCs don't have those either.

I'm not saying that I actually think it would improve the game if it suddenly stopped dead for a random number of seconds or minutes every now and then to simulate an NPC getting a hot cuppa or taking a phone call. Or that it would be wonderful to get through a rough battle and suddenly have the game jump back 5 min or so because an NPC you killed decides it wants another go at you..

Ok, ok, in a certain sick sense of humour sort of way, maybe that could be kind of funny, but it'd get old really fast.

Some things, like shields, I think the game actually plays better with both sides having them. But until it was pointed out that they didn't have shields and I started looking for it, as a player, I might never have noticed. If I hadn't read it here on the forum, I would have thought that the NPCs had Torus drives and got masslocked the same as I do.

This is a single player game. That pretty much makes it to some degree player-centric for it to be much of a game, since not a one of us could actually fly or shoot as accurately as the computer can.

So far as removing yaw, that makes no sense to me. The game already uses only 4 of the 6 degrees of freedom, why in the world would we want to have even less? The only purpose I can see that would serve would be to make the game even less like flying anything. Should the NPCs use yaw as well? Certainly! But I think maybe it might be more of a priority to get them to act like they have a scanner and an aft view first.. They will just sort of blithely "flee" the player in a straight line, like they're on a Sunday drive at present. If an NPC ship is on *my* tail for several seconds taking shots, I'm going to use yaw, roll, pitch and anything else to try and shake them and get out of their line of fire. More use of agility/manouevers on the part of NPCs would be the better solution than less on the part of players.

So far as the Torus, it at least has some "fun factor" to it for the player. As has already been mentioned it "feels" like going fast. Sure, injectors can do that too, but the haul from witchpoint to the main station is one of those places where fuel for it is often not plentiful. Unless we assume that everyone will use some OXP to add a fuel station at the witchpoint, it's not much of an answer. I think most players who have not been told otherwise assume the NPC ships also use torus drive at will. But a thing to consider is that if we eliminate it, encounters with other ships on the main spacelane will be far fewer, won't they? If the NPC ships and the player are actually all going at about the same speed, other than the occasional pirate headed out towards the witchpoint, I wouldn't think we'd see many other ships, would we?

But if we're getting rid of anything for "making the trip less boring", why in the world keep TAF? Heck, may as well just put in a teleporter at the witchspace beacon to make the trip take no time and not have to see *any* other ships, eh?

[Disembodied]

But a thing to consider is that if we eliminate it, encounters with other ships on the main spacelane will be far fewer, won't they? If the NPC ships and the player are actually all going at about the same speed, other than the occasional pirate headed out towards the witchpoint, I wouldn't think we'd see many other ships, would we?

You'll catch up and overtake slower ships, and be overhauled by faster ones. It will make ship speed a more important characteristic, and might require some finessing to preserve the current experience. It'll make flying a Python, for example, more like flying a Python ... it should broaden out differences between ship types (and make the 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, faster, faster! ships seem even more über).

But if we're getting rid of anything for "making the trip less boring", why in the world keep TAF? Heck, may as well just put in a teleporter at the witchspace beacon to make the trip take no time and not have to see *any* other ships, eh?

I like sightseeing: I enjoy, from time to time, getting masslocked and being able to buzz around a Python or a Boa or an Anaconvoy, before overhauling them and hitting the Torus drive again. But you'll still be able to do that with a TAF. You'll just be able to choose when to linger over the sights and when to cruise on by. And you'll still get your journey rudely interrupted by hostiles.

[JensAyton]

Well, the Torus isn't the only "player only" thing left. How about pause and save-games? NPCs don't have those either.

The NPCs don’t have HUDs either – or noses, for that matter – but that doesn’t matter because it’s not observable to the player.

There’s a fundamental difference here: the jump drive is an in-universe mechanism that is observable to NPCs. The player ship has the ability to move around 32× as fast as anyone else. Pausing, saving and accelerating time are out-of-universe mechanisms; they don’t affect the game model in any way (leaving aside the technical issue of simulation granularity). If you were a butterfly dreaming you were a man an NPC in my game, you wouldn’t know that I just paused the universe for half an hour, because time was suspended for you.

But if we're getting rid of anything for "making the trip less boring", why in the world keep TAF? Heck, may as well just put in a teleporter at the witchspace beacon to make the trip take no time and not have to see *any* other ships, eh?

This does not make sense. Time acceleration doesn’t allow you to skip anything. You have to travel through the same amount of space in the same amount of game time as you would with it turned off.

[Disembodied]

This does not make sense. Time acceleration doesn’t allow you to skip anything. You have to travel through the same amount of space in the same amount of game time as you would with it turned off.

Time acceleration (obviously) allows you to skip the time spent. So – if you get tired of slowly overhauling another inbound freighter – you can choose to skip the wait. Which is better than the current system, where, if I'm in a hurry or just feel like I've seen it all before, I tend to jam my thumb down on the witchdrive injectors until I'm out of masslock and I can hit the Torus again. So I'll be more fuel-efficient with a TAF, too.