Oolite Bulletins

Well, my story is well known to most of you already, but for those who don't know when I discovered Oolite I did the trade-down thing. Bought a Mk1 Cobra and a couple of bits of kit and slogged it out (for a looooong time) until I could upgrade to a Python, and eventually up to a fully iron-assed Boa Clipper.
However, after a couple of years I decided to start a new Commander to run along side my 'main' Commander, and he did it the old-fashioned way keeping the Cobby 3 and kitting it out over time. He hasn't flown much recently and still hasn't got military shields but has most of the other basic kit.
Both ways were fun (the trade-down option probably more so for me) and of course I came into the game with memories of Elite to help me, albeit memories that were over 20 years old!
I fully understand how a newbie with no knowledge of the game could wonder what the hell it's all about though.

Belisarius wrote:

The game *says* you can be a trader, bounty hunter, miner, criminal, etc, but in fact it limits you to being a trader whether you like it or not. At least for a couple of hours.

I had an idea: What if the player would start with 1000₢ instead of 100? It's not a huge difference, compared to how much money will go through their hands eventually. But it opens up at least one more career path immediately: you could exchange your pulse laser for a mining laser and buy fuel scoops for a grand total of 925₢. Voilà: you're on your way to becoming a miner.

For the very beginning, no other equipment is needed. You'll avoid combat, and you'll patrol between planet and sun where there's always asteroids to find. When you've filled your hold, you simply return to the station, which you can do with the non-upgraded space compass. Rinse, repeat. Once you've mined all asteroids in the system, you can jump to the next system.

Alternatively, you could even get a beam laser for 600₢ and go bounty hunting. Admittedly, this will be rather dangerous without shield boosters, energy unit, or fuel injectors. But not impossible, as long as you pick your fights carefully. And the fuel injectors are only 200₢ away (only 110₢ if you sell your missiles).

A new player would have a lot more choice immediately, and the first few hours would feel less like on a grinder.

EDIT: Nice idea, but I missed the obvious: neither mining laser nor fuel scoops are available on Lave. Thus no mining. D'oh!

Belisarius wrote:

The game *says* you can be a trader, bounty hunter, miner, criminal, etc, but in fact it limits you to being a trader whether you like it or not. At least for a couple of hours.

I wrote the Start Choices oxp to give harder start options, but there could also be easier start options with pre-equipped ships for mining, bounty hunting, trading etc. There could be short introduction pages to give a new player a kick-start. I'll see, if I can patch something up to see how it feels.

Commander McLane wrote:

I had an idea: What if the player would start with 1000₢ instead of 100? It's not a huge difference, compared to how much money will go through their hands eventually. But it opens up at least one more career path immediately: you could exchange your pulse laser for a mining laser and buy fuel scoops for a grand total of 925₢. Voilà: you're on your way to becoming a miner.

EDIT: Nice idea, but I missed the obvious: neither mining laser nor fuel scoops are available on Lave. Thus no mining. D'oh!

I liked this idea so I have made a save file a player can throw into their folder and it will start them at Lave with a Rear Mining Laser, Fuel Scoops and 100cr. See here for further reading.

spara wrote:

I wrote the Start Choices oxp to give harder start options, but there could also be easier start options with pre-equipped ships for mining, bounty hunting, trading etc. There could be short introduction pages to give a new player a kick-start. I'll see, if I can patch something up to see how it feels.

Fatleaf wrote:

I liked this idea so I have made a save file a player can throw into their folder and it will start them at Lave with a Rear Mining Laser, Fuel Scoops and 100cr. See here for further reading.

Both excellent ideas!

I added a new 'Fast-track' start option to the Start Choices oxp. Fresh Jameson is awarded with a mining laser, fuel scoops and fuel injectors. That should instantly open the career choices of bounty hunting, parcel delivery, mining/scavenging and trading (and piracy of course). To help a new player, I also added some advice about the careers.

spara wrote:

I added a new 'Fast-track' start option to the Start Choices oxp. Fresh Jameson is awarded with a mining laser, fuel scoops and fuel injectors. That should instantly open the career choices of bounty hunting, parcel delivery, mining/scavenging and trading (and piracy of course). To help a new player, I also added some advice about the careers.

Cool, now the idea is part of a proper oxp

But I would remove the injectors. An asteroid miner is doing that job instead of combat. I would make them earn that perk.

Fatleaf wrote:

But I would remove the injectors.

This will surely rouse some debate. I tried to step into a new player's shoes and think what are the most annoying things for a fresh Jameson. I concluded that it's the instant deaths caused by pirates and missiles and the boredom of the mass locks. Injectors should help there.

I've been observing my son (as he plays) and I fully agree what has been said before about the start of the game: for a newer generation player, it's poison if the game does not start right away.

[not to be taken seriously]
How about implementing micropayments to the game? You can grind your way to the military laser or you can buy it for 1 euro . Income would be spent on the welfare of the devs.
[/not to be taken seriously]

Injectors are the main game-changer for a Jameson.

Fatleaf wrote:

Cool, now the idea is part of a proper oxp

But I would remove the injectors. An asteroid miner is doing that job instead of combat. I would make them earn that perk.

I think the idea is to make all career choices open from the start (within severe limits, especially the bounty hunter or pirate). Injectors are, I think, just about the single most useful piece of kit in the game and an essential for survival for anyone who heads out onto the spacelanes - otherwise you're just hoping to be lucky. They're by no means a panacea, and they require players to be careful in their choices of destination, and indeed when to use them: do you burn limited fuel to scoot past a masslock, when you might need that fuel for running away from something nasty, later? I don't see them as a perk.

Disembodied wrote:

I think the idea is to make all career choices open from the start (within severe limits, especially the bounty hunter or pirate). Injectors are, I think, just about the single most useful piece of kit in the game and an essential for survival for anyone who heads out onto the spacelanes - otherwise you're just hoping to be lucky. They're by no means a panacea, and they require players to be careful in their choices of destination, and indeed when to use them: do you burn limited fuel to scoot past a masslock, when you might need that fuel for running away from something nasty, later? I don't see them as a perk.

Yeah, I should have chosen my words a little better. You are right, a perk they certainly are not. I fully agree with Cody that they are a game changer which is why I mentioned about removing them. But thinking about the aim of the oxp you would be right to include them.

I am new here, and new to Elite, though not entirely to it's genre. I am a huge fan of X, which I have recently come to find is basically based on Elite.

I've only recently heard about Elite, and Oolite. Possibly because Elite was much more popular in the UK than the US, and the systems it was available on here in the US were before my time (born 1985; grew up with Apple IIe, Atari 2600, Intellivision and the all-important NES; which actually has Elite, but not in the US). I am amazed that a game of this size was even doable on it's original platform, and kinda angry that nothing more modern has done better or even come as close, other than the X series.

I *love* space games, and I *really* love games like Elite that are a bit of a combination of an arcade game and a sim. It's not overly complicated in controls, but it still presents a believable world. No goal, no story, just infinite hours of fun doing anything you want. I am even enjoying Oolite more than X3 because of how simple the modification system is. I've never been able to do much with the weird scripting system in X3, but Java was the first coding language I ever learned, so tweaking anything I am able to in Oolite is a cinch.

Sure, it doesn't look as fancy, but when you're a few hundred kilometers away from anything you're really looking at most of the time, you end up just shooting tiny white triangles no matter how good the graphics are.

A question: how did you find the learning curve in Oolite? Any problems with it being too difficult for a beginner with no Elite experience?

Cody wrote:

A question: how did you find the learning curve in Oolite? Any problems with it being too difficult for a beginner with no Elite experience?

Well, I did have to look up the controls as there is only a binding option for joysticks/controllers. Other than that and not knowing what the equipment does exactly, it's a pretty simple game. But like I said, I am not new to the genre.

Good... thanks. You didn't find the bandits too tough in the early stages? You're using Oolite version 1.77, yes?