Hi this oxp looks amazing I sure am going to give it a go!
thank you!
If I may make some suggestions, (I have not read the entire thread so it might have been discussed already
) I would love the possibility to make friends and enemies, that are persistent in the game.
for instance a trader that you saved from a pirate attack finds you at the station bar and buys you drinks then you exchange emails and you keep in touch.
using the email.oxp preferably , he/she could send you an occasional email and your friendship could grow or fade away depending of your actions. this character could be saved in the savefile, and continue to exist and operate according to its character aspects with simple die rolls every time the player docks (or whatever works best). jumping from system to system trading, fighting, making money, making friends and enemies, climbing the elite rank. etc.
The character could then offer some variety off mini missions:
Jumping to the next system to meet him/her
Or Invite you to his/her wending, in the other end of the galaxy
Asking for a money loan,
Asking for help to cross a dangerous system
Offer help against a common enemy, Like a pirate that has sworn to wipe you out,
Revenge for the Death of a common friend,
pop up suddenly like the cavalry to save your "stern" from an assassination ambush (If he/she happens to be close),
ask you to take some parcel/passenger that he/she can not carry out because of reasons,
Hunt you down to the end of the world and try to kill you until the end of times ( or his)
Attack your friends and people you care about
and the list can be never-ending
Every character could have some basic stats like
courage, temper, honesty, etc.
and depending on his/her role could help the player, love and befriend the player, mislead or betray the player, etc.
there could be a friendliness stat that goes up or down according to the players actions
Possible characters could be pilots and static (that stay in the same system, or station, or have a steady job that takes them to some type of station from system to system)
These could include:
A trader that you saved from an attack.
A hunter that you stole a kill from. (you could buy him a drink at the bar to apologise, or you could get into a fist fight and therefore make a new enemy)
A scared young Jameson that has to cross a dangerous system for the first time and asks for company
an old broke Navy Elite pilot who has given up on life after he have seen too much death during the Thargoid wars. And makes a living as a miner in a Rock Hermit and maybe carries a single Q-bomb on a ship without fuel injections looking for a reason to deploy it, (better stay away)
A shady guy that is in all short of bad news operations but is good hearted deep inside that can arrange for cargo manifests to be lost, launches to be unregistered etc.
A pirate that attacked you and lived to hate your guts,
A pirate that you arrested and just got out of prison
A dirty cop that can make your minor offences be forgotten, in exchange for a transportation of a mystery packet, (perhaps he could blackmail you for more errants in the future)
A hitch-hiker that you picked up from a station
and so on and so on
And as always, I don't know how hard any of this would be to implement, If at all possible, or maybe they don't look relevant to this oxp, But I would like to hear others opinions about them.
The main thing that I like to express is that I would love this game to give me more things to like and care about.
Sometimes I feel lonely in the Ooniverse.
And after I have ironassed my ship to the teeth, after I have reached Elite, then what?
sure there are great mission oxp out there, but the sandbox feel of oolite is the most important aspect of it, and after some time it gets a little monotonous.
This oxp looks like a great enhancement. The more random and unexpected things that happen, the grater the feeling of sandbox
What I propose in the simplest form, (because I did pull the rope to far
) is the players actions to have some kind of permanent effect in the game, like somebody I know, sending me congratulations on your Elite rank achievement (except from the Elite federation)
or some lovely bug eyed lizard traffic control operator that I met at the market and we shared a moth burger, giving me a Warm greeting every time I approach the station.
Anyway thank you for that oxp. Hope my rand was not boring
downloading now