Oolite 2: ship balance, starting conditions and death knells

[Thargoid]

Ive always thought the key thing is allowing a different AI, or at least a different target per turret.

I'd go wider and say a different target for every sub-entity, as currently if you have multiple sub-ent lasers they will also all aim at the same target (which may or may not be the same as the main entities target).

[Commander Wilmot]

In Oolite 2 will it be possible to have the player with multiple forward lasers? So that would make buying a wolf or Imperial trader and the like more sense.

Seconded.

The idea of starting out in an Adder worries me a bit.......... If you're going to change how you start out, I'd say at least make sure there are different options for those with different skills.

That would be my preferred option - a range of start-up scenarios (including the original new recruit from the Lave Academy) for the player to choose from (different ship, location, equipment and backstory) which could be rated as more easy or difficult than the standard.

Seconded too.

Thirded to both suggestions; also could there be a variant of the standard difficulty, which gives you the 100 credits you would currently start out with, and 150,000 credits to buy and equip a ship of the player's choice, which would be a factory standard version of any ship, oxp or native, costing up to 150,000 credits.

For example, a new player starts out. He has never played Oolite or Elite before, but he has played other similar games and knows that he wants to do a combat role. He does his research on the wiki and decides that a gecko, the player one from the illicit unlock oxp, is the ship for him. He buys an un-outfitted version a mil laser, ecm, and a shield enhancement and saves the rest in case his ship needs repairs. He picks a few fights in various anarchies until he can start taking easy random hits mission.

[Ad_Astra]

I second this, the problem is, in my view, not the starting position, but the middle bit. Starting out is actually quite hard. The problem is that, with the equipment available, the Cobra too quickly becomes the perfect ship. In addition, with all the ways you can earn money in Oolite, becoming rich is too easy. This is offset by the ability to buy expensive ships, but when the incentive to do that is limited owing to the Cobra being such a perfect ship you have a mismatch. In that respect, just changing starting ship won't solve this issue.

I will have to disagree with this assertion. While yes, it is certainly possible to make a lot of cash quickly in Oolite, especially if you stick to the milk runs, there are lots of drains on that cash too. As been said elsewhere, the better a pilot you become, the higher your Combat Rating gets, the more of a iron arse you build up on your ship, the more you tend to take risks, so things balance out. You certainly don't become invincible by any stretch of the imagination!

I have found that the more risks you take, the more dangerous missions and systems you go to, the more damage you take, the more you find yourself spending your hard earned cash on IronHide repairs, ACS Chaff refills and replacement AMS Darts. (As an aside, I think that AMS Darts are overpriced at 3000Cr each, but that's possibly deserving of a separate post.)

While I was increasing my bank balance steadily at one point, now that I am getting into a lot of combat-heavy missions, bounty hunting and so forth, I'm spending as much money maintaining my ship as I am earning in trades, courier runs, bounty hunting and so forth.

[Ad_Astra]

Thirded to both suggestions; also could there be a variant of the standard difficulty, which gives you the 100 credits you would currently start out with, and 150,000 credits to buy and equip a ship of the player's choice, which would be a factory standard version of any ship, oxp or native, costing up to 150,000 credits.

For example, a new player starts out. He has never played Oolite or Elite before, but he has played other similar games and knows that he wants to do a combat role. He does his research on the wiki and decides that a gecko, the player one from the illicit unlock oxp, is the ship for him. He buys an un-outfitted version a mil laser, ecm, and a shield enhancement and saves the rest in case his ship needs repairs. He picks a few fights in various anarchies until he can start taking easy random hits mission.

That's a great suggestion - it will give players a lot more flexibility.

Talking of flexibility, how about having players start at a different system than Lave? You could have it as a totally randomised selection of one of the Galaxy 1 systems, or even a random system from any one of the eight Galactic Sectors (barring Oresrati, unless the player really wants to do nothing but in-system trading for the rest of his days). Now that I've thought about it, it would make sense to start at one of the forty Academy systems listed in the Lave Academy OXP.

[Cody]

While I was increasing my bank balance steadily at one point, now that I am getting into a lot of combat-heavy missions, bounty hunting and so forth, I'm spending as much money maintaining my ship as I am earning in trades, courier runs, bounty hunting and so forth.

Since I've installed Smivs' Tough Guys 2, followed by McLane's NPC Shields and another couple of 'levellers', added to the improved npc evasion etc, my net worth has decreased by nearly 400k... repairs and ordnance are costing me a fortune. I'll have to embark on a serious 'fund-raising' agenda soon.

[Ad_Astra]

The 'hostility' of a system only depends on government type, which is already indicated on the map (at least on the short range map if you press 'I') and can be checked on the system info screen anyway.

Cool - I had no idea that functionality was there! The "I" key press, not system info screen access, I knew about that. Maybe the Oolite Keyboard Control wiki page needs updating?

Which reminds me - I'd like to see the ability to reconfigure the keyboard controls from an in-game menu, under "Game Options...", rather than needing to hand-edit a specific file. I'd assume that any such in-game menu would edit the same file, so both options would be available to players to choose from surely?

[Commander McLane]

The 'hostility' of a system only depends on government type, which is already indicated on the map (at least on the short range map if you press 'I') and can be checked on the system info screen anyway.

Cool - I had no idea that functionality was there! The "I" key press, not system info screen access, I knew about that. Maybe the Oolite Keyboard Control wiki page needs updating?

It's in the readMe that comes with the game. (Although I'm still not sure whether it comes on all platforms, but it should.)

In keyconfig.plist the key is called key_map_info.

[JensAyton]

Talking of flexibility, how about having players start at a different system than Lave? You could have it as a totally randomised selection of one of the Galaxy 1 systems, or even a random system from any one of the eight Galactic Sectors

The starting location isn’t arbitrary. It’s a reasonably safe space with decent trading nearby, while still not being perfect, so there’s an incentive to explore. You really, really don’t want to start a newbie in Xeenle.

OXPs rely on the sequence of galaxies to place harder missions and situations “later” in the game.

Having several possible starting locations in galaxy 1 might be possible. Random starts are not happening.

[Killer Wolf]

i dunno. if we were talking about different starting scenarios it would be cool if a rookie pirate (ie you begin the game w/ an Offender/Fug status) could start in such a place, based on a pirate base or rock hermit etc.

[Commander McLane]

i dunno. if we were talking about different starting scenarios it would be cool if a rookie pirate (ie you begin the game w/ an Offender/Fug status) could start in such a place, based on a pirate base or rock hermit etc.

I think that would be possible, as long as it's clearly marked as a 'pro' scenario, not one suitable for rookies. It would be a scenario for an experienced player looking for a challenge (and we know that this type of player exists), but certainly not one of several equal starting points for an Oolite newbie.

[Ganelon]

... (ie you begin the game w/ an Offender/Fug status) ...

I'm not sure as it makes sense to start a player with an Offender/Fugitive status. How would they have it, if they were a beginner? Are we postulating that pirates are basically "born guilty"?

Besides, as a player who sometimes does play a privateer/pirate character, I can tell you that only a foolish pirate would leave their legal status as anything worse than perhaps Offender. A squeaky Clean legal rating is preferable, and not too hard to maintain with a bit of travel, making it a point to go after prey when there are no witnesses (and making sure any witnesses that happen by don't survive to tell tales). At the worst, if a bunch of police Vipers wander in at an inopportune moment and you end up having to cut them up, you make a trip to the friendly lads and lasses at the nearest Hacker Outpost and get the Fugitive status fixed up into something prettier.

Oolite is already pretty well set up to allow the player to "grow up" to be anything they want. It's attitude and ethics that make the difference, more than a legal status. It's the choices you make while playing.

I'm not saying it's not possible to have at least a somewhat "different start" for players that might intentionally want to go into piracy, privateering, bounty hunting, or whatever. They might start in a system or situation that would have different opportunities available, maybe. But viewing the difference as being legal status may be oversimplifying and cripple the player to the point of making the game's playability questionable. A person beginning with a Fugitive status would run into hostility even just trying to dock. How could they build up their ships or survive long enough to be able to do much? Not impossible, but it would take more thought as to what to make available to them as a beginner.

To make an example, bounty hunter might be a career we have more already available for. Assuming we base it on the existing OXP, Random Hits, the new player might start out at a Seedy Bar. A friendly feline or lobsteroid might give them some advice, and they'd start out by making runs to the main station with minerals or gems or whatever is available at the bar and heading to the main station to sell it and return with booze and food. "Beer runs". Seedy bars already have a good stock of weapons and ship upgrades available. Other than making those runs, they could join in the scramble to defend the bar when it's attacked, and there'd already be a system in place to encourage them to take contracts when they get enough experience to qualify for them. The Seedy bar would be their safe haven to kit out their ship and do a little "growing up" within the game. So it would be a different environment with a different focus on the game and different advice and opportunities so the player's early experience of the game would have a different flavour and perspective than a trader starting out at Lave. They'd be working at becoming a high ranking "Judge", so get the better contracts as their experience and reputation go up, and that would be the prime source of better income they'd see to strive for.

A career in piracy is considerably less developed as a potential player direction in the game at present, even as OXPs. The only OXP I can think of that actually allows any opportunities for pirates or privateers is Commander McLane's Anarchies. Even that one is far from "encouraging", since it makes the legal status even easier to end up a criminal than in vanilla Oolite as well as having some extra "enforcement options" against players with a less than pretty legal record in the form of the Sentinel stations. However, it does have some options for getting legal status "fixed" and some alternative sources of upgrades for the "legal status challenged". Still, it isn't really an environment that would encourage rookie pirates, and I'd rank it as being more about Anarchy systems (as the name implies) than privateering or piracy. It does, however, stand as the primary "must have" OXP (of what currently exists) for anyone playing the game as a pirate or privateer.

The problem with the idea of "rookie pirates" is that the attitude of "pirates=100% OK targets" exists not only with players, but with the entire game structure. That would make it rather difficult to offer it as a feasible starting point without a lot of rethinking as to what a pirate (or privateer) in the game might be, other than a target for any ship with a weapon. New players would likely find it discouraging if not impossible, though it's not such a bad option for intermediate (or maybe better) players.

PS: Yeah, like Commander McLane said while I was typing this. LOL

[JensAyton]

i dunno. if we were talking about different starting scenarios it would be cool if a rookie pirate (ie you begin the game w/ an Offender/Fug status) could start in such a place, based on a pirate base or rock hermit etc.

That’s entirely reasonable, but completely different from a random start.

[Smivs]

Isn't everybody overlooking the fact that we start at Lave because that's where the Academy is, and we're all newly-qualified jamesons at the beginning?
This supposition would have to be removed if we can start elsewhere or with a different ship or choice of ships.

[Commander McLane]

Isn't everybody overlooking the fact that we start at Lave because that's where the Academy is, and we're all newly-qualified jamesons at the beginning?
This supposition would have to be removed if we can start elsewhere or with a different ship or choice of ships.

In this strict form, yes.

However, there is already an OXP expanding on the idea that 'Lave Academy' is more like a brand name, and has branches in other systems. Personally I haven't installed it, so for me it's still every-pilot-in-the-eight-galaxies-can-only-start-at-Lave. The question is legitimate, though, how much sense that actually makes, for instance for a Slimy Green Bird from Galaxy 4 who wants to become a certified pilot?

[Disembodied]

And we can't all begin as shiny new cadets. A lot of pirates could become ship-owners through e.g. slave/serf mutinies, stealing, promotion through the ranks, being born to pirate parents ... some pirates could almost literally be "born guilty", as Ganelon said. Mind you, I think there would need to be a big increase in the sustainability of a pirate career – pirate stations, pirate support networks, pirate NPCs not attacking/rarely attacking pirate players, etc. – to make this kind of start anything more than a veteran's challenge.