Oolite Bulletins

Definition in Wikipedia
Let's talk about ideas for possible OXPs. Comment ideas of others so OXP developers get idea what others consider good, bad and ugly. What would I like to see...

Hey, can we have OXPs where player isn't some freelancer or lone wolf but part of organization? Organization can be anything in Oolite right now: GalCop, Galactic Navy, band of pirates... Thargoid invasion fleet! Or something else: mercenary wing, merchant fleet. How to do that... First off player should start with ship appropriate for organization: Viper for GalCop or Navy Asp for Navy. Player would take and conduct serie of missions (campaign) with fleet of NPCs and return to specific location, like Behemoth carrier. Freedom would be very limited or nonexistent: Galactic Navy brass wouldn't be pleased for one of their pilots taking Viper Interceptor to otherside of galaxy for some bounty hunting instead following orders to stop rolling Thargoid invasion.

It would greatly help manual docking if HUD would show serie of rectangles at front of the docking bay, like in this Starshatter game:

Matti wrote:

Hey, can we have OXPs where player isn't some freelancer or lone wolf but part of organization? Organization can be anything in Oolite right now: GalCop, Galactic Navy, band of pirates...

Matti, I'm in the process of trying to create an OXP just like this. See the Squadron Leader thread for current status and throw in any ideas.

Matti wrote:

It would greatly help manual docking if HUD would show serie of rectangles at front of the docking bay

The scanner and your rear view show you the station beacon straight behind you, which helps already.

(And even in Elite in all it incarnations docking wasn't that difficult. You had a rear view as well and could always line up with the planet.)

It just occurred to me, would it be possible to make large convoys? That is, number of traders heading to same direction band together to better defend themselves against pirates in unstable systems. Imagine it: fleet of Pythons, Boas, Anacondas and Cobras flying together with speed of slowest ship. Some trade ships in convoy could have their own fighter escort. Easiest way to do that: escort formation of vanilla Oolite, but escort ships would be other cargo ships and Cobras instead Sidewinders. Long distance runs could well be possible when more than one ship can make jump for rest to follow through wormhole.

For player's benefit stations could have bulleting board which shows when next convoys are leaving and to where. Some contracts in carrier market screen could have convoys too. Of course that adds possibilities for piracy, that is if player has enough balls to mess with dozen Anacondas, Boas, Cobras, Pythons, and their escorts.

Matti wrote:

It would greatly help manual docking if HUD would show serie of rectangles at front of the docking bay, like in this Starshatter game:

No it wouldn't!

Matti wrote:

It just occurred to me, would it be possible to make large convoys? That is, number of traders heading to same direction band together to better defend themselves against pirates in unstable systems. Imagine it: fleet of Pythons, Boas, Anacondas and Cobras flying together with speed of slowest ship. Some trade ships in convoy could have their own fighter escort. Easiest way to do that: escort formation of vanilla Oolite, but escort ships would be other cargo ships and Cobras instead Sidewinders. Long distance runs could well be possible when more than one ship can make jump for rest to follow through wormhole.

For player's benefit stations could have bulleting board which shows when next convoys are leaving and to where. Some contracts in carrier market screen could have convoys too. Of course that adds possibilities for piracy, that is if player has enough balls to mess with dozen Anacondas, Boas, Cobras, Pythons, and their escorts.

You may want to study previous attempts here, here, and here (note that the first two are really old, and nothing ever came out of them).

The proposed replacement of the mass-locking Torus drive with a TAF in Oolite 2 will potentially make convoying much more player-accessible.