GAME CHANGER - A little overlooked law of aerospace science.

[DaddyHoggy]

I don't think that's controversial, just even more to think about.

Time limits to get to certain points could be tailored for the player ships speed.

Shipdata.plists for NPC's with mission specific roles could contain easy,moderate and hard versions of each role, and the mission script could select which level to use depending on certain stats of the player ship.

Base it on the core ships and look at say cargo, max energy, recharge rate, speed and pylons. If an OXP player ship has 2 or more in excess of any of the core ships, with the rest in 'range' then they get hard NPC's etc....

And so we restore balance again...

And therefore - what's the point?

Better the script for the mission checks for key stats of the player ship and if you're too uber (as far as the mission designer is concerned) the mission never starts, this way the poor mission editor doesn't have to play test ever aspect of the mission three times and fiddle the balance of each bit.

[Gimi]

Regarding classifying Oolite ships for comparison, you might want to read through this thread. It is no easy task, and results will differ greatly depending on what parameters you choose to use.

[Commander McLane]

Now moving from one controversial topic to another...if we can't control (or it is difficult/unfeasable to control) what ship a player uses for a mission, why not concoct a ship scoring system.

Players with uber ships will be penalised more than those with more reasonable ships.

The scoring system would depend on the objectives of the mission writer.

The controversy comes from: how do we score ships?

I don't think that's controversial, just even more to think about.

Time limits to get to certain points could be tailored for the player ships speed.

Shipdata.plists for NPC's with mission specific roles could contain easy,moderate and hard versions of each role, and the mission script could select which level to use depending on certain stats of the player ship.

Base it on the core ships and look at say cargo, max energy, recharge rate, speed and pylons. If an OXP player ship has 2 or more in excess of any of the core ships, with the rest in 'range' then they get hard NPC's etc....

I have started to think about this, and I tend to think that indeed modifying missions based on the player ship's stats may be a possible way to go. Thereby the conflict between ship builders' and mission builders' interests could be solved, albeit in a rather asymmetrical way: the ship builders would get all the freedom they want, without mandatory rules, and the burden of coping with that would be placed entirely on the mission builders' shoulders. Therefore it seems fair and logical that the 'scoring' of the different player ships would also be entirely in the mission builder's discretion, equally without mandatory rules.

[Cody]

I have started to think about this, and I tend to think that indeed modifying missions based on the player ship's stats may be a possible way to go. Thereby the conflict between ship builders' and mission builders' interests could be solved, albeit in a rather asymmetrical way: the ship builders would get all the freedom they want, without mandatory rules, and the burden of coping with that would be placed entirely on the mission builders' shoulders. Therefore it seems fair and logical that the 'scoring' of the different player ships would also be entirely in the mission builder's discretion, equally without mandatory rules.

I can't make OXPs... but if I could, I'd like this a lot. I think it's a very good idea.

[Okti]

I have started to think about this, and I tend to think that indeed modifying missions based on the player ship's stats may be a possible way to go. Thereby the conflict between ship builders' and mission builders' interests could be solved, albeit in a rather asymmetrical way: the ship builders would get all the freedom they want, without mandatory rules, and the burden of coping with that would be placed entirely on the mission builders' shoulders. Therefore it seems fair and logical that the 'scoring' of the different player ships would also be entirely in the mission builder's discretion, equally without mandatory rules.

I can't make OXPs... but if I could, I'd like this a lot. I think it's a very good idea.

You can do it, but contributing is much more than making. And we all appreciate contributions to an OXP.

And I totally agree with Commander McLane.

[Thargoid]

If you're careful in mission design then you can actually make it more difficult in an ubership than a less powerful one.

Of course it does mean having more to missions than just blowing stuff up...

[Dragonfire]

On the matter of game physics and whatnot, I thought I'd repost the outcome on the debate that spilled over into the IRC.

It's a GAME, people. May the next person who brings up how "realistic" Oolite's physics are be tied to a rabid Thargoid. I'm sorry I ever brought it up.

[Capt. Murphy]

Therefore it seems fair and logical that the 'scoring' of the different player ships would also be entirely in the mission builder's discretion, equally without mandatory rules.

Yep

[Alex]

I don't see why missions should have anything to do with non standard ships. If they were geared to a fairly well equiped in game ship, anygameplay fun to be had would be in the players hands. If someone wanted to do them using a super uber ship, well that's their loss.
I've often used one of my stronger ships the first time doing a mission, then weaker ones when doing it again.
For me it's great fun over and over again.
Think I'm on my 6th run through of assassins, down to a half stocked cobra on this run. Not easy atall, even though I know what to expect.

[Killer Wolf]

"I have started to think about this, and I tend to think that indeed modifying missions based on the player ship's stats may be a possible way to go. Thereby the conflict between ship builders' and mission builders' interests could be solved"

it's all down to how accomodating the scripter wants to be, but at the same time i can't help but feel...why should they? it's all well and good speccing a mission that caters for all the game ships and a percentage boundary for some of the OXP ships, but my personal feeling is that uber ships are a game killer, and if people want to play that way then they have to accept that some features of the game will not be available to them : difficult thrilling missions will be a walk in the park. that's the trade off. you can't have it all ways.
i tried the reverse idea of this thread, setting coded limits to keep ships w/in sensible ranges that would be "realistic" for the universe and also allow missions to be written that would work to a similar degree for everyone, and pretty much got shot down, so how come this idea is warranting serious discussion?

[Commander McLane]

i tried the reverse idea of this thread, setting coded limits to keep ships w/in sensible ranges that would be "realistic" for the universe and also allow missions to be written that would work to a similar degree for everyone, and pretty much got shot down, so how come this idea is warranting serious discussion?

Well, it's a forum, thus the random-audience-of-the-day™ gets to decide what is warranting discussion, simply by discussing it or not.

I for one am just publishing some of my private musings related to keeping überness in check. I am not proposing general rules. But I am trying to find (and make transparent) a way on which I can proceed for my future Oolite contributions.

Personally speaking, and as a mission designer, I like to control the environment in which my mission takes place (and indeed, I'm talking about mission design that is more complex than a pure shoot-em-up). Yes, I know, it's a vain undertaking, but I feel it's necessary to a certain extent. And that's what my musings are about.

One way to give me—and not only me, but all of us—control would be clear and binding restrictions on ship and weapon specs. Everybody would know in advance what to expect, and what not to expect. Obviously this way is not viable. The developers won't set coded limits, and the ship designers won't restrict themselves. We have to be realistic. Even if most of the ship designers would voluntarily follow some code of conduct, we'd never get everyone on board.

Therefore, if I want control, I have to find a way to exert it myself, in my respective mission OXP. The possibilities I am exploring include a certain degree of hand-tailoring and tinkering with some parameters. For instance, if I want to bring an element of thrill to a certain situation by giving the player very little time to carry out a task, I could make the amount of time variable, depending on the player ship's speed. I am also contemplating other ideas, like temporarily removing certain über equipment from the player's ship during part of a mission under some mission-related pretext. The ur-example for that is Assassins, which takes away your cloaking device whenever you go after one of your marks. So it's not even my own idea, or a new idea, LittleBear did it already years ago. What exactly I would and could do, would of course depend entirely on what my next mission is. The one I am working on even since before Cataclysm for instance has an important time-critical component, therefore player ship speed matters (and the replacement of the torus drive with time acceleration will matter even more, because it will mean that I'll have to extend the time frame, because the player will become effectively slower).

What it all boils down to is: Oolite's world is a complex and interdependent system. Tinkering with one aspect of it (like player ship specs, or weaponry) has an impact on the whole system. Ship designers are perhaps not always aware of this fact and its implications. Players don't need to be aware of it. Mission designers are perhaps a little more aware of it, and sometimes feel the need to deal with its implications.

That's what the debate about balance is all about.

On the matter of game physics and whatnot, I thought I'd repost the outcome on the debate that spilled over into the IRC.

... I'm sorry I ever brought it up.

As I said before, we're most likely going to have that debate again and again in the future, just like we had it again and again in the past. Nothing wrong with that. So you don't need to apologize, or feel bad about it. Your only "mistake" was to assume that the outcome of a debate on the IRC or here on the boards would "solve" anything. It doesn't, and it can't, because there will never be any agreement among all interested parties, simply because there are new interested parties joining every day who have the same right as everybody else to make their views known and have them discussed. This is why the key issues have to be debated again and again. Realism and game balance are definitely key issues.

It's a GAME, people.

This is actually another key issue. I don't know how you mean that statement, but I assume you mean to say something like "it's only a game, so we all don't need to bother so much". Correct me if I'm interpreting you wrongly. At least it's a possible interpretation of the statement.

Interestingly, I could make quite the same statement, and it would mean something quite opposite. It's a game, and I want it to be a good game. Each game, and especially each good game, has two necessities: a set of fixed rules, and the right balance between "too hard" and "too easy". Oolite's rules (or at least part of them) are the "game physics". They don't need to be realistic with regards to RealLife™ physics (and they distinctly are not—for starters, there are no real life equivalents to Oolite's non-newtonian flight model, and to witchspace travel), so that would be a meaningless realism-debate. But they have to be realistic with regards to each other. One example: in a world where typical trade ships achieve speeds of between 0.2LM and 0.35LM (whatever "LM" means), and a police interceptor has a top speed of 0.42LM, and nothing is faster than that, it is only logical to assume that this world's physics (whatever they are) don't allow normal top speeds much in excess of that. That's not to say that there isn't a chance for an experimental craft that can go considerably faster (albeit probably not double the previous top speed). But it isn't reasonable to assume that the next generation of mass produced everyday trade ships will suddenly have double or triple the top speed of their predecessors. (Much like—and this is a real life analogy, not a direct transfer from real life into the Oolite world—today's consumer cars may go 150-200 km/h, and tomorrow's cars may top that, but certainly not even get close to 300-400 km/h.)

In a good game the rules don't need to adhere to the physics of RealLife™. But they need to be consistent. So my argument would be: exactly because it's a game we as the people who are modifying it have to bother, as long as we intend our modifications to become available to others who don't have our deeper insight into its mechanics.

And on this note I end this far-too-long post.

[Fatleaf]

In a good game the rules don't need to adhere to the physics of RealLife™. But they need to be consistent. So my argument would be: exactly because it's a game we as the people who are modifying it have to bother, as long as we intend our modifications to become available to others who don't have our deeper insight into its mechanics.

And just to add a little bit more, is that Oolite is more of a community of diverse people from all over the world than just the game we play. I have made friendships on these boards with people whom I have never met and am sure the same is true for quite a few of us here. We range from Europe to America across to Australia and I have even heard there is a member who lives in a place called Pajero Country! With that we all have our own culture to bring along and history has taught us at times people of differing cultures show a little lack of understanding to each other. A little for instance is the differing nature between the British and American society's. We both speak (generally) the same language and live in (again generally) the same way. But there are some big differences between the two and at times it can be really difficult for individuals to recognize that difference let alone understand it. (Take for instance the fact that all Americans can't spell the word colour )

But I feel it is also such diversity that brings a depth to our little community.

And on this note I end this far-too-long post.

Oh no, it was just fine. Some very good points made. Gave us something to think about.

[Disembodied]

But there are some big differences between the two and at times it can be really difficult for individuals to recognize that difference let alone understand it.

To promote greater linguistic understanding, at least between UK members and those from other nations, I recommend the Anglo-EU Translation Guide.

[Commander McLane]

But there are some big differences between the two and at times it can be really difficult for individuals to recognize that difference let alone understand it.

To promote greater linguistic understanding, at least between UK members and those from other nations, I recommend the Anglo-EU Translation Guide.

Very interesting.

[Star Gazer]

That's not bad...