Oolite Bulletins

Hey all, I am very new to creating OXPs, so I wanted to run my Wyvern OXP mission concept by ya'll, to ensure that it is plausible and realistic. Any and all input is welcome.

Also, since I can't dedicate a ton of time to this due to my actual work, anyone who would enjoy working on this mission with me is more than welcome to do so.

The spoiler is in invisible text, so you have to highlight it in order to view it. Don't read it if you prefer to be surprised.

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Wyvern OXP
"Dark Sky Horizon" Mission

Premise:
The blueprints for Dark Sky Enterprises' military model of the Wyvern (Black Wyvern) were stolen by the company's former Lead Ship Architect, a slimy green frog by the name of Yzarra Nkitu, who subsequently vanished.

A few months later, a single Black Wyvern was shot down by GalCop in the Biisza system after a fierce battle which claimed the lives of six GalCop ships. Months of careful analysis of the wreckage led GalCop and the Galactic Navy to a rock hermit in the Eszaraxe system, where a set of blueprints and four more Black Wyverns under construction were discovered. And yet, they had missed Nkitu by mere minutes. Convinced that they had completely shut down the operation, GalCop dismissed the frog's departure and closed the case.

Six days later, another Black Wyvern was reported by a lone wolf trader in the Laenin system. Two days after that, a bounty hunter by the name of Lukas "Dragonfire" Criitu recieved an urgent S.O.S. from an envoy of merchants in Mariar. When he arrived, all five Pythons had been obliterated. He spotted a lone Black Wyvern as it witchspaced out, yet being low on fuel, was forced to abandon the chase and make his way to the station.

As the list of incidents increased, Dark Sky Enterprises contacted GalCop, requesting that they reopen the case. GalCop refused, citing that a handful of "isolated incidents" were not just cause for such measures. Disgusted by GalCop's inactivity, DSE has sent out an urgent call, looking for bounty hunters who are willing to track down Nkitu, shut down his illegal operations, and destroy all Black Wyverns in existence.

To aid in this mission, DSE created the White Wyvern, a nearly identical ship. To prevent another catastophe, they ensured that White Wyverns can only be sold to individuals with clean records. All commanders who take on the mission are given a four million credit loan to purchase the White Wyvern and upgrade it. Every black wyvern destroyed and every operation that is shut down is considered payment towards this loan. Additionally, a five million credit bounty is placed on Nkitu's head.

Mission Play:
To begin the mission, the player must first dock at DSE headquarters. They recieve their loan and instructions. While generally intended for purchasing and outfitting a White Wyvern, the loan may be used for any purposes. The loan is paid through completion of various mission goals. Every Black Wyvern destroyed down is worth 50,000 credits towards the loan, and every operation stopped is worth 100,000.

The player can continue usual game play, trading, hunting, and mining. DSE will communicate with the player throughout the mission.
Every time a Black Wyvern is shot down, a final message is sent. This message sometimes contains a clue at to the system where the Black Wyvern was built. This clue can come in the form of indicating inhabitants, government, region, tech level, or something from the planetary information. These clues will ultimately lead to one of Nkitu's operations.

In order to shut down an operation, a commander must fly into the system and search out the proper rock hermit. These are visually recognizable as different from any other dockable. Then, the commander must fire at the rock hermit. At this point, defender ships (usually Red Wyverns, Mambas, or Pythons) will attack the commander. WMDs are useless in these situations, as the rock hermit is equipped with a disabler for these weapons. The commander must destroy all defender ships, then destroy the rock hermit with either military or mining lasers.

After the defender ships have been destroyed, urgent communications will open up between the rock hermit and Nkitu. These communications will give clues as to Nkitu's ultimate location.

Mission Ending:
WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS! Select the text below to view it.
Nkitu, it is discovered, is working disguised at DSE headquarters. Shortly after the commander's debt is paid off, this comes out. The player then must fly back to Zaonce and dock at headquarters to confront Nkitu. Nkitu then flees DSE headquarters. Current lead ship developer remarks that he has tampered with Nkitu's ship, disabling his witchdrive. The commander must leave the station and fly towards the witchspace beacon. They will encounter him in a White Wyvern marked "Fugitive", and must attack him.
Like with the rock hermits, however, Nkitu carries a WMD and an ECM disabler, forcing the commander to use lasers and ECM-hardened pylon weapons exclusively.

Upon Nkitu's destruction, the commander receives the five million cred bounty and a congraulatory message from Dark Sky Enterprises. At this point, the mission is complete.

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(P.S. If you want to make text invisible on this board, set its color to "#ECECEC")

Mm, well, they are discouraged from that by the fact that it is a LOAN...unless they want a bounty on their heads.

Good point about the anti-WMD. I guess it'll be up to the player NOT to carry those, eh?

Just some thoughts:

The exposition—and also some aspects of the mission itself—reminds me of Military Fiasco. That doesn't need to be a bad thing. I'd suggest you examine the OXP, you may get some direction and ideas from it.

Dragonfire wrote:

a bounty hunter by the name of Lukas "Dragonfire" Criitu recieved an urgent S.O.S. from an envoy of merchants in Mariar. When he arrived, all five Pythons had been obliterated. He spotted a lone Black Wyvern as it witchspaced out, yet being low on fuel, was forced to abandon the chase and make his way to the station.

Just a small nitpick: being low on fuel is no reason to abandon the chase. He doesn't need any fuel to follow the Black Wyvern's wormhole. So he probably should have another reason for not following. Perhaps he didn't just witness the Wyvern to jump out, but had a fight first and was severely damaged?

Dragonfire wrote:

To aid in this mission, DSE created the White Wyvern, a nearly identical ship. To prevent another catastophe, they ensured that White Wyverns can only be sold to individuals with clean records. All commanders who take on the mission are given a four million credit loan to purchase the White Wyvern and upgrade it.

It'll require some tricks to make sure that the ship will be on sale when you need it, but it should be possible with a reasonable probability.

Dragonfire wrote:

Every black wyvern destroyed and every operation that is shut down is considered payment towards this loan. Additionally, a five million credit bounty is placed on Nkitu's head.

That's a lot of money for a mission. For comparison: Assassins allows you to earn a total of 440,000 cr, Cataclysm pays out a final 100,000. Both missions are very complex and take a considerable amount of time and effort to complete. The Wyvern mission will pay out at least well over a million credits, probably in excess of two million. Will it be five to twenty times bigger than the two missions mentioned, thereby justifying the huge gap? I somehow doubt it.

Dragonfire wrote:

Every Black Wyvern destroyed down is worth 50,000 credits towards the loan, and every operation stopped is worth 100,000.

Again, huge payments, even if they are only counted against the loan. In Cataclysm, finishing a sub-mission (for instance destroying a whole Thargoid fleet) will earn you about 1,000 or 2,000 credits. Only the final payment after chasing your goal through seven galaxies will be a one-time 100,000, and I found that extremely generous at the time.

Dragonfire wrote:

In order to shut down an operation, a commander must fly into the system and search out the proper rock hermit. These are visually recognizable as different from any other dockable. Then, the commander must fire at the rock hermit. At this point, defender ships (usually Red Wyverns, Mambas, or Pythons) will attack the commander. WMDs are useless in these situations, as the rock hermit is equipped with a disabler for these weapons. The commander must destroy all defender ships, then destroy the rock hermit with either military or mining lasers.

That's a nice scenario. I hope it works out scripting-wise. Thargoid already made a remark about WMDs. As for disabling Q-mines, have a look into Assassins and Random Hits, which already contain this feature in a neat, in-game way.

Awesome input! Thank you, McLane.

I can lower the bounty on the main guy's head, but the reason for the large payments on the other mission steps is because otherwise it would take too long to pay off the debt (and thusly, reach the end). At the same time, I can still lower it a bit. (50,000 per operation, 10,000 per ship is as low as I can reasonably go, due to the sheer size of the loan, which is set according to the price of a White Wyvern.)

By the by, is there any way to just hand over the ship? I doubt it without a lot of finagling, but I thought I'd ask.

Dragonfire wrote:

By the by, is there any way to just hand over the ship? I doubt it without a lot of finagling, but I thought I'd ask.

No, there is no easy way. From the game perspective the player and his ship are inseparable, the player in a certain way is his ship. This is a left-over from the way Elite was working: you were a Cobra Mk III, there was no mechanism for buying another ship (which is also the reason why the Cobby is such a good ship: you were stuck with it from the very beginning until the end, so it had to be tough enough to survive all scenarios). Oolite has taken first steps in the direction of divorcing player and ship (that's why in scripting there is a distinction between the Player object and the PlayerShip object), but it is nowhere near an actual separation. Thus, there is no way to award another ship in a script.

There is a sort of workaround: If you want to hand over a ship to the player you could give it a price-tag of 0 and make it available for sale. The availability can be made dependent on conditions, so the offer could only be made in a certain stage of a mission, at all other times the free-of-cost ship wouldn't show up in the shipyards.

This could be an alternative for your mission: if the White Wyvern doesn't cost anything if "bought" during the mission (all "normal" White Wyverns would still have their normal price tag), this would at the same time remove the need for the big big loan, and the need to pay big rewards. The player would've gotten his reward in form of a ship. Should he decide to stick with it, he would have earned the resell-value of his old ship in cash. Should he at a later point decide to buy another ship, he would not get many millions at once.

Small chance, I know, but I thought I'd ask. Is there anyone here w/ experience in creating missions that would be willing to collaborate? I'd list that person first on the credits for it.

Thing is, I'm good with thinking up ideas and whatnot, and working with config files, but I won't have the time for a while to learn Javascript.