Oolite Bulletins

Something that crossed my mind today.

How about an oxp that operates a bit like the Bioomberg.oxp but then with ships. You see that ships are on sale on specific planets for a limited amount of time?

Some offers could be too good to be true. For example a new vampire that is offered far below the catalogue price. You could still buy it but then the oxp could add things like:

- The ship could break down far more often
- The ship could be stolen (you will be instantly become a offender/fugitive)
- The ship could be a fake. (could look and be advertised like a vampire in the shipyard but when you buy it it behaves like a regular Cobra Mk3)

But sometimes you could buy a real gem and have a ship for a reduced price.

Would be nice if you could also enter a lottery with some nice ships as price. If you win you could get a message that you can get your price at Lave for example.

Sound perfect for OoBay!

Oobay, nice. This sounds like it would work a lot like the salvaged equipment from anarchies.oxp and maybe some of the code could be cribbed for this. It might be more amusing and realistic to have to hunt for the bargain, say at the local rock hermit(special with a shipyard, eh?) Perhaps a mission screen for that special deal, might launch a mission to find that special deal following a trail of "I know this guy who says..." Of course the ships would mostly look like compete wrecks if they are good and would look good if they are complete wrecks.
If you had a lottery it would just be to upgrade your ship to one of a few types like entering a home lottery. Upgrade a cobra mk3 to a python with some nice equipment or a stripped Ferdelance or whatever seems to work. But no cash. Would make the game a little too easy. Perhaps a gift that keeps on giving like an annuity except that once every game week or month you get a small sum, perhaps a few thousand credits or maybe the winnings is in the form of precious metals and gems and would have to be dispensed slowly over many systems just to cash it all in. Might make you a HUGE target for pirates until it is all laundered

Well if it was a lottery or sweepstakes that the player actually had to buy chances in and had odds of winning that were even close to the average "car giveaway" sort of contest, it wouldn't "make it too easy", really. The chances of actually winning would be low enough that a player inclined to low-level regular gambling would likely spend as much on tickets over the years as they would ever gain from a win. It'd only seem "easy" if the player actually won the first few times they played, and even somewhat realistic odds would make that improbable. Whether the prize was credits, gems or ships, having some bandits spawn and be after the "lucky" player for at least several jumps after they win, somewhat like the people seeking vengeance in Random Hits could definitely make it interesting.

Ships for sale or raffled occasionally via something like Bloomberg's could be fun and add some interest. Having a certain number of them be pretty looking lemons is a good start, though some would need to be seriously sweet as well. How about the prize ship being at some certain location that the player has to travel to in order to claim it? If they don't make it there in time, the prize would be forfeit and raffled or sold again (sorry, no refunds), and might not even be in the player's current galaxy. It could add some "race against time" elements and make it a bit of an adventure rather than a simple lump of credits in the player's account or a fancy ship that might or might not actually be an upgrade.

Lack of access to shipyard attributes in JS are likely to be a problem for this idea.

However I have got in the back of my mind an idea that a player could be given a ship discount voucher (as a visible equipment item or just a missionVariable) as a mission reward (could be for a specific ship type, could be time limited and could be limited to certain stations). Basically when you buy the specified ship at the specified shipyard within the specified time the discount voucher is redeemed and you get some of the cash back. That could be tweaked into something a bit more interesting.

Capt. Murphy wrote:

Lack of access to shipyard attributes in JS are likely to be a problem for this idea.

However I have got in the back of my mind an idea that a player could be given a ship discount voucher (as a visible equipment item or just a missionVariable) as a mission reward (could be for a specific ship type, could be time limited and could be limited to certain stations). Basically when you buy the specified ship at the specified shipyard within the specified time the discount voucher is redeemed and you get some of the cash back. That could be tweaked into something a bit more interesting.

One of the reasons I suggested that you buy these ships at a modified shipyard like a special rock hermit. Missions can get you in touch with these special rock hermits.
You could have a conditional missionvariable tied to the shipdata file for the ships you want to have a chance at seeing in specific shipyards. There are workarounds for almost anything. Almost. Everything I do practically is a workaround. Try it a few times and you start to get good at it.

A Vampire that breaks down often?! >:-/

and anyone selling fake Vampires would not last long, II doesn't stand for that stuff!

@ Killerwolf.

In that case you know that you where sold a cheap replica vampire. No difference on the outside. On the inside it's a different story.

Reminds me of my local garage who were servicing a Ferrari one day when I was in with my car and I walked round it a couple of times before I realised it was actually a 1999 MR2 with a custom body kit! If it passed you on the street you would have never known...

pagroove wrote:

Something that crossed my mind today.
- The ship could be a fake. (could look and be advertised like a vampire in the shipyard but when you buy it it behaves like a regular Cobra Mk3)

Could that work to your advantage sometimes? For example, maybe you very rarely happen to get what appears a bum ship that is actually incredibly good; you are a new commander looking to buy your first ship after the standard Cobra MK. III you received upon your graduation from the academy, you bid for a Cobra MK. III Rapier, because you see it has a good price and you want to start a career that is more mercenary than mercantile. You get a good price, win the bid, and go to collect your ship. It turns out that your bid was "mis-filed" as a bid for the run-down moray starboat, and the form you signed when you submitted your bid says in complicated legalese that basically you are stuck with the ship you choose to bid for whether or not you in fact choose to bid for that ship. Upon taking possession of your new ship, you find that it is a very unusual ship that has had very special custom work done by it's previous owner. It has no cargo bay, but it's engines have been upgraded so much that it's performance characteristics, more specifically it's speed and handling, are that of an Asp mk. II.

seems a convoluted explanation for that, to me.
how about a "government/police auction" OXP instead - i keep seeing ads in the papers for these, where they sell off surplus/repossessed/impounded goods for stupidly low prices. how about something like this :-
- you dock, hit a key/get a mission screen, and there's a message saying the auction has a Vampire MkIV impounded from a drug runner. you get 3 missiles, fwd mil laser, ECM etc etc. starting bid 2500Cr
- OXP has a rival bidder in-built that calcs a price : it may be very low, it may be pretty close to book price.
- you have (say) 3 bids. if the amount you input is over the rival, you win, and get the ship and your current ship is sold for book price (or maybe you just get a token amount for the auctioneer to take off your hands? full price might make the deal too good, on top of getting a great ship cheap?). if your bid's below/equal the rival's you get a message saying you've been outbid and can exit or try again. if you're still below the rival after 3 attempts, you've lost the auction and the game continues.
offset would be, eg, that drug runner's ship might have a Fugitive status.

edited 257 times for fkn spelling.