Oolite Bulletins

Hello. I've been playing Oolite for some time, and love it as I loved playing Elite on my BBC Micro.

I found myself wanting to try a big trade ship that wasn't quite so boring to play, so I fiddled with the Anaconda and made a very simple oxp for this "Turbo Anaconda". I'm no artist, so I've just used the existing Anaconda design and made it red!

I thought I'd share it here in case anyone else wanted to try it; I welcome thoughts and comments, including those on what I may have done wrong (though I'm feeling oddly shy, as I don't know whether this will be of any interest to anyone else anyway!)

So, here goes (I've just hosted it on my own webspace for now):
http://www.dreamsofmountains.co.uk/ooli ... da.oxp.zip
Edit: updated 20/10/2011 with new stats - reduced cargo capacity and speed, though both still very high!

The life of the dedicated space trader is boring. Desperately boring. It's better than the terror of bounty hunting or piracy, of course, but sometimes it can seem just a bit too much. With a ship big enough to haul serious cargo, it just takes so long to get anywhere - and many of the more interesting systems are effectively off limit, due to one's inability to outrun the less friendly inhabitants of their space lanes.

The Anaconda is something of a classic, but its commanders tend to find themselves with a lot of time spare on their hands. Many, as a result, consider themselves pretty handy amateur mechanics. And it isn't hard to get hold of spare parts, or even to pick up an old wreck - perhaps one that just couldn't make it out of a pirate ambush quickly enough.

It was one such commander who came up with the idea of taking the engines from an old wreck, fitting them inside the spacious cargo bay, and piping them into the existing propulsion system - giving a phenomenal boost to speed, and still leaving plenty of cargo capacity.

Of course, Anacondas were not constructed with this in mind, so this modification brings a number of problems along with the speed improvement. Firstly, it plays havoc with the energy systems - resulting in a lower recharge rate, and emitting powerful electromagnetic fields that render any sort of shield booster ineffective and prevent aft lasers from functioning. Whilst only a small part of the Anaconda's cavernous cargo bay is used accommodating the additional engines and piping, they also block the use of two of the missile tubes. And, of course, the additional bulk means that the Turbo Anaconda makes even rogue asteroids seem manoeuvrable.

It takes some time for this bulky ship to speed up or slow down, meaning that a great deal of care is required as to where it is pointed when the Jumpdrive is engaged. It is rumoured that the inventor of this ship, old-timer Commander MacSeumus, is currently languishing in prison, having lost their wealth to a number of lawsuits from the families of commanders that, it was argued, were not given due warning of this 'feature'.

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The Turbo Anaconda is an attempt to provide a faster big trading ship, for those easily bored by the speed of the other available options! I have attempted to balance it by reducing its manoeuvrability, thrust and combat abilities - but still leaving it as a great ship for running away from a fight! I've playtested it a fair bit, and it does not seem overpowered - though it does allow rapid accumulation of cash.

I've included a sample startout save file in the OXP folder, for anyone wishing to try this ship from the beginning. Commander MacSeumas has just been released from jail on Lave, and starts with no money, fuel, or missiles - just their trusty Turbo Anaconda, with Fuel Scoops and front Mining Lasers as a means of getting out of there.

Welcome Commander, to the friendliest board this side of Riedquat(tm)

That's one hell of a first post!

May we see many more.

Welcome, Commander! What DH said

I added the Turbo Anaconda to the [wiki]OXP List[/wiki]. Let me know if you'd like something changed about its entry.

Yes indeed, welcome. And a good first post as well.
The ship sounds interesting, and I'm pleased to hear that it sounds well-balanced. I have briefly owned an anaconda, and it's a truly awful ship in most respects. Making it even worse but much faster is a truly inspired move! When i get a minute, I'll give it a spin.
Nice One!

Thanks folks - a friendly welcome indeed!

When I get a chance I might try to redesign the rear end of this ship - whilst the rest of it should look like a regular Anaconda, that part probably shouldn't and it's a bit lazy of me to have just left it! I presently have no idea how to do this, but how hard can it be..?

The OXP List entry looks perfect, thanks.

There is an Anaconda Transport in Galactic Navy that trades cargo capacity for speed as well, but it's not player-usable.
You could compare its stats to yours though...

I like the idea of this. Giving it a go now. . Well done that man (I presume it is a man - in [virtual] space, no-one can tell . .)

Switeck wrote:

There is an Anaconda Transport in Galactic Navy that trades cargo capacity for speed as well, but it's not player-usable.
You could compare its stats to yours though...

Are you hinting that you think it's too fast? Maybe - I'll let other people see what they think.

It isn't really a trade of cargo capacity for speed, though - I've only reduced the cargo capacity slightly. It's more about reduced energy recharge, thrust, pitch and roll, and the inability to fit aft lasers, shield boosters or military shield enhancement, in exchange for the very high speed.

Any player ship with military lasers is a more than a match for a normal NPC ship at range (or several weak NPC ones), so this is no exception. However, once in amongst the action, a Turbo Anaconda can be quickly blasted to pieces when attacked by multiple foes. In playtesting I find I often have to run away from fights after despatching two or three enemies - either because of low shields, or due to an incoming ECM-hardened missile.

When the Jumpdrive is running at full speed, encountering a group of ships generally doesn't stop you until you're well past them, so the fight is usually easy to avoid entirely - this may not be a good thing. The flip side is that, if you use your Jumpdrive to head straight at an object rather than just to the side of it, you'll crash into it before you can stop (sun-skimmers take note).

A quick comparison: (Edit: updated 20/10/2011 with new stats - reduced cargo capacity and speed, though both still very high!)

UK_Eliter wrote:

I like the idea of this. Giving it a go now. . Well done that man (I presume it is a man - in [virtual] space, no-one can tell . .)

Heh! I am indeed male (human colonial).

That is very quick - I personally would imagine that an Anaconda with such a high top speed would be "all engine" (given that rule-of-thumb-generally-accepted-handawavium is that the stuff coming out of the back of the ship isn't an exhaust plume - i.e. it's not the reactionary mass that drives the ship forward - but a stream of superfluous exotic particles created by the ship's drive system) - given the loss of cargo capacity of the Naval version I'd say you'd need a further reduction of the capacity of the T'Annie to say 375TCs (i.e. half) which would still make it a big, fast, high capacity Blockade Runner.

I like the idea, and generally think it's sound, but DaddyHoggy does make a good point, and I have to agree that the cargo capacity should come down a lot.
My Boa Clipper is an update on the Boa Class Cruiser, with an extra engine for more speed at the cost of cargo space.
The speed increase of 0.05LM is fairly modest (up from 0.312LM to 0.362) and to achieve this 25TC of the available 175TC cargo capacity has been lost.
The jump from 0.14 to 0.5LM is enormous in comparison, and while I don't claim my calculations are based on anything other than instinct, a jump of speed like this for an anaconda would require losing around 300TC, which coincidentally is similar to what DH suggested.
Food for thought maybe.
It's what we call 'fine-tuning'.

I have tried out the oxp, and like it generally, however I do agree with the others that the cargo capacity ought to come down.

I also tried out the save file that comes with the oxp. I loaded it and then immediately sold the ship and bought a Python. With the difference in prices I immediately had over 200K Credits to fully upgrade it (well following a long trip to Zaonce).

Thanks for the comments - this is what I was looking for, so don't worry, I won't go in a huff!

I think I'll try having a play with it, changing the cargo capacity to 400T and maybe drop the top speed to 0.475LM (I do want this ship to be able to get places very quickly, outrun most other ships, and have a rough, "not-to-manufacturer specifications", user-modified feel to it - such as overshooting destinations).

If that seems OK I'll re-upload - does that seem sensible?

JazHaz wrote:

I also tried out the save file that comes with the oxp. I loaded it and then immediately sold the ship and bought a Python. With the difference in prices I immediately had over 200K Credits to fully upgrade it (well following a long trip to Zaonce).

The save game was just a way of starting out with this ship quickly if you feel like playing it. You can sell it and trade down - but that's cheating.

Actually, I did have a quick look at seeing whether there was a way to make its resale price very low without dropping the purchase price, but I couldn't find one and then forgot! Is this possible (and desirable)?

Commander MacSeumas wrote:

Switeck wrote:

There is an Anaconda Transport in Galactic Navy that trades cargo capacity for speed as well, but it's not player-usable.
You could compare its stats to yours though...

Are you hinting that you think it's too fast? Maybe - I'll let other people see what they think.

I haven't looked at your ship's stats yet. I just remembered that other Anaconda might be similar to what you were wanting.

My tuppenceworth: make the ship somewhat more manouevrable (or less unmanouevrable), and perhaps increase the price to reflect this. Or do two models, one as per your original and one like this. Rationale: give the rich would-be uber-trader something (decent-ish) to fly!

Right, the ship still does everything I wanted it to with its speed reduced to 0.45LM and cargo capacity to 400T, so I've updated the oxp with these new stats. The new version replaces the old one, and can be downloaded from the same link (above, or here).

I haven't changed anything else, as I don't want it to be a supership - I think it should be good at two things only - speed and hauling lots of cargo - and should be mediocre to very poor at everything else to balance that.