Oolite Bulletins

This idea has come from a discussion I had with Captain Murphy, who thinks that the original idea came from Ahruman, but nothing has been done on this. So I'm not claiming it as an original idea - however I have decided to flesh it out a bit to see if there is any interest in completing it.

Captain Murphy said:

What is missing and would make a good OXP, even if only for local colour I think are fuel scooping space stations near to the sun, with transports/tankers (which could be dockable and sell fuel at a discount) running that fuel from the sun to the system's stations. Would also open the door to little mini missions where for example pirates are choking off the supply of fuel, either by pirating said transports or by hijacking the fuel producing stations raising prices at the normal outlets.

The idea is that medium and high tech corporate systems would be the Ooniverse equivalent of Earth's OPEC countries. These systems would contain a fuel processing and transfer plant in orbit of the star. In proximity to this, would be an array of collectors. Fuel would be shipped from the collectors to the processing and transfer plant. Fuel would then be on-shipped using specialized tankers to the main station and other system stations. Additionally, the station and tankers would be protected by private security vessels.

In addition to cheap fuel at the stations, they would also sell cheap Q-based weaponry (provided you are a non-offender), and fuel tanks (if you have that OXP).

The station would buy at a good price alloys, machinery and platinum and also luxuries and food for the crew who live and work there. All other items would have no trade value.

Regarding, scripting, I'd like to base it on an existing flavour OXP that I believe could be relatively easily modified to include the different vessels and trading script.

I have some ideas for how I'd like the visuals to look and I've attached a quick sketch below of the refinery and tanker



Does anyone reckon this is a goer?

That's a lovely sketch you did and the OXP idea is quite good too.

I think this is a great idea. I can see 2 or 3 different sized tankers, one to supply the local distribution points (main station, constore etc.), something a bit smaller to act as a fleet tanker topping up behemoths may be providing fuel to hermits etc, and something with witchdrive capability like the Imperial Tanker.
The station itself would need protection and may be a fire service.

Ironfist

Sounds like a credible addition to my ooniverse. Go for it!

Amaranth wrote:

Fuel would then be on-shipped using specialized tankers to the main station and other system stations. Additionally, the station and tankers would be protected by private security vessels.

In addition to cheap fuel at the stations, they would also sell cheap Q-based weaponry (provided you are a non-offender), and fuel tanks (if you have that OXP).

The station would buy at a good price alloys, machinery and platinum and also luxuries and food for the crew who live and work there. All other items would have no trade value.

What!? No liquor/wines? Mutiny!
(If the crews are expected to live there for months on end, they'd probably demand liquor/wine availability.)
The station could potentially need minerals to make a mineral-slag based heat shield. Probably need to give the station an extremely high heat shielding value, due to proximity to the star.
Gold might be used for non-superconducting electrical cables and/or non-reactive environmental seals around highly corrosive areas.
If they are purifying the fuel further, they may even have some leftover materials that could fall under minerals, radioactives, or gems in excess of their needs.
Unless there's an over-abundance of supplies, it'd make sense that none would ever be for sale...they'd just be buying whatever they need/want at slightly above main station prices.

As for setting specific equipment available for sale, you'd have to make "low tech" new versions of them to be available at these stations...otherwise you'd have to include everything up to that point. I don't recall what tech level a q-bomb is, but I doubt you'd want everything that tech level and lower for sale at a "small" dedicated-purpose fuel station. Prices for fuel would need to be a little cheaper than the main station to make much sense, so likewise that would affect other equipment prices.
I think it would be better/simpler if they sold only fuel.

How about instead of totally specialized tankers (a new shiptype), there's (slightly-converted) Anacondas which devote their entire cargo space to fuel? Shame that means they'd be empty besides maybe extra crew members on their trips back to the station. Just as there will be tankers heading between fuel station and main station, there will need to be ships to scoop fuel off the star.

As for security vessels, they could be anything from the standard Vipers to common "Rock Hermit" defensive ships to specialized security vessels depending on whether the corporate state/owner of the fuel station is small-time single-system fuel station or part of a massive multi-system industry. Almost any industrial system would need a fuel station, so there could even be fuel stations at rich industrial confederacies, democracies, etc. They would also be perfect places for Your Ad Here style billboards, or at least corporate logos and colors.

Another place to put a fuel station is around a Gas Giants planet, assuming the fuel is something (somehow!) derived from regular matter.

I'm really not sure these places should be selling q-bombs! It's like picking up a Molotov cocktail from your local filling station.
oops.......BOOM!

Great stuff - although there already exists a fuel tanker OXP, so maybe just leverage that?
See: http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Transports



OT: Should probably split into own thread..

One other thing I've been noticing (which this thread touches on) is that Rock Hermit's have become secondary stations, which is IMHO completely against their canon description.

I'd like to submit for discussion making the current Oolite Rock Hermits a "Belter Outpost" instead, and creating a new Rock Hermit which is more along the lines of what the original Elite one was - a lonely guy/group hiding from the world in a hollowed-out Asteroid far away from anything else, possibly engaging in the odd spot of piracy if a lonely undefended trader happens past.

I think you are onto something Micha.

I suggest this when Thargoid first released the fuel stations - I suggested branded stations both from the Oolite-ified YAH Ads and those based on the Constores (much like RL(tm))

I also suggested Corporate Branded Systems (and even did an Ad in YAH and a newsflash or two for Snoopers - For example Coolgate as the "ruling" brand in Qube)

However, I don't think I was the first to suggest it even then - and it's nice to see the idea has come up again with and with those who might be capable of doing something about it...

Micha wrote:

I'd like to submit for discussion making the current Oolite Rock Hermits a "Belter Outpost" instead, and creating a new Rock Hermit which is more along the lines of what the original Elite one was - a lonely guy/group hiding from the world in a hollowed-out Asteroid far away from anything else, possibly engaging in the odd spot of piracy if a lonely undefended trader happens past.

Ooh, yes! I liked the belters in ArcElite! They were cool!

I wouldn't necessarily limit the fuel processing stations to the High Tech Industrial Corporate States, but maybe have some different station designs for other government types, lower tech etc. Also maybe small/poor non-industrial systems which don't merit a fuel processing station at all do have a small fleet of regular craft who harvest fuel from the sun using scoops and supply the main station.

Just to make things interesting - if you blow up the Anaconda Fuel Tanker, it explodes like a q-bomb. Could make furballs quite dicey...

Bugbear wrote:

Just to make things interesting - if you blow up the Anaconda Fuel Tanker, it explodes like a q-bomb. Could make furballs quite dicey...

I prefer the flip side: Q-Bombs are NOT available, offenders will not be served, fugitives WILL be attacked. But when you blow up a fuel-ship ... nothing remains. No metal plates, nothing. So no benefit for destroying it ... other than the video recording that makes you a Fugitive.

If I have spent squillions of credits buying fuel-scooping sites and fuel tankers and bribing the space-station officials to give me a monopoly at this system and the local bosses are relying on me to provide fuel for them to sell ...
... then I expect anyone interfering in my business activity to be refused Space Station access, the Vipers to attack them and so on.

Because if I can afford to set up an entire solar system fuel monopoly, I can afford to defend it.
Alternatively, if a system invests in a fuel gathering / sales department, they will invest in the defence of it.

Yeah, what SandJ just said.
A fuel-ship should explode leaving you nothing but a fugitive rating.