Oolite Bulletins

Hi guys

I thought I'd solicit reactions to this OXP idea: a piece of 'primable' (shift-N activated) equipment, called 'anti-thargoid radiation', that deals out damage to - only - thargoid ships within, say, 25, 000 km - just because they're within than range. The damage will be fairly small, there will be a small (smaller than the damage to the bugs) drain to your energy banks, and the kit will be monstrously (circa 100,000 credits?) expensive. Should be easy to program, once I've found out how to do primable equipment.

Good idea?

Thargoid has an anti bug Buzz bomb thingie in his Armoury oxp. But it is a one shot pylon mounted mine.

UK_Eliter wrote:

Should be easy to program, once I've found out how to do primable equipment.

Prime-able equipment needs an EQ key and a script. In the equipment key:-

(
99, 0, "Gunsight Size", // <- This is what will appear on screen when N-menu is cycled.
"EQ_TARGET_SCOPE_CONFIG_SIZE",
"Set the size of your Wildefire Systems Type 1B Gunsight, by using the prime-able equipment menu while in flight.",
{
"available_to_all" = true;
visible = false;
script = "sniper_sight_config.js"; // <- This is the file name of the script it activates.
}
)

In the script, the event handler is this.activated = function()

take it you mean 25km as opposed to 25000km!

the weapon idea is okay, but "monstrously expensive" for "fairly small" damage? who's gonna bother?

Killer Wolf wrote:

take it you mean 25km as opposed to 25000km!
the weapon idea is okay, but "monstrously expensive" for "fairly small" damage? who's gonna bother?

For a weapon that causes damage without any required skill except hitting a button, and that, unlike a missile or mine, has multiple use, I think a "monstrously expensive" price is fair. Basically this is a reusable micro energy bomb for Thargoids.
Not sure if I like this, but I applaud all and any innovation, and then I can decide for myself if this goes into my Ooniverse.

If all it takes is a blast or 2 to kill all nearby Thargons, then it will probably be imbalanced...even if monstrously expensive.

Switeck wrote:

If all it takes is a blast or 2 to kill all nearby Thargons, then it will probably be imbalanced...even if monstrously expensive.

Perhaps it does enough damage to stop them regenerating? So whatever level you get them down to, they stay there, but still need finishing off with with the laser? Would that be a reasonable compromise?

Dear everyone

Thanks a lot for this discussion and encouragement. Great. Here's to the comm-oonity (if that's how one would spell it)!

As to the range: I was thinking of about 2 1/2 scanner 'bands' (however many km that amounts to).

As to damage: yes, something around the 'no regeneration for the standard thargoid warship level' and (presuming this wouldn't be too different) enough to kill the little thargons/tharglets (without any other weapons) once they'd been exposed to it (and remember that the range is not very large) for about 15 seconds. I'll have to look up some stats and do some calculations.

Wildeblood: thanks a lot for that bid of commented code. Really helpful.

EDIT: Perhaps I should clarify something. The idea is that once this piece of equipment is turned on, it stays on (keeps damaging the bugs) - until you turn it off, or you run out of energy, or it gets damaged (in the normal way), or you dock (or, obviously, you die).

EDIT: Thargoid warship recharge rate is 4 (4 units per second). The tharglets have 150 units of energy (and a recharge rate of 3). So, if my radiation weapon did 50 units of damage every five seconds then (by my calculations), it'd kill a tharglet in 15 seconds, and a warship (max energy: 600) in exactly 100 seconds. (I discover here, though, the limits of my maths: I can't come up with a useful formula that expresses the general calculation necessary here. .)

That might be a decent setup - but perhaps I could have a 'max radiation' setting, which used, say, triple the amount of energy, and dished out 100 units of damage every five seconds, meaning we'd kill the tharglet in 10 seconds, and a warship in, er, I think, 45 seconds.

I might set the energy drain to the user as, in 'normal' mode, 10 units per second, and, for the max. mode, 30 per second. The user would need a naval energy unit in order for the weapon, in normal mode, not to be a moderately serious drain on energy, and to even consider using it in max mode.

I would like to remind everybody that the Thargoids are supposed to be a huge menace, against which humanity should be losing...
IMHO there are already too many anti-bug weapons, to the point that killing them gets to be easier than some (admittedly uber) pirates. Maybe you could focus instead on giving the weapons' race lead back to the thargs?

Cmdr. Maegil: it depends on one's setup. With my OXPs, in witchspace the navy normally loses to the bugs; and, even with my fairly uber ship and naval help, I get splashed about half the time. Note also that I want the energy requirements of the weapon to be such that using it is not without cost. Also: one can always not install the thing (although I accept that people will be tempted to and will thereby affect - but how much depends on what else they have installed - game balance).

I might humbly suggest that (if you haven't already done so) you install my Extra Thargoids OXP. That gives you bugs that disable - sometimes permanently - your cloaking device and make a dangerous explosion when they die and sometimes go kamikaze on navy ships (that's the 'Gruntbugglies') and (this is the 'Anti-poet Frigates') are intermittently cloaked, sometimes disappear and reappear elsewhere, and have plasma. (Actually, I think the Gruntbugglies have plasma too. Can't remember.) Those critters make things more difficult. (On the other hand, my '3G' oxp gives the player, sometimes and to varying degrees, help with the Thargoids.)

DaddyHoggy wrote:

Perhaps it does enough damage to stop them regenerating? So whatever level you get them down to, they stay there, but still need finishing off with with the laser? Would that be a reasonable compromise?

Running a timer to keep their energy levels constant might have problems if the thargon/s died when the timer "fired".

But that gives me an idea...what if the disruptor didn't do damage but instead broke all Thargons' target lock so they quit attacking and broke their mother link (to a Thargoid warship)? The Thargons would first have to re-link with a Thargoid warship and then re-acquire a target. This would require changing the thargonAI.plist (and ALL thargon type AI files!) as well as a linking .js script to work.

UK_Eliter wrote:

one can always not install the thing (although I accept that people will be tempted to and will thereby affect - but how much depends on what else they have installed - game balance).

I didn't mean it to sound like I was putting you down; on the contrary I was trying to suggest it might be better to redirect your efforts on the thargs - precisely because of balance. I'm sorry if it came out wrong.

install my Extra Thargoids OXP. (...) (On the other hand, my '3G' oxp gives the player, sometimes and to varying degrees, help with the Thargoids.)

In the little while I've been away, you guys came up with all sorts of new tricks...
It's taking some time to get back up-to-date on everything.

Dear Maegil

No offence taken! (Indeed, would I dare show a, quote, 'sword-toting nut-job' that he'd offended me? Still, maybe in cyberspace I'd be safe. Or do you have a virtual sword as well? Oops, perhaps now I'm in danger of offending you!)

PS: The two OXPs to which I self-promotingly refer are on the wiki (http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/OXP_List). And you might consider these dangerous OXPs too (if you don't have them): Second Wave; Thargoid Carrier; Thargoid Threat; and . . anything else with 'Thargoid' in the title (and, often, in the 'author' column. .).

UK_Eliter wrote:

Dear Maegil. No offence taken! (Indeed, would I dare show a, quote, 'sword-toting nut-job' that he'd offended me? Still, maybe in cyberspace I'd be safe. Or do Pyou have a virtual sword as well? Oops, perhaps now I'm in danger of offending you!)

Oxp idea: Kill UK_Eliter!

(like the movie Kill Bill but with spaceships and lasers, ooh, and thargoids too! And everytime you are about to be ambushed this track plays.)

http://youtu.be/ENyGj_NQKkU

Hehe! Just kidding!

UK_Eliter wrote:

Wildeblood: thanks a lot for that bit of commented code. Really helpful.

EDIT: Perhaps I should clarify something. The idea is that once this piece of equipment is turned on, it stays on (keeps damaging the bugs) - until you turn it off, or you run out of energy, or it gets damaged (in the normal way), or you dock (or, obviously, you die).

This is one way of doing what you want (fully functioning N-menu, supply your own weapon):-

Edit: temporary download link removed.