Oolite Bulletins

With this discussion I thought I would make a suggestion. Would it be possible to add it in sometime in the future.

Thinking ahead, if the clock can be wound back, I can foresee .OXPs wanting to know when the ship last entered a docking station, last left a docking station, and when it last left witchspace.

And whereas it is currently not permitted to wind the clock back at all, it may instead be desirable to retain one of those (or all) as a hard-coded restriction on going back in time.

May I suggest a function name? implausible-Star-Trek-Timetravel-Handwavium()

Alternatively, eliminate the need for the kludge by making it possible to save anywhere within the core game.

SandJ wrote:

Thinking ahead, if the clock can be wound back, I can foresee .OXPs wanting to know when the ship last entered a docking station, last left a docking station, and when it last left witchspace.

And whereas it is currently not permitted to wind the clock back at all, it may instead be desirable to retain one of those (or all) as a hard-coded restriction on going back in time.

I'm not sure about rolling the clock back...I can see all sorts of problems arising from this - time travel is a dangerous game!
Maybe being able to 'freeze' the clock, but no more.

SandJ wrote:

Alternatively, eliminate the need for the kludge by making it possible to save anywhere within the core game.

This has been discussed at length before. When you launch from a save, the game 'creates' the system from scratch...the only fixed entity is the main station. The main problem with saving elsewhere is the need for the game to remember what existed at the time of saving and where everything was in relation to each other. If the entities are OXP (which they likely would be) how would the core game know about them? It can't even cope with rock hermits at the moment, which are part of the core game.

Smivs wrote:

This has been discussed at length before. When you launch from a save, the game 'creates' the system from scratch...the only fixed entity is the main station. The main problem with saving elsewhere is the need for the game to remember what existed at the time of saving and where everything was in relation to each other. If the entities are OXP (which they likely would be) how would the core game know about them?

So the price to the RealWorld™ player of having choosing to use a Save Anywhere facility, is the loss of game time it takes = risk of failing to meet contracts = financial & reputation loss.

This suggests there is in-game 'price': the need to contact one's insurance company and negotiate short-term cover for ship and cargo for having docked in a non-GalCop, unknown-maintenance-level, privately-owned docking facility. For this there is no financial charge and they will provide cover (i.e. you can restore the game) but you will have to spend 40-60 minutes of game time on the tele-comms system to make the arrangements. So if you spend all day chatting to your insurance company, instead of actually getting on with running your business, then your customers will start cancelling orders and not want to do business with you.

That all seems fair.


("Hello, is that Lloyds of London? Hi, yeah, I've just docked my oil tanker in Mombasa and I'm about to sail past Somalia on my way to Port Sudan. Can I have some free pirate insurance cover please? Oh, can I hold while you make arrangements? Yes, of course. Will you be long...?")

SandJ wrote:

So the price to the RealWorld™ player of having choosing to use a Save Anywhere facility, is the loss of game time it takes = risk of failing to meet contracts = financial & reputation loss.

This suggests there is in-game 'price': the need to contact one's insurance company and negotiate short-term cover for ship and cargo for having docked in a non-GalCop, unknown-maintenance-level, privately-owned docking facility. For this there is no financial charge and they will provide cover (i.e. you can restore the game) but you will have to spend 40-60 minutes of game time on the tele-comms system to make the arrangements. So if you spend all day chatting to your insurance company, instead of actually getting on with running your business, then your customers will start cancelling orders and not want to do business with you.

That all seems fair.


("Hello, is that Lloyds of London? Hi, yeah, I've just docked my oil tanker in Mombasa and I'm about to sail past Somalia on my way to Port Sudan. Can I have some free pirate insurance cover please? Oh, can I hold while you make arrangements? Yes, of course. Will you be long...?")

If there'd been a Like button I would have clicked it.

As somebody who lives by Save Anywhere but doesn't do contracts - I have to confess I never noticed the clock advancement!

Same here.. I genuinely never noticed that with the 'save anywhere' oxp.. so when I have docked in such and such a place, the clock is still rolling?

Subject: An ability to role back the clock.

ulaidian wrote:

Same here.. I genuinely never noticed that with the 'save anywhere' oxp.. so when I have docked in such and such a place, the clock is still rolling?

The 'save anywhere' bug that eats up time is explained in this post.

Cheers for the heads up! Thankfully I have a tendancy to 'work on the side' on long haul, which usually has me taking a few detours, ergo normal saving oportunities.

I suppose it makes sense really.