Oolite Bulletins

Hello, and congratulations on this forum and the remake of the great game that is Elite.
Oolite is a worthy successor to the old Elite, and it really gives the player the feeling the old game used to give (so much so, that the first few times I played, I crashed on the station because of the tears in my eyes ).
It's also great to see the community being involved so much with the oxps and creating so much new content that the Ooniverse is a "live" and constantly evolving world.
I would like to contribute my 2 Cr worth of opinion, by sharing some thoughts.
1. Various laser sizes. It seems odd that a small ship uses the same type of laser that a large ship uses, in effect causing the same amount of damage. Perhaps a restriction can be implemented, according to which there would be three types of laser, small, medium and large (perhaps a capital ship laser for capital ships). Thus there would be small medium and large pulse laser, small medium and large beam laser, etc. A small ship would not be able to use a medium/large laser, but a pilot who is short of cash and cannot afford, say a large military laser for his python could buy a small or medium military laser. Energy consuption damage and heat output could be calculated accordingly, and perhaps there could also be different types of lasers, eg "X" company beam laser would cause more damage, but it would also have a higher heat output, or higher energy consumption, etc.
2. Shield strength/shield variation. Perhaps it could be implemented that larger ships would have a default shield strength value that would be much higher, (ie the shield could sustain much more damage from small and medium lasers) than the shield of small ships. Also, different types of shield could be purchasable (ie, the player would start with a "default" shield type and then maybe move on to shields from other manufacturers). In essence, I am suggesting an implementation similar to the idea I suggested about lasers.
I have read about the ubership argument, and I am not suggesting that large ships be "ubered". In fact, larger ships could be made significantly less manoevrable, therefore small opponents could be able to use higher manoevrability to avoid the gun of their larger opponent. It would take, however, 3-4 mambas to take out one python.
I have also read the argument that larger ships have more energy banks, in essence managing to take much more damage. This is true, but once the shield is lost, each hit causes damage to the subsystems (something that the npcs don't seem to suffer), in effect crippling the ship and its ability to fight. Add to that the fact that a python gets hit much more often, and you pretty much have a ship that is "target practice" for even a medium opponent, because it can dish out the same amount of damage a small/medium opponent can, take the same amount of shield damage as the small/medium craft, but it suffers from the fact that it gets hit much more often, (is unable to avoid lasers) and is less manoevrable, thus it cannot easily bring the front laser to bear.
Perhaps a similar restriction could be placed on missiles (I have seen that, in fact there is quite some variation as far as missiles and bombs are concerned).
Another idea I would like to share was the concept of wars. The concept of Feudal Houses with different ships (in the Feudals oxp) inspired this. Wars between various planets could occur, particularly in areas where there are feudal/anarchic systems, as incursions from one system to another could take the form of full scale battles (along the lane, near the nav beacon, or even near the coriolis).
I am not sure how many of these suggestions have already been discussed, I've read as much as I could before posting this. Thank you for having the patience to read .

Hi ioannis, and Welcome to the friendliest Board this side of Riedquat.
Some nice thoughts there, and as you guessed some are discussed elsewhere. The fact is much of what you suggest would require big changes to the core game and its coding, and the problem with that is that the result wouldn't actually be Oolite anymore, but a new game. So generally we as a community avoid changes to the basic 'Elite' canon and features.
Your idea of interplanetary war is one I believe that has been discussed often and generally favourably. It's the sort of thing OXPs are very good at, so keep watching for new releases etc (I'm not teasing by the way...I don't know of any in the pipeline) and see what turns up.

G'day, ioannis, and welcome aboard!

If war scenarios interest you, you may be interested in the Ionics mission OXP, set in Galaxy 2, which lets you fight in a revolution/civil war taking place there.. (I have a bit of a soft spot for this one, as I'm an Aussie, and the OXP introduces several new ships, all named after Australian spiders.)

Thank you, guys.

Diziet, I will certainly give it a go. It sounds very interesting, and if new ships are introduced, so much the better.

Smivs, you have a point there when you say that too many changes will alter the game. However, my rationale was thus:
The old elite did not provide the ability to change ships (I used to play on an Amstrad 6128, if anyone remembers that computer ) as far as I can remember. Therefore, there was no option for any change in shield strength let alone laser "size". However, Oolite does offer the (hardcoded) ability to change ships. These ships all have different cargo sizes, manoevrability and speed than the cobra mk 3. They also feature a variety in the energy banks and energy bank recharge. It seemed reasonable, therefore, to feature at least some difference in shield strength from ship category to ship category to complete the picture, IMHO. Laser "size" came as an idea relevant to the shields.

ioannis wrote:

Oolite does offer the (hardcoded) ability to change ships. These ships...also feature a variety in the energy banks and energy bank recharge. It seemed reasonable, therefore, to feature at least some difference in shield strength from ship category to ship category to complete the picture, IMHO. Laser "size" came as an idea relevant to the shields.

Ha, yes this is one of the quirks of the way Oolite works. Only the player ship has Shields as a separate function to Energy. NPC ships have varying energy depending on the size/type of ship. They don't have Shields as such, although you can specify that OXP NPCs have shield boosters and enhancers (ie military shields). In practice though they just get more energy. Energy = Shields for NPCs, so in fact what you suggest regarding different shield strengths for different ships sort of does happen, just not how you'd expect it to.
As for different 'sizes' of Shields and Lasers to suit different sizes of ship, well in fact most of the commonly seen ships are all actually quite similar in size. Scale in Oolite is a nightmare/minefield as you will see as you read back through some threads here on the Forum.
A while ago I produced a to-scale size chart of all the core ships which you might find informative.

Heh, very interesting sheet, as a hobbyist miniature modellist I find it particularly interesting .
Indeed, energy banks are the npc's version of "shields", and they do give more "hit points" to the players (ie there are more energy banks on a python than the Cobra) however, I was referring to the ability of the ship to take fire without taking structural damage, which is the case when the shields are still on.

It is true that unlike the player NPCs don't take 'structural damage' and indeed don't get equipment damaged or cargo destroyed.
Even if they did there is no way the player would know about this, and when well immersed in a game, all it takes is a tiny bit of imagination

Smivs wrote:

It is true that unlike the player NPCs don't take 'structural damage' and indeed don't get equipment damaged or cargo destroyed.
Even if they did there is no way the player would know about this, and when well immersed in a game, all it takes is a tiny bit of imagination

Indeed, but since crippling damage occurs for the player but not for the NPCs, then it is the player who is at a disadvantage (theoretically, at least). The "picture" I had in mind was really a concept of many (smaller, in comparison to the prey) predatory animals to bring down large prey, ie, many (3-4) small ships would be necessary to bring down a python or an anaconda ship. Perhaps, sometimes the prey would manage to fend off the predators by itself. This would be (in my view) the case if different shield/laser sizes were to be implemented. OK, the comparison might be somewhat peculiar, but that was the "image" I was thinking of.

Keep in mind that Oolite is a game, not a simulation. Therefore shortcuts are taken.

Having said that, the only really crippling thing about equipment damage is that it costs you money, which is irrelevant for NPCs, because they don't need or have money. It doesn't affect the basic functionality of your ship. You cannot lose your engine or your lasers, both are exempt from damage.

And because NPCs basically have nothing more than engine and lasers in the first place, the difference between them and player isn't actually that big (though it is true that you can lose some of the higher combat-related functions through damaged equipment, like ECM, fuel injectors, or shield enhancements).

Commander McLane wrote:

Keep in mind that Oolite is a game, not a simulation. Therefore shortcuts are taken.

Having said that, the only really crippling thing about equipment damage is that it costs you money, which is irrelevant for NPCs, because they don't need or have money. It doesn't affect the basic functionality of your ship. You cannot lose your engine or your lasers, both are exempt from damage.

And because NPCs basically have nothing more than engine and lasers in the first place, the difference between them and player isn't actually that big (though it is true that you can lose some of the higher combat-related functions through damaged equipment, like ECM, fuel injectors, or shield enhancements).

You can also lose your hud and/or your shields with the relevant oxps, though (a good addition, IMHO). Still I understand your point that basically losing cargo items (which is frequently the case) is irrelevant to the battle outcome, at least as far as the ability to overcome the threat is concerned, as such damage has no impact (other than psychological).

ioannis wrote:

You can also lose your hud and/or your shields with the relevant oxps, though (a good addition, IMHO). Still I understand your point that basically losing cargo items (which is frequently the case) is irrelevant to the battle outcome, at least as far as the ability to overcome the threat is concerned, as such damage has no impact (other than psychological).

I concur. I'm usually very lucky to leave battle without pressing Space, so once the laser start kicking, I'm not worrying about losing a few tons of cargo. If I can get away with an empty ship that's in one piece, I'm tickled.

CapnSkweek wrote:

ioannis wrote:

You can also lose your hud and/or your shields with the relevant oxps, though (a good addition, IMHO). Still I understand your point that basically losing cargo items (which is frequently the case) is irrelevant to the battle outcome, at least as far as the ability to overcome the threat is concerned, as such damage has no impact (other than psychological).

I concur. I'm usually very lucky to leave battle without pressing Space, so once the laser start kicking, I'm not worrying about losing a few tons of cargo. If I can get away with an empty ship that's in one piece, I'm tickled.

Hm, personally I decorate the air with all sorts of abusive vocabulary for each hit I take that gives me the message "Luxuries destroyed", "Computers destroyed" etc. Afterwards I wonder about whether it is a sign of mental disorders to use that sort of vocabulary on a computer programme, but that is another issue.
Here, though:

Keep in mind that Oolite is a game, not a simulation. Therefore shortcuts are taken.

This is a very good point, which I really had not thought of. In some games, there is the option to include realism settings (I remember a rather old game, Longbow Gold, that had several options). Would it be feasible to have that sort of options in Oolite?

ioannis wrote:

This is a very good point, which I really had not thought of. In some games, there is the option to include realism settings (I remember a rather old game, Longbow Gold, that had several options). Would it be feasible to have that sort of options in Oolite?

It's possible for an OXP to make ships which suffer damage to secondary combat systems during a fight - see Eric's variation on the [wiki]Griff Krait[/wiki] for an example. A replacement shipset that did this for all standard ships (without the tie to particular parts of the ship being particular equipment, for ease of writing) could be written.

It would probably need the [wiki]NPC-shields OXP[/wiki] to make it fair.

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion." oops wrong phrase

I've seen ships that have taken some damage attempt to leave the battlefield alltogether, which would be normal behavior for a ship that has lost the hud, or the ability to recharge its shields, etc, so, as far as NPCs are concerned, I think that this sort of behaviour in the face of heavy damage can be said to be rather accurately shown.
What I had in mind was a large ship "patiently" taking hits from 3-4 small ships, while attempting to bring the powerful lasers to bear on each one, each of them using its speed and agility to "play with fire" in evading the destruction that would result from a mere 2 second burst from them. It is not completely impossible to see this in NPC vs NPC combat, because, apparently an npc python's superior energy banks make the difference in terms of npc combat resilience.
What got me thinking on these points, was the fact that, switching from a military shielded Cobra Mk 3 to a Python, I was unable to take, in the non-military shielded Python, the amount of damage I was able to sustain in the military-shielded Cobra, and of course the fact that my Beam laser bursts in the Python did not "count" as much as my military lasers in the Cobra.

ioannis wrote:

What got me thinking on these points, was the fact that, switching from a military shielded Cobra Mk 3 to a Python, I was unable to take, in the non-military shielded Python, the amount of damage I was able to sustain in the military-shielded Cobra,

hehe, when having flown a mil-shielded etc. Cobra3 for a while, and then changing ships but the money wasnt sufficient for any shielding I found myself going pouf a lot.
It took considerable amount of time to adapt my playing-style to the no-mil.-shields situation.

I mean it said I was "dangerous" or sth. , but I had to run away a lot, stick to "safe" systems and all that. kind of humiliating.

and of course the fact that my Beam laser bursts in the Python did not "count" as much as my military lasers in the Cobra.

A beam laser deals almost as much damage/t as a military laser. It's main disadvantage is that to use it you have to get within beam-laser-distance, so everyone with a beam laser then can hit you too.

actually a beam laser should deal (very little) more damage than a mil.laser per cool-overheat time span.