Oolite Bulletins

v1.3 OXZ now available via the Expansion Manager. See release post for details.

Picture this:- You are in the midst of a major battle. Taking multiple hits your shields are gone and the hull is taking direct laser fire. Every crashing thud sounds like your hull plates are being chewed up and mangled. You may be getting equipment damaged. Eventually the battle is over and you limp away to lick your wounds.
But what wounds? OK you might have lost your fuel scoops or something, but in the core game your ship is still apparantly sound even after many direct laser hits on the hull and will stay that way until the next routine maintenance overhaul. This just doesn't seem logical to me. Your hull plating should be a mess.

And that's what this OXP is all about. It adds hull damage when your hull takes direct hits (ie after the shields are down to zero). You will get console messages to tell you when your hull is taking damage, and when you dock you will be alerted to the damage and advised to get it repaired. Emergency hull repairs cost 75Cr at the outfitters, available anywhere.
If you do not have repairs made, you may experience mis-jumps or fuel leaks as a consequence of the damage. If you launch damaged the station staff will sometimes overlook this if the damage is not too severe although you may be reminded about the damage when you next dock. Sometimes the station you are leaving will point out the damage but let you go on your way, or you may encounter problems on launching and be urged to re-dock immediately for repairs, and you might even get a telling-off from one of the Dock officials and a small fine.

Taking damage in battle

Report upon docking (There are several messages available, so you won't get the same one each time.)

The outfitter screen

Should you launch without making repairs...


This OXP is available in two editions, a Universal version that should work with the core game and any combination of OXPs, and a special version for those who fly a player ship from Smivs'Shipset (v1.4.2). This version adds visible damage to the player's ship in the same way NPCs have visible damage, so you will be able to see the damage using the external views until repairs are made. There is also provision for those who have made a custom skin for their Cobra 3 using the 'Custom Cobra 3 Kit' which is a part of Smivs'Shipset.
To keep things simple, both are included in a single download...just select the appropriate version for you and install it.

Downloads are here.

Credits:- Many thanks to Capt. Murphy for suggestions, help and advice on the code and scripting, and for testing. Thanks also go to Commander McLane and Cim for further good advice, and to Solonar for testing.

I'm using Griff's shipset, but your battle damage OXP is a really good idea. I'll gladly try it out.
Good work Smivs.

Excellent, well done. This will add lots more realism to the Ooniverse. Will probably just download the basic version when its done, as I don't use your shipset.

Besides increased immersion, what's the balance?

Free meal & drink in Seedy Space Bars for the pilot with a story to tell?
Will you, when hull-damaged, attract more interest from Offenders and Fugitives?
Does it attract Viper escort?
And will they patch this battle damage for gratis during an annual maintenance?

SandJ wrote:

Besides increased immersion, what's the balance?

Free meal & drink in Seedy Space Bars for the pilot with a story to tell?
Will you, when hull-damaged, attract more interest from Offenders and Fugitives?
Does it attract Viper escort?
And will they patch this battle damage for gratis during an annual maintenance?

No balance. It's just more hassle and expense for the Commander. The price of realism
When the OXP is finished a standard overhaul will fix any battle damage.

SandJ wrote:

Besides increased immersion, what's the balance?

I think the balance is that while there are lots and lots of OXPs out there that make things easier for the player, this one makes it a little harder.

EDIT: ninja'd by da man

Nice work Smivs - goes well with these http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Breaka ... pment_OXPs (which will be revamped and have a breakable standard energy unit, and breakable standard engines coming soon).

Thanks for all the positive feedback so far.
Since my first post this morning I've got all the player-ship texture switching working for the Smivs'Shipset version (thanks to some plundered code courtesy of Capt Murphy ) so will have betas of both available for testing very soon. I say 'both' although my hope is that a single release version will cover everything.
At the moment it looks like the format will be a single download for general use, which will include a 'plug-in' for Smivs'Shipset users. I'll keep you posted on this.

good idea!

Test versions are ready, and one willing volunteer has now been recruited.
There are two versions, a universal one which should work with pretty much anything from pure core game to multi-shipset installs, and a 'Smivs' version for use with Smivs'Shipset v4.1.2 which has the player-ship texture switching feature. Both are include in the .zip
Anybody interested in giving this a serious shakedown for me please PM and I'll give you the download link.

I did not understand this idea in the first place.

But what wounds? OK you might have lost your fuel scoops or something, but your ship is still sound even after many direct laser hits on the hull.

Huh ? My understanding was that the hull does get damaged, and the damage accumulates until hull repair is needed ?

So, your 75Cr repairs - do they restore the ship to 100% ? Resale value at the max ? Why so cheap ? Maybe a random value from a defined range ? Do they happen each time the hull was hit (shields were down) ?
Or is it sideways / additional /not interfering to Oolite's ship condition/ resale value ?

Anyway, if you now change it to

... thanks to Cim the Battle Damage repairs will now take around 18 hours which sounds much more reasonable.

then I think the wiki page for this oxp should have this mentioned /warn about, big and fat.
This could easily raise travelling times by - no know - 1/4, 1/3, more even ? (on short jumps courses).

so long ...

snork wrote:

Huh ? My understanding was that the hull does get damaged, and the damage accumulates until hull repair is needed ?

Yes, every time the ship receives a hit while the shields are down, either equipment or cargo get damaged, or the hull degrades.

Hull degradation leads to lower trade-in value and a higher change of equipment damage or fuel leaks when jumping to another system. Since 1.74? it also increases the change of equipment damage during fight.

But I can live with the higher change of damage and probably haven't done a single renovation for at least a few years now.

snork wrote:

I did not understand this idea in the first place.

Smivs wrote:

But what wounds? OK you might have lost your fuel scoops or something, but your ship is still sound even after many direct laser hits on the hull.

Huh ? My understanding was that the hull does get damaged, and the damage accumulates until hull repair is needed ?

As Eric reports above, yes it does get 'damaged' and this is handled in a small way within the game engine. And for the record (apart from the mention of something along this line in the Overhaul) there is currently no such thing as 'Hull Repair'. I think there should be, and that's why I'm developing this OXP.
However, to quote the first line of my first post

Smivs wrote:

I'm developing a little OXP aimed at those players who like a bit of realism in the game to help immersion.

and the fact is the hull damage as it stands is negligible. It has no impact whatsoever on your ship or it's spaceworthiness, and I have a problem with this. Even today with laser weaponry in its infancy we can shoot down missiles and planes and even destroy a warship, so I can't believe in my mind (immersion mode) that a direct hit on the hull from a military laser (or even a pulse laser which is probably ten times more powerful than anything we have today) is not going to punch a bloody great hole in the hull. And this is something that will need an urgent fix.

snork wrote:

So, your 75Cr repairs - do they restore the ship to 100% ? Resale value at the max ? Why so cheap ? Maybe a random value from a defined range ? Do they happen each time the hull was hit (shields were down) ?
Or is it sideways / additional /not interfering to Oolite's ship condition/ resale value ?

The repairs are an emergency fix - picture big plates of Duralium hastily welded over the holes to keep the ship structurally sound and airtight where it needs to be. No finishing, no paint...jut a quick patch. So no effect on resale value or routine service intervals (where the job will be done properly).
Why so cheap? Well we are only talking a few hours labour and a few plates of metal!
In an ideal world it probably should be a bit more, but there is also another, more compelling reason for the low-looking cost, but I will come back to that later.

snork wrote:

Anyway, if you now change it to

... thanks to Cim the Battle Damage repairs will now take around 18 hours which sounds much more reasonable.

then I think the wiki page for this oxp should have this mentioned /warn about, big and fat.
This could easily raise travelling times by - no know - 1/4, 1/3, more even ? (on short jumps courses).

25 minutes just sounded ridiculous! I am open-minded about the time and having slept on it, 18 hours might be too long, so it may end up more like ten when the OXP is released. Of course this will be a factor for Commanders to consider, specially those on time-sensitive contracts. But then if you're on a contract you should surely be going out of your way to avoid trouble in the first place and not getting yourself shot to hell, shouldn't you?
Most people around here know that my Wiki entries/readme's etc are always informative and honest
As I said at the start of this thread, this is an OXP for those who like to get deeply immersed in the game, and where believable things happen, and consequences flow. I hope it will appeal to many Commanders, even Jamesons just starting out, and that is actually why I priced the repairs at 75Cr. Within the OXP, not having the repairs made is not an option (see first post) and it would be stupid to leave a Jameson who is probably worth no more than a couple of hundred credits stuck with a repair bill he cannot afford and no way to continue the game.
That would be a real game-breaker, and I will not do that.
And of course if you don't like the idea...don't use the OXP

Hey, Smivs. This is a really good idea. I had a thought I'd like to share.

What if instead of just one level of damage there were instead actually 10? The first level costing 25 credits to fix and add another 25 for each level up to 8. Perhaps call it "Hull Integrity at (x)%, repair it", with 5% at level 8. At level 9 have the ship start "leaking" cargo. This way you might realize that you really have to get out of there quick with your injectors or hyperspace out before the fuel leaks out. You lost your cargo, now don't lose your life and be grateful for the second chance. Also have the cargo "leak" out after launching at level 9 damage. At this point have a separate "repair cargo hold" for 200 credits. You have to repair the cargo hold before you can repair levels 1 to 8 of damage. At level 10 cause an immediate fuel leak and only at level 10 do you get the fuel leaking on launching, etc. At this point have a separate "repair fuel leak" for 400 credits. You have to repair the fuel leak before you can repair the cargo hold . In the repair descriptions state that the previous items can only be repaired after this one is repaired(for both repair cargo hold and repair fuel leak descriptions). In this way you could fly around with a battered up ship like the 'Dubious Profit' for awhile so you could finish your contract full well knowing you are that much closer to cargo leaking out or a fuel leak when sustaining unshielded hits.

For your shipset you could then have more damage indicated on the texture based upon damage level 1-8 giving a visual change of how damaged your ship is.

This is just a thought I had over coffee this morning.

CSOTB, that is a really nice idea
Having said that it would take quite a bit of writing/extra work and as the OXP is in final testing, I'm a bit reluctant to start messing with it right now.
However, I also have had some more ideas on how to develop the OXP further in the future, so there may well be a version 2 which incorporates some or all of your ideas.