Oolite Bulletins

Found out the other day that missiles count as kills towards Elitehood.

Is this normal?

Do you mean splashing missiles? I've shot a few down, but never noticed being awarded kills for them.

I'll target a few more for testing.

Usually I just give them the run-around with my mil-injectors or let the slam into my rear but lately I've had a few "smart" missiles launched at me, ie ones that scramble my systems.

Yes, this is normal.

Given that shooting down missiles requires quite a bit of piloting skill to do reliably, and if you get it wrong can be at the expense of taking effective evasive action, I think it's correct.

When I learned how to shoot down missiles (out of desperation) I was over the moon to find out they counted as a kill.

"Oolite is a game" view: And so they damn well ought to! They have targeted the player and will cause harm - like an attacking ship - but are damn hard to shoot. A kill should be given as a reward. And if a live Tharglet counts as a kill, then so should a missile!

I feel the above should be the case.

"Fluff" view: the manual says (and I have no end of trouble with this bit of fluff): "Your kills are photographed and transmitted by TS ComDirect to the nearest GalCop Federal Law Centre. Your rating as a combateer will increase in direct proportion." Does GalCop consider destroying a missile by laser or counter-missile to be a 'kill'? If so, because it shows skill, why don't they award kills for other acts of skill. And if it is for defending oneself, why doesn't using the ECM count as a kill? And what about destroying a ship when the pilot has ejected - should that be a kill? And what about shooting Escape Pods - is that a kill or not? Shooting Escape Pods is fairly hard and does kill someone.

(This piece of fluff causes me a problem because (a) it must be true, how else do kills get tallied? and (b) then why can I kill innocent traders and not become fugitive, yet get awarded a kill? I had over 4000 kills in Ooolite before I read on here that "killing out of sight of a Viper is not a crime and I really struggle with that - it 'feels' like a bug.)


My opinion:
- shooting a ship where the pilot has ejected should be a kill (because of the next line...) but that causes 'fluff' problems;
- shooting an escape pod should not be a kill and should probably be a crime.
- shooting a missile should be a kill (for game-play reasons);
- ECMing a missile should not be a kill (and isn't anyway);
- shooting an innocent trader with no witnesses should probably be a crime (and I expect that will upset some people ... some nasty horrid murderous people).

SandJ wrote:

(This piece of fluff causes me a problem because (a) it must be true, how else do kills get tallied? and (b) then why can I kill innocent traders and not become fugitive, yet get awarded a kill? I had over 4000 kills in Ooolite before I read on here that "killing out of sight of a Viper is not a crime and I really struggle with that - it 'feels' like a bug.)

Agreed in principle. However, there are a couple of problems in practice:
1) Where two Clean pilots fight, you'd have to get Offender status for the first attack, not the kill - or if you're Clean, and attacked by a Clean ship, and shoot them down ... you end up with Offender status.
2) With some of the NPC pilots out there, you might have to fly around for quite a bit waiting for them to actually hit you once as their laser shots repeatedly go wide.
These are already problems when the police are around - I got jumped by three Clean targets on some mission, while Clean, inside the aegis. Only being able to return fire on those which had actually hit my shields was really quite annoying. But imagine the lawyers involved in the "who shot first" arguments if the fight takes place in deep space.

I have been considering (for other purposes) some "triedToKill" AI/JS event which fires off whenever a ship shoots at its target whether it hit or not. As it is you get ships which are clearly under attack not reacting at all because their attackers are at long range and not actually landing hits, when they should be deploying escorts and running.
(For the player: when you fire at your primary target and were at least aiming roughly at it.)

SandJ wrote:

- shooting a ship where the pilot has ejected should be a kill (because of the next line...) but that causes 'fluff' problems;

My personal feeling on this, given how expensive ships are compared with most other things, is that Galcop probably shouldn't be encouraging people to blow up abandoned ships. Kill credit and bounty should be granted to the last person to attack the ship before the escape pod ejected - not the person who comes along later and blows up the stationary wreck.

Pirates would probably also prefer to capture ships mostly-intact: a nice source of spare parts or even a new ship, more reliable access to the cargo, and fewer bright explosions to draw the cops attention from across the system.

Some way for NPCs and the player to send boarding parties to abandoned ships would be needed, but it should be an OXPable variant.

cim wrote:

Yes, this is normal.
Given that shooting down missiles requires quite a bit of piloting skill to do reliably, and if you get it wrong can be at the expense of taking effective evasive action, I think it's correct.

Yes it takes skill (or more often luck) to splash a missile, but it just doesn't feel right to have a kill awarded for it.

Yeah, I'm of the view that only a piloted vessel should count as a kill. This would include escape capsules as they are occupied, but asteroids, derelicts and missiles shouldn't really be counted.

Smivs wrote:

Yeah, I'm of the view that only a piloted vessel should count as a kill. This would include escape capsules as they are occupied, but asteroids, derelicts and missiles shouldn't really be counted.

What about Thargons? Conceptually they're closer to a missile with a pulse laser on the front, or perhaps a highly mobile subentity.

Smivs wrote:

Yeah, I'm of the view that only a piloted vessel should count as a kill.

At least from the programming side will it be clear: No list of special conditions, just look at the pilot.

Good that the thargoids now always have a pilot in trunk. In 1.76.x and older, the populator never added a pilot to a thargoid vessel, but script added thargoids did get a pilot. For the player it doesn't matter as thargoid ships don't have escape capsules anyway. And why should they: Thargoids never think about giving up. And if they eject, who would rescue them.

I bet the Navy would pay a handsome reward for a captured Thargoid pilot in its escape pod.

El Viejo wrote:

I bet the Navy would pay a handsome reward for a captured Thargoid pilot in its escape pod.

And given what they would do it it, I wouldn't blame them for not wanting to be captured. If you had to face humans in a fight for survival, you'd want your fear glands removed too.

cim wrote:

What about Thargons? Conceptually they're closer to a missile with a pulse laser on the front, or perhaps a highly mobile subentity.

They're still piloted, even if it's by a robot: their flightpath is subject to change. I think missiles should count too, if you shoot them, as they're piloted (more so than an escape pod) and powered. Do ships killed by energy bombs count? Probably – if we're using the kill count as a measure of combat skill – they shouldn't: the same might apply to q-bombs, too ...

SandJ wrote:

And given what they would do it it, I wouldn't blame them for not wanting to be captured.

<Smivs remembers one of the final scenes in the 'Starship Troopers' movie, with the captured Brain-Bug. Shudders>

Disembodied wrote:

They're still piloted, even if it's by a robot: their flightpath is subject to change. I think missiles should count too, if you shoot them, as they're piloted (more so than an escape pod) and powered.

What about these things:



If they count as sentient life forms and are valid as kills, missiles and Tharglets definitely should.

Disembodied wrote:

Do ships killed by energy bombs count? Probably – if we're using the kill count as a measure of combat skill – they shouldn't: the same might apply to q-bombs, too ...

And now the argument gets really hard. What is a 'kill'? And when do they not count?