Oolite Bulletins

Hey guys, my name's Mike. I'm completely new to Oolite- that is, COMPLETELY new. I've never so much as even touched Elite before, so this whole experience is kind of overwhelming to me.

I stumbled onto the game while doing some research in potential remakes of one of my all-time favorite games, Starflight (itself the Sega Genesis version. I didn't have a computer growing up, lol). I loved that game's sense of freedom and open-ended space-faring sandboxing, and have gone back to it time and time again, but over time I've come to want a game with more modern graphics and a little more randomness / less linearity. That's not to say Starflight was linear- you could go where you wanted and basically forge your career in space, but many things (encounters, locations, storyline) were essentially set in place, meaning that familiarity makes the game grow stale sometimes.

So over the last couple of years, I've been looking into various space-faring games that I haven't experienced yet. I've played a bit of Freelancer, X3: Terran Conflict, Star Control II, and was going to look into Ironseed and Master of Orion next. I've even flirted with Mass Effect- yes, I haven't played Mass Effect yet, lol. The reason for this is the same reason why I haven't felt like I've found the right space sim for me just yet: Freelancer felt much more linear and story-driven than what I was looking for (at least in the first hour or so, which is all I tried), X3 was an extremely complicated and slow-going game that seemed more focused on trading than anything else, Star Control II was fun but, again, more story-driven, and Mass Effect strikes me as more of an action-adventure game than a truly open-world space sim.

So here I am, having stumbled onto Oolite. I've played a few minutes to kind of give myself a feel for the controls and presentation, and have browsed through the readme a bit. Don't worry, I'm going to read through the whole thing- but as I was checking all this stuff out, I realized that I don't really know at all what to expect of Oolite, which is why I joined up and made this topic.

What kind of game is Oolite? Is the focus more on combat, or trading, or both? Are there interactions with alien races in the voids of space? Is there a story should I choose to start pursuing it? What are the "missions" like, what kind of things will I be doing? Is there planetary exploration or is the entire game played in the cockpit of my craft? If this game were to be compared to any of the ones I mentioned (with the exception of Elite, which I know it's based on), which game would it be most similar to? Perhaps most importantly, are there a list of "must-have" mods that are pretty much universally accepted as excellent enhancements to the game?

I guess I'm just looking for a game where I can recapture that feeling of exploration and discovery that I felt in Starflight. I still have a lot of reading ahead of me and obviously plenty to learn on my own, but I was wondering if any of you regular users could kind of give me a feel for what kind of gameplay to expect, what kind of things are possible and not possible, that kind of thing.

Sorry to go on at such length, but like I said, I'm a bit overwhelmed. Thanks for any help, guys!

Hi miketheratguy, and welcome to the friendliest board this side of Riedquat.
So much to tell... Firstly, it's an open-ended combat and trading game (mostly) but you can play it pretty much any way you want to within the limits of the game. Reading this forum will give you some idea how various members play in terms of style, career choices etc. and you are welcome to ask here as well - we are a friendly bunch and will always try to help out.
You should have a pdf with the game explaining the controls etc and the wiki is an invaluable resource as well. Have a chat with Mr Gimlet who is a font of knowledge and good advice.
With regard to OXPs (expansion packs), these are all made by members of the community and range from new ships to eye-candy to missions and a whole lot more. It is easy to get carried away with these. Don't! Many will change the game quite a lot, so the advice is to start with just a few - eye-candy to improve the look of the basic game to begin with - then add others in slowly so you can find out what each one does and get used to them.
Oolite is a truly great game despite its humble origins and will keep you entertained for years. Enjoy!

Hi Miketheratguy, I'm new to the forums myself, joined yesterday, only found Oolite myself not so long ago. In a nutshell, you can play the game either legally, stick to the laws of the GalCop or try your luck as an offender selling dodgy things and items of dubious legality or if you feel you want to be a real bad ass try surviving as a fugitive on the run from the law and every bounty hunter in the system. As for add ons, try the game a few times as it comes in its stock download and then one of the first things I would recommend installing would be http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/System_Demux_(Oolite) it brings the planets and space alive with all sorts of fantastic visual features, in my opinion.

Anyway, welcome and enjoy.

Welcome to the boards!

miketheratguy wrote:

What kind of game is Oolite? Is the focus more on combat, or trading, or both?

You'll probably find you need to start off with trading as your starting ship makes a decent trade ship right now but will need some extra equipment to be suitable for intensive combat. Later on once your ship is properly equipped you could go all out for combat and never carry trade goods except those which you salvage from the wreckage of your enemies ... or you could just carry on as a very well-armed trader flying around and seeing the sights.

miketheratguy wrote:

Are there interactions with alien races in the voids of space?

The setting has several non-human species peacefully coexisting with humans (well, at least as much as humans are peacefully coexisting with humans, anyway) as part of the Cooperative. There are also some others.

miketheratguy wrote:

Is there a story should I choose to start pursuing it? What are the "missions" like, what kind of things will I be doing?

There's no formal story, and the built-in missions are fairly small. If you want that sort of thing there are expansion packs which add all sorts of general employment options - courier, escort, assassin, mercenary, duelist, etc. - and also some which add one-off missions of various sorts, including a few very large ones which can take weeks (and months of in-game time) to play through.

miketheratguy wrote:

Is there planetary exploration or is the entire game played in the cockpit of my craft?

Essentially you are your ship. There's an expansion pack for planetary landings, but it's just another place to dock when you get there.

miketheratguy wrote:

Perhaps most importantly, are there a list of "must-have" mods that are pretty much universally accepted as excellent enhancements to the game?

No, not really. Everyone has their own opinion on this - some people just have a few mods to make the game look prettier; others install hundreds so that their universe is full of all sorts of ships, employment opportunities, extra stations, etc. It also depends a bit on your graphics card. The general advice is to take it slowly and start with the ones which just give new graphics and sounds.

Be very careful with OXPs which add new ships, stations or equipment, as these can significantly change the difficulty and balance of the game.

miketheratguy wrote:

What kind of game is Oolite? Is the focus more on combat, or trading, or both? Are there interactions with alien races in the voids of space? Is there a story should I choose to start pursuing it? What are the "missions" like, what kind of things will I be doing? Is there planetary exploration or is the entire game played in the cockpit of my craft? If this game were to be compared to any of the ones I mentioned (with the exception of Elite, which I know it's based on), which game would it be most similar to? Perhaps most importantly, are there a list of "must-have" mods that are pretty much universally accepted as excellent enhancements to the game?

Oolite is a remake of Elite - and Elite was written in 1984 and ran in 32K of memory. So at heart, Oolite is simple and straightforward, with a very uncomplicated game system. Basically - very basically - it's about dogfighting in space, you versus (frequently) several enemies, as you try to get from witchpoint to station so you can do it all again. Trading is very simple, and really only exists to give players an incentive to go to another planet in the first place - and also to allow you to earn money to upgrade your ship. There are no planetary landings; you and your ship are the same thing, and you never leave the cockpit.

And that's it, really. There's not much else. But that emptiness is the important bit: that's what gets filled by A) OXPs, and B) your own imagination. There's no story at all, except that which you write for yourself in your head. You can customise your universe to your own specifications, within very large parameters. You can make the trading a lot more juicy, with special goods available at auction, and chase high profits at great risk; you can perform galaxy-saving missions, or small-scale courier trips, or become a bounty hunter or an assassin, or just spend your time watching the traffic if that's what you want to do.

This, of course, makes it very hard to recommend "must-have" OXPs. Like Smivs says, start off with a few and see what you like - see what makes your universe suit you better - and experiment. My personal recommendations for non-game-changing OXPs to start with would be

Random Ship Names
Background Set (you'll need Cabal Common Library too)
and for sheer beauty either Griff's core ships (if you've got a reasonably powerful system) or the Griff's No Shaders shipset if you are on an older or smaller computer.

Point your nose at the stars, and see how it grabs you!

Thanks a lot for the replies and the welcome, guys. The game definitely looks and feels interesting so far, and I like what I'm hearing. I was just kind of trying to get a feel for the scope and the parameters of what's possible and what the general gameplay style is.

So it definitely sounds really free-form, which I like. I don't mind that there's not really an over-arching story, as long as there's always something to do. Are any of you familiar with the game Mount & Blade? That game doesn't have much of a story either- it's a medieval socio-political combat sim, where you basically amass an army and make your way through a realistic landscape of war and trade. I can't tell you how many hours I've put into it, and Oolite sounded kind of similar (though coming from vastly different genres, of course). There was talk about taking on assassin / courier missions and the like- that kind of thing is right up my alley.

The graphics look fine to me, but I have a pretty decent computer so I wouldn't mind checking out some graphic mods after I'm more familiar with the game. And when I'm familiar enough with the controls and gameplay I'll be hitting you guys up again to find out more about these mission packs- but for now I'll just make my way around the universe for a while and check things out. You all seem to agree that there's no one "can't play without it" add-on, which is probably good. I'm used to games like Skyrim (and the aforementioned Mount & Blade) where the mod community comes up with something that the game just feels naked without, so I wasn't sure if I should make that kind of stop before trying to get into the game proper.

I'm computer literate but not really much of a programmer. How familiar will I need to be with things like that Cabal Common Library up there? Also, one general question: What kind of random elements are there to the game?

miketheratguy wrote:

I'm computer literate but not really much of a programmer. How familiar will I need to be with things like that Cabal Common Library up there? Also, one general question: What kind of random elements are there to the game?

You don't really need any computer skills to use OXPs, you just install them and go! See the wiki OXP main page for details of where to put them as it depends on your O/S.
Even making them is quite straight-forward. Most of us OXP authors started off knowing next to nothing and picked it up as we went along with a bit of help here and there from more knowledgeable board members.

As for randomness, the game is procedurally generated so there is a fair bit of 'random' in it - you never really know who you will meet or where. The markets are a bit more predictable as you would expect. For example you will always find Computers are cheaper at High-tech Industrial systems than Low-tech Anarchies and Feudal worlds, and Furs and Booze are always cheaper at the lower tech worlds.
(That last sentance is a trading tip, by the way)

Ah sweet, I love procedural generation. Anything that makes the experience fresh each time a game runs is a welcome feature to me. I'm glad that the modding sounds easy as well. I assumed that it would be a pretty straightforward "drop into the right folder" type of thing.

So it sounds like trading is the thing to do in the early going. Any advice as to what stuff I should do or check out first? Hang around the starting area for a while or try visiting different solar systems?

Hi mike and welcome... as has been said, much of the game is played inside your head. You will have to jump to other systems in order to trade - but pay attention to the government type/tech level of the systems you jump to. Try and stay safe at first, as it can be dangerous out there.

To quote Disembodied (I think): 'There's your ship, there's the universe... off you go!'

miketheratguy wrote:

Any advice as to what stuff I should do or check out first? Hang around the starting area for a while or try visiting different solar systems?

I'd just get out there and start exploring!
There are plenty of (OXP) sight-seeing oportunities in Galaxy One. You will already be quite close to Tionisla, and the Orbital Graveyard and the Tionisla Chronicle Array are both impressive sights. Further afield there are two Giant Space Pizzas in G1 and the Tianve Pulsar is another attraction well worth visiting.

Miketherattguy – Firstly welcome to the Oolite forum.
I would try my hand at trading between 2 or 3 systems as noted in Smiv’s post in order to accumulate some credits and install some upgrades.

Once you have a few ship upgrades you are in a much better position to diversify your game play and become a bounty hunter, pirate etc.

To help survive your early skirmishes an ECM system to destroy enemy missiles and an upgrade to a beam laser will prove invaluable. Add to this a fuel scoop, (For scooping dropped cargo as well as fuel from the surface of the stars), will give you a good basis to continue your adventure.

As stated in previous posts Griff’s shipsets will make a great difference to the visual appearance as will one of the planetary map OXPs.

But above all enjoy the game.

G'day, and welcome aboard, Mike!

Cabal Common Library is a collection of routines designed to make certain common tasks easier for OXP creators to incorporate into their work. As a gamer, you don't need to know anything about it, other than to make sure it's installed if you add an OXP which uses it.

So far as random elements go, there are many.. the best way to appreciate the interactions that can happen is by understanding that Oolite (unlike Elite) is not a player-centric game. The events in it do not depend in any way on your actions or inactions. You are not the hero in any script, the universe is not depending on you to save the day. You are but one tiny element in a universe which does not give a damn about you. When you jump into a system, there are miners, traders, pirates, bounty-hunters, police, scavengers, and so forth, all going about their normal business. Both boring routine, and life-and-death struggles are going on around you all the time.

Whether or not, and how, you interact with them is entirely up to you. You can get involved in the battles, (on either side) or ignore them as you please. You can ignore or respond to distress calls as the mood takes you. If you see what looks like a big battle up ahead, or off to the side, you can be assured it was not put there just for you. Everything that happens, (other than missions, of course!) in every system, is simply due to the random interactions brought about by chance encounters and the AI scripting that has been developed for each NPC role in the game.

The results are often surprising, even for those of us who've been playing for years. The AIs themselves are relatively simple, and logically designed, yet the sophistication and complexity that can result from the interactions can be stunning. Many of these have been related in the Tales from the spacelanes thread.

Okay guys, thanks again. I'm going to just fly around for a bit then, and see what I can see.

Very much first of all, try doing some circuits-and-bumps: launch from the station, stop, flip over, and dock again. Then launch from the station, fly around the station a bit, and then re-dock. Learn how to dock first, because there are few things more distressing than making it all the way through to the station and dying while trying to park. It's not hard to do, but you do need to learn the knack. When you come to making your first jump, Diso and Leesti are a pair of nearby planets with stable governments and low pirate activity, and you can trade between them and make a profit each trip. Buy agricultural-type goods on the agricultural worlds, and sell them on the industrial worlds; and of course buy industrial-type goods on the industrial worlds, and sell them on the agricultural ones.

Diziet Sma wrote:

The results are often surprising, even for those of us who've been playing for years. The AIs themselves are relatively simple, and logically designed, yet the sophistication and complexity that can result from the interactions can be stunning. Many of these have been related in the Tales from the spacelanes thread.

Speaking of which, this is one of my personal favourites..
https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?p=143625#p143625