Oolite Bulletins

OK, I confess, for many reasons, I still haven't played 1.77, so if any of this has been done my apologies, and if any of it is still impossible via OXP then again, my apologies...

The premise for this idea is this:

I see a lot of things that make it easier/advantageous for the player and then I see a lot of things that make it more difficult for the player...

I see a lot of fast ships...

OK, how about this:

In systems where "solar storms" feature in the description - I suggest that space is awash with dangerous and damaging particles to spaceships travelling at high speeds.

At sub-0.30LM, nothing happens, but as ships travel above this speed (so a Cobby3 going flat out would suffer from this) as well as most (all?) ships fitted with Injectors would suffer significant disruption to their shielding, effectively discharging the shield array which then draws from the energy banks in an effort to maintain integrity.

My reasoning?

A big, but slow Annie fitted with Injectors is jumped by a couple of pirate Adders (also fitted with Injectors) - the Annie hits its injectors and lumbers away, taking a hit on its energy reserves as the high energy particles disrupt and rip apart the front shields (as the injectors take it over 0.30LM). The Adders also hit their injectors and in a normal system they'd still overhaul the Annie, but here, with their much faster speed injector speed, low recharge rate and small number of energy banks, the drain on their shields is horrific and rapidly potentially fatal. The Adders are forced to drop back to pre-injector speed so that their shields can recharge sub-0.30LM, giving the Annie a chance to get out of scanner range before it too must cut injectors to recharge its shields.

So, plausible, possible, desirable?

Haven't thought about the maths/formula for speed v damage rate to make it useful, I just wanted to bring it up as a conversation piece first.

DH I like this idea very much.

It would give the game yet more variety.

I think however that it would be best to be kept as a rare event.

Interesting idea. The big thing I can see being a problem is that the player usually wants to spend a lot of their trip in-system on torus drive, at around 11.0 LM. So long as there's something to do with the hour they spend flying in at conventional speeds, though, that needn't be a major problem.

Thargoid wrote:

Doing it for all ships may be a little more difficult.

Applying the damage wouldn't be too difficult. Modifying the ship AIs so that they didn't blow themselves up just flying around would be a substantial piece of work, though.

I have to say I like the idea, even though I know the added challenge will just turn my hair gray a few decades too soon

Cim - I forget to mention that I'd thought of some Handwavium to explain that the Torus drive would induce a negative conduit flux around the ship and thus the energetic and damaging high energy particles would be steered around the ship - thus this effect only occurs in "normal" space - so ships could still use their Torus drives in the usual manner.

I'm glad that the idea hasn't been dismissed out of hand!

A really great idea DH!

Though I agree with Cim in that it would be difficult to make sure AIs used by NPC ships mean they blow themselves to bits flying normally.

DaddyHoggy wrote:

In systems where "solar storms" feature in the description - I suggest that space is awash with dangerous and damaging particles to spaceships travelling at high speeds.

I would also suggest that interstellar space is very low in these particles as normal astrophysics would demand.

Shipbuilder wrote:

DH I like this idea very much.

It would give the game yet more variety.

I think however that it would be best to be kept as a rare event.

Maybe one or two systems per galaxy, max. I like going fast

As the idea hasn't been dismissed out of hand here's my additional thoughts.

Additional OXP equipment - "A Solar Storm Reporter (SSR)" - basic and advanced versions - Basic: reports once you jump into a storm system that a storm is occurring - so you can adjust your speed/tactics accordingly - Advanced: Warns you when you target a system (that has solar activity) that solar activity is occurring, so that you can make the decision to jump or not...

NPC AI aside (easy to say I know) - some ships may deliberately chose to jump into systems while a solar storm is occurring because it levels the playing field somewhat - or at least gives the tacticians another string to their bow in terms of managing their trade routes and in-system flight dynamics...

Again, just my musings to mix up the game within the current game structure/engine.

It's a great idea ... anything that adds more variety, that makes some places feel different from other places, is good. There should be some sort of visual cue for the player, though: sparks around the forward screen when going too fast; denser/multicoloured "space dust"; weird solar lighting effects, that sort of thing. It would all help make the affected systems stand out from the crowd. Maybe even intermittent static on the scanner, if such a thing would be possible?

Disembodied wrote:

It's a great idea ... anything that adds more variety, that makes some places feel different from other places, is good. There should be some sort of visual cue for the player, though: sparks around the forward screen when going too fast; denser/multicoloured "space dust"; weird solar lighting effects, that sort of thing. It would all help make the affected systems stand out from the crowd. Maybe even intermittent static on the scanner, if such a thing would be possible?

I was thinking the same - I think I did ask about four years ago if the scanner could be shutdown and the answer was a definite no, but I think that's changed in recent versions of the code.

I was going to suggest "lighting effects" too - given how awesome Svengali's shader effects are for jump sequence - something like that would be sublime, but we'd also need something that didn't look too shabby for non-shader machines too as a fall back.

Some interesting audible crackles and increased "thrum" as the particles get into the shield matrix and overload the shield generators...

I'd quite like the idea of this being something you only encountered in later sectors of the galaxy. Two reasons: First, it's nice when the later sectors aren't just the same old thing with a different map. And second, I know a number of people have suggested that the learning curve for a brand new Jameson can be a bit steep, so it's probably a good idea to keep this scenario well away from Lave.

JD wrote:

I'd quite like the idea of this being something you only encountered in later sectors of the galaxy. Two reasons: First, it's nice when the later sectors aren't just the same old thing with a different map. And second, I know a number of people have suggested that the learning curve for a brand new Jameson can be a bit steep, so it's probably a good idea to keep this scenario well away from Lave.

You just don't install it until you're in the later systems if you're worried about it being too difficult - some people have gone right round the 8 and are back in the early systems - so it should work there too.

But I do see your point - I just don't like the thought that "OOphysics" works differently in some charts to others...

And of course, this is all hypothetical since I don't have the skill to write this and cim has already noted that NPC AI would need "adjusting".

DaddyHoggy wrote:

But I do see your point - I just don't like the thought that "OOphysics" works differently in some charts to others...

If it's restricted to systems with "plagued by solar activity" warnings in the F7 screen, then new players can avoid it. I haven't done a thorough check but I don't think there are many of these in key Jameson-friendly systems in Galaxy 1.

There was the multicoloured space-dust bug a while back ... maybe it could be resurrected as a feature!

Disembodied wrote:

There was the multicoloured space-dust bug a while back...

The rainbow spacedust was rather cool.