Oolite Bulletins

What sort of exotic missiles can you think of?

NORMAL
-Low quality: 5Cr, tech 0. Less damage, less range, etc. (surprise which) also chance of a 'dud'. An entire range of depricated qualities is possible.

-speedy: more bux
-agile: more bux
-hunter (auto locks new pirate target iso explode when target is lost), ecm advised if your rating is not clean!
-micro: more agile, less bang, short range.

SPECIAL
-Q-torpedo: very rare and expensive. a Q bomb with a homing device, relatively slow. maybe should take up 2 pylons or a max of one per ship.
-scatter: slow missile scatters into 6 mini-missiles that autolock nearest target.
-shrapnel-mine: dropped, after 5 seconds ejects a large number of minelets, then 'dies'.
-dumb : Crude, but powerfull kinetic harpoon/torpedo. no or negligable maneuvring, low thrust, max speed normal. Usefull only on larger targets, such as Behemoths.
-Quirrium catalyst: causes fuel to degrade. (fuel leak)
-stalker: roboticship, FaF. armed with low-power pulselaser. Deactivates on target lost, ECM or out of range. can be scooped if inactive.

HARDENED
-softboiled: rip-off missile, ECM proof, but has to reboot targetting software.
-knucklehead: another rip-off, semi-ECM-proof, tumbles when ECM-ed.

Those are a few ideas to start with.

these are too exotic for my taste.

except for the dumb torpedo, maybe, that just goes straight so you have to aim it, for near-indestructible big targets..

I made one of those stalkers once. called it a "crime-snuffer". scooping it was fatal though

5 cr. ??? that's way too cheap.

Stupid idea: A 'chaff' missile: explodes and litters your scanner w/ bazillion white -or even colour changing- dots, (just that, no real explosive stuff etc.) in effect rendering it pretty unusable (and probably rendering Oolite to a screeching halt too, heehee....)

Like the English used to do when the Germans started using radar to defend their airspace: one of the bombers in a fleet had its holds full of... Aluminium strips, they just let them go, and the Wuerzeburg(sp?) radarscreens showed lots of 'snow', effectively blinding them.

The British called it Window. When the Americans invented it a decade later, they called it chaff. :-)

To seperate the corn from the chaff...finding a needle in a haystack.
I find the allegory fitting. (I also hope I did use the correct terms here...)
The brittish used it to create a operational 'window', like with space-missions. So also quite fitting. Today we would call it blizzard or snow, maybe confetti . or SPAM lol.

@Rik:
Indeed 5 Cr is cheap, maybe 10 would be better. Remember: they could be fairly useless or even dangerous to use.

@Murgh:
Probably the scanClass=missile that dun it.
Or you just forgot to switch to dumbAI.
I cannot see why a CARGO_SCRIPTED_ITEM could not shoot and move like any other ship, like a thargon in fact (CARGO_THARGOID). Just far less powerfull.

I like a number of those.

A high yield, fast, dumb rocket is nice.

The q-torpedo would be very cool too.

And the 6x mine-layer torpedo would be good against those little clouds of pirates one meets occasionally.

And the attack drone? It would be great if you could store, say a sidewinder inside your anaconda and launch it when attacked - maybe to re-scoop it when all targets have been destroyed. I seem to remember Chris Pinder was working on this for his 'Darkness Falls' game before it got canned.

Not having attempted any OXP scripting myself I wonder if it's possible to create an attack drone as a subclass of cargo canister? Seeing as you've already got the scooping and dumping behaviour.

I guess Giles would still have to hard-code a Wingman_entity AI routine still. Maybe attack drone cargo cannisters could have different masses depending on their sophistication/armament - say 40 tons or so for a basic pulse-laser equipped model up to 100 tons for a mil-laser equiped drone - perhaps they should be even heavier if you want to limit their availability to the really big ships who need it most.

While initially I find the idea of a high-yield dumbfire missile appealing, I can't think of many occasions where it would be useful. Even as a pirate, I don't think you're actually supposed to be taking on Behemoths single handed. If someone writes an OXP that actually requires taking out a large, immobile target then you would include it within the OXP, but I don't think it belongs in the base game.

As to the other suggestions, I'm not too sure... We're playing *lite here, not scorched earth.

True, I'm not suggesting all of these missiles would be needed or even practical.
For example the dumb rocket could be fun in a Thargoid base busting campaign, but almost useless in normal gameplay (except against piratecoves).
Some special gear could be available only from certain hermits, after you finish a mission for them. Or as a one-time reward; do mission again for a second.

I just want to increase the variety of stuff available and enhance the behaviours of these things. (so I can add a few more entries to the wiki) :p
Thus I humbly request your imaginative input.
Not just critisism, although it is appreciated, it's not as constructive.

I don't think large attackdrones would be wise...the NAVY is working on those still.

Then again every manual has talked about ships having Worms custom fitted as landingcraft/defenceships.

Having a worm in your cargohold would take up double the size of one.
It could be installed as a piece of EQ taking up about 40tonnes or so.

How to redock the craft to the freighter would be another matter, I don't like scooping them. Maybe they just follow you around as escorts would.

destruction of a worm would require expensive repairs to the EQ (replace the hull+crew), removing the (damaged) EQ would cost you as would removing a passenger_berth. hmm worm_berth.
Perhaps we could say the space is filled with crew that radiocontrolls the things.

Anyway, this thread is about MISSILES, not drones.
I should not have mentioned them in the first place.

Oh, you want constructive input...

The scatter missile would be kinda cool I guess, although rather than exploding if the sub-munitions can't find a target, it would be a lot more fun to have them power down and wait for something to come into range. Imagine the fun you could have scattering these in the travel corridor in anarchy/feudal systems.

I'll second Giles' support of the cluster mines too. I'll admit it would be nice to have a dropped weapon that's not as expensive (and damn lethal) as the QC mine. It'll never be as purty though... Also open to the fun/abuse mentioned above.

How slow were you thinking of making the Q-torp? If it's slower than the blast front when it detonates then it would be too easy to dodge. If it's significantly faster, it would be almost impossible to avoid. Cool idea, but I wouldn't want a pirate firing one at me. They'd need to be both expensive (~$5K?) and comparatively rare (at least TL 14).

Rather than a missile that causes a fuel leak, I'd prefer something that causes a temporary failure in the target's sublight engines. This would make it an ideal weapon for both pirates who don't want to damage their prize, and police who probably shouldn't be going to lethal force as their first option, especially in higher gov systems.

Thinking about the 'softboiled' missile, I think this would be much more fun if it was the behaviour (albeit rare) of standard ECM hardened missiles. Giles has mentioned elsewhere that he was considering making the hardened missiles somewhat susceptible to extended/multiple ECM attacks... This is assuming of course, that the target it reaquires isn't necesssarily the same one you fired it at.

Remember, it's all about the cheap laughs...

I don't know if this would be suitable as a munition or a permanent piece of equipment, but how about something that jams radio/comms traffic. It's a idea that turns up in SF all the time, especially in the hands of pirates/aliens and bad guys in general.

Then again, piracy is almost too easy already... but it's existence would explain the occasions where the Galcops have blissfully ignored the fact that I'M under attack. WTF??? Hey, I pay my taxes too, you know...

TedJ wrote:

Oh, you want constructive input...

Rather than a missile that causes a fuel leak, I'd prefer something that causes a temporary failure in the target's sublight engines. This would make it an ideal weapon for both pirates who don't want to damage their prize, and police who probably shouldn't be going to lethal force as their first option, especially in higher gov systems.

Actually I'd go for something on the lines of an EM pulse missile that when it detonates on the target it disables various systems (randomized) for a set period of time (depending on how close the missile detonates). In a worse case scenario you could have it fry a random system or two if the detonation is powerful enough. Of course the fun part would be that the EM pulse would be indiscriminate so if it hits the target when close to the launcher, then the launcher of the missile would get caught up in the blast radius. Would be an interesting tool for Police forces during pursuits.

On the subject of the larger torpedos proposed earlier in the thread, I would limit these to only being fitted to larger ships such as the Boa and Behemoth or require the sacrifice of a serious amount of cargo room (> 35 tons to keep it out of the Cobra Mk 3 range) so that it doesn't become too commonly used. I would also expect that if one of these were launched at a Behemoth (or station) it would start up a flak barrage (a la Battlestar Galactica) to try and stop the missile from hitting the ship.

rexpop wrote:

On the subject of the larger torpedos proposed earlier in the thread, I would limit these to only being fitted to larger ships such as the Boa and Behemoth or require the sacrifice of a serious amount of cargo room (> 35 tons to keep it out of the Cobra Mk 3 range) so that it doesn't become too commonly used. I would also expect that if one of these were launched at a Behemoth (or station) it would start up a flak barrage (a la Battlestar Galactica) to try and stop the missile from hitting the ship.

I think >35 tons is a little steep though... I would think requiring 2-3 missile slots and the fact that it's unguided would be disincentive enough for casual use. Gotta admit though, watching a Behemoth light up like a christmas tree trying to shoot one down would be brilliant.

I already use the 'cheap' standard missiles as a poor man's ECM if I lose my ECM or are flying a harmless Cobra with no equipment. Keep your mark targeted, and if he launches, launch a missile at him and *hope* he has an ECM (which will blow up both missiles). Otherwise, it's time to die...

The mines would have to auto detonate after a while, to avoid littering and oolite freezes.

Those haywire-missiles sound cool, but it would require Giles to make possible I fear.
Maybe a forced pauseAI?
and for player victims: set screen to rear-screen?

@Winston: my usual death is from a hardhead missile fired when my fuel has run out. I would launch a missile, but those are commonly depleted at that time also. (I got 2)
Another, not very succesful, strategy is to turn 180 and drop a load of cannisters, hoping the missile will impact those. Chaff-like.

To revive a semi-related topic: anti-missile system
would have to be a self-aiming/rapidfire turret, attacking only things at very close range.