Oolite Bulletins

What do you commanders do when you want oolite to be harder? I want my ooniverse to be a more scary and dangerous place.

Some OXP's I have installed to make it harder are:

Skilled NPC's
Renegade Pirates
Misjump analyzer - Makes misjumps more common I think... I swear I've gotten more since I've installed it but I'm not 100% sure...
Laser booster - laser failures make the ooniverse more difficult to navigate.

What other OXP's should I install for a harder ooniverse? Or what should I edit for a harder ooniverse? How do you make your ooniverse harder?

<shameless plug>
Try ToughGuys4. It both increases NPC pilot skill level and randomly increases the level of equipment of NPCs (more will have shield boosters, ECM, laser upgrades etc).
N.B. Because elements of it are the same as in Skilled NPCs they should not be used together however.
</shameless plug>

ToughGuys, as Smivs says.

Pirate Coves OXP. On its own it's more like a "easy bounties" OXP, but combined with Tough Guys and/or Skilled NPCs, it won't be.

Capt Murphy's Breakable Standard Equipment OXPs add a bit more of a challenge, too. Complements your breakable lasers nicely.

Thargoid Carrier, Thargorn Threat, Second Wave, Swarm and Thargoid Wars will between them toughen up the Thargoids and make their appearance in normal space more common. For Thargoid Carrier you probably want to add a few station OXPs which add stations near the planet - WildShips, or GRS Buoy Repair, for example. If you want even more variety of tougher Thargoids, also install the "To Catch a Thargoid" mission (you don't have to actually complete the mission if you don't want to)

Smivs wrote:

Because elements of [ToughGuys] are the same as in Skilled NPCs they should not be used together however.

It should work out alright. Skilled NPCs will notice that ToughGuys has already defined a high skill level, and not touch those ships, while still improving the pilots on ships from other sources.

cim wrote:

Smivs wrote:

Because elements of [ToughGuys] are the same as in Skilled NPCs they should not be used together however.

It should work out alright. Skilled NPCs will notice that ToughGuys has already defined a high skill level, and not touch those ships, while still improving the pilots on ships from other sources.

Ah, very clever I didn't know that.
TG4 does only affect 'core' ships, not OXP ships, so the combination should be pretty good - I'll have to try that! Thanks, cim.

Smivs wrote:

TG4 does only affect 'core' ships, not OXP ships, so the combination should be pretty good - I'll have to try that! Thanks, cim.

If you have ships in TG4 which have an accuracy below 5, Skilled NPCs will still affect them. You can set "skilled_npcs_role" = "off" in script_info to stop that happening.

Fair Cobra III and NPC Shields add some spice - and you could handicap yourself too (which is what I do).

I'm surprised no one has mentioned yet Iron Man play. You don't need OXPs for that, you just play normally and if you get killed, you start again at Lave with 100Cr. Makes one think twice before attempting anything silly and you will find it increases difficulty ten-fold.

And definitely not to be overlooked is the Green Geko. You will probably forget you had it in until you are 'reminded'!

I find [wiki]Skilled NPCs OXP[/wiki] scripting quite logical. One should find better pilots in the more dangerous systems. The resultant behaviours is fantastic. I've seen ships flying in circles to avoid target lock. Makes the game more interesting and the player a better pilot. Same goes for TG4 as well.

another_commander wrote:

I'm surprised no one has mentioned yet Iron Man play.

<chortles> Pure iron-man play is harsh!

Cody wrote:

another_commander wrote:

I'm surprised no one has mentioned yet Iron Man play.

<chortles> Pure iron-man play is harsh!

Especially with the Adder and no credits.

CaptSolo wrote:

Especially with the Adder and no credits.

I did the Adder and 100Cr. Start. But I 'fixed' the player adder to have 5tc cargo space and fitted a passenger berth and became a taxi. Loved it. Still got that Adder, which is now got all the kit available to it.

Fatleaf wrote:

Still got that Adder, which is now got all the kit available to it.

I've got an iron-assed Adder in the hangar - good fun to fly.

Cody wrote:

Fatleaf wrote:

Still got that Adder, which is now got all the kit available to it.

I've got an iron-assed Adder in the hangar - good fun to fly.

Think I came across that Adder... Somewhere in chart five, if not mistaken. It had a purple paint job!