Oolite Bulletins

Moderator: Split discussion from the Elite: Dangerous thread in Outworld.

Norby wrote:

cim wrote:

bigger ships may well be detectable visually long before scanning can pick them up.

A reason why Oolite is better: there is no Telescope in ED.

Not necessarily. I wouldn't touch Telescope OXP with a bargepole. Stop spamming it everywhere. (And its off topic)

JazHaz wrote:

I wouldn't touch Telescope OXP with a bargepole.

Have to agree. Classic cheat OXP.

JazHaz wrote:

Stop spamming it everywhere.

I have observed for quite a while a tendency particularly of people who are new as forumites and OXPers to overzealously advertise their OXPs in each and every thread. I have settled for attributing this phenomenon to the beginner's (over-)excitement over their newfound powers as a creator, and for hoping that it will diminish over time. In most cases, it has.

Commander McLane wrote:

the beginner's (over-)excitement over their newfound powers as a creator, and for hoping that it will diminish over time.

It is true. Sorry, I just now learned this lesson.

Commander McLane wrote:

JazHaz wrote:

I wouldn't touch Telescope OXP with a bargepole.

Have to agree. Classic cheat OXP.

Likewise.. there's no 'discovery' involved.. it automatically "knows" about every object in the system.. I uninstalled it 10 minutes after trying it out.

Thargoid wrote:

Although oddly enough, at least judging from the download stats of my OXP stable, the "cheat" OXPs are some of the most popular downloads from the wider Oolite-playing populous. Having often gone out of my way to either ensure that OXPs are balanced (in the sense that NPCs can also use equipment, or simulated effects thereof at least) or indeed to occasionally write OXPs that go the other way (e.g. Swarm and Lazarus) I do sometimes wonder if it is worth the effort or not...

Plus I'm not sure I'm entirely comfortable with a few people arbitrarily deciding certain products are "cheats" or whatever. Both as it may not be the viewpoint of other people, and also (and mainly) that it could easily be very discouraging towards newer people who may decide to write an OXP (either existing coders or players trying their hand). That kind of offhand "downgrading" of work isn't something I think should be supported.

Worth? It is more work (ok, sometimes a lot more work), sure, but if users can install lots of OXPs together without OXPs killing each other then I'd say it's absolutely worth the efforts .-) We (OXPers) have this choice and responsibility, not the user. It's part of developing and releasing things to the public, I'd think.

But to make it clear - it is only one possible target. If a OXPer doesn't want it, there must be a way to mark incompatibilities or problematic approaches visible for users. I'm not happy with the new Wiki Category as well as it seems to be more or less a 'Don't use - it's bad and ugly' sign. We probably need a meaningful way which does not judge...

Thargoid wrote:

...I do sometimes wonder if it is worth the effort or not...

Well, we wouldn't do it if it wasn't I suppose, and as the player has the choice to use 'cheat' OXPs, authors have the choice and indeed right to produce them, or not as they see fit.
And like you I find they are very popular - just looking at my downloads for today my 'cheaty' fuel tank OXP has had four downloads whereas TG4 (an anti-cheat OXP?) has not been downloaded so far today. That's a common ratio, so these things are very popular without doubt.

Thargoid wrote:

Plus I'm not sure I'm entirely comfortable with a few people arbitrarily deciding certain products are "cheats" or whatever. Both as it may not be the viewpoint of other people, and also (and mainly) that it could easily be very discouraging towards newer people who may decide to write an OXP (either existing coders or players trying their hand). That kind of offhand "downgrading" of work isn't something I think should be supported.

I have to agree. It could seem denigrating to the hard work that the authors have put into them, and if we're concerned for the moral standards of our members should we not be a bit more positive in extolling the virtues and benefits of the more 'pure' game, instead of knocking the Uber and cheaty. The 'core' game (with a bit of graphical enhancement) has stood the test of time, and there is a very good reason for that.

Can one of the mods split this discussion from the E:D-DDF thread? I think it's well worth having an extra thread for it.

Svengali wrote:

We (OXPers) have this choice and responsibility, not the user. It's part of developing and releasing things to the public, I'd think.

I think part of it is that there are a lot of things which can be OXPed - many which indeed should be OXPed - which have far bigger effects on game balance than is at all obvious. It's virtually impossible, for instance, to add a non-hostile OXP station which doesn't make the game easier (certain features in 1.77 make it slightly more straightforward to do so)
- if it's not in planetary or solar orbit, then it becomes an easy source of fuel. Prior to 1.77 stopping it selling fuel (while allowing other items) was very difficult.
- if it's off the lanes but easily discoverable, it (accidentally) encourages going off lane where the pirates aren't. Filling in all the secondary lanes is possible but expensive
- if it has a market there's probably an opportunity for profit. (and taking the "simple" route of just giving it the default market puts lots of easily obtainable illegal goods everywhere, especially with Narcotics) In 1.77 you can use JS to tie its market prices very close to the system market (and similarly keep the quantities of goods low) but it's not straightforward.
- the market prices algorithm is right out of 8-bit Elite and not easy to adjust carefully: the wraparound can especially catch people out.
- if it's near or on a spacelane, then it can provide a source of reinforcements via the "trick the enemy into shooting it" strategy.
I can't think of any OXP stations - ones by authors publicly concerned about OXP balance included, and my own certainly not excepted - which avoid all of those pitfalls. Some are far worse than others, of course.

Or fuel: it's 2Cr/LY at main stations. It's really not obvious that its worth at the witchpoint can be well above 200Cr/LY, at least for the first LY of fuel.

Similarly it's probably not at all obvious to most OXPers why an energy recharge of rate of 4.5 (Fer-de-lance) is high but fine for a player ship, but a rate of 5.0 is a recipe (especially prior to a certain quiet change in 1.77) for a ridiculously powerful ship ... while the distinction between 3.5 and 4.0 is mostly trivial.

So there are probably quite a few OXPs which make the game easier but weren't intended to do so, and the author perhaps didn't even know how to balance it. Similarly, while there's the [wiki]OXP_Levelindicators[/wiki] to indicate OXPs which make the game harder, there's no similar indicator for OXPs which make the game easier - so players may install equipment OXPs (which pretty much entirely are either toys or make the game easier) thinking that they might be fun to have without realising the effect it will have on difficulty. (And some will also install them because they want an easier game, which there's nothing wrong with)

Perhaps a hints page on the Wiki which talks about how the basic game is balanced, and how OXPs might affect that balance, would be useful for OXPers.

There are also design decisions in the base game which make certain sorts of expansion difficult to balance.

Station OXPs: see above

Ship OXPs: Because the player starts off in the best ship in the game (more or less), a new player ship is probably going to be even better. If the player started off in an Adder or a Gecko then there'd be more room for ship OXPs exploring the performance range below the Cobra III. But they don't (and won't in the foreseeable future). NPC ships can also be difficult to balance, though the effects are quite subtle.

Equipment OXPs pretty much always make the game easier (or are toys like Beer Cooler, Camera Drones or HyperRadio) - because it's not easy for OXPers to write the right sort of costs into equipment items. Financial costs don't work because it's too easy to get money. Other sorts of balancing are not easy with the current core design. (E:D seems to have much better scope for balancing in this area)

(and that's pretty much most types of OXP except missions and the purely visual)

cim wrote:

Perhaps a hints page on the Wiki which talks about how the basic game is balanced, and how OXPs might affect that balance, would be useful for OXPers.

While this would certainly be useful, there are enough OXPers who simply don't seem to care, or who are not informed enough to be able to care in the first place, but seem to be operating on the principle of "oh, I've just discovered that this-and-that is doable with scripting; so I'm just going to go ahead and do it; because what could possibly be wrong with it?; everything that's doable is certainly okay to do and balanced, isn't it?; so why should I spend a thought on it; it's only a game, anyway". My comment on this approach to OXPing is  well-known.

Commander McLane wrote:

Can one of the mods split this discussion from the E:D-DDF thread? I think it's well worth having an extra thread for it.

I don't have that Mod power anymore - it's better to use the 'report' function to request a split (which I have done).

Discussion split from the Elite: Dangerous thread in Outworld.

Had a little think about "Cheat OXPs" as I use some that would probably fall into this category.
In general, one of the strongest features of Oolite is that it's moddable and adaptable, the player can create his own Ooniverse and with that essentially his own game.
My excuse for using some of these is mainly balance. I also use some OXPs that make the game a lot harder because it makes the game look good, feel right and it's more realistic (my opinion). Those OXP's alone would make the game not much fun to play, so I have balanced the game to my liking.

A lot of OXPs fall into the category, "changes game-play in favour of the player". They range from making it easier to earn money and overpowered ships to providing extra fuel where there shouldn't be any fuel and more.
I think it would be unfair towards the authors of these OXPs to put them in a separate "cheat" category unless that is what the author wants/intends. I do think that any OXP author should consider if the OXP changes game-play and if that might unbalance the game and ruin the experience. If so, it should be stated in the documentation and on the Wiki. I also think its ok if we make the author aware of any such issues and maybe suggest improvements or changes that balances the OXP out. There are a few exceptions such as Thargoid's ooCheat.oxp but even that one I would call a test tool (which is what I use it for) rather than a Cheat OXP. An OXP only becomes a cheat OXP if it's used in a certain way.

cim wrote:

So there are probably quite a few OXPs which make the game easier but weren't intended to do so, and the author perhaps didn't even know how to balance it. Similarly, while there's the [wiki]OXP_Levelindicators[/wiki] to indicate OXPs which make the game harder, there's no similar indicator for OXPs which make the game easier - so players may install equipment OXPs (which pretty much entirely are either toys or make the game easier) thinking that they might be fun to have without realising the effect it will have on difficulty. (And some will also install them because they want an easier game, which there's nothing wrong with)

I think this is the way to go - rather than talking about cheats, talk about game balance. Maybe we need to change the [wiki]OXP_Levelindicators[/wiki] to indicate those which make the game easier: we could have the zero point in the middle, with a green "easier" zone on the left and a red "harder" zone on the right, and encourage OXP makers to indicate in their writeups on the wiki how it might change game balance.

It could be tricky to do consistently, of course: some OXPs might make things easier for Clean players but harder for Offenders or Fugitives, for example. We'd have to pick an abstract "ideal player" (maybe a Jameson?) as the reference point.