Oolite Bulletins

DaddyHoggy wrote:

Are these any good to you?

It might be better if the scales tipped in different directions, one way for the player and the other way for NPCs. And maybe give the pro-NPC logo a red background, and the pro-Player logo a green background? Or make the pro-Player logo black on white, and the pro-NPC one white on black?

Disembodied wrote:

DaddyHoggy wrote:

Are these any good to you?

It might be better if the scales tipped in different directions, one way for the player and the other way for NPCs. And maybe give the pro-NPC logo a red background, and the pro-Player logo a green background? Or make the pro-Player logo black on white, and the pro-NPC one white on black?

I was going with the same colour scheme (approximately) as used by Svengali already on the proposed icon page - but yes - tipping the scales in the other direction... that would work... standby.

EDIT: Suggested change offered up in original posting.

DaddyHoggy wrote:

EDIT: Suggested change offered up in original posting.

Cool .-)
Maybe a seesaw would be better, because the shape is much simpler and will work better with smaller sizes.

Svengali wrote:

DaddyHoggy wrote:

EDIT: Suggested change offered up in original posting.

Cool .-)
Maybe a seesaw would be better, because the shape is much simpler and will work better with smaller sizes.

Like this? (They seem to scale down quite well too)

The seesaw is a good idea for instance for weapons OXPs, when the player can get a powerful weapon, but NPCs can't (Railgun would be an example).

But what about OXPs that make life easier (perhaps too easy) for the player, without affecting NPCs? OXPs that give the player an advantage not over NPCs, but over "themselves if they didn't have the OXP"?

Examples: Hypercargo, which allows you to carry much more cargo around, but this ability doesn't affect NPCs, because there's no actual competition between player and NPCs in the game economy.

Or OOCheat giving you a lot of money. While this has a tremendous impact on your game play, it doesn't affect NPCs; they simply don't care whether your wealth has been accrued over hours of game play, or instantly.

Or an OXP that lets you see the market prices of secondary stations without docking (I think this exists, but I don't know the name). Again, this gives you an advantage over not having it, but not an advantage over NPCs.

These types of OXPs are what I have in mind when I'm talking about "cheaty" things.

Commander McLane wrote:

But what about OXPs that make life easier (perhaps too easy) for the player, without affecting NPCs? OXPs that give the player an advantage not over NPCs, but over "themselves if they didn't have the OXP"?

I think these could still be classed as "OXPs which favour the player". You could argue that it favours the player over NPCs, too, as it makes it easier for the player to buy better equipment and more powerful ships. Where it gets really tricky is classifying things like Galactic Navy: this is an OXP that makes things easier for Clean players, and harder for Offenders, by putting powerful Police ships into the game. But if players take on Navy missions, the game is arguably harder. There needs to be some generic "affects game balance" indicator, maybe with a scale from "minor" to "major". Ideally, the OXP wiki page would also have a short section where any game-balance issues for the OXP are addressed: this could maybe be a recommended standard feature for all OXP wiki pages.

Disembodied wrote:

Where it gets really tricky is classifying things like Galactic Navy

Not tricky at all. You know my standpoint on this one: Galactic Navy is an abomination that is to be avoided at all cost. It utterly mocks and deforms GalCop, showing no respect at all to the very basics of Elite/Oolite's back story. Balancing is the absolute least of its issues.

Commander McLane wrote:

Galactic Navy is an abomination that is to be avoided at all cost.

<grins> That OXP has never been in my game (though I was tempted when I first began adding OXPs - it does sound attractive to new players).

Cody wrote:

Commander McLane wrote:

Galactic Navy is an abomination that is to be avoided at all cost.

<grins> That OXP has never been in my game (though I was tempted when I first began adding OXPs - it does sound attractive to new players).

I had Galactic Navy in my game for quite a while before I actually understood how fundamentally it changes Oolite.
Now I go nowhere near it and I also avoid anything with huge/Behemoth sized ships in general (exceptions do exist).

Commander McLane wrote:

Or an OXP that lets you see the market prices of secondary stations without docking (I think this exists, but I don't know the name). Again, this gives you an advantage over not having it, but not an advantage over NPCs.

That would be my Market Inquirer. This getting quite complex and might even prove to be impossible. I would say that every extra market can be classified as cheaty as they can all be seen beneficial to the player.

Gimi wrote:

I had Galactic Navy in my game for quite a while before I actually understood how fundamentally it changes Oolite.
Now I go nowhere near it and I also avoid anything with huge/Behemoth sized ships in general (exceptions do exist).

GalNavy gives me the feeling of martial law. Navy seems to be everywhere and in control. Maybe it's intended to be like that. Behemoths by themselves are quite rare and don't tilt the balance much. I would dare to say that liners and their habit of collecting pirates behind them is more of a balance breaker.

spara wrote:

Gimi wrote:

I had Galactic Navy in my game for quite a while before I actually understood how fundamentally it changes Oolite.
Now I go nowhere near it and I also avoid anything with huge/Behemoth sized ships in general (exceptions do exist).

GalNavy gives me the feeling of martial law. Navy seems to be everywhere and in control. Maybe it's intended to be like that. Behemoths by themselves are quite rare and don't tilt the balance much. I would dare to say that liners and their habit of collecting pirates behind them is more of a balance breaker.

If I was going to describe my issues with Galactic Navy in one sentence, it would be; The Navy behaves like Police, which they are not. Lot of other stuff as well. We are very much off topic now.

Gimi wrote:

We are very much off topic now.

Tsk, tsk... that will never do! <chortles>

spara wrote:

This getting quite complex and might even prove to be impossible.

Yep!

Gimi wrote:

If I was going to describe my issues with Galactic Navy in one sentence, it would be; The Navy behaves like Police, which they are not. Lot of other stuff as well. We are very much off topic now.

Back to topic then .

The problem I'm seeing here is that what is cheat (or abomination) to some one might be ambiance to some one else. There's a big difference when saying "this oxp makes trading easier" instead of saying "this oxp makes trading more interesting."

I would be very cautious when categorizing oxps to "cheaty" ones and others.

spara wrote:

The problem I'm seeing here is that what is cheat (or abomination) to some one might be ambiance to some one else. There's a big difference when saying "this oxp makes trading easier" instead of saying "this oxp makes trading more interesting."

I would be very cautious when categorizing oxps to "cheaty" ones and others.

Don't get me wrong. I don't consider GalNav a cheat at all. As it stands, I would even argue it's quite well balanced as well. However it does change the fundamentals of the game quite a bit. For someone who likes to play clean it probably makes the game easier. For someone who takes on the role of a pirate, it probably makes the game harder.

So I think we should focus more on the fact that an OXP changes the game mechanics, and not so much on how/easier/harder.