Oolite Bulletins

I'd usually associate a dumb artificial intelligence with something like an asteroid, but more often than not I find a Pirate who is not only pathetically and woefully under equipped and under experienced attempting to take a chunk out of my ship , trying to take a chunk out of my ship.

That is not to say I like my Pirates to kill me (after all there is Hard Ships, Tough Guy's and skilled NPCs to adequately deal with that side of things)

I simply think that if a Pirate is going to bring it on, it should have at least the good sense to know whether it might be in with a shout or not.

I know this is not easy, but can the game calculate your ability and raise its activity to meet your level (I am sure it does already to a certain degree as 8 Pirates in a system is significant Pirate activity to a Harmless rated Pilot)

I dunno 1 to 3 g for a sidewinder when your on your way to collecting that 100 g per unit for the computers or luxuries you are carrying is more of an irritating ant bite than a concerted effort to ruin your day.. but then it might just be me.

Good suggestions - something of that sort will be in the next version, we hope.

The combat odds test in 1.77 is rather too simple - 1.79 has a much more sophisticated calculation so pirates will usually need to be in a group of at least 3 before they'll risk attacking a Cobra III. If they then discover once the fighting has started that they made a mistake, the survivors may also attempt to flee before they've personally been shot at. Similar calculations have been added to various non-pirate groups, too. If the player builds up a reputation as a dangerous opponent, then pirates might require extra numbers before attacking.

1.79 also has a somewhat wider spread of system difficulties - on average the Corporates are a bit safer and the Anarchies are a lot more dangerous - so the game can scale to the player's skill and equipment for a bit longer than before.

I wonder how easy it is to gauge how nasty a fight might be for a pirate. Putting aside the fact that the graphics in a game aren't too revealing. As far as I know by canon the Elite Fed doesn't report rankings so all you have to go on is visuals. A small ship might be packing a large cannon and be flown by an ace. A large ship bristling with weapons might be flown by a coward. A brand new shiny apparently weaponless ship might have it's arms hidden in bays because the pilot is wolf pretending to be a sheep, a beat-up old cobra with a smoking exhaust might be like that because the pilot prefers to spend time and money on a large and deadly weapons array instead of a paint job.

Agreed. Experience is a very important factor here, I think. I'd rather take an Asp with a competent commander than a Adder with a Dangerous one.

cim wrote:

Good suggestions - something of that sort will be in the next version, we hope.

The combat odds test in 1.77 is rather too simple - 1.79 has a much more sophisticated calculation so pirates will usually need to be in a group of at least 3 before they'll risk attacking a Cobra III. If they then discover once the fighting has started that they made a mistake, the survivors may also attempt to flee before they've personally been shot at. Similar calculations have been added to various non-pirate groups, too. If the player builds up a reputation as a dangerous opponent, then pirates might require extra numbers before attacking.

1.79 also has a somewhat wider spread of system difficulties - on average the Corporates are a bit safer and the Anarchies are a lot more dangerous - so the game can scale to the player's skill and equipment for a bit longer than before.

Thank you cim,

This is indeed the sort of thing I had in mind