Oolite Bulletins

We've discussed before the idea of having an in-game tutorial for Oolite, and I've been working the last few days on some adjustments to the core game code to make it possible to integrate the tutorial properly.

So, the question is - what should the tutorial cover? I'm going to assume that the person playing the tutorial has no significant experience with Oolite or similar games, and hasn't read anything resembling a manual. If that assumption is wrong, it'll be very easy to skip a section of the tutorial if for instance you don't need help on how to turn your ship.

Currently what I'm thinking of adding is:

1 - Introduction to the HUD dials
2 - Tour of the status screens and view controls
3 - Basic flight controls and using the scanner to find objects
4 - Flight practice: navigation to buoys, around asteroids (similar to the Academy flight tutorial)
5 - Targeting system and basic practice with lasers (similar to the Academy combat tutorial)
6 - Basic combat practice with missiles and missile avoidance
7 - Docking training
8 - System navigation and the torus drive
9 - Station facilities
10 - Advanced combat practice - use Kraits as training targets which fire back (pulse lasers only)

"Dying" in any of the above stages is rescued and put back at the start of the stage.

Final stage - Combat wave practice - like stage 10, but they don't stop coming until the player is dead (and with increasing toughness and skill if necessary to ensure the player is dead), which ends the tutorial and returns to the "Start New Commander" intro screen.

What else should be covered, if anything? Does any of the above sound completely unnecessary? (Bear in mind that "skip to start of next section" will be a single key press, so "I wouldn't want to sit through that" is hopefully not going to be an issue)

Should there be any coverage of "optional" equipment - and if so, should the player get to try any of it out, or should it just be a mention that it exists and might be useful?

Cargo scooping and sun skimming? Maybe a buy/sell mission?

Some mention of witchspace clouds, and their potential usage, perhaps?
As for 'optional equipment' - just a mention of its existence, nothing hands-on.

Sounds good so far. I'm missing a basic trading tutorial in three steps:

- buy something
- jump to the next system
- sell what you've bought

Some thought needs to be spent on how to shorten the journey to the station in the destination system. A full trip without torus and injectors would stretch the tutorial too much, I think.

for the trading mission... purchase items from a low tech.do the flash for witchspace immediately and then give options for 3 different tech/government planets and let the newbie decide which option for him/her/it is best and allow for restarts to try the other options.

cim wrote:

Final stage - Combat wave practice - like stage 10, but they don't stop coming until the player is dead (and with increasing toughness and skill if necessary to ensure the player is dead), which ends the tutorial and returns to the "Start New Commander" intro screen.

I am not sure that force-killing the player at the end of the tutorial would be the best thing to do here. Of course, if the player can't cope with the opposition and gets shot down, then fine. But I would rather be asking the player to jettison from their ship using the escape pod or (even better maybe) hyperspace out to any system to end the tutorial after a certain number of opponent waves has been fought.

cim wrote:

Final stage - Combat wave practice - like stage 10, but they don't stop coming until the player is dead (and with increasing toughness and skill if necessary to ensure the player is dead), which ends the tutorial and returns to the "Start New Commander" intro screen.

Perhaps the final stage should be a simulated trip to another system (in fact, if the whole training was presented as a "simulation", it would get over any problems about players "dying"). It could follow a script a bit like this:

1. set hyperspace destination (on a very simplified map: the player could be on e.g. "Farmworld", and there could be just one other system, called "Factoryworld")
2. buy some fuel, buy some food, launch
3. fly away from station, hit hyperdrive
4. arrive, point towards planet, hit torus
5. get masslocked! Don't worry, it's just a Viper; wait for it to fly past, and hit torus again
6. get masslocked again! Oh no, it's a pirate! Fight him or give him some cargo, your choice
7. assuming the player survives, hit torus again, get masslocked by the planet
8. locate the station, fly to station, dock, sell cargo, note profit, end simulation

For a new Jameson any pirate combat would have to be seriously handicapped, as I wouldn`t try my luck with a start up Cobra.
But that could just be my lack of skills.

I'd keep it simple, as half the fun is learning this for yourself. Disembodied's suggestion sounds about right to me, or even a bit less.

Captain Tylor wrote:

For a new Jameson any pirate combat would have to be seriously handicapped, as I wouldn`t try my luck with a start up Cobra.

A base Cobra should cope with most pirates. Just one for a tutorial though, not a group, and something quite weedy like a Mamba would be OK I think.

Captain Tylor wrote:

For a new Jameson any pirate combat would have to be seriously handicapped, as I wouldn`t try my luck with a start up Cobra.
But that could just be my lack of skills.

I agree that the "pirate encounter" would be against something weedy, like Smivs says; it would really just be there to demonstrate the concept. And if the player is struggling, the tutorial could suggest dumping some cargo, which the pirate could scoop before heading off, to show players that this method works as well.

Disembodied wrote:

... the tutorial could suggest dumping some cargo, which the pirate could scoop before heading off, to show players that this method works as well.

The pirate's 'stand and deliver' message would probably get that idea across. <refrains from mentioning lupins - chuckles>

I'm planning to use low-end Kraits as the combat targets - pulse laser, no missiles, bad pilot, no fuel for injectors, and did I mention no missiles? They're marginally lower spec than the Mamba, but they're also a much bigger target.

Having an entire simulated set of systems (2 is a set...) for the tutorial would be interesting but there's not really a way to do that with Oolite as currently set up, and it doesn't seem quite worth implementing the ability to define custom galaxies just to get it. I suppose I could move the tutorial to one of the existing isolated pairs and rename them in the tutorial initialisation, but that might just get confusing for the player if they actually reach one later in a real game or were paying attention to what F6(F6) looked like.

I'm less sure about including trading in the tutorial beyond a demonstration of the station screens to show that it exists - I'm trying to stay focused on "how to fly your ship" rather than "why fly your ship".

Killing the player off at the end of the tutorial ... I put that in because at the moment that's currently the only straightforward way to exit the tutorial setting and return to the menu. I suppose I could define a player.endScenario() function in JS that ended the game and returned to the startup menu.

cim wrote:

I'm less sure about including trading in the tutorial beyond a demonstration of the station screens to show that it exists - I'm trying to stay focused on "how to fly your ship" rather than "why fly your ship".

OK, sounds fair. It might be worth including a brief tutorial in how to scoop cargo - possibly before any combat practice - and some small amount of cargo selling could be smuggled in if desired. The exercise briefing could state something like

"For this exercise, we have outfitted your ship with a set of fuel scoops. These can also be used to scoop up any cargo or escape pods you might find. Launch from the station and collect as many cargo pods as you can, by flying over the top of them. When you are finished, return to the station and sell the cargo at the station's trading centre, on the F8 screen."

I was immediately thinking of including trading, because that's a vital part of Aegidian's own out-of-game tutorial, his "Lave to Zaonce" video. Probably not everybody who is currently active here has seen it. But I'd consider it an inspiration for an in-game tutorial.

IF it were to go down the route of including trading then I think something on mining would make a good addition too.

True, the typical game starts with a ship unequipped for mining but you might get a mining laser if you traded in your starting ship (or buy one at somewhere like Zaonce, just a jump away) and it is one of the original player 'careers'...

Also, I agree with the suggestions re: fuel scoops.

This game's coming along very nicely, I really must get around to playing it sometime