Oolite Bulletins

As Oolite 1.79 introduces new ship roles, here is an OXZ that provides overrides to the Staer9 ship roles, changing them to 1.79-compatible roles. It also includes a few bugfixes (ships made up of multiple parts that shouldn't be frangible now aren't; I'll have to implement that in my updated version of the shipset eventually).

http://www.keeper1st.com/Oolite/Staer9S ... les179.oxz

There's a shipdata inside it as well to "introduce" pirate versions of two ships. They were both trader and pirate possibly before, but now that the roles of trader escorts and pirate escorts are different in 1.79, ships that have escorts need separate entries for trader versions and pirate versions.

I'm open to suggestions for changes to the roles (especially to the frequency of appearance, which for the most part I've left quite low across the board).

This is not the shipset itself! The latest version of the shipset (requires shaders) is at http://www.keeper1st.com/Oolite/Staer9S ... 1a.oxp.zip

Thoughts:
- you can make the Cat a raider/interceptor if you want: you've given it auto_weapons, so the populator will give it injectors when adding it to that role. In the same way, it would make a nice low-probability assassin-heavy. It probably shouldn't have hunter at all, and even hunter-medium is pushing it for a ship that tough.
- similarly the Iguana probably should not get pirate-light-fighter or hunter
- the Asp could probably get an escort-heavy role too: it's definitely big enough
- I like the idea of the Python Cruiser being an occasional smuggler. It'll be interesting to see how a smuggler with escorts works out, too: should be a nicely different experience to the low-profile ones in core.
- it might be worth adding a rare pirate variant for the Monitors, just to keep players on their toes

My general rule is that if a ship has a witchdrive there's a good chance it's too big for "hunter", "escort" and "pirate-light-fighter" - my guidelines for the roles in general are at [wiki]Oolite_Ship_Roles[/wiki]

cim wrote:

You can make the Cat a raider/interceptor if you want: you've given it auto_weapons, so the populator will give it injectors when adding it to that role.

Ah, I did not know that! Originally, I had given it those roles, as it's otherwise the fastest ship of the bunch, but then I saw that it is set not to have injectors by default.

I'll make some tweaks per your suggestions. Thanks! In the middle of something for spara at the moment though...!

Added a link to this thread to the Staer9's Shipset on the wiki.

Updated this with cim's suggestions, and also took out the bugfix lines as those fixes have been integrated into V1.2 of the shipset.

Since it seems like OXZs really need to have a consistent name for future integration into the Manager, the name of the file has not changed -- only the version number in the manifest. If that is not correct, I can change the file name too.

Keeper wrote:

Since it seems like OXZs really need to have a consistent name for future integration into the Manager, the name of the file has not changed -- only the version number in the manifest. If that is not correct, I can change the file name too.

The OXZ manager doesn't care what the URL of the file is - it'll rename it on download anyway. It does need a consistent "identifier" key in manifest.plist, though.

It's best - though not mandatory - to change the URL with new versions, however, as this avoids a particular irritating sequence of events:
1) User downloads index file
2) Author updates OXZ, keeping the same URL, and updates the index
3) User tries to download the OXZ
4) Oolite rejects the download as the version in the OXZ file does not match that in the index.
The solution is for the user to update the index, but if it was a big OXZ file they have to download it all to find out that there was a problem. If the URL had changed with the version change they'd either just get the previous version, or get a 404 if you removed the old file, which only takes a couple of seconds.

I'm not sure if it's related to the new roles or the base Staer9 shipset oxp.
I have both installed and I think ships like cat mark II with 2 military lasers mounted make the game unplayable.
I've tried to last as long as I could, but looks like it's impossible.
If you get lucky and avoid any contact with other ships you can buy all the equipmnet you need to make your ship faster and stronger.
But it won't help you if you meet a pirate on cat mark II.
3 seconds and you're gone.
It doesn't matter if you have shield boosters, extra energy unit, military lasers or whatever.
It doesn't even matter if you try to dodge its lasers and manouver using witchdrive injectors.
It starts shooting from the far radar range, so you may never catch it in your target reticle.
so no matter what you do, it hits you and you're dead in 3 second.
Even auto-eject module oxp doesn't help. I'm not sure whether there's a bug or not,
but it doesn't work if the energy goes low to fast.
That is a really "nice" way to kill a player after a couple of weeks of equipping the ship and earning
"competent" rating before even the first mission starts.

Downgrading twin weapons to beam lasers could serve as an easy fix.

spara wrote:

Downgrading twin weapons to beam lasers could serve as an easy fix.

Would be nice to have an "official" fix for that since the oxp level indicator is 1, while it makes the game much harder.

"Level 1: Indicates that a OXP adds or alters aspects of the game a little bit, e.g. reduces the ambient lighting level or gives NPCs weapons from native Oolite.
This indicator is suitable for planetpacks and ship-OXPs that are adding e.g. rearlasers for NPCs."

You don't meet cat or iguana quite often, but once you've met it most likely you won't make it.

vaxon wrote:

spara wrote:

Downgrading twin weapons to beam lasers could serve as an easy fix.

Would be nice to have an "official" fix for that since the oxp level indicator is 1, while it makes the game much harder.

"Level 1: Indicates that a OXP adds or alters aspects of the game a little bit, e.g. reduces the ambient lighting level or gives NPCs weapons from native Oolite.
This indicator is suitable for planetpacks and ship-OXPs that are adding e.g. rearlasers for NPCs."

You don't meet cat or iguana quite often, but once you've met it most likely you won't make it.

Let's see if Keeper gets around fixing it. That weapon downgrade would be a dead simple fix.

spara wrote:

That weapon downgrade would be a dead simple fix.

I agree.

I wonder if reducing the accuracy could also help.
Currently (accuracy = 9) it's almost impossible to dodge cat's lasers.

I like it when it's getting harder, I just want to have a bit more chance to survive in a fight,
instead of getting killed at once.

vaxon wrote:

spara wrote:

That weapon downgrade would be a dead simple fix.

I agree.

I wonder if reducing the accuracy could also help.
Currently (accuracy = 9) it's almost impossible to dodge cat's lasers.

I like it when it's getting harder, I just want to have a bit more chance to survive in a fight,
instead of getting killed at once.

This is only my opinion of course, but for simple ships that are there to give more variation, I don't think that accuracy should be set at all. Let the game handle it and absolutely set weapons_auto to true too. This oxp also needs a bit of a tweak in the role side. Roles changed a little after this one was released. And after these tweaks, this should most definitely go in to the expansion manager.

For making the game harder, cim's Skilled NPCs is an excellent choice .

spara wrote:

This is only my opinion of course, but for simple ships that are there to give more variation, I don't think that accuracy should be set at all. Let the game handle it and absolutely set weapons_auto to true too. This oxp also needs a bit of a tweak in the role side. Roles changed a little after this one was released. And after these tweaks, this should most definitely go in to the expansion manager.

Totally agree on that.

spara wrote:

For making the game harder, cim's Skilled NPCs is an excellent choice .

Thanks, I'll try that.

mmm, more things to fix. I'm thinking also of removing the weapon glow effects (which you pretty much never see anyway) and adding some flashing nav lights instead.