Oolite Bulletins

Apologies if this has been considered before but...

Imagine you spot an asteroid field in the distance and head over to investigate, or perhaps your interest is piqued by a derelict ship showing up on the scanner.
Once you arrive it becomes apparent that you are not alone.
Suddenly visible, as if from nowhere, is a group of pirates. You are surrounded at close range and in deep trouble...


As I understand it, the cloaking device that exists in game at present relies upon energy consumption in order to be maintained. The device I'm imagining here would rely instead upon inactivity; 0 speed, no firing etc. I'm not suggesting a reworking of the current device but rather an additional one that makes it easier to 'hide' in space. This creates the potential for a particular kind of ambush, almost like an angler fish in the deep ocean.

Perhaps it's only available to certain NPCs: is it a Thargoid device? Do you need a military code to operate it? Maybe it is unstable and leads to unfortunate side-effects upon the ship or the crew... all excuses for it to be NPC only.

With the right AI, I would have thought that this would at least make an interesting mission scenario. If not a unique event then the game in your head becomes more interesting: 'That abandoned derelict over there looks too good to be true. I wonder...'

Maybe there are some clues for the wary. If you watch from a distance for long enough, perhaps there is the occasional hint that there's something unusual going on. Perhaps a flash of laser fire in their direction will do the trick.

Things to consider perhaps...

Intriguing concept.. I like it!

that does sound cool - finding a cloud of cargo pods just floating there and suddenly a load of hostile ships pop up all around you!
can scripts change ship scanner lollypop colours on the fly? if so you could change them to black whilst the ships are waiting to ambush you and then switch them to red when the AI makes the ships go hostile

Griff wrote:

can scripts change ship scanner lollypop colours on the fly? if so you could change them to black whilst the ships are waiting to ambush you and then switch them to red when the AI makes the ships go hostile

Yes they can. That's what the JS ship properties scannerDisplayColor1 and scannerDisplayColor2 are for. You can set the alpha values of these colors too, so the easiest way to make the lollipops disappear is to give the ship any scanner color with alpha set at zero.

I like that idea ... the possibilities are, indeed, intriguing.

another_commander wrote:

Griff wrote:

can scripts change ship scanner lollypop colours on the fly? if so you could change them to black whilst the ships are waiting to ambush you and then switch them to red when the AI makes the ships go hostile

Yes they can. That's what the JS ship properties scannerDisplayColor1 and scannerDisplayColor2 are for. You can set the alpha values of these colors too, so the easiest way to make the lollipops disappear is to give the ship any scanner color with alpha set at zero.

Liking the lollypops idea, nice one guys

Assuming there was still a masslock created by the ships then that would likely be a big clue to their presence.
Perhaps there's a lone cobra I (or similar) that's visible, apparently minding its own business...

Can derelicts trigger masslocks?

Perhaps this device would need to negate masslocks in order for Griff's cargo-pod example to work.

Thanks for the feedback

A large enough asteroid will trigger mass-lock - Griff's larger 'roids do, as I recall (or I might be getting confused).

Cody wrote:

A large enough asteroid will trigger mass-lock - Griff's larger 'roids do, as I recall.

For exiting to witchspace, yes. For torus, no.

Rescue Stations has an ambush scenario a bit like this one, written back for 1.76. Unless you're paying very close attention to the asteroids, you won't notice it in advance. There are easier ways - scan class is writable! - to get the same result in 1.77

cim wrote:

scan class is writable!

I think the totally hidden is too powerful so I suggest to use scan class changes: get a white lollipop as a rock/cargo/derelict until the main power switch of the ship is turned off.

Norby wrote:

I think the totally hidden is too powerful so I suggest to use scan class changes: get a white lollipop as a rock/cargo/derelict until the main power switch of the ship is turned off.

*nods in agreement*

Could this be made to work both ways though, not just for pirates but for the player also? Although if the pirates had the player on scanner already, they might still come over to investigate and within a certain range (10km?) be able to visually ID the player ship and attack?

Redspear wrote:

Liking the lollypops idea, nice one guys

Assuming there was still a masslock created by the ships then that would likely be a big clue to their presence.
Perhaps there's a lone cobra I (or similar) that's visible, apparently minding its own business...

Can derelicts trigger masslocks?

Perhaps this device would need to negate masslocks in order for Griff's cargo-pod example to work.

Thanks for the feedback

True, but the cloaking device has that issue too. Any cloaked npcs masslock you, and you masslock them presumably (or would if they used torus drives.)

Would Stealth be a better description?