Oolite Bulletins

Hi all,

I have created an OXP to store ships called Hyperspace Hangar, mainly because I was annoyed with Oolite's one ship limit.
It allows storage, switching, and selling of ships, and is available from the interfaces section on any station. (Thus hyperspace, because the ships follow you.) It is available from the in game package manager, or from the  wiki page.
Complaints, praise, and any other feedback should probably go in this thread. (I'm not quite sure, I'm kinda new. If this is wrong: mods, let me know.)

Thanks,
Ramen

RE-EDITED 6/14/15
EDIT: I feel that a bit of story justification is neccessary for the hangar. There already is a little bit, but I feel it's not good enough. Justification:
STATION DATA ENTRY NO. 28303.
NAME: Norby-Ramen Quirium Accuracy Drive (Because honestly Norby, you've basically written half the mod already. Even if not, you still deserve it. Every other poster is also immortalized below (If I forgot you, PM me and I will add you.)
DETAILS:
Basically, the Q.A.D works by chaining together what amounts to faster witchspace jumps from station to station, using accuracy drives, which make the jumps incredibly accurate, but also require station-level generators and capacitors. Which is why this wonderful piece of equipment is not available to create the ultimate iron-ass. Because stations carry a large amount of fuel, this is viable. However, an incredibly large amount of fuel is required, around three times the normal rating for a 7.0 LY witchspace jump, thus the high fee to use the Norby-Ramen Quirium Accuracy Drive, or colloquially, the Hyperspace Hangar. It is worth noting that only the drive is actually required. There is no actual difference between the station hangar and the Hyperspace Hangar. However, only a station with publicly availible fuel supplies and a shipyard will mount a Q.A.D, for obvious reasons. If using a TL 6 or lower Q.A.D., be aware that these are unlicensed. They are not illegal, but have high chance of damaging your ship, about 7/8. The hangar service is monitored by Norby-Ramen Equipment Industries (Slogans: An equipment company for any user and any day. Keeping potential debris potential. Nickname: Cody's red spear. (why not.)), in partnership with Lone Wolf industries.
INFORMATION PAST THIS POINT REQUIRES AUTHORIZATION FOR THE LOCAL GALCOP AUTORITIES. ACCESS WILL BE DENIED UNTIL AUTHORIZED.
Press Space Commander.

*Later, in the bar.*
Hey man, you know Norby-Ramen Equipment Industries? You know, the ones who make the Hyperspace Hangar. Apparently, there's a secret plan they have that is being threatened by thargoids. If someone helps, pehaps the fee might be negotiated. Wouldn't that be great? I'm not doing it though, damn thargoids would kill me in five seconds.
(This mission is not in the oxp yet.)

There was some discussion about this idea with ship storage fees, etc. Your hyperspace idea is a good workaround, maybe you still can add replacement time and cost for better feeling and less handwavium.

An important note that some parts of the stored ships can be lost in the hyperspace hangar if Ship Storage Helper is not contain support for an equipment OXP which need it.

Thanks for the tips Norby.
I'll work on that when I have time.

Norby wrote:

for better feeling and less handwavium.

Indeed...

"Hey, good to see you again buddy. Listen, I just had a hell of a trip getting here. Thargoids at the witchpoint, then I had to battle 6 pirate gangs, took serious damage to my ship and lost almost a quarter of my cargo. If it hadn't been for the bounty hunters hanging around the seedy space bar out there I'd be smeared across the sky by now. Finally made it here in one piece though, and I think you'll be pleased with what I've brought. I know computers and machinery are always in demand on planets like this, and I've brought over a hundred tons for you! Do me a fair price- anything north of ninety five creds - and it will make all the laser burns and PTSD worthwhile"

"Computers? Well... I can give you 10 credits per ton."

"Ten credits..? Are you kidding me? You guys are always crying out for computers. I normally sell for about 95 or 96."

"Not now. 10 creds. And that's a special price, because you're a friend. Going rate is closer to 8. Here, look at the market screen, you can see I'm not lying."

"What the... But I paid 66 credits per ton for this. Nearly died a dozen times over. Why is the price so low?"

"Well, I got about three thousand tons of computers back in the warehouse. Arrived this morning."

"What?"

"Yeah, Machinery too. Farm machinery, industrial machinery, domestic machinery, vehicles, robots... we got the lot. I can give you 5 creds per ton on that."

"Well what about luxury goods? I got a few crates of nice zero-G cricket bats I picked up in..."

"Actually, I was about to try to sell some to you. Got a glut of them at the moment, can't get rid of the bloody things, in fact."

"What? You're practically under siege from swarms of bloodthirsty, cut-throat buccaneers. Only one ship in twenty makes it through that meat grinder alive. Your planet is a war-torn hellhole with no industry of your own except brewing that godawful lethal water that's like a mining laser to your prefrontal cortex. How the hell are you armpit deep in expensive manufactured goods? Where are you getting all this stuff? "

"Hyperspace."

"WHAT?!?!??!?!?"

"Yeah, haven't you heard? This new hyperspace ship-shifter thingy? You load up a ship full of goods, dump it into hyperspace right from the station, press a button, then seconds later it pops back out neatly docked at the destination station couple o' light-years away. Unload it and you're good to go. It's a revolution, I tell you. No more tedious mucking about with launching and flying and docking and stuff, and definitely no bloody pirates."

"But... How... When did this happen?"

"Well, some noodle guy invented it late last week, and due to the whole instantaneous-interstellar-transportation nature of it and all, it was all over the octant by Saturday lunchtime. We had it installed here Saturday afternoon and the first shipments started coming through this morning. Wanna buy an Anaconda full of parking meters?"

"Last week..? I've been cooped up in my ship since Tuesday morning."

"So yeah, we can get pretty much anything we want, from anywhere in the galaxy, any time we like."

"I haven't showered in a week. I haven't slept in four days. I've just spent two hours scraping roasted thargoid entrails off my hull..."

"Prices for everything have bottomed out. Apparently food is so cheap now it's effectively free, and they reckon most other goods will be the same in about a week. Apparently it's ushering a new economic paradigm age of post-scarcity, whereby all sentient beings can live lives of fulfilled luxury, leisure and self-improvement. Or something. Whatever, you just me caught before I leave, I'm retiring in ten minutes. Now are we doing business or what?"

"You got any of that lethal water..?"

Potential Debris wrote:

Indeed...

<ROTFLMAO!>

I enjoyed that..

So the Law of Unintended Consequences has struck again, eh?

Well, I will freely admit it has a lot of weapons-grade handwavium in it currently. That's for sure.
I actually thought of adding a fee, but have not yet implemented this. Of course, thanks goes to Norby for suggesting it.
I suppose this version is more of a "It kinda works so let's release it" release than a "It is definitively and completely done. Let's release once, and then never again." release. Of course, what software was ever the latter?
I will also use Norby's time idea.

I have just released version 1.2.0 of Hyperspace Hangar.
New features include:
-It now costs something to store ships. 25000 Cr. A significant something for most commanders with my current financial state.
-It now takes 30 game minutes to store or unstore a ship.

See you around,

Ramen

It now costs something to store ships. 25000 Cr. A significant something for most commanders with my current financial state.

Only once, right?

Unfortunately, the current process to store a ship needs money every time to store a ship. This is required for the vast amount of quirium needed for the process. I am, however, creating a difficulty option for this oxp, to allow the user to choose the expense and the frequency thereof.

Seeya,

Ramen

P.S. I have decided to create story justification for the Hyperspace storage. The process works by sending many large hangars into witchspace, where they will collect ships and defend them from thargoids. When a ship is stored, a vast amount of quirium is expended to send the ship into witchspace. The large amount is because most of the quirium is used for an "accuracy drive", which sends the ship directly to the hangar. Accuracy drives are too large and impractically power expensive for regular ships, and can only be used on stations, hence why your ship cannot mount an accuracy drive.

Actually, I looked at the code and it's only the first time. Whoops

I just released version 1.4.0.

It adds:
-An option menu for adjusting the price and time of storage.

See you around,

Ramen

New Slogan:
"Hyperspace Hangar: the OXP that updates every five seconds."
Version 1.5.0 is now out. New features include:
-An option to restore the fee and storage time to default.
-The ability to sell stored ships
-For anybody who looks at my sorry excuse for formatting: better code readability.

A question to the users:
1: Am I looking at a dead thread?
2: If not, what do you want to see in this oxp next?

Seeya,

Ramen

Ramen wrote:

Am I looking at a dead thread?

Definitely not: this topic got 350 views in the first 4 days. Your package own at least 10 users based on wiki downloads, moreover many players do updates after some delay only so a full month can say more about the popularity of a new OXP.

Ramen wrote:

A question to the users:
1: Am I looking at a dead thread?
2: If not, what do you want to see in this oxp next?

Hello.

1: Nope
2: Some of my thoughts from another thread

Suggestion:

If player owns another ship, player can request that ship be delivered to a nearby system (or current system subject to time delay) at a considerable cost (percentage of value). Perhaps the other ship is too far away for this to be practical - in which case a facsimile ship is provided (similar to escape pod usage).

This would be a luxury service that some might use a lot and others never, but it needn't be without strategy or story. "By the time I deliver this cargo to system X, I'll need my Asp waiting for me or I'll never deliver those parcels in time - not where that next jump will take me to. But do I have the credits? My sidewinder would be cheaper to get delivered but would it survive in an Anarchy...?"

There could be other associated fees (docking rental etc.) but these needn't be too high; rather than just a money-sink this could be a reason to save for a rainy, pirate-infested day.

On the other hand, it may have the potential to mess up some missions good and proper ...

So, in summary, I'd suggest:

• A need to order ahead (i.e. before you jump into the system where you will collect your ship)
• Costs as a percentage value of the ship that you will be collecting (insurance premiums etc)