Oolite Bulletins

A moment of head scratching here, and forgive me if this seems like I've already figured it out, but, I wanted to have some confirmation.

This page of the wiki: http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/No_Sha ... set_.C2.A0
seems to indicate that there's a no-shader version of the Staer9 shipset out there. No download on that page, though, and the only download I can find for the set is here, http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Staer9%27s_Shipset, which definitely has shaders. There's a note near the bottom of the first link that says, 'todo list: look into Staer9 shipset', so, does that mean, as it would seem, that the no-shaders version doesn't actually exist yet? Is this a work in progress or a missing link somewhere? (Anthropology students! Never use the term 'missing link'. Cheeses off your average paleontologist sort to no end.)

If I recall it right, the project was unfinished. I think some of the ships were undone and new roles needed work. The shadered version also needs a proper roles overhaul.

Amah is missing since feb but you can read his noshader topic and download the converted ships from his box.

Only the Cat is missing the conversion, I guess due to Amah asked Staer9 for a newer model and probably never got an answer.

There is one more ship which is not in Amah's box, the Ophidian, because this was originally without shaders within Staer9's pack and already available in [wiki]EscortPack[/wiki].

Keeper made a roles file which need audit before an OXZ release, see cim's notes.

More notes from spara: roling needs to be checked with thought, shipdata needs to be cleaned and ships need rebalancing. Keeper did some work with the new roles and weights, but it looks a bit unfinished. Shipdata really needs cleaning up as it's a result of at least three (?) different authors from a range of time. And finally ships with twin lasers are overpowered and need to be seriously toned down. Military lasers should be downgraded and accuracies removed, let the game handle them.

I'll try to finish it. Unless someone is working on it already of course.

I'm eyeballing staer9shipset and Cat's specs caught my eye. The ship is called Cat Mark II and it's not found from the wiki. Wiki has Mark I and that's a bit different from Mark I from Griff's arcelite ships. Don't really know which specs should be considered to be closest to the canon. Here are the differences to the Mark I in the wiki making this ship a bit over the top to my eye:

* 4 pylons over 1
* pitch/roll 2.4/2.6 over 1.4/1.1
* energy 420 over 384
* cargo 5 over 2

Wiki also says that in Mark I cargo of 2 can be expanded with extra cargo of 17! Now that's reordering cargo hold .

In essence, should something be done about this ship? The ships in this shipset are meant to be nicely balanced. I think it could be downgraded to be Mark I. Or at least the stats could be brought down a bit. Now it looks like that all were upped except for speed, which is quite high (420) already.

Ideas?

I think Cat Mark II is a willfully different ship than Mark I, maybe use up the cargo extension space better so I vote to leave the params as is.

Wasn't the Cat also known as the Cougar? Solo's  Cougar has decent specs, but how they compare to Staer9's Cat, I know not.

Well, if it becomes a Cat Mark I we'll need to change the label on one of the screenshots on www.oolite.org. Or would that now make the Cat II canon?

Ok guys, I did some research and it looks like the stats are more of an accident than thoroughly thought.

There is a Cat/Cat II/Cougar ship from Murgh, PAG, SimonV, S9 and Solo. Murgh and Solo seem to be "original" in sense that the author has thought the ship and it's role out and selected stats to fit. (no offense meant here to the other authors listed!). Cat II looks like it's just beefed up version of the Cat.

Solo's Cougar mostly looks like a different ship, so I'll leave it out of the comparison.

Murgh and PAG offer Mk I with different stats.

cargo 2 -> 5
energy 384 -> 420
pitch 1.1 -> 2.4/1.1 (npc / player)
roll 1.4 -> 2.6/1.4 (npc / player)
speed 365 -> 420
missiles 4

Simon (Neolite) and S9 offer Mk II with similar stats to PAG's Mk I. S9 and PAG probably just copied them over from Neolite. Except that PAG renamed the ship back to Mk I keeping the beefed up stats.

And then there's the wiki info that seems to be a hybrid of Mk I and Mk II containing some misinformation also. Not nice for a player looking info about the ship. That cargo expansion of 17 is probably an error as none of the ships offer that and that one pylon limit is puzzling.

I still think this should be corrected somehow.

By the look of it Simon created a Mark II by upping the stats considerably. Now it's faster than any other player ship in core game, turns like an adder, has energy banks of a freighter and of course the notorious twin forward lasers.

Here's my proposion.

* cargo back to 2
* energy back to 384
* pitch and roll to 1.5/2.0
* speed 420
* missiles down to 1

It's still a fearsome opponent by being fast and having twin lasers.

And I would probably ditch the player version. The twin lasers is the thing with this ship and player can't have 'em.

In my plan the NPC Cat get two pulse lasers and kept the good stats. Iguana, the other ship with dual lasers but lower stats get two beams. The player versions has only one mount but can hold military laser which is about equal with two beams in damage but better due to the longer range. Staer9 accepted this once in pm so I think worth to send a question in pm, maybe he will answer and reconsider these in the light of your reserach.

I don't think S9 really cares about the stats, as they are clearly copied from neolite ships, but fair enough. If people want (slightly) uber, so be it. A couple of things still nag me about the Cat Mark II though.

1. There's no wiki page for it and it gets mixed with Mark I, which has erratic information.
2. S9 shipset wiki page says:

Please note that this OXP does NOT replace any core ships, it adds a variety of extra ships to the game, all the ships are nicely balanced and the ships shouldn't be any harder for the average Jameson to kill.

3. It's a bit disappointing to buy the ship and find out that you will not get two forward weapons.

FWIW Staer9 seems to have been absent for some time and I have also been attempting to contact him for months (about the Chopped Cobra which I host and curate).
I have also received spam from his old email address suggesting that he no longer owns it or controls it. None of this leads me to believe he will be back.
I don't really have an opinion on the cats etc, other than my general liking for sensible ships that compliment the core set. If a model obviously has two lasers I suppose the ship should as well. Norby's suggestion of two pulse lasers seems sensible, and maybe just don't have a player version - perhaps it should just be a rare 'customised' pirate NPC.
It does sound like the wiki is a bit vague or messy as well doesn't it? I'm sure once you (spara if you are going to do this) have sorted the ships out, rationalising the wiki entries for these would be welcomed.

Slight digression, but isn't the Cat one of the older ship models you were looking into adding to your next set of Classic Ships, Smivs? I seem to recall the Oldships set as being one of the ones on the table for a retro-remake.

Yes, eventually.
TBH I've been inactive since Easter - the kids were at home for half-term and I can't do anything with them around, but I never picked up after then. Now it's the long Summer break so there is not much chance of much happening now either. I think after the intensive year or so before then ( updating almost all of my OXPs for v1.80 and then doing the Classic Ships) I was a bit burned out. So I seem to be taking a few months off.
I will be back though, and to avoid hijacking this thread too much I'll outline my future plans elsewhere.

Smivs wrote:

Yes, eventually.
TBH I've been inactive since Easter - the kids were at home for half-term and I can't do anything with them around, but I never picked up after then. Now it's the long Summer break so there is not much chance of much happening now either. I think after the intensive year or so before then ( updating almost all of my OXPs for v1.80 and then doing the Classic Ships) I was a bit burned out. So I seem to be taking a few months off.
I will be back though, and to avoid hijacking this thread too much I'll outline my future plans elsewhere.

By all means, take a long siesta! You've earned it!