Oolite Bulletins

Upon a request, I created a simple oxp that brings back the old hermit market by carbon copying the old commodities definitions and replicating the old market creation method via javascript. Works at least with core and Griff's normal mapped ships.

Nothing fancy or ambitious here. If anyone wants to adapt this into something interesting, please do so.

Donwload oxz: https://app.box.com/s/ptdj3qzrholy6t1xlg8akuqjfa26tviz

spara wrote:

Nothing fancy or ambitious here. If anyone wants to adapt this into something interesting, please do so.

I'll think about it.

This makes hermit markets more useful I suppose ?
Pirate cove could include it, as a compensation for making the search for normal rock hermits much more dangerous.

Most notably it ups the capacity of all commodities to 127 as it was in the good old days. A more subtle effect is the implementation of the old commodities calculation engine instead of the current one. I consider it as a retro thing and yes, it's a bit cheaty making the game easier.

You could compromise and keep the capacity unchanged but restore the old calculation engine for pricing, e.g. the occasional hermit where they will pay 90+ credits for furs and 35+ credits for booze but will only buy a maximum of 31 tons.

If they're buying up to 31 TC of each, it's still more than a Cobra 3 can carry.

Anonymissimus wrote:

Pirate cove could include it, as a compensation for making the search for normal rock hermits much more dangerous.

Sounds a good idea to me!

Switeck wrote:

If they're buying up to 31 TC of each, it's still more than a Cobra 3 can carry.

Why did you think people buy big ships?

Another thought - keep the capacity at 31 tons for anything a ship might want to sell, but maybe have the sort of thing a Rock Hermit would be expected to produce, such as minerals, at a higher level e.g. max 63 tons?

Switeck wrote:

If they're buying up to 31 TC of each, it's still more than a Cobra 3 can carry.

Unless you have an expanded cargo hold, increasing you to 35t...

Indeed 35 is greater than 31, but each implies 2 or more with a minimum of 62 TC total. Probably greater than a Cobra 3 that way.

I hope something can be done about this - at the moment it simply isn't worthwhile taking ships into a rock hermit, there's no profit in it especially if you have to buy fuel. I can see the sense in keeping the total quantities small, but if the prices are only slightly different to the station it's really difficult to justify it.

Maybe the tweak could have two or three levels - one that gives you the old pricing but keeps the maximum quantity to 31 tons, one that ups it to say 63 tons, and one that gives you the old setup completely.

With current core, docking at a good hermit can grant you ~500 cr via precious metal trade if it's sold at a high price (but still not for maximum, maybe gold at 41, platinum 77, gems 22). Most of the time it's more like 200 cr though. Some hermits seem to be more productive than most others, I think it depends on system type. With ye olde hermits, this is mostly more like 500-1000 cr. It also seems that there is no difference between systems or hermit types. Effectiveness strongly depends on the ship type (its cargo space), if it's an Adder precious metal trade is in comparison much more effective than with a Cobra 3, when there's more money to make by normal inter system trade between main stations. And I buy fuel in hermits anyway, if I have less than 2/3 capacity at least. You never know when you want to be able to run to the station.

This is interesting topic. How should Hermits really be? Currently they:

1. need to be found
2. can be saved at
3. can be bought fuel from
4. have low capacity, medium profit markets
5. are not GalCop supervised
6. come in three different flavors, which have different allegiances and different market definitions

For what it's worth, my current sentiment is that the current implementation of rock hermits is spot on. I find them to be in-game logically exactly like they should be. Low capacity market makes sense in-game and also balances the possibility to dock, fuel and save regardless of legal status.

The main stations are massive space stations, so their market should be considered to be massive. In my world that means that the capacity of 127 per commodity is a massive market. Hermits are just rocks that have been drilled hollow to house a couple of miners. With that in mind their markets should be quite small. In-game, 31 feels like a suitably small market when compared to the massive main stations. Even with chaotic/pirate versions they are just hollow rocks, not big space stations.

Perhaps I'm doing something wrong, but I've never noticed that there are three "flavours" of rock hermits...

But apart from that, I wouldn't consider them to be "small holes" (the equivalents of small hermit cottages): The docking port alone is a huge and probably very expensive structure, and it can accommodate even Anacondas. There must be much more behind it than a 50 m² apartment where a hermit lives!

I imagine that rock hermits did start as little holes in a rock, but over time they grew to be little cities with hundreds of residents, politically independent from the state(s) on the planet and GalCop.

Fritz wrote:

Perhaps I'm doing something wrong, but I've never noticed that there are three "flavours" of rock hermits....

There are three types of hermits. The standard miner one, a chaotic one and a pirate version. All look the same, but have different allegiances set and different markets. Maybe something could be done to distinguish them more.

Fritz wrote:

But apart from that, I wouldn't consider them to be "small holes" (the equivalents of small hermit cottages): The docking port alone is a huge and probably very expensive structure, and it can accommodate even Anacondas. There must be much more behind it than a 50 m² apartment where a hermit lives!

I imagine that rock hermits did start as little holes in a rock, but over time they grew to be little cities with hundreds of residents, politically independent from the state(s) on the planet and GalCop.

Blame Griff for that . Earlier they really were just rocks with a hole. The current model is quite pompous and looks more like a city than a hermit.