The 127 Limit

Alex · Post by **Alex** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 8:14 am

p.s. who is this old man with dodgy teenage companion?

Think Star Wars, the older ones.

Commander McLane · Post by **Commander McLane** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 1:26 pm

Trezker wrote:
... on earth there's no place you can't reach in one or two days travel time.

While I wish you were right with that statement, let me assure you that you are not. There are surprisingly large parts of the world which you can't reach in two days travel time. Especially if from your starting point you already need one or two days to the next bigger hub... (and you do not have the means to just buy your own airplane, if there is no regular flight, or buy your own car, if there is no regular public transport).

Post by **Eric Walch** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 2:59 pm

Trezker wrote:
As for dropping of passengers. This isn't like airplane tickets, on earth there's no place you can't reach in one or two days travel time.

What about high mountains like the Mount Everest? A helicopter can't fly in such thin air and with a parachute you'll decent to fast. What is left is a travel by foot.

And in the past I was very active in caving (mainly France). Several expeditions to -1000 m. Adding it all together, starting from home and rigging the cave, I never managed to reach the bottom within 4 days.

Trezker · Post by **Trezker** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 3:46 pm

If dropping off passengers at a whim is not acceptable, how about making a part-of-the-way deal when you pick them up.

You dock at a station, find a passenger that you see you can take half way to their destination. So you tell the guy this and he might hop on. With this he knows you wont take him all the way from the start.

Post by **Cmdr James** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 4:00 pm

I have never got in a taxi and had the guy say "yeah, no problem, Ill take you 3/4 of the way, then you can walk". If I wanted a scheduled service that takes me kind of in the right direction for like a dollar, then Id do that, if I want a direct taxi service, then I pay extra, but I expect to get there.

Also, how do you propose to do the negotiation on the F8 screen? This sounds like a lot of hard work for a minimal use feature.

Trezker · Post by **Trezker** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 4:28 pm

How come these passengers who demand getting taken on a 30 day trip across the galaxy even considers hopping on the ship of some guy that doesn't even have much of a reputation? Sounds risky to me.

And how often do you get in a taxi in New York and tell him to drive you to some place in Chile? I don't see my ship as a taxi, I'm a lorry driver that is friendly enough to pick people up along my way.

Perhaps add a section for hitchhikers, or a chance menu like that OXP that lets you take a passenger to planet surface.

Though I agree that to make this good you may need a rather invasive change in the menu system.

Cmd. Cheyd · Post by **Cmd. Cheyd** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 4:44 pm

Keep in mind, what we've seen of the Ooniverse (based on the OXP's everyone has written) - There are very few commercial mass-transit providers. I can only think of 1 - The Famous Planet cruiseliners. So, in that ooniverse, individuals who seek passage to another system must rely not on "American Airlines" and "Carnival Cruises"; but instead are reliant on booking passage on a cargo vessel. With that mindset in place, the person is very likely to wait until they find a ship going to their exact location, not just one that will take them "close".

Post by **Disembodied** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 4:56 pm

There's also no way of defining "close". If you're not going to take passengers to their destination, what's the guarantee you won't shanghai them dozens of light years in the wrong direction and dump them in some gilesforsaken backwater system in the wrong end of nowhere?

Post by **Cmdr James** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 4:57 pm

Fair point. Its rather more than just a spare seat on a truck though, you put in 5t of living space for the guy, and charge him a bundle of money for the ride. Im not so sure its like NY to Chile either, as all passengers do travel within normal trade routes, so it isnt a completely insane journey.

TO continue the travel analogies, if you were in NY and wanted to get to Chile, would you take the first ship to south america, or someplace like Miami thats kind of on the way (and pay) or would you wait for a direct offer? It would depend on how much transport goes that way, and how much better your chances are from the new destination. If you thought you had a reasonable chance, then you would wait for a direct offer.

I guess the easiest way to implement it would be to have one guy who offers several contracts, 1 to his final destination, and one or two possible waypoints, perhaps with an option to extend when you get there.

EDIT: I took way to long to write this, its a response to Trezker, not the intermediate messages

Post by **Kaks** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 5:16 pm

An opportunity to write a hitchhiker: will pay OXP maybe? You could have small travel lodge habitats close to some of the main stations, maybe only appearing in system where people can actually afford the extra time between being picked up... Then again, it's starting to sound a bit like this. You might want to join forces with pleb87!

Zbond-Zbond · Post by **Zbond-Zbond** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 10:32 pm

Diziet Sma wrote:
sun-skimming..

oh, yes I forgot about that, and other options e.g. FreeTradeZone, R.Hermit, Behemoth esp. if a mis-jump occurs. But anyway, regarding passengers, I don't know whether carrying them contributes to the "successfully completed" contract total

I think that it doesn't, and that if you fail to deliver disgruntled passenger it doesn't have any effect either, unlike botched cargo contracts which blight one's reputation. I actually did one very marginal (time-wise) contract repeatedly (i.e. by varying route & not saving anywhere), just to see if it was actually possible! It was. But I've often wondered about the passengers; perhaps this is a suitable place to enquire?

Diziet Sma · Post by **Diziet Sma** » Tue Sep 29, 2009 3:56 am

If I recall correctly from a time I went trawling through lots of old threads, I'm pretty sure it does contribute to rep.. don't recall if passenger rep is maintained separately from cargo rep though...

Commander McLane · Post by **Commander McLane** » Tue Sep 29, 2009 5:26 am

Zbond-Zbond wrote:
But anyway, regarding passengers, I don't know whether carrying them contributes to the "successfully completed" contract total

No, it contributes to the "successfully completed" passenger total.

Just open your save-game (here is mine):

Code: Select all

	<key>reputation</key>
	<dict>
		<key>contracts_expired</key>
		<integer>0</integer>
		<key>contracts_fulfilled</key>
		<integer>6</integer>
		<key>contracts_unknown</key>
		<integer>1</integer>
		<key>passage_expired</key>
		<integer>0</integer>
		<key>passage_fulfilled</key>
		<integer>0</integer>
		<key>passage_unknown</key>
		<integer>7</integer>
	</dict>

(And as you can easily conclude, I don't bother with passengers. Oh, and I should pick up a contract in the not-too-distant future.)

Post by **another_commander** » Tue Sep 29, 2009 5:53 am

Commander McLane wrote:
And as you can easily conclude, I don't bother with passengers.

Maybe you should reconsider the passengers deal. Oolite 1.73.x uses a different algorithm for the passenger market fees, which awards highly the longer runs.

pmw57 · Post by **pmw57** » Tue Sep 29, 2009 5:58 am

another_commander wrote:
Maybe you should reconsider the passengers deal. Oolite 1.73.x uses a different algorithm for the passenger market fees, which awards highly the longer runs.

And you can slipstream both passenger and cargo runs, picking up one that goes close to another. Make your trips provide value for more than one aspect.

Double your leisure, double the fun.