Oolite Bulletins

Astrobe wrote: ↑Fri Sep 22, 2017 12:31 pm

Small ships burn less fuel when using injectors:
- Adder: -40%
- Moray: -24%
- Cobra MK1: -10%
- Fer De Lance: -10%

Those ships have a small cargo bay so they are better used for contracts or bounty hunting than for trading or mining. An improved burning rate means that the player can be more confident when jumping to an unsafe system, because injectors are the main mean to escape dangerous situations (for instance turning a 1vs5 versus a 1vs2 by hitting the injectors and dealing with the enemies that could follow). It also allows to escape masslocks by injecting more often, or to take over other ships near stations and dock earlier, hence saving a few minutes here and there which can make a difference for long contracts. It's also useful together with my other OXP that modifies the behavior of missiles because one needs to hit injectors more often in order to avoid missiles.

The Moray Medical Boat can be fitted with a cargo bay extension, which is almost like changing the category of the ship. In my eyes, cargo bay extensions are an abomination, they should not exist. Variants with a bit more cargo space in exchange for something else are OK, but finding 20TC out of the blue is pure fantasy. The Moray Medical isn't the worst offender in this regard as it doesn't have 4 laser mounts like the standard Moray. Still, I'll probably come back later to deal with those magic cargo bay extensions and remove the fuel burning rate advantage for the Moray Medical.

Also sets the player Cobra Mk3 max speed to 300 (like NPCs). I'm not sure why the player Cobra has 350. Is it for masslocks, is it to give the player an advantage for the early game? Anyway, the speed difference is hard to justify and the original problem can certainly be solved more elegantly (masslocks -> variable masslocks for instance, early game -> less visible advantages like better shield regen rate or less laser heating...).

Bogatyr wrote: ↑Fri Sep 22, 2017 2:28 pm

Cutting the speed of the player's main ship by 14% seems to me to be a massive game balance change, not just in the early game (where before you get injectors and an ECM, you're pretty much already dead in almost any dogfight except against the most anemic of adversaries) -- no thanks...

Astrobe wrote:

Also sets the player Cobra Mk3 max speed to 300 (like NPCs).

 Fair Cobra III

phkb wrote: ↑Sat Sep 23, 2017 1:06 am

Astrobe wrote:

Also sets the player Cobra Mk3 max speed to 300 (like NPCs).

cim released  Fair Cobra III which kind of does the opposite of bringing NPC's into line with the player ship.

gsagostinho wrote: ↑Sat Sep 23, 2017 1:21 pm

I like the injectors idea very much. I would also add the Sidewinder, Krait and Gecko to that list, perhaps the Mamba as well. Take a look at the full list of default ships and check if you want to include anything else.

Astrobe wrote:

Thanks! I didn't include these ships because they are (normally) not usable by players.

Astrobe wrote: ↑Fri Sep 22, 2017 4:33 pm

I'm play-testing it in an Adder which is one of the weakest ships in the game and yet I survived a few encounters with Ferdies, Asps, etc. so I inferred from this that it wouldn't dramatically affect the combat balance.

gsagostinho wrote: ↑Sat Sep 23, 2017 3:43 pm

Astrobe wrote:

Thanks! I didn't include these ships because they are (normally) not usable by players.

Yeah, that makes sense but on the other hand there is that very handy OXP that make those ships available to the player, and if it's only a few more lines to include them then why not