Oolite Bulletins

A simple oxp to grant a boost to player speed (an extra 50%) when weapons are off-line (underscore key).

Why?

Slow ships are not very playable in Oolite - masslocks take longer and combats are harder to escape.
Speed can remedy this but only when the player ship is faster than those it is up against: slow ships are necessary for this to work and the same ships are therefore more problematic to play.

This is a player only concession but it is only the player who gets bored. Pursuers do not tire eaily in this game and lengthy pursuits of near defeated non player foes could also be tedious. Granting the option to non player ships therefore is not necessarily desirable.


Guarding Against Exploits

When you are faster then your opponent(s) then not only is escape much easier but so is controlling the range of the combat - which is a significant factor in determining victory. Granting the speed boost only with weapons offline makes it difficult to use aggressively.

When in a faster ship such as the Cobra Mk III, this boost is sufficient to (just) escape from Viper Interceptors (the elite police fighters) making things a bit too easy for the fugitive player especially but also players in general. Consequently the bonus does not apply to injector speed, so any faster ship with injectors will still catch up with you.


Isn't this what Masslock Compensators OXP does?

A few major diferences: MLC grants it's bonus only in yellow alert (and is therefore useless in combat); it also grants a higher bonus (*2) making it more effective against masslocks; it requires no toggling of any keys or settings nor does it disable any weapons. This oxp is more strategic: do you want speed or weapons?

There may be some slowing if you toggle in yellow alert and are using both oxps but I'll look to fix that for later versions.


A couple of examples:

Adder

• Default max speed = 0.24
• Offline max speed = 0.36 (0.24 * 1.5)
• Max injector speed = 1.68 (0.24 * 7)

Cobra Mk III

• Default max speed = 0.35
• Offline max speed = 0.525 (0.35 * 1.5)
• Max injector speed = 2.45 (0.35 * 7)

Note that the Adder with weapons offline can now escape just as well (fractionally better in fact) than a Cobra Mk III with weapons online. The Mk III meanwhile could escape from anything without injectors. When using injectors however, the Mk III (just like any other ship) is no faster than before.

v 1.0 available from the in-game manager.

Looks interesting I will have to give this a go

v 1.1 available.

Bug fix to ensure recognition of correct weapons status (online/offline).

I think this oxp could be my excuse to return the mk III and the Moray to their original elite speeds of 0.3 and 0.25 respectively.

Moray:
Reduced speed 0.25
Oolite speed 0.3
Offline speed 0.375 (reduced speed * 1.5)

Cobra Mk III:
Reduced speed 0.3
Oolite speed 0.35
Offline speed 0.4 (reduced speed * 1.5)


With weapons offline both would do better than they currently do vs mass locks and pursuers (the two main gameplay issues making play more enjoyable with a faster ship). The mk III would again be unable to escape Viper Interceptors.

Meanwhile with weapons online they'd be a bit more withiin the range of expected performance for their size and type - the mk III still one of the best ships but not quite as super as before.

v 1.2 available.

• Cobra Mk III and Moray speeds reduced, reasoning that they no longer need the boost to be playable (if you don't like it you can remove the shipdata-overrides.plist file in the config folder)
• Elements added for future compatibility with Masslock Compensator oxp (once that oxp is accordingly adjusted)

• v 1.3 does things a little differently
  • speed boost according to number of weapon facings taken offline (mounted or otherwise)
  • 1 facing = + 0.025LM; 2 = + 0.04; 3 = + 0.055; 4 = 0.07
  • speed restrictions on moray and cobra 3 removed - other oxps can (and in at least one case does) do that

So it's had a bit of a nerf (depending upon which ship the player was using) but there are other speed boost oxps out there if one needs more.

• v 1.4... very minor update as I forgot a couple of additions
  • console message reminds player what's going on: "Power redirected to engines"
  • removed restriction on boost affecting injector speed

That last point counterbalances the speed nerf from the previous update.

The bonus is therefore more likely to be significant for the very slow ships (where it's needed) than it is for very fast ones (where it isn't).
Also having one multiplier at play (injectors) rather than two (injectors and PtE) is much easier to control gameplay-wise.