Oolite as exploration game

[hiran]

'The Collector' doesn't sound broken, it just is only the start of what it claims to be.

Yes, that is what it seems to be.

[Redspear]

I see that Norby changed it back in 2017.

Why not just edit it out again?

I think because not many are using it for exploration ('just give me the lasers dammit!'), although as usual I could be wrong.

Not everyone reads each installed oxp's wiki page but maybe some kind of spoiler warning might be an idea.

It's worth noting that part of the problem is "just another SLAPU" in "just another Communist system". Nothing particularly special about either.

It depends on what you mean by the problem I think.

The oasis is made significant by the much larger desert that surrounds it. If everything is different then nothing is special. So yes, more to do at almost any dockable station wouldn't go amiss but we need large swathes of 'average' for anything to be 'special. Average needn't mean dull however.

They're only the same problem in tha sense that they overlap but then so does masslock, so does maintenance, so does sunskimming (make the stars different perhaps a la  star fuel), etc. etc.

IMHO the galaxy maps aren't really suited to exploration as (almost) every system is accessible by conventional means.

Places that are hard to get to AND special/exceptional sounds like a fair recipe for exploration.

 Hyperdrives had a go at this but again, the maps make things tricky.

Imagine, if (for simplicity's sake)...
Buy your fuel at the station: max top up = 5LY
Scoop your fuel from a typical star: max top up = 6LY
Scoop your fuel from an unusually large star: max top up = 7LY

Suddenly fuel scooping is back on the menu and you will have to plan in order to reach some systems (invest in scoops, find suitable entry system).

[Switeck]

It's worth noting that part of the problem is "just another SLAPU" in "just another Communist system". Nothing particularly special about either.

It depends on what you mean by the problem I think.

I stated that "just another..." is part of the problem...meaning only part of the problem of limited exploration in Oolite.

The oasis is made significant by the much larger desert that surrounds it. If everything is different then nothing is special. So yes, more to do at almost any dockable station wouldn't go amiss but we need large swathes of 'average' for anything to be 'special. Average needn't mean dull however.

Taking the concept of an oasis more literally in Oolite...what "desert" regions are there?
An example would be uninhabited systems with no stations...forcing you to fuel-scoop off the nearest stars (or gas giants, if you have the right OXPs/OXZs for that) to be able to reach the next system.
Interstellar space might qualify as a desert...but the player is almost never forced to go there even if only for the purpose of reaching somewhere else.

A lesser desert might be having to cross through many anarchy systems in a row (made even more fun if requiring 6-6.8 LY jumps to do so) on the route to deliver a contract for a person or items.
An even weaker desert concept than that in the vanilla form of the game...mid-tier economy types such as mostly agricultural or mostly industrial systems have little potential trading value. No goods seem to be more common there to make up for the lower profitability per item relative to rich industrial to/from poor agricultural systems.
OXZs attempt to address that...

I am painfully aware of rarity and scarcity in game balance.
Various OXPs and OXZs have some elements I deemed too common but almost never have elements I find too rare.

While I've added a lot of station OXPs/OXZs to my game setup, I try to spread them thinly to avoid making extra stations too common. Many are far from the main station, some are found only in 1 or a handful of systems, others are of limited utility even if near the main station, many won't even be in the same Galaxy Chart you're currently in.

IMHO the galaxy maps aren't really suited to exploration as (almost) every system is accessible by conventional means.

Places that are hard to get to AND special/exceptional sounds like a fair recipe for exploration.

And as for the few, rare unreachable systems...

I discovered a route to Oresrati in Galaxy Chart 8, discovered other ways to cross the Great Rift in Galaxy Chart 7, found shortcuts across a couple voids in Galaxy Chart 6 (although not a way to the 4 unreachable systems from other parts of the map), and even discovered a route to reach Ditere in Galaxy Chart 3.

Most of those discoveries are unsuitable for a simple OXP or OXZ mission to get there, because they end up rather contrived -- such as Link7 or 1WayTicket2Oresrati equipment...and rather unrewarding, hearkening back to the problem of homogeneity -- there's nothing special about the unreachable systems in the vanilla game to make them worth visiting. Only "because it's there."

[Cody]

... discovered other ways to cross the Great Rift in Galaxy Chart 7...

Those "other ways" require extra fuel for multiple misjumps, I presume?

[Cholmondely]

Imagine, if (for simplicity's sake)...
Buy your fuel at the station: max top up = 5LY
Scoop your fuel from a typical star: max top up = 6LY
Scoop your fuel from an unusually large star: max top up = 7LY

Suddenly fuel scooping is back on the menu and you will have to plan in order to reach some systems (invest in scoops, find suitable entry system).

I really like this one. The only issue is the lack of proximity of 6ly bottlenecks to unusually large stars. I wonder how many jumps are affected by this?

The other possibility would be buying a special piece of refining equipment which would allow the extra 7th LY from scooping. Combined with Strangers World (stars can be 30 minute drive from the main orbital station), this makes it much more of an adventure - although the ability to scoop the solar wind flux would need consideration (you can do it with some of the orange and (all?) red stars on the F6 screen - for other stars you have to fly much closer to the star)! Fuel tanks of course would not help, as they only help topping up depleted fuel tanks (unless something goes squiffy with the coding). And of course with Strangers World, all movement needs fuel.

But I do think that the real adventuring solution lies in an attack of Thargoids/pirates at a particular galaxy which wipes out the galactic mapping network.

[Switeck]

... discovered other ways to cross the Great Rift in Galaxy Chart 7...

Those "other ways" require extra fuel for multiple misjumps, I presume?

I mean routes from other locations then the usual routes.

ALL my methods involve misjumps followed by a final regular jump. They're effectively impossible to do without OXP/OXZ equipment to refuel between jumps. But some of them are easier/shorter/quicker to do than the original Oresrati route I found.

It's very hard to find an NPC ship jumping in the right direction in interstellar space (and ride their wormhole) for each misjump part...so while some are theoretically possible with plain-vanilla Oolite, they are nearly impossible in practice.

I have thought about special OXP missions using multiple ships piggy-backing on each others' wormholes to do some of these routes. (Coyote's Run OXP/OXZ already does this somewhere...) A monthly-to-yearly resupply mission to Oresrati for instance by big freighters, all equipped with Galactic Hyperdrives -- probably sponsored and/or even escorted by the Galactic Navy. This would be repeatable and interesting enough due to all the Thargoids you'll have to fight even using vanilla Oolite Thargoid spawning rates.

[Cody]

A monthly-to-yearly resupply mission to Oresrati for instance by big freighters...

A huge convoy of Anacondas, escorted by the Navy, piggy-backing through multiple misjumps? That'd be a sight worth seeing!

[Switeck]

If you've ever tried to script and/or choreograph such things, chances are a "huge" convoy is about 10 ships total, Anacondas plus Navy ships.

Everyone trying to dog-pile the same wormhole is going to be tricky at the least...so there may need to be a different wormhole for every group of 10 ships.

This puts heavy limits on how far into the void a convoy can misjump...at the 11th misjump there may not be any ships with fuel remaining and they have to resort to special means (refueling, wormhole-making missiles/bombs, etc) to go further.

Navy Asps and other jumping escorts may also return to regular systems once the Anacondas are within jump distance of the destination system...so they can be available elsewhere. Not a good idea to get them or worse something with no jump ability stuck at Oresrati! Galactic Hyperdrives are not cheap to use on a ship with no cargo space.

The motto of "Leave no one behind" is also going to require a LONG wait if Navy Asps chased Thargoids (or vice-versa) well away from the rest of the convoy and need to rejoin.

There's also precious little in term of "landmarks" in interstellar space to find your way back to the convoy if you're the one that gets separated!
The OXPs/OXZs to help find your way around interstellar space are also tricky to use...and generally only helpful if <50km from the [0,0,0] coordinate.

...You may end up exploring the void a little more than you like.

[Cody]

There's also precious little in term of "landmarks" in interstellar space to find your way back...

Tell me about it - been there, done that, used the t-shirt as an oily rag!

[Switeck]

I'm experimenting with a script to sometimes randomly spawn 1-5 asteroids or a boulder or 2...in interstellar space, often not even in 25km target range...they make ok "landmarks" but you also risk getting mass-locked by one or running into it if the script isn't set to spawn further than 10km from [0,0,0].

[Cody]

I'd have thought the Navy escort would be prepared for that, and deploy marker buoys.
I got lost in interstellar space with McLane's Wormhole Restoration OXP.

[Redspear]

]Taking the concept of an oasis more literally in Oolite...what "desert" regions are there?
An example would be uninhabited systems with no stations...forcing you to fuel-scoop off the nearest stars (or gas giants, if you have the right OXPs/OXZs for that) to be able to reach the next system.
Interstellar space might qualify as a desert...but the player is almost never forced to go there even if only for the purpose of reaching somewhere else.

A lesser desert might be having to cross through many anarchy systems in a row (made even more fun if requiring 6-6.8 LY jumps to do so) on the route to deliver a contract for a person or items.
An even weaker desert concept than that in the vanilla form of the game...mid-tier economy types such as mostly agricultural or mostly industrial systems have little potential trading value. No goods seem to be more common there to make up for the lower profitability per item relative to rich industrial to/from poor agricultural systems.
OXZs attempt to address that...

Simplest of the lot is that most systems appear to be oxp free!

The 'desert' (conceptually at least) is almost uniformly bare, so rather than desert 'regions' I'm suggesting that the desert be the norm. If that were the case then the typical system would be as I described above, with a main station, star, planet and a witch point.

Then discovering an extra station could be doubly exciting because

• whatever is is would be rare
• extra stations generally would be rare

The more oddities we add, the rarer we could have them be. "I visited a planet with rings" is more memorable when you didn't also visit anotyher three within your last ten jumps. You know that of course but my essential argument here is not only that the more things we add the rarer they should be but further that the typical system should appear unremarkable in order to make exploration more exciting.
"this planet is a dull place" (assuming 'eccentric love of tourists' and the like might not be visible from space).

While I've added a lot of station OXPs/OXZs to my game setup, I try to spread them thinly to avoid making extra stations too common. Many are far from the main station, some are found only in 1 or a handful of systems, others are of limited utility even if near the main station, many won't even be in the same Galaxy Chart you're currently in.

Putting for example, commies in galaxy 2 only and dictators in galaxy 3 only is a simple example that I've used to give each galaxy a bit orf distinctive flavour without rocking the proverbial boat too much. Then SLAPUs and their ilk may not exactly be special but you had to work to see - them rather than simply make a couple of jumps from Lave.

Most of those discoveries are unsuitable for a simple OXP or OXZ mission to get there, because they end up rather contrived -- such as Link7 or 1WayTicket2Oresrati equipment...and rather unrewarding, hearkening back to the problem of homogeneity -- there's nothing special about the unreachable systems in the vanilla game to make them worth visiting. Only "because it's there."

Agreed.

[Redspear]

Imagine, if (for simplicity's sake)...
Buy your fuel at the station: max top up = 5LY
Scoop your fuel from a typical star: max top up = 6LY
Scoop your fuel from an unusually large star: max top up = 7LY

Suddenly fuel scooping is back on the menu and you will have to plan in order to reach some systems (invest in scoops, find suitable entry system).

I really like this one. The only issue is the lack of proximity of 6ly bottlenecks to unusually large stars. I wonder how many jumps are affected by this?

I'd try to keep it relatively simple and self-contained myself. If it's a good idea then others can build upon it later but it would be easy to adjust the scooping requirements.

For example, maybe buying fuel from the station resets the limit to 5LY but scooping fuel from a star never lowers the limit.
Then, if the player scoops from the appropriate star type, then as long as they only refuel via sun-skimming then they could conceivably make any 7LY jump.
Making a 6LY + jump could reset the limit to 5LY, you know, just for fun

[Switeck]

Simplest of the lot is that most systems appear to be oxp free!

OXP free or OXP station free? ...because there's a lot of behind-the-scenes OXPs that add and change ship behavior.

The 'desert' (conceptually at least) is almost uniformly bare, so rather than desert 'regions' I'm suggesting that the desert be the norm. If that were the case then the typical system would be as I described above, with a main station, star, planet and a witch point.

Then discovering an extra station could be doubly exciting because

• whatever is is would be rare
• extra stations generally would be rare

I was using "desert" in terms of survival/usefulness.
As I've already stated, the mid-range economy types are far more desert-like to me than Rich Industrial/Poor Agriculture systems regardless of the presence of an OXP station or 2 (which mostly have the same prices as the main station) simply because I make very little credits trading goods there.
If I have to fight a clump of pirates that force me to use an advanced missile or 2 to survive...or get equipment damaged, I could be looking at a net loss of 1000+ credits just for going there.

Low tech poor agriculture systems tend to lack extra stations. Even the lone rock hermit the game auto-spawns there is likely to be a pirate's cove...since lower government types (such as anarchy) which make rock hermits more likely to be pirate's coves go hand-in-hand with being a poor agri.
But it's not a desert...because buying/selling goods is so profitable there.

The only OXP station I tend to add to these systems...is a Rock Hermit replacement station for the main station in the lowest TL's and gov types, making the system less profitable instead of more. Such a low-end station lacks a shipyard, not that it would have much to sell even if one were allowed. The very few low-end equipment for sale are at higher-than-standard prices, as is fuel. The amount of goods for sale and capacity are lower.
There are few systems that meet the dual criteria of both low TL and low gov. type.
It makes the system it is in more like a desert.

Putting for example, commies in galaxy 2 only and dictators in galaxy 3 only is a simple example that I've used to give each galaxy a bit orf distinctive flavour without rocking the proverbial boat too much. Then SLAPUs and their ilk may not exactly be special but you had to work to see - them rather than simply make a couple of jumps from Lave.

I understand what you mean by oddities and rarity, but even a particular government type in many Galaxy Charts is only 1 out of 8 systems in general.
There is only a single communist system within 3 jumps of Lave, so that's uncommon just by itself.
Only the higher TL communist systems have a SLAPU station, and communist systems tend towards middle TL...so most of them are too low to have one.
Even if there is one, it's not close to the main station, planet, or witchpoint beacon.
To me, that's enough to make SLAPUs rare and often inconvenient to go to.
I can't recall any mission to ever go to one or leave from one...nor have I visited one even in testing probably in over a year.

[Redspear]

Simplest of the lot is that most systems appear to be oxp free!

OXP free or OXP station free? ...because there's a lot of behind-the-scenes OXPs that add and change ship behavior.

Key word in that regard was appear, therefore behind the scenes oxps of the more subtle variety (e.g. traffic redistributer) or of mechanical preference (e.g any of the various market oxps) or of graphical preference (e.g. shipset of choice, planet textures of choice) could appear
to be entirely unremarkable due to their non-specificity to any particular system or system-type.

Commies and OXP stations generally were only to serve as an example (having been the one to menton them initially I believe). My point isn't about them specifically any more than it is about icesteroids or star jellies or liners. Cross purposes perhaps...

The 'desert' (conceptually at least) is almost uniformly bare, so rather than desert 'regions' I'm suggesting that the desert be the norm. If that were the case then the typical system would be as I described above, with a main station, star, planet and a witch point.

Then discovering an extra station could be doubly exciting because

• whatever is is would be rare
• extra stations generally would be rare

I was using "desert" in terms of survival/usefulness.
As I've already stated...

Apologies for cutting you short but I don't think it was unreasonable of me to clarify the use of my own analogy before you deviated to adopt it for your own purposes (which of course you're entirely entitled to do).

Again, cross purposes I think.

Putting for example, commies in galaxy 2 only and dictators in galaxy 3 only is a simple example that I've used to give each galaxy a bit orf distinctive flavour without rocking the proverbial boat too much. Then SLAPUs and their ilk may not exactly be special but you had to work to see - them rather than simply make a couple of jumps from Lave.

I understand what you mean by oddities and rarity, but even a particular government type in many Galaxy Charts is only 1 out of 8 systems in general.
There is only a single communist system within 3 jumps of Lave, so that's uncommon just by itself.
Only the higher TL communist systems have a SLAPU station, and communist systems tend towards middle TL...so most of them are too low to have one.
Even if there is one, it's not close to the main station, planet, or witchpoint beacon.
To me, that's enough to make SLAPUs rare and often inconvenient to go to.
I can't recall any mission to ever go to one or leave from one...nor have I visited one even in testing probably in over a year.

Doing it as I described above isn't to make SLAPUs rarer (along with the other trapings of the oxp such as the distinctive traffic, police, asteroid mines, factories etc.), rather it's to make galaxies more distinctive and therefore visiting them more memorable.

It's not the only way or the best way but merely an example of such.