Oolite Bulletins

I somehow got myself into some hot water and now everyone wants me dead. Are there options for clearing offender status other than tracking down the amnesty planet?

arquebus wrote: ↑Mon Feb 20, 2023 12:39 am

I somehow got myself into some hot water and now everyone wants me dead. Are there options for clearing offender status other than tracking down the amnesty planet?

Ah! You finally noticed!

Your legal status is listed on the F5 screen (bottom of the top list - on the film you whizzed past this several times without noticing - see film 3.03 at 25:17!) - or on the Useful MFDs first MFD.

From the OoliteRS.pdf (lurking in your original game download):



Just pay the bounty on your head. How to do this will depend on which OXP's you have loaded. You do it while docked at the station through the F4 screen. Note that the fine you pay is a large multiple of the bounty. Depending on your OXP cocktail it may degrade over time and distance from the system of the offence. It may also be ameliorated by your performance of the "services" listed above.


Life in the Frontier
So, eg, if you have Life in the Frontier loaded (not the "Revival" version) you can disembark, make your way up to the GalCop precinct, and pay at one of the terminals there.



Bounty system
If you have Bounty System oxp loaded, the option only appears at one of two places: the main stations of the system where the fine was committed, or at the GalCop HQ (ie Lave for Galaxy 1). This oxp also allows for an appeal against the bounty at certain stations (see wiki page). You must make your way to a GalCop Security Office/Kiosk inside a station you are docked at (F4 screen).

Anarchies
If you have Anarchies oxp installed, you can either
a) take advantage of an amnesty offer fighting against the Thargoids at a distant system (if you have Galactic Navy installed, this can prove to be rather rewarding financially! Behemoth also helps)
or
b) track down a hacker outpost in an anarchy (see the wiki page for tips on how to find one!) and buy a multipass which wipes your criminal record from the GalCop computers!
or
c) there is supposed to be some way of bribing a corrupt GalCop official to alter your record (presumably in an anarchy and presumably while docked...)




There may be other oxp's which also allow you to repay. Don't yet know about them, sorry!

Reference: Bounty

Vanilla game (don't know about OXPs): your bounty will halve with every hyperspace jump, so a series of short jumps should clear it. Alternatively: shoot-up the station, dock without clearance, and get sent for "attitude adjustment" (this will take days on your ship's clock) - et voilà!

With the mods you have I think being sent for attitude adjustment no longer clears your record, so your best bet may be just to trade your way over to Lave and clear your record there. The GalCop station is full of Cops who will enforce GalCop's laws, but this is not true of many of the other stations in each system. Staying out of the way of GalCop and trading with the independents will also keep you clear of legal troubles. As there are no cops at many of the OXZ stations you can pick up and trade illegal goods at some of them, without picking up an offender tag (but you will get an offender tag if you take illegal goods to a station aligned to GalCop or the Main GalCop Station). As you at not doing any fighting at the moment you could also sell your laser to give you the cash to fill your cargo bay with the higher-priced items like computers, luxuries and furs.

I'd sell your laser and get your advanced space compass fixed. When in flight pressing # will cycle through all the stations with beacons which will let you find some cop-free stations. You can also get information on stations with the Galactic Almanac MFD (but its 350 Credits). Until you clear your Offender status, police, military ships and bounty hunters will take pot shots at you as you travel around, so you probably need to lie low a bit, avoiding GalCop until you can clear your record at Lave.

In the unexpanded game illegal actions don't have many consequences as you can clear your wanted stars just making jumps and not committing any more offences. The OXZs give a bit more depth as you can play the game as a criminal only trading with and saving at independent stations. Hacker Outposts transmit beacons so you can find them in some of the more dangerous systems. Shooting down pirates will also quickly clear your legal status and the cargo pods you scoop from their destroyed ships is 100% profit. GalCop pays you a bounty and a fraction of the bounty paid is deducted from your own bounty until you get back to 0 (Clean). But you'd probably need a Beam Laser and an ECM for that! Getting a Scanner Targeting Enhancement will also allow you to target ships, stations and planets with a target box.

Oh boy thanks for all the help! I'll see what I'm running to figure out my best option. Glad I don't have to go hunting down a system I've never been to.

arquebus wrote: ↑Tue Feb 21, 2023 4:05 pm

Oh boy thanks for all the help! I'll see what I'm running to figure out my best option. Glad I don't have to go hunting down a system I've never been to.

The Lave option is probably the easiest - unless you can work out where you got nobbled as an offender (But do you have Bounty System installed? You can tell by the presence of a GalCop security kiosk/office under "Station Interfaces" on your F4 screen).

In terms of your YouTube films, the LitF is reasonably different/interesting - and the Hacker's Outpost is brilliant - but difficult (finding a Hacker's henchman is difficult, getting him to divulge the information more so, but the rest is quite fascinating - a good yarn).

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Tue Feb 21, 2023 8:28 pm

In terms of your YouTube films, the LitF is reasonably different/interesting - and the Hacker's Outpost is brilliant - but difficult (finding a Hacker's henchman is difficult, getting him to divulge the information more so, but the rest is quite fascinating - a good yarn).

Once I get a bit sturdier, I'll have to get myself into trouble so I can try those methods!

Three things

One) This:



It appears on the top right of your viewscreen when you enter the main station aegis. The News broadcasts are accessed through the docked F4 ship-station interfaces under the News subheading.

You have LittleBear's Galactic Almanac loaded. LittleBear included a drama which plays out through the news broadcasts. You might care to read through this (https://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/User:Captain_Hesperus) which will increase your enjoyment of it!


Two) I don't know how you managed it, but you've gone from legal to illegal to legal and then back again to illegal between film #3 & film #5!
If you have smugglers.oxp loaded, that might be the reason - landing at a station with nomral goods that they have just declared to be illegal.

Useful MFDs (under HUDs in the Expansions Manager) adds two potentially useful MFDs. The first gives up-to-date status (including legality), the second gives the contents of your cargo hold - and current prices at the main orbital station.

If you had the first showing, you should be able to pinpoint what your criminal activities are!




Three) Other trading opportunities

With Telescope you can see in the MFD where other trading stations (eg Rock Hermits) are. They can be well worth visiting.

Rock Hermits (several in each system - in the 3 space lanes between the Witchpoint beacon, the main planet and the sun)
Buy limited quantities of food and drink at a profit. Sell minerals, radioactives, gold, platinum & gems at a very low price
Very expensive shipyard (3x regular prices)

Astromines (Commie systems)
Similar to Rock Hermits

SLAPU (high TL Commies system, near the sun)
Buy food and drink at a slight profit, sell some machinery and computers at a very low price
Cheaper shipyard than the main station

CZGF (medium TL Commie, near the sun)
Buy food and drink at a slight profit, sell some machinery and alloys at a very low price
Cheaper shipyard than the main station

Imperial Astrofactory (Dictatorships, in the Witchpoint beacon<>main planet spacelane)
Buy furs at a good profit, sell some computers at a very low price
Cheaper shipyard than the main station

Cody wrote: ↑Mon Feb 20, 2023 10:58 am

Vanilla game (don't know about OXPs): your bounty will halve with every hyperspace jump, so a series of short jumps should clear it. Alternatively: shoot-up the station, dock without clearance, and get sent for "attitude adjustment" (this will take days on your ship's clock) - et voilà!

Worth noting your bounty won't be halved if the hyperspace jumps are misjumps that end up in interstellar space.

Also the distance for the hyperspace jumps doesn't matter in the vanilla (no add-on) game to lower your bounty...so use 2 very close systems if you have them nearby.

Switeck wrote: ↑Sun Feb 26, 2023 11:55 pm

Worth noting your bounty won't be halved if the hyperspace jumps are misjumps that end up in interstellar space.

O Wizard of the Wonders of Witchspace!

The return jump back out of witchspace, back into a solar system - does that halve the bounty?

Just watched your latest video. You got back to Clean (as you didn't commit any visa violations and the Offender tag will fade over time if you don't commit any more offences) but then went back to Offender by docking without a visa. If you are playing with Diplomacy installed you do have to buy visas (or dock at an OXZ station) otherwise you will permanently be an offender and loose most of your profits in fines if you dock at the main station. Similarly, if you are trading in illegal goods you will get caught if you do it at the Main Station. Diplomacy does make the game more difficult, as whilst you can chose to ignore GalCops laws and dock at the main station, its not economically viable to do it. Diplomacy does therefore require you to adapt where you go and who you trade with based on whether you obey the laws or not.

The police are based at the main station, so you get busted every time you dock there. The cops blew you up when you launched with narcotics as you committed the crime under their noses! The Main Station is basically a police station patrolled by cop cars, so not the place to do drug deals. You can do illegal things in the game and you only get an Offender tag if the police or a GalCop station spots you doing it. There's plenty of Clean pirates and drug smugglers, but they avoid the cops and commit crimes where the police are not around. If you don't buy a visa you need to avoid the main station and trade elsewhere. It opens up the game more but if you are playing lawful good and always buy your visas and never touch illegal goods then the GalCop station is the place to go.

If you are playing as a criminal breaking GalCop's laws on every docking (which you are), you do have to stay away from the main station to avoid the offender tag each time you break the visa laws. Having no money in your account avoids the fine, but you still get a bounty added and remain an offender. If you are an offender any ship can legally attack you and the police will take your attacker's side. If you fight back by firing on the Clean ship attacking you, this is another offence which increases you bounty. You can't really play as an offender and go near the main station.

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Mon Feb 27, 2023 1:26 am

Switeck wrote: ↑Sun Feb 26, 2023 11:55 pm

Worth noting your bounty won't be halved if the hyperspace jumps are misjumps that end up in interstellar space.

The return jump back out of witchspace, back into a solar system - does that halve the bounty?

Yes, it is the arrival into a "regular" system that reduces the bounty...at least as far as I know.
The actual programming is still pretty opaque to me.

There are a few OXPs/OXZs that change bounty-handling behavior...so unless you're running almost a pure vanilla game, your mileage may vary.

Using your Escape pod will clear your status (OXPs notwithstanding).

So, an odd thing happened to me the other day.

I'm playing with the BountySystem.oxz and Smugglers_2.1.1.oxz installed. Because I found it impossible to resist seeing what would happen, I did a bad, bad thing in G1. Instant fugitive status.

So, I bounce to G2. Obviously this does nothing to change my status as a fugitive. I learn that if I can slip into stations before my ship is scanned I'm able to manage a living for a bit, eventually winding up on the wrong end of a scanner and needing to factor a given system as unwelcoming.

It keeps things interesting, and I figured I would play this way for as long as it took to reach the point at which I could come clean and pay up. Turned out I had a 10K bounty on my head with close to a million in fees. Okay, this may take a bit longer than I had planned for, but I'm going to see if I can manage to climb out of this hole without getting myself killed.

Fast forward a couple months. I'm running passengers and parcels, which demands I visit stations. Being on the run has resulted in a hunted tunnel vision, and I forget to "disappear" some mundane cargo that this system finds offensive. Panicked, I bribe an official 1000 credits to look the other way; resulting in me keeping my cargo, which was then sold at some less than optimal market rate.

Ever since then my intergalactic crime appears to be expunged from Galcop's system. I have not yet returned to G1 and the scene of the crime, but for the moment everything seems to be above board, and I can even fly next to Galcop ships and suffer no misfortune when they repeatedly put me under scrutiny.

Is this a glitch? Is it going to snap back when the official whom I bribed is caught with their pants down in the future? I feel like I dodged a bullet, thanks for reading.

crochambeau wrote: ↑Wed Dec 13, 2023 8:02 pm

Is this a glitch? Is it going to snap back when the official whom I bribed is caught with their pants down in the future? I feel like I dodged a bullet, thanks for reading.

In real life there is hardly anyone who would tell you that you got away with sneaking out those bubblegums when you were a kid.
Enjoy your time as long as you can.

From what I have heard your status cleans slowly during witchspace jumps. Maybe the status cannot travel faster than light...