Oolite Bulletins

Ok, so the energy bomb was moved from Tab to 9 to avoid mis keyed total destruction. Great!

Except, now I hit it by mistake when I'm calling up the system prices for the system I'm in, when I'm deciding what cargo to eject on my way to the station to make room for.. oh, you know.. those cargo canisters I keep just.. finding.. in my path.

That's a very expensive keystroke right there at 900 a pop.

Could the Ebomb be a bit harder to trigger? I was thinking at least a charge time where you have to hold the key down for several consecutive seconds before it goes off. This would eliminate the errant keystroke problem.

wouldn't hurt to make it harder to use as well. maybe require you to be at a full stop with a ten second charge time or something?

I think those are some good ideas.

That would also nicely go with the delay that was suggested in another thread: instead of releasing the bomb and having it simmer in space, you need to hold the key for three seconds until it flies and then blows immediatly.

best wishes,
Oscar

Besides preventing premature detonations, the delay would also make the bomb a bit harder to use. Right now it's really cheap weapon (except for the price )

Five seconds is nice delay if you need to hold the key down, ten to fifteen if the trigger starts a countdown. All nearby ships would flee the moment they notice you're charging the bomb, and it would be pretty hard to dodge enemy fire when you're holding down the button. IMO that would balance things out without toning down its power.

I say leave it as it is, it's all part of life's rich pageant I'm afraid. Doesn't matter whether it's tab or 9 sometimes you will hit it by accident, and it can be really annoying if police vipers are in the vicinity, cos now you are a fugitive. Having a countdown negates it's effectiveness as a last resort in combat when your shields are shrieking at you and you only have one energy bar left, you may be forced to use your escape pod if it hasn't been damaged! In classic elite, using your e-bomb is loss of face, you can get to elite without using it, however Oolite has upped the ante and there are some vicious and unpredictable predators out there that will make mincemeat of you, so E's and Q's are essential to complete some of the missions.

As far as cost is concerned it depends how thick your wallet is, in the early days of ship blinging you tend to watch the credits, by the time you are deadly you will be pretty wealthy and Q-mines will be small change, let alone e-bombs. Your attitude as a commander and the strategies you employ change as you journey towards elite status, having so many different choices and directions to go is the essence of this amazing game.

just as a purist dogfighter, i think global energy/q bombs spoil the game a bit. it seems to much of a "get out of jail free" card to me, i'd like to see WMD (heh) removed and new types of guns/lasers instead.

I think the idea of the energy bomb is ridiculous. And people might have to make some ships in OXPs ridiculously tough because they expect people to be using it thus forcing them to do so.

An explosion that kills everything within range except yourself doesn't make sense, but ships made to survive an energy bomb are even more broken IMO - NPCs too.

The bomb should cost 10x as much and only be available in high tech anarchies and misfire and kill the commander too at least 1/3 of the time. If it shouldn't just be removed from the game.

It's a relic from the 8-bit gaming days. A typical 8-bit shooter pickup. Well I think that Oolite should cut it's ties to the age of Pacman. We might be years from a MMPOG version, but looking ahead into such a possible future I don't see the Energy Bomb being a part of it.

I don't really have the same issue with mines now that there a sweepers. Availability could be restricted, and I wouldn't mind 1/10 of the Vipers (and some portion of traders) to have a sweeping device.

I'll go back to a thought from an earlier thread. If you feel that the energy bomb is simply too silly/powerful/not realistic, don't buy one.

In November after spending 11 months becoming Elite, I decided to have another turn around the galaxies with a new commander. This one would NOT fly my old beloved (but admittedly über) SuperCobra (but rather stick with the powerful MkIII) and never use Energy Bombs.

After compleating a new OXP mission, I was horrified to recieve as a reward an Energy Bomb. I know that I could have just gone off to empty witchspace and blown it up, but that seemed wasteful.

Fortunately, the very next system that I went to had some fierce pirates that nearly toasted me very aluminium @$s!. During the process of my getaway, they damaged the energy bomb. I have chosen not to repair it.

As I am about to start Ionics, I may regret this choice, but for the game that I want to play , it seems like the right on to make.

Best, Michael

Topman MtK, I like your style. I've thought about doing the London marathon with my shoelaces tied together.......it was just a thought though

MtKlima wrote:

I'll go back to a thought from an earlier thread. If you feel that the energy bomb is simply too silly/powerful/not realistic, don't buy one.

Yes. You said that

One problem I have with it being there in the first place is that because it's there some OXPs might assume that most players use it. And instead of just shrugging at the cheaters going through their missions quickly they might opt for forcing everybody to use that cheat if they want to stand a chance when playing the missions by making them impossible to complete without the energy bomb.

Doesn't LB's Asteroid Storm remove your E.Bomb if you've got one before the mission starts? Otherwise you'd just E.Bomb in the middle of the storm and pick up your reward on docking at the recently saved station.

So, if anybody wants to write a mission that stops you using an E.bomb just copy the little code snippett from AS.

A work-a-round to the e-bombing Mission Ships is to give the ship enough energy (just) to survive an e-bomb blast, but a high recharge rate. That way using an e-bomb (unless followed immedatley by a proper dogfight) doesn't really help much and there isn't actually much difference in difficulty whether a bomb is used or not.

Or just remove the players e-bomb if a mission ship is present. Some techno-bable explanation about the ship having some sort of device that fries the working parts of e-bombs in nearby ships. I used this wheeze in Asteroid Storm (the electromagnetic fields of these desnse asteroids damaging the players e-bomb). Seemed only fair for GalCop to replace your damaged kit therefore!

@LB Has Assassins been tested for being playable without E-bombs? Since I haven't got that far yet I don't know how much of it is sneak up kill and run away and how much requires the killing of huge fleets. Any news on when A1 takes the final step out of beta or on the rumored A2?

I still look very much forward to playing it, when the itch returns (or the sticky messages disappear) and drives me on from this gilesforsaken corner of Galaxy 4 where I have been stuck quite a while only leaving the station to do a necessary minimum of local test flights.

I played it though in a Cobra Mk III and didn't use any e-bombs to finish it, so it can be done. There are many situations where an e-bomb would be counter productive as the player has friendly (or neutral) ships nearby, which are also tough enough to survive an e-bomb so e-bomb will mean the player's allies turn on him or he is attacked by 30 powerfull ships that would otherwise have left him alone, destroys the ships he was meant to be defending, detroyes the friendly light fighters that would have helped him and now has to take on an enemey fleet alone (and with each enemy ship selecting him as the target) rather than be able to let his friends distract the guard-ships whilst he concentrates on finding an eliminating the Mark and so on There are many advantages to a surgical strike!

I agree ships generaly should not be tough enough to survive an e-bomb, but its fair enough to make Cruisers and special ships tough enough. A ship needs 1000+ energy points to survive. Its fair enough (considering the size difference) for a Deamon Class Cruiser to have at least 3 times the shield strength of a Cobra III.

Some of the Assassins Mission ships (the easy first few hits) can be e-bombed, but whats the point earning 200 C for a hit if you are gonna use a 900 C e-bomb to do it!

An unexpected feature I found in Oolite was that if a ship has enough energy to survive an e-bomb, bombing it makes it fire off all missiles at the Bomber! 20 Hard-Heads incoming makes e-bombing unwise and by the time you've out run then, the Mark may well have escaped and in any event will have recharged to full shields.

There are other missions where use of an e-bomb would be suicide for other reasons... I'd say most of the missions would actually be harder if an e-bomb is used!

Akdroid finished it in flying a Dragster (which cannot carry an e-bomb and only has one missile pylon, weak shields but is very fast!). Missions can be completed in different ways. The way I did one mission means that if you attempt it one way you'd be blown to bits even in a fully blinged out uber ship. But play the same mission another way and you could do it in an Adder! Lateral thinking is often more important than brute strength.

I'd say Military Lasers are a must and unless you are very cunning (most missions have an achilies heal that enables you finish them in an unexpected way) you should have a decent ship (like a Cobra or Asp) with Shield Boosters & Military Shields, but it can (and should be) completed without resorting to Uber ships or E-bombs.

The OXP is now finished (except for the Death Burger), but that gives you 15 Missions (plus two secret missions) to play though in there finished versions. I don't know if heretic will complete the Death Burger, but that Mission can be played (its just easier than it would be if / when he finishes it). I think the best way to play is just to keep a Commander saved at the Death Burger mission and come replay that mission if the Burger is ever finished. B7 is however (finally) bug free!

LittleBear wrote:

There are many situations where an e-bomb would be counter productive

"You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off"