Oolite Bulletins

DEMANDS?

OK. Let's get everybody's blood pressure down first with the admission that my only demand is that people who have trouble with that things being suggested in the following should somehow not be adhere to Elite canon consider that they already have what they need with the current version and the Strict option on. And that people try not to get too upset if they disagree

I really wish someone with programming skills preferably a group of people will pick up on this already great working game and haul some steps further. That is the big if and the big wish in the following.

Yes a lot of these things seem to have been mentioned before, but I suppose that this is a new situation after all - should development continue. Well here comes the babble from the cosmetic to the radical in no particular order of how possible it might be to implement or how important I see them.

More of the game OXP controlled to let modders make systems without planets or stars or cops or even populating systems wih custom plists and e.g. allow for between system trading posts.

The placement and size of on-screen messages customizable by hud.plist. I wouldn't mind the sticky message bug so much, if the messages could be placed somewhere else.

Advanced Navigational Array (discussed HERE). C'mon. It's cool and it makes sense since the systems are both stationary and mapped out for the player.

Market information on other system and markets sensitive to trade - also make sense to me.

Some sort of aid for scooping. It's very dark on a PC with LCD monitor

Take the Energy Bomb out of the game except in restricted gameplay. I think it's a kind of weapon which belongs in another era of gaming.

Add NPC ships on the WP-sun axis. You can skip across half a galaxy in no time almost without encountering anyone as soon as you get out of range of the witchpoints on the way to the sun. It seems odd that other pilot's (NPCs - especially pirates haven't discovered this hideout from the law and everybody else.

Allow saving when docked other places than stations. To make the game really openended it should be possible to leave Lave in your first cobra take do some nasty stuff and never again return to a Gal-Cop controlled base. (I suppose that it's already possible to oxp hermit's with shipyards?).

Different criminal system. You should not be able to commit outright evil acts of piracy, then make a few skim jumps and have everything forgotten and forgiven.

Factions! (but I don't want to cause a spilt with the anti faction wing )

I guess the two points above is a reflection of the opinion that even though the game is openended that doesn't mean that there should be no possible lasting consequences for the choices a player makes with the current commander.

Less shrapnel from large objects. Too bad when a perfectly fun battle gets ruined by a silly large amount of shrapnel appearing from something large being blown up. The amount of shrapnel should NOT be the same for an Adder and a Thargoid Carrier, but some hardcoded upper limit would save a lot of frustration when the frame rate suddendly drops to something measured in spf just when you were having the most fun.

Keep current target selected when firing missiles: Who's my targeting computer to decide that I don't want to track the bugger some more for some laser action.

Witchspace rings are fine - for witchspace. I don't see their connection to the procedure of docking and undocking. And I seem to remember that docking/undocking had flashing rectangels instead of circles on the 8-bit version I'm familiar with.

Make sure that Lave has a well stocked shipyard and let the player start out with credits instead of a ship would also be something I'd like to see. I'm sure that the Cobra MK-III awarded to graduates at the Academy was just something that was made up to cover not being able to implement a shipyard in the original. I think anything that served that purpose should be weeded out since there's no reason to impose limits on this game set by 80's technology in the original.

Faster docking computer. Computer that have slower reflexes than people when controlling a complicated circuit controlled machine? They should swoop right into the dock (I'm thinking of Casinos, Behemoths Hermits which don't accept the instant docking shortcut).

Resolve the cargo issue. No techno babble can get around the misprint or last minute blunder or whatever in the original manual that set the Anaconda's cargo capacity (probably a very ugly handwritten '2' which got interpreted as a '7'). If it's because we're talking 'tunnes' then why not load other ships up with these Anaconda cannisters that take up so much less space?

Auto Trader equipment. You just tell it in which system you plan to dock at a station next time and it loads your cargo up accordingly. Generally I think that there should be a wider array of automation options or equipment to let players automate away the parts of the game that they find less attractive and really get down to do the stuff that they like the most according to taste.

Auto Pilot Scoop Software - might make the mining carrer more attractive.
Hired NPCs. I'd like to pay some NPCs to have the go after some ship while I take care of another. Or to scoop a bunch of goods for me or even to haul some goods.

Click with mouse to target ship option.

Auto Pilot Auto Tracker - Combat Software

A serious increase (perhaps 50%+) in the speed of smaller ships and a decrease in the same magnitude of their shields (at least). I know it might sound like the fermented megaweed drink talking, but experiencing combat with Charlies Kestrel flying at 555 I found it hard to hit given it's size speed and manouverability, but if it looked much more like a small spacecraft in combat at that speed than a Mamba which fast as it is still comes crawling at you like a snake which just had a large meal in comparison.

Don't say I didn't warn you about the blabber, but if you made it to here I'd really like to hear what you think of any of these points and what should be included or worked upon if Oolite should take further steps towards or beyond perfection.

Some of these ideas are fine, and have been mentioned before. However, here are the ones I wish to comment on. Hope it doesn't sound too negative....

Dr.-SPACE-Nil wrote:

More of the game OXP controlled to let modders make systems without planets or stars or cops or even populating systems wih custom plists and e.g. allow for between system trading posts.

Further OXP control is a good idea, but you can already create, or rather mod a system to have no cops, and I think addPlanet exists. See the nova mission. But I'm not sure what you'd do out of a system that you could do within one. And everyone knows that the space between world is filled with Thargoids. A station wouldn't last a minute!

Market information on other system and markets sensitive to trade - also make sense to me.

Knowing the prices on other worlds kills one of the fundamentals of the game. Otherwise you'd max out the opportunity every time. No skill or luck.
Markets do adjust if you trade heavily between two worlds.

Some sort of aid for scooping. It's very dark on a PC with LCD monitor.

There has been talk of headlights. You can always zoom in on the scanner.

Take the Energy Bomb out of the game except in restricted gameplay. I think it's a kind of weapon which belongs in another era of gaming.

You don't have to buy it. You can take it or leave it.

Add NPC ships on the WP-sun axis. You can skip across half a galaxy in no time almost without encountering anyone as soon as you get out of range of the witchpoints on the way to the sun. It seems odd that other pilot's (NPCs - especially pirates haven't discovered this hideout from the law and everybody else.

I agree. In orig. Elite, pirates would always be after you at the sun.

Allow saving when docked other places than stations. To make the game really openended it should be possible to leave Lave in your first cobra take do some nasty stuff and never again return to a Gal-Cop controlled base. (I suppose that it's already possible to oxp hermit's with shipyards?).

Might be tricky, as there's only a probability that a behemoth or hermit will be in a system. When you next start the game up, your save point might not be there! I don't think the extra work involved would bring a huge difference to the game.

Different criminal system. You should not be able to commit outright evil acts of piracy, then make a few skim jumps and have everything forgotten and forgiven.

In the US, I understand there is a time limit in which they can prosecute, and if you move outside a state, you are no longer wanted. The same would apply in Oolite! If you think you should stay guilty for longer, just commit another crime!

Less shrapnel from large objects. Too bad when a perfectly fun battle gets ruined by a silly large amount of shrapnel appearing from something large being blown up. The amount of shrapnel should be the same for an Adder and a Thargoid Carrier, but some hardcoded upper limit would save a lot of frustration when the frame rate suddendly drops to something measured in spf just when you were having the most fun.

What are you running Oolite on? Sometimes there is a bit of a mess when something big explodes. But it's nice to have the cargo booty.

Witchspace rings are fine - for witchspace. I don't see their connection to the procedure of docking and undocking. And I seem to remember that docking/undocking had flashing rectangels instead of circles on the 8-bit version I'm familiar with.

This was something Giles meant to get around to. (Hexagons on original Elite.)

Make sure that Lave has a well stocked shipyard and let the player start out with credits instead of a ship would also be something I'd like to see. I'm sure that the Cobra MK-III awarded to graduates at the Academy was just something that was made up to cover not being able to implement a shipyard in the original. I think anything that served that purpose should be weeded out since there's no reason to impose limits on this game set by 80's technology in the original.

You can always trade in your ship at the start if you don't like it. There is a current school of thought to sell the MkIII for a MkI, leaving more money for equipment on the first run. The ships available are random, based on TL.

Faster docking computer. Computer that have slower reflexes than people when controlling a complicated circuit controlled machine? They should swoop right into the dock (I'm thinking of Casinos, Behemoths Hermits which don't accept the instant docking shortcut).

Trying to implement a docking computer to fly into a moving behemoth might be non-trivial ! A basic component of Elite has always been that manual docking is a skill you need.

Resolve the cargo issue. No techno babble can get around the misprint or last minute blunder or whatever in the original manual that set the Anaconda's cargo capacity (probably a very ugly handwritten '2' which got interpreted as a '7'). If it's because we're talking 'tunnes' then why not load other ships up with these Anaconda cannisters that take up so much less space?

Sorry, what's the cargo issue?

Auto Trader equipment. You just tell it in which system you plan to dock at a station next time and it loads your cargo up accordingly.
Auto Pilot Scoop Software - might make the mining carrer more attractive.
Auto Pilot Auto Tracker - Combat Software

Perhaps entirely automate the game, so you don't have to touch the controls at all...? Do you really want a machine that chooses your cargo, based on your destination...?

Hired NPCs. I'd like to pay some NPCs to have the go after some ship while I take care of another. Or to scoop a bunch of goods for me or even to haul some goods.

Giles was working on allowing you to join a convoy, but I don't know about getting a convoy to join you!

Click with mouse to target ship option.

Might be tricky in full screen mode, where mouse is reserved for direction.

A serious increase (perhaps 50%+) in the speed of smaller ships and a decrease in the same magnitude of their shields (at least). I know it might sound like the fermented megaweed drink talking, but experiencing combat with Charlies Kestrel flying at 555 I found it hard to hit given it's size speed and manouverability, but if it looked much more like a small spacecraft in combat at that speed than a Mamba which fast as it is still comes crawling at you like a snake which just had a large meal in comparison.

Surely a decrease in speed? Sidewinders are slippery little blighters, mitigated only by the fact they are already light on shields. I can't even hit the BoyRacers. Any change should be to the OXPs, not to the game, I think. Some of the OXP ships are way over-specced.

Wiggy wrote:

Knowing the prices on other worlds kills one of the fundamentals of the game. Otherwise you'd max out the opportunity every time. No skill or luck.
Markets do adjust if you trade heavily between two worlds.

What about 'rumours', other fighter-trader games like the Tradewinds series had a location where captains could go and get rumours (for a price) about the economies of local ports. It was a matter that the rumours were sometimes false.

There has been talk of headlights. You can always zoom in on the scanner.

I agree, I've found it quite easy to scoop cargo at slow speeds with the scanner zoomed into 1:5

I agree. In orig. Elite, pirates would always be after you at the sun.

Indeed, and since GalCop has no reason to protect the WP-sun/planet-sun route (why would you protect ships that aren't going to be buying fuel from the station?) there should be a high likelihood that pirates would flock to that region.

In the US, I understand there is a time limit in which they can prosecute, and if you move outside a state, you are no longer wanted. The same would apply in Oolite! If you think you should stay guilty for longer, just commit another crime!

I believe if you get involved in a combat after jumping to another system after getting criminal status, it takes longer (more jumps) to lose the criminal status. Makes sense really, if you jump from system to system without engaging or making contact with other ships, then GalCop could possibly either loose track of you (potentially how many worlds in the same galaxy alone can you jump to?) or count your actions as an 'accident' which hasn't been repeated recently thus criminal status gets 'anulled'. I think that continued attacks against Vipers and other GalCop vessels should result in a PERMANENT Fugitive status, as it would be unlikely they would let off a persistent 'cop-killer' and that assisting GalCop against other criminals should reduce your criminal status.

Giles was working on allowing you to join a convoy, but I don't know about getting a convoy to join you!

I'd like to see the option (for large ships at least) to hire NPC's, since Boas, BCC's and Anacondas are obviously not built for ship to ship combat. Any serious trader hauling large, lucrative cargoes would be mad not to have a swarm of minnows to fend off the sharks.

Captain Hesperus
"I'd add a smart comment to this post, but my 'Smart Comment Generator' is being overhauled."

Adding ships in the sun / planet plane would only require an OXP with a few lines of script.

Oolite has the standard roles: trader, police, pirate, hunter & sun-skimmer.

If you tell Oolite to add say 5 pirates somewhere, Oolite will randomly pick 5 pirates of the list of pirates it knows and add them where requested. If the player has OXPs in then OXP pirates are "on the list" to be added with the command, if not Native pirates are added.

Something like:-
That pargaph would add 6 pirates (20% chance) with 50 km of the position given by XXX YYY ZZZ.

If you fly towards the sun in the game and press Shift-F the game tells you your current co-ordinates.

Copy and past several paragraphs like this with different co-ordinatate postions and you have small chances of encountering pirates on the way to the sun.

For Maxium varitey have different chances of meeting different types of ships in different systems by adding a system govenment variable.

A new More Sun Skimmers OXP Doc?

If you look at the Assassins Script you see how I did this to create scripted battles. Same idea for more pirates on the way to the Sun!

It's very encouraging reading this debate, that constructive and thought provoking ideas continue to be put forward.

I basically agree with both Wiggy's and Captain Hesperus' comments, the most significant improvement I would like to see would be to have the on screen comms and prompts to not appear in the centre of the screen, or any where near the targetting reticule, they do get in the way during combat.

I also have a wish list, that includes fairly trivial things things like:-

being able to hyperspace from the local galaxy map without going to one of the view screens, as was possible in the original game
a cloaking device on indicator
a full screen view option for ships like an an imperial courier, where the top half is being partially obscured by the fuselage of the ship itself
a purchaseable aft view vision enhancer that filters out the exhaust plumes
a sensitivity control option for targetting at long distance (similar in concept to the zoom feature for the scanner)
a reticule that changes colour when a target is in the line of laser fire.
The return of the plasma cannon, with the option of purchasing a plasma accelerator making it's salvo faster ( like the military base turrets in Ionics)
Laser coolant (now that enemy ships are getting more fearsome, and showing up in larger quantities)
Being able to buy a Naval Energy Unit (once it has been acquired via a mission, or at least being more available when buying ships
to have an option that enabled you to transfer all your "special" equipment from the ship you are selling, to the one being bought
a docking copmputer with the ability to autodock to a target.

There are more but again mainly trivial stuff to do with things like the fines/trading/rewards credit valuesetc

TGHC wrote:

a full screen view option for ships like an an imperial courier, where the top half is being partially obscured by the fuselage of the ship itself.
a purchaseable aft view vision enhancer that filters out the exhaust plumes

Both these things really come down to the position of view in the ship's definition/OXP. Plumes are nice to see, but should be lower down in the aft view so they don't obliterate the view. Some of the OXP ships have 'bonnets' which stick out the front view, and the camera position needs to be adjusted.

a sensitivity control option for targetting at long distance (similar in concept to the zoom feature for the scanner)
a reticule that changes colour when a target is in the line of laser fire.

I made some new sounds for Oolite, primarily to make a bigger difference between' fire laser' and 'hit something'. I think the colour reticule change is a good idea.

Laser coolant (now that enemy ships are getting more fearsome, and showing up in larger quantities)

Laser coolant has been poo-pooed in the past. There are loads of threads on this. I think there is a danger of an arms race in Oolite. We create OXP ships that are faster, harder, more deadly, and so our character's ships must become faster, harder and more dangerous. But how does this affect game play? I wonder whether the experience of the game actually stands still if both player and NPC ships get stronger in equal measure. (This probably deserves a thread on its own.)
The limit on the military laser is a good one, if only to rein in some of the more OTT OXPs!

Being able to buy a Naval Energy Unit (once it has been acquired via a mission, or at least being more available when buying ships
to have an option that enabled you to transfer all your "special" equipment from the ship you are selling, to the one being bought
a docking copmputer with the ability to autodock to a target.

AFAIK, if you have been awarded the NEU, then you can always buy it again (at a high-tech planet), as there's a flag in your save file that says you had it. The same is true for cloaking device, etc.

i still want to land on planets.

Good to hear from other's with opinions on which direction(s) this game could take.

Wiggy wrote:

Further OXP control is a good idea, but you can already create, or rather mod a system to have no cops, and I think addPlanet exists. See the nova mission.

I think it would be nice to have OXP control of the lists that the game uses to populate systems. I haven't come across a way to rid a system of cops with oxp control. When I asked for a method I was told that one could only control the relative portion of pirates-cops through government type but that it was not possible to make a system completely without e.g. cops or pirates. Is such a function used in Nova? I still haven't played it - have to finish another mission in that galaxy before I trigger it (came by a mention of the trigger by accident) but will take a look once I've played it.

Wiggy wrote:

But I'm not sure what you'd do out of a system that you could do within one.

Well it would add an extra option for people making OXPs. Other's have suggested it so it seems like there are some ideas for using such an option floating around.

Wiggy wrote:

And everyone knows that the space between world is filled with Thargoids. A station wouldn't last a minute!

Thargoids schmargoids

I've seen lot's of stuff sending the bugs fleeing in interplanetary space. Think of generation ships. They use ancient technology not long lost superior technology. Still they seem to have survived interplanetary space for, eh, generations without modern day mil. shields or anything. Behemoths (and they could be classified fragile when compared to stations) seem to do quite well out there too. The option to make 'systems' without planets and suns would open up new roads, and would do nothing to detract from the experience of those that don't want them since they could simply avoid OXPs having them.

Wiggy wrote:

Market information on other system and markets sensitive to trade - also make sense to me.

Knowing the prices on other worlds kills one of the fundamentals of the game. Otherwise you'd max out the opportunity every time. No skill or luck.
Markets do adjust if you trade heavily between two worlds.

Well if it was implemented as a piece of equipment players who found it detracting from their gaming experience could simply choose not to buy it. This game is so openended that I guess it's different things that attract people to it.

Wiggy wrote:

Some sort of aid for scooping. It's very dark on a PC with LCD monitor.

There has been talk of headlights. You can always zoom in on the scanner.

It's still very often a pain at 5:1
I would like some equipment that could give me false colors or something.

Wiggy wrote:

Take the Energy Bomb out of the game except in restricted gameplay. I think it's a kind of weapon which belongs in another era of gaming.

You don't have to buy it. You can take it or leave it.

Right on, Commander! (I must admit that I did use some during the Ionics mission).

Wiggy wrote:

Allow saving when docked other places than stations. To make the game really openended it should be possible to leave Lave in your first cobra take do some nasty stuff and never again return to a Gal-Cop controlled base. (I suppose that it's already possible to oxp hermit's with shipyards?).

Might be tricky, as there's only a probability that a behemoth or hermit will be in a system. When you next start the game up, your save point might not be there! I don't think the extra work involved would bring a huge difference to the game.

To me it would make a huge difference. I've never really bothered to explore the pirate route much. It just makes too little sense that GalCop Vipers chase you all the way to a GalCop controlled station where you dock safely, shop a little around, get some fuel and equipment and then launch, all the while being safely assured that those cops trying to kill you on the outside would just tip their hats at you when walking past in the corridors of the station.

Wiggy wrote:

What are you running Oolite on? Sometimes there is a bit of a mess when something big explodes. But it's nice to have the cargo booty.

Well my system is fine for any task I need it for so I'm not going to upgrade it just to be able to scoop cheap alloys from thargoid carriers . My small cargo space is actually only there to allow me to scoop cargo measured in kg and g anything else is usually ejected.

Wiggy wrote:

Trying to implement a docking computer to fly into a moving behemoth might be non-trivial ! A basic component of Elite has always been that manual docking is a skill you need.

It's the time from the dockable ship stops to the time the docking is finished I'd like to see cut down. Docking moving objects would probably be a nightmare to implement as you say. Anyone who sees manual docking as something they enjoy very much could choose not to purchase docking computers or not to use them very often.

Wiggy wrote:

Sorry, what's the cargo issue?

The lack of proportionality between ship sizes and the amount of cargo containers they carry. The number 750 in the Anaconda's stats.

Wiggy wrote:

Auto Trader equipment. You just tell it in which system you plan to dock at a station next time and it loads your cargo up accordingly.
Auto Pilot Scoop Software - might make the mining carrer more attractive.
Auto Pilot Auto Tracker - Combat Software

Perhaps entirely automate the game, so you don't have to touch the controls at all...? Do you really want a machine that chooses your cargo, based on your destination...?

Well shocking as it may be that is exactly what I want. I want to choose to automate almost any part of the game, which I don't care to focus on at the moment. Why not give players the choice? It could be with the purchase of proper equipment which could be coded not to work optimally, still leaving an incentitive for fiddling. Some part of the game might be crucial to the experience for one player but the most dreary task for another. Such equipment would do nothing to detract from the experience for the former while enhancing it greatly for the latter.

Wiggy wrote:

Click with mouse to target ship option.

Might be tricky in full screen mode, where mouse is reserved for direction.

OK. Bad idea then.

Wiggy wrote:

A serious increase (perhaps 50%+) in the speed of smaller ships and a decrease in the same magnitude of their shields (at least). I know it might sound like the fermented megaweed drink talking, but experiencing combat with Charlies Kestrel flying at 555 I found it hard to hit given it's size speed and manouverability, but if it looked much more like a small spacecraft in combat at that speed than a Mamba which fast as it is still comes crawling at you like a snake which just had a large meal in comparison.

Surely a decrease in speed? Sidewinders are slippery little blighters, mitigated only by the fact they are already light on shields. I can't even hit the BoyRacers. Any change should be to the OXPs, not to the game, I think. Some of the OXP ships are way over-specced.

No. That should be speed increase. It just looks so much better to have the small ships zap around and the big ones being slow. A serious decrease in the shields of smaller ships would make up for fewer shot hitting that kind of target. The battles look so much more like real space battles - not in a history or physics department approved sort of way, but in the sense of how we're used to things behaving in the majority of space movies and series (sounds in vacuum, lack of true inertia etc.). After being attacked by some fast OXP ships the old ones almost seem to move like lazy fish.

Captain Hesperus wrote:

I believe if you get involved in a combat after jumping to another system after getting criminal status, it takes longer (more jumps) to lose the criminal status. Makes sense really, if you jump from system to system without engaging or making contact with other ships, then GalCop could possibly either loose track of you (potentially how many worlds in the same galaxy alone can you jump to?) or count your actions as an 'accident' which hasn't been repeated recently thus criminal status gets 'anulled'. I think that continued attacks against Vipers and other GalCop vessels should result in a PERMANENT Fugitive status, as it would be unlikely they would let off a persistent 'cop-killer' and that assisting GalCop against other criminals should reduce your criminal status.

I would like to see something like that too.

LittleBear wrote:

Adding ships in the sun / planet plane would only require an OXP with a few lines of script.

[...]

For Maxium varitey have different chances of meeting different types of ships in different systems by adding a system govenment variable.

A new More Sun Skimmers OXP Doc?

If you look at the Assassins Script you see how I did this to create scripted battles. Same idea for more pirates on the way to the Sun!

I will not spoil OXPs by reading them before playing them

But it seems it would be like reinventing the wheel to make all these variations for governments and so on since it's already somewhere in the game. What would be nice was to just have it throw in somthing like whereever it throws in it's current sunskimmers on the wp-sun axis. But of course it might end up having to be an OXP anyway. Does anybody know how the placement and type distribution for sunskimmers in different systems look?

TGHC wrote:

a sensitivity control option for targetting at long distance (similar in concept to the zoom feature for the scanner)
a reticule that changes colour when a target is in the line of laser fire.
The return of the plasma cannon, with the option of purchasing a plasma accelerator making it's salvo faster ( like the military base turrets in Ionics)
Laser coolant (now that enemy ships are getting more fearsome, and showing up in larger quantities)
a docking copmputer with the ability to autodock to a target.

Especially the sensitivity control, improved sights and autodocking non-stations would be nice. I'm still flip-flopping on the laser colling issue. Perhaps linking the power of ship's shields inversely to their max speed would keep the laser a bit cooler when confronted with lots of fast new ships.

ramon wrote:

i still want to land on planets.

Landing on planets would be ok for added flavour. Perhaps it could be made easily available by only allowing quick autodocking to start with. I also thought of battles close to planet surfaces when I saw the Space Battles video linked to in another thread.

But it seems it would be like reinventing the wheel to make all these variations for governments and so on since it's already somewhere in the game. What would be nice was to just have it throw in somthing like whereever it throws in it's current sunskimmers on the wp-sun axis.

Would have to do this with an OXP though as the code that adds pirates police traders etc (and different numbers for different govenment types) is hard-wired into the code of Oolite.exe

Might do a quick hack to put more pirates in the area of the Sun over the weekend.

EDIT:

Bah my idea didn't work! I forgot the sun is in different positions in different Systems!

So:-

<string>addShipsWithinRadius: pirate 5 pwm 281661 -2254 658201 5000</string>

Put the pirates a quater of the way to the sun at Reidquart, but in the spacelanes at Lave. Doh!

The addsystemShips 1.0 can be used to add ships in a plane between the w/s beacon and the Station (1.0 being near the Station, 0.0 being near the beacon and other positions being in between), but I don't think there is a similar command relating to the Sun!

On a different topic, you can use the Docking Computer to dock with a carrier or rock hermit.

Target the carrier or hermit with the ID computer and hit SHIFT C. As long as they grant you permission to dock, the Auto-piolt takes over the controls and takes you in!

Be warned though the piolt is a bit dumb and it is best to manually get you self in roughly the right position before handing over control.

LittleBear wrote:

On a different topic, you can use the Docking Computer to dock with a carrier or rock hermit.

Target the carrier or hermit with the ID computer and hit SHIFT C. As long as they grant you permission to dock, the Auto-piolt takes over the controls and takes you in!

Be warned though the piolt is a bit dumb and it is best to manually get you self in roughly the right position before handing over control.

Tell me about it! The first time I auto-docked with a Behemoth, I ident-locked it, pressed SHIFT+C and sat and watch as it reassured me 'Preparing docking bay for landing' and serenely glided off my scanner into the deep black yonder! One swift pursuit later and I parked in front of the little, sorry big bugger and auto-docked again. After that, I simply parked in front of the slot and let the Behemoth 'eat' me.

Captain Hesperus
"There's nothing more reassuring when the Thargoids are chewing your ass off than the sight of a Behemoth. Except when you're hauling 30T of Narcotics at the time...."

Wiggy wrote:

Dr.-SPACE-Nil wrote:

Auto Trader equipment. You just tell it in which system you plan to dock at a station next time and it loads your cargo up accordingly.
Auto Pilot Scoop Software - might make the mining carrer more attractive.
Auto Pilot Auto Tracker - Combat Software

Perhaps entirely automate the game, so you don't have to touch the controls at all...?Wink Do you really want a machine that chooses your cargo, based on your destination...? Shocked

That would be pretty cool, you have to admit. Just see how good the computer actually does, compared to yourself.

Seriously, though, why not automate the various aspects with equipment, thereby allowing folks to play the aspects they enjoy most and ignore the others?

I've also been considering trying to get an OXP going where I could have an escort. I know I can create ships, so why not just create my escort ship every time I come out of witchspace? Assign it a proper AI, and he ought to try to protect me.

Finally, on jumping to between-system locations: I know there's a disconnected system tree in one of the galaxies. As a conspiracy theorist, I don't think it's so disconnected. I understand that the Navy runs a fuel depot midway between the two closest systems, allowing Naval vessels to jump in and out as they please. I don't know what kind of Area 51 activities they're carrying on at the other side, but it sure is well protected: unless your computer knows the location of the fuel depot, you can't jump there unless you go all the way around the galaxies.

Now, if I were an aspiring OXP writer, I'd want to be able to script that fuel depot. That would be adding a new system with no sun or planets. I'd also want to be able to remove the systems that allow you to galactic-hyperdrive into the Area 51. With those systems destroyed, I'd have a ragtag band of... no, no, that's done to death. An honest politician with... no, totally unbelievable. Ah! The *survivors* of the destroyed systems want to know what's going on, and they've pooled their resources to hire a mercenary. A sailor from one of the destroyed systems, horrified with what's happening, defect and runs, getting you the information with his dying breath. The fuel depot is added and you can jump into the disconnected space and see what's really been going on: +++LOST CARRIER+++

That would be a cool mission!

Dont think you can destroy a planet as such, but you could do it this way.

Change the planet description like this:-

setSpecificPlanetInfo: 0=7=description=[System name] has been devistated by [whatever disaster you want]

setSpecificPlanetInfo: 0=7=inhabitants=Rotting bodies

setSpecificPlanetInfo: 0=7=govenmentnumber=0 (making it an anarchy)

setSpecificPlanetInfo: 0=7=productivity=0 (making it have no productiviy)

setSpecificPlanetInfo: 0=7=population=0 (making it deserted)

and

blowUpStation,

(the 0 7 would do this to Lave, so you need to get the planet number of the planets you wanted to alter from the Wiki)

This will change the system to a system with no Station (and therefore no save point), no govenment and a description that shows the planet to be devistated. Oolite would still populate the system with ships, but these are just the poor guys without fuel scoops who have been trapped there!

Oolite does alow you to add a new System (no sun or planet) and you can set the system data (including the name). So it would be possible to add a System called "Navy Re-fueling point" or whatever, where you wanted it!

With AddPlanet or AddMoon, you could put some sort of body there (of any size with a custom texture) and a AddShipsAtpricely would allow you to put your carrier / station or fuel-carrier where you want it in the system.

Wiki gives the info for fidling with / adding systems here:-

http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Planetinfo.plist

LittleBear wrote:

But it seems it would be like reinventing the wheel to make all these variations for governments and so on since it's already somewhere in the game. What would be nice was to just have it throw in somthing like whereever it throws in it's current sunskimmers on the wp-sun axis.

Would have to do this with an OXP though as the code that adds pirates police traders etc (and different numbers for different govenment types) is hard-wired into the code of Oolite.exe

Might do a quick hack to put more pirates in the area of the Sun over the weekend.

EDIT:

Bah my idea didn't work! I forgot the sun is in different positions in different Systems!

So:-

<string>addShipsWithinRadius: pirate 5 pwm 281661 -2254 658201 5000</string>

Put the pirates a quater of the way to the sun at Reidquart, but in the spacelanes at Lave. Doh!

The addsystemShips 1.0 can be used to add ships in a plane between the w/s beacon and the Station (1.0 being near the Station, 0.0 being near the beacon and other positions being in between), but I don't think there is a similar command relating to the Sun!

It looks like it's possible to add ships along s-w (or w-s) http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Method ... ding_ships
The reason I put it here was that so much of the other stuff I proposed will require an update of the exe anyway in which case it would probably be so much less of a hazzle to have the game add Elite style sunskimmers instead of having this feature from the original only available through OXP.

LittleBear wrote:

On a different topic, you can use the Docking Computer to dock with a carrier or rock hermit.

Target the carrier or hermit with the ID computer and hit SHIFT C. As long as they grant you permission to dock, the Auto-piolt takes over the controls and takes you in!

Be warned though the piolt is a bit dumb and it is best to manually get you self in roughly the right position before handing over control.

Yes. It was that kind of docking I wanted speeded up. Either by allowing instant docking of such entities, or by having the Docking Computers fly in a less geriatric fashion.

About the planet stuff: I didn't realize the creation of such bodyless systems was possible. Great that some of these things already work through OXPs.

I hope to see lost carriers, Area 51's and systems being devastated in the future. You guys have some great ideas.

Although you can with co-ordinates put the ships in a plane with the sun to whichspace beacon, the problem remains that the pwm co-ordinates are not fixed to the position of the Sun.

On the destroying systems idea (really hope you do an OXP with this idea!), setting the destroyed systems radius to 0, would get rid of the normal Oolite planet. You could also set the <name> to "Uninhabited System". The system would be reduced just to a Sun. Maybe add loads of asteroids where the planet used to be, giving the impression that it has been totally blown away!