Oolite Bulletins

As a fairly new (after a 20yr gap) player, I am still scrabbling to make money. I was in an asteroid field recently and tried some mining, (I have a mining laser in the rear (as it were!). It doesn't seem very worthwhile, but I have some comments - a tip and a question:

1) Tip: When using the rear gun, don't "do your head in" trying to reverse all of the actions, just turn your mouse upside down! Then the four axes work as normal.

2) I came across a "Treasuroid". I blasted it into bits but it only seemd to contain minerals. It's not in any refernces I can find. What is a treasuroid? What should I have done?

3) I came across a rock hermit. Again not really listed except vague references, but when went back next time he was not there. Is he generated each flight, like a ship, or should I look harder?

Thanks for your help, hope my tip helps.

Setu
"Life in the farts lane"

If you install the Ore Processor Expansion you can buy a piece of equipment which will extract any valuable material from asteroid splinters.

I prefer to mine with a side view laser (to be able to have a military laser to the rear). It's also possible to mine without the mining laser by installing the Commies Expansion, find an Astromine ('A' on the Advanced Space Compass) wait for the prisoners to cut up an asteroid, and then fill your cargo

I came across a tresuroid once too, but I didn't have a mining laser at the time. I also failed to find out more on this subject. The Rock Hermits are like those asteroids that shot back at you in Elite. In Oolite they're a lot bigger because they're dockable. Rock Hermits usually sell minerals and precious stones and metals at a good price. They're added each time you jump into a system, so you cannot count on it being in the same system the next time you visit.

Would the tresuroid be the elusive Easter Egg Giles once mentioned?

Never seen one myself, or even heard about it before

IIRC the treasuroid is a relic in an OXP, unfortunately I don't remember which one. I came across it while looking at the code of various OXPs, and again IIRC it was created by the author for purpose of testing something, and then not removed in the final release. (All information without warranty and, again, valid only IIRC.)

But there is one question that puzzles me since the days of my C64: What do you need a mining laser for anyway? You can easily blow up asteroids, getting boulders and splinters, with any laser. And a military laser has much more power than a mining laser, five hits and the asteroid is gone. Or is it simply that the chances for the asteroid breaking up into boulders are greater when hit by a mining laser than by another laser? I remember I once had a few trials on this hypothesis in the days of my ST-Elite, and I found no difference in the output of scoopable material using a mining or a military laser. Perhaps my sample was too small?

Has anybody else done some practical research on the mining vs. military laser issue? Or can answer the question out of the code of the game? I would be interested in that.

I though that non-Mining Lasers vaporized asteroids..?

i thought in the BBC version etc, all lasers BUT the mining laser vaped the rock - i'm sure you only got boulders but using a miner. few years back now tho, so don't quote me!

I second killer wolf's opinion - my hazy memory is the same.

Believe me, neither in the C64- nor in the AtariST-version of ELITE did non-mining lasers vaporize the asteroids. Nor do they in Oolite. They vaporize some of the asteroids and break up some others into scoopable materials. And as far as I have tried mining lasers did and do exactly the same: Breaking up some asteroids, vaporizing some others.

There may be a higher chance for a mining laser to break up an asteroid as for a non-mining laser, but I'm not sure about that, and that's what my question was about.

Hey, I believe you. It's just news to me. I don't think I ever used a mining laser in the 8-version (Amstrad) and I don't recall seeing an asteroid break up back then - but it's been 20 year, so...

In the BBC version I remember trying out a mining laser on a Python to see if I could blow it up. I vaguely recall that it eventually worked but I think the Python pilot had long since died of old age by the time my experiment was concluded.

I recently installed the Ore Processor add on and now the majority of my asteroids simply disintegrate when hit by the mining lazer. I understand that you'd rather not make mining a way to collect thousands and thousands of credits from each asteroid, but it might be nice to have them still stay as minerals if the asteroid doesn't have gems or precious metals.

I like my mining laser in the rear as I can't steer backwards worth a hoot. That makes installing a military or beam laser in the back for shooting bad guys pretty much worthless for me.

:ahem:
I think I might be responsible for some treasuroids... at least I have had them on occasion in wrex.oxp.
never got round to properly testing them.
IIRC they were supposed to spew gold and gemstones when blasted, even without mininglaser.
They were two innapod with the asteroid-ambush, which would detonate to spawn three kraits.

rollen wrote:

In the BBC version I remember trying out a mining laser on a Python to see if I could blow it up. I vaguely recall that it eventually worked but I think the Python pilot had long since died of old age by the time my experiment was concluded.

On the Spectum 48k version, mining lasers were very powerful. Four hits to take out an Asp, six for a Python.

What's more, since they barely heated up, due to their long cycle time, they were pretty good replacements for military lasers.

In the frontier installments a mininglaser was also adequate to shoot ships with...not really on par with a comparable wattage pulselaser, but still better than a standard (1-5MW) pulse.