Moving around Stations

[LittleBear]

Although I semi-retired, I am doing a re-write of Assassin for the final version. This involves insterting a new sub-mission between missions 13 and 14, so you have to go an collect some new weapon from an abondoned reasearch station to use against the "Deathburgher" to destroy it. The base is abandoned as somthing from the weapon escaped and killed all the reaseach scientists. Anybody else play the Fighting Fantasy Game books (same time frame as BBC Elite)?

Thinking of using mission_choices and mission screens the same way. Perhaps 30 "rooms" where you have as choices "Follow corridor left, Investigate the strange machine, Follow corridor right". When you solve the mini-text only adventure game, power is restored giving you the normal F5 screen. You can then collect your super missile from the F3 screen (zero credit price) and back to normal Oolite gameplay.

Fun or too nerdy?

[Uncle Reno]

Hi LB.

Yes, I remember those books and my vote goes for the idea being fun.

Will there be an equivalent to a "keep finger tucked in book while you check the options" command available?

[Dr. Nil]

Hi LB

I think it's a great idea. And a novel use of the mission screen, which others could well pick up on.

At least until we get Oolite integrated with the QuakeII engine and become able to freely explore any entity we dock.

You might want to keep it small for those not so fond of the idea though.

[Captain Hesperus]

You are travelling down Corridor Red 18 West and you encounter a Fierce Red Feline.
"So, Captain Hesperus, we meet again. And this time I think, to my advantage..."

If you have the Catnip, <click here>
If you have the Stun gun, <click here>
If you want to run, <click here>
If you want to stand your ground and try to intimidate the Feline, <click here>

Classic!

Captain Hesperus
"I have the Catnip and the Stun gun, can't I distract him with the catnip them pistol-whip him to death with the gun?"

[lolwhites]

Will you have to Test Your Luck at any point? I'll go get my dice...

[LittleBear]

Yeah! Thats the idea and should be faily easy to script (and only add about 30K to the OXP's size as its all text). Probabley just be moving around the station, but be a fun fiction writing excise without having to do any AIs or other "hard work" stuff. Just have a normal mission_breifing that tells you to go to the system to get the missile. This sets mission_assassins_room to 0 and sets the the mission_stage to get_the_missile. The outpost is scripted to appear only at a certain planet and if the mission is stage is get_missile.

Then I use a docked at stationname="outpost" true and stage and room number are 0, Displays a brief explaining how you enter the dock and fine high levels of radiation in the hagger, all power off and no lifeforms deteted abord. You pull on you trusty EVA suit and sling your Lance & Ferriman 0.1M pulse rife over you shoulder and enter the hanger. Badly burnt bodies are everywhere and you intestigate. As you step through the main hanger door it slams shut..... Press ENTER to Continue Commander.

Then set the room_varible to 1. Now I have a series of conditions just with room_variable 1, display mission_brief_room1 etc. So Room 1 is a T-juntion. Move left or right Commander? Mission Choices set the room number, so you can wander about the creepy station. Eventually you come to the power room (at the end of my nerdy D&D type map of interconceted rooms!) I could have battles in fighting fantsy style as Oolite has dice with its d number! But there no way to kill the player when docked and thats taking things too far!.

Reaching the power room sets the room variable to OUT. This takes Oolite out of the room displaying loop, displaying a normal briefing ending with Press Space Commander. This brief explayes how you restore the power restoring the power and takes you to the normal F5 screen appeas. F3 to the Shipyard, grab your missile and off you go.

[Arexack_Heretic]

nice idea.
like a text adventure.

You could even draw rudimentary rooms, but text description would do fine...

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[Vestibule]
As you leave your airlock, you enter the docking vestibule.
There is a sign on the oposite wall.
At your back, to the North, you can see the airlock to your Ship.
To the West a locked door.
To the East a corridor leads of into the darkness...

What do you do commander? (N/E/W/S)
>_N

-------------------------
[Vestibule]
You walk up to the sign to investigate.  
It states that the ResearchLabs are to the West and the StationManager's office is to the East. It also declares "Trumbles not allowed on premises".

What do you do Commander? (N/E/W/S)
>_

As for killing the commander goes...
why not forcibly launch him? and have the exit blocked by a blastdoor.

Or explain how a cargodroid is reprogrammed to be handled by remote, as you forgot to bring a vacuumsuit.
Then if player makes a wrong move cut connection, go to start.
Only three droids are available. (and lost ones will need replacing next time you dock)
[/code]

[JensAyton]

Code: Select all

[Vestibule]
As you leave your airlock, you enter the docking vestibule. 
There is a sign on the oposite wall. 
At your back, to the North, you can see the airlock to your Ship. 
To the West a locked door. 
To the East a corridor leads of into the darkness... 

What do you do commander? (N/E/W/S) 
>_E

[Corridor]
You are in a large maze of rectilinear corridors, all quite similar.

It is dark. You are likely to be eaten by a thargoid.

What do you do commander? (E/W/P[anic])

[LittleBear]

Will incorperate these. I'm a bit too burnt out to do too much scripting (but this should involve only 4 or 5 commands, with 1 being C&Ped a lot to do the display_roombreif bit). But my job involves often being stuck on trains for hours with northing to do, so writing some Oolite type descriptions (lots of Dark Wheel refs!) on my laptop whilst so stuck to C&P into missiontext later seems quite fun. If Captain H or anybody else whats to post descriptions of what you see in different bits I'll add em in. Description that starts it off (room 0). Room 1 is the hanger, three paths leading off!

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PAGE 0

You guide your ship into its docking berth and attempt to connect to the station’s auto-trader computer. Much to your surprise the familiar interface fails to appear on your main viewer. Your ship’s computer reports that it is unable to access the mainframe, due to the station’s main power being off line.

Sensors also report a catastrophic depletion of the internal atmosphere, leaving the entire station in a vacuum state. No life-forms can be detected aboard, although an unusually high level of graviton radiation is making an accurate scan difficult.

If you are ever going to be able to open the main launch bay again, you have no choice other than to explore the station on foot and attempt to restore main power. You climb into your EVA suit, slinging an Ingram Pulse Rifle over your shoulder. Using your ship’s internal power you open the berth door and step out into the main docking hanger.

As you do so, the overloaded power-coupling fails causing the berth door to slam shut behind you. You stand in the Main Hanger and survey your surroundings…..

Choices: Press ENTER to continue Commander. (Set Room to 1, set stage to ADVENTURE).

[Captain Hesperus]

@LB - Oooohhhh! That description really sets the scene in a creepy and atmospheric way!
<EDIT> Maybe with the Pulse Rifle you can set a certain number of 'shots' before the powerpack runs out of charge, assign it a counter of it's own and as the player chooses to use it, decrement the counter accordingly.

Code: Select all

You are in a corridor, facing a sealed blast door. Above you is a ventilation hatch. Behind you, the far end of the corridor contorts as the over-stressed structures supporting it yield to the weight of a collapsing stanction. The walls rupture and your suit sensors report a breach in the station's skin. You can hear the high-pitched whistle as the atmosphere is drawn out into space.

You have time for one shot with your rifle, do you shoot:

The door, press d
The door controls, press c
The ventilation hatch, press h
Yourself, press y

<d>
You level your rifle at the door and tug the trigger. The impact blinds you momentarily and as your vision clears you see....a small scorch-mark on the door. You curse as you realise that the door is made of material that is designed to withstand energy blasts.

Before you can react, the corridor breaches utterly and you are dragged along the floor and out into the trackless void of space. Your horrified shriek of despair is recorded on your suit's built-in black box as you fly head over heels to join the other space detritus orbiting the station. Your options are:

Shoot yourself, press s
Die slowly of asphixiation, press a

Either way, it's.....

GAME OVER

Press Space, Commander

Captain Hesperus
"But I though there was no atmosphere?"

[LittleBear]

Don't think I can kill the player with a mission_screen. As far as Oolite is concerned the player and his ship is the same thing. (I kill the player in black monks if he chooses to dock without sufficent credits to pay by taking away all his equipment fuel and weapons and having him hurled out of the station in this pitifull state into the arms of lots of Gunships with killplayerAI - IE an impossible to survive situation).

However, if your up for descriping some rooms we could get a creepy atomospher going as the player wanders about the deserted (or is it?) station. To avoid spoilers better do it by PM. I've PMed you my description for room 1 (the Hanger - 3 exits). I can link rooms together with room numbers D&D master key style on a map. Eg Room 1 has three extits center exit to room 2, left to 3. 3 has 2 exits forward to 5 left to room 2, if you see what I mean. Wanna write some room descesciptions in this style.

PMed you the description of room 1.

[JensAyton]

…main docking hanger.

“Hangar”.

As for Mr. Nutter’s idea, it is my experience that games which just kill you when you make the wrong choice, requiring you to go back and do it all over again, are much more fun from the writer’s side than the player’s.

[LittleBear]

Ta on spelling! Assassins now has 19 "proper" missions, this one is just to get a bit of atmosphere going. Getting the Super Missile from the station to use in the next mission shouldn't seem easy (although it is). The Gameplay is provided by being chased all the way to the special station by Dictatorship Ships. Although he can't die whilst exploring the station, The player won't know this! The moving about the station is really just to provide some plot background and a bit of entertainment being able to poke around seeing what the station contains.

[Commander McLane]

What a great idea using the mission-screen for a text adventure!

I had a thought or two about what you can do with the mission_screen and ended up using it after you buy a Multipass or a Multi-Passed ID, to explain how the device you just bought is fitted into your ship and what it does to you.

But a text adventure--that's a real great idea! And it's so much in the line of the original ELITE--after all the 80's were THE era of text adventures.

I would encourage you (or anybode who is good at that) to enhance the adventure with some pictures, though. It' so easy to use setMissionImage for that, having just a few very rudimental style pictures of corridors and rooms. In fact I think ASCII-pictures would fit perfectly, you know the style:

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\                      /
 \                    /
  \__________________/
  |                  |
  |                  |
  |                  |
  |                  |
  |                  |
  |                  |
  |__________________|
  /                  \
 /                    \
/                      \

In fact it wouldn't have to be real ASCII, I guess with a graphics program you could easily create something similar looking.

[Captain Hesperus]

It might even work if you used the show picture command.

Captain Hesperus