Oolite Bulletins

First thing - this is my first post, and I'd like to congratulate Giles on a damn fantastic game. I have been an Elite addict since back when I was around 12 yrs old with BBC Bs and Acorn Electrons. All the playability is still here in Oolite, and also it appears to be pretty extensible (haven't looked through the source yet) - so perhaps some of the cool stuff in First Encounters (and more!) may end up making it into Oolite...

Anyway enough of the praise - this post is a suggestion re: the Elite rating. I've started the game off focusing on trading in order to raise cash. Obviously with a weak ship I'm not doing loads of combat and should remain at a low Elite rating.

However it appears that you get equal 'kill' credits for taking down a souped up Asp (I've only managed it once because they run away so fast!) as you do for shooting a rock fragment.... Basically I'm now 'competent' because I realised that shooting every asteroid, and every boulder from every asteroid, and every fragment from every boulder, gets 1 kill. Along with the small but significant bounty credits for shooting rocks, it makes asteroid blasting fairly profitable (and I'm not talking mining here either).

Perhaps shooting defenceless rocks should get either no 'kill' credits or fractions of a 'kill'?? I'm not wholly convinced my Elite rating is justified...

yeah I thought it was strange getting a rating for shooting asteroids as well - does it do that in the original?

On the speccy version, you got 0.5cr for blasting an asteroid, and I believe you got full kill points. However, you didn't get fields of 10 or more asteroids and no boulders when they were destroyed, except with a mining laser you'd get *two* minerals.

IMO, asteroids blasting is just too lucrative in the early game. On my second jump to Diso, which often has multiple fields, I started with a total cash and cargo of around 160Cr, and picked up 340 Cr in bounty on the way to the station. Plus, I managed to get to be "dangerous" with most of my kills being incapable of shooting back.

I created a little mod for myself that reduces the bounty, but reducing the rating increase would involve programming. How does everyone feel about ships having a value for "decikills" which defaults to 10 if unspecified?

'Decikills' would be good to deal with the asteroid problem, but it opens up another can of worms i.e. different qualities of opponents could get different rating credits, after all it's a damn sight harder to take down Asps than some muppet in an Adder...

Back to asteroids - is there anything fundamentally different about the behaviour of the mining laser? I am frequently getting boulders/splinters using a military laser, and I seem to recall from the various versions of Elite I've played that in order to collect minerals, only the mining laser would do the job. In fact I'm sure that in one of the guide books it has some gumph about the mining laser having some 'phase lock' device to keep the fragments together for easy collection

There is currently a 20% chance of a rock fragmenting when it blows up. The mining laser just makes it certain.

I'm pretty certain that Oolite right now follows the original BBC Elite kills vs. rating system, i.e. each ship is one kill, and you need 6400 kills to make Elite.

The C64 version of Elite had fractional kills, as have a few other versions of the game.

A bit more info on this can be seen on Ian Bell's web site.

I think its hard to have an adamant opinion on this, as we are a test generation in a steadily evolving project.

before the shipmarket opened, the rock bounty might have seemed a little too lucrative, but as it is now, that money is just spittle in the ocean. if you want to "mine" yourself filthy rich, it would be very disciplined, and seemingly neverending work.

likewise with the combat ranking. blasting 128 rocks may take you from zero to competent without having to deal with returning fire, but on course to mining the target 6400 asteroids, you must be frequently forced to defend yourself, and isn't maybe Elite a fitting reward for that sort of ironass determination?

Murgh. you have a point there. At the moment I'm on the 'Plans' mission, so I'm blasting a lot of Thargoids, and have eighty-something thousand credits. (but here's an amusing aside: the kill that gave me 'deadly' status tonight was - you guessed it - an asteroid)

IMHO I think that the rock bounties should definately stay but the Elite rating bonus should be removed completely, no deci anything.

At the end of the day your Elite rating is a measure of your combat skill, none of which is used mining asteroids.

----------
"I've come for the escort job."
"Ah yes, I see you have a rating of Deadly, welcome aboard!"
...
"Quick! They are gaining on us, kill them!"
"I can't they won't stay still!"
----------

I seem to remember a cheat in FE2 (not tried in FFE and only once in FE2 to see), if you go to a stationary (relatively) asteroidal body, like Phobos, and pummel it with lasers, set time to full, you go up ratings. I always thought this was so incredibly wrong!

With the Wiki down, does anyone know the kill threshold for Deadly?

I think its around 2250 (which I'm approaching), but would like to know for sure!

It's in the reference PDF in the Oolite folder... but it's 2560.

Thread-resurrection-after-four-years alert. All units, battle stations.

another_commander wrote:

Thread-resurrection-after-four-years alert. All units, battle stations.

Blame Dizzy, as I used his search tool!

El Viejo wrote:

It's in the reference PDF in the Oolite folder... but it's 2560.

Ah thanks! Still got a way to go then.

I had no idea you got 'kills' for zapping asteroids! It does seem a bit silly, to be honest, and I for one would probably favour this being disabled in future versions. What do you think? I don't have a problem with a small bounty on them however. Anything that keeps the spacelanes clear of debris is a good thing.

cyberface wrote:

'Decikills' would be good to deal with the asteroid problem, but it opens up another can of worms i.e. different qualities of opponents could get different rating credits, after all it's a damn sight harder to take down Asps than some muppet in an Adder...

This is a good point. A 'Hard' target perhaps could be worth more than a 'Soft' one, although how this could be made to work I don't know.
There are many variables:- for instance I enjoy taking out rogue Frigates (Galactic Navy OXP) and you could argue that every crew member is a 'Kill'. Also killing every member of a Pirate Fleet could be worth more than the sum of the parts. You could even argue the case for a higher score for a 'Fugitive' compared to a 'Clean' pilot in the same type of ship as the fugitive is presumably a much tougher character and is harder to kill as well as being more likely to kill you.
Ultimately then it's far too complicated, and is almost certainly best left as it is.