Oolite Bulletins

Hi all. Long time lurker, first time poster. I'll kick off with the standard but nonetheless hugely merited hymn of praise and thanks to all those who have put so much into this game! Since downloading it it's been practically the only thing I've played. Outstanding work, one and all.

Now time to put forward *my* spark of genius. I've had a look through the sticky and read the threads on laser cooling, and have come up with a suggestion which *might* be practical and relatively easy (I say this, of course, without knowing the first thing about coding). How about a device, possibly one enabled by a keystroke, which dumps excess laser heat into the cabin -- rather like turning on a car's internal heater in a traffic jam if the engine's overheating? Of course, for balance, the cabin temperature would have to jump quite sharply to cool down an overloaded weapon: it's not making you nice and warm, more like turning the cabin into an oven. Something you could get away with once or twice in an emergency, but not an option for the faint-hearted...

I don't know how long the cabin temperature takes to drop back down, or if this can be easily altered -- but since this idea uses variables that already exist, I hope it might be something we could think about.

Comments? Suggestions? Scornful laughter?

Hi, Disembodied! Welcome to the boards and of course to this great game!

Laser cooling is one of the issues discussed quite regularly on the boards, as here, here, here, here and here, to mention just a few. Up to now the general feeling is against it, as it turns the odds too much in favour of the player against a newbie player, at least that was Giles' feeling.

If it should be discussed again seriously, then it is quite clear there has to be a serious drawback for using a laser cooling system. Raising the cabin heat level would no doubt be one. To dump excess heat into the cabin -- hmm, that somehow reminds me of soviet nuclear submarines.

Anyway, I'm still not in favour of it. I would say: Just learn to use your lasers more wisely.

age old argument, but i really don't see the argument that it slants things too much for players. i thought there was a "rule" that anything a player can have, the NPCs can have too? Also, i think given military technology for hyper shielding, ECM jammers, cloaks, and energy units, it's daft to think that they WOULDN'T have laser coolers - especially w/ the fights they have in Witchspace w/ Thargoids all the time.
Personally speaking, as a dogfight fan, i'd prefer to see :
- removal of Q-bombs/energy bombs
- better shields as standard
- shield upgrade more effective in ratio w/ the standards
- laser cooling.

make it more exciting in the World War 1 dogfighting type of thing...

Killer Wolf wrote:

I thought there was a "rule" that anything a player can have, the NPCs can have too?

In that case, the result would be that NPCs were harder, and advanced players got compensated with more powerful weapons. Net result: harder for new players.

harder for new depending on what you do surely? if you played in as "real life", as i did w/ the original Elite, you kept to the safe trading places as much as possible until you specced up your ship. the odd pirate you came across gave you experience or blatted you, depending. your post makes it sound as though any newbie would be swarmed by iron asses all the time, but surely if people play it safe and trade sensibly in CorpStates etc then the same would apply - not every pirate you come across would be a lethal killer etc. if you've been playing for 3 hours and decide you wanna take computers into an Anarchy.....well, it's your own fault!

Thanks for the responses, and thanks too to Commander McLane for the extra links. I take the point about game balance... but if the cooling device was written as an OXP, along the lines of the Ore Processor, then would NPCs have access to it if the player hadn't installed it? If I, as a fresh young 100-credit Jameson, install multiple OXPs containing various uber-ships which I can't yet afford, I'd have nobody to blame but myself when I find myself repeatedly beaten up by pirates cruising around in the Four Tigers of the Apocalypse. In short, one shouldn't install the OXP until one is prepared to live (or die) with the consequences. Or am I making some sort of huge error in my assumptions about how this would work?

On Killer Wolf's comments about dogfighting, I tend to agree -- especially with regard to the Energy Bomb. I'm not above using it, but I always feel a tiny pang of guilt when I do. Not enough to not do it again, but... slightly soiled, at any rate. I feel I've let myself down.

Mind you, what about a slightly toned-down Energy Bomb? One that didn't damage ships, just scrambled their circuits for (X) seconds? i.e. turned their AIs to mush for a short while, allowing the player to make a run for it, manouevre for an attack run, etc.? An Ion Bomb, maybe. How would this work for the NPCs, though? Would it be possible for an NPC to let one of these off, scrambling player control for, say, 10 seconds? Do NPCs ever let off Energy Bombs that effect players? I'm sure I've seen a bunch of pirates popped by an NPC Energy Bomb, but even though I was in the area, I didn't notice any effect on me. Of course, in the throes of a marathon session I have been known to hallucinate...

Disembodied wrote:

Thanks for the responses, and thanks too to Commander McLane for the extra links. I take the point about game balance... but if the cooling device was written as an OXP, along the lines of the Ore Processor, then would NPCs have access to it if the player hadn't installed it? If I, as a fresh young 100-credit Jameson, install multiple OXPs containing various uber-ships which I can't yet afford, I'd have nobody to blame but myself when I find myself repeatedly beaten up by pirates cruising around in the Four Tigers of the Apocalypse. In short, one shouldn't install the OXP until one is prepared to live (or die) with the consequences. Or am I making some sort of huge error in my assumptions about how this would work?

No errors, except I think it's not doable in an OXP. The laser cooling rate is hard-coded, and there are no scripting methods to influence it. Secondly, new keystroke-commands (as you suggested) can't be defined in an OXP. So a laser cooling device would have to be coded in the application itself. That means it wouldn't be possible to disable it and NPCs would have it all the time.

I agree with Killer Wolf, I think it wouldn't be unplayable for a noob, but more defiant to start with the game. I think this would be an improvement.

I've been thinking about this while reading this thread and came up with one idea. How feasible it would be though I don't know.

Seeing as how it's cold in space, why not have some kind of laser that is equipped as an external attachment to the ship when fitted. The cold of space would help keep the temp down somewhat, but with the downside that if you're getting your ass kicked in a fight your spanky new lasers would be the first to get damaged when your shields are down.

Commander McLane wrote:

No errors, except I think it's not doable in an OXP. The laser cooling rate is hard-coded, and there are no scripting methods to influence it. Secondly, new keystroke-commands (as you suggested) can't be defined in an OXP. So a laser cooling device would have to be coded in the application itself. That means it wouldn't be possible to disable it and NPCs would have it all the time.

Dang... it sounded so good in my head. Oh well, back to the drawing board. And, as you say, learning to use my lasers more wisely. If I'm honest I have to say I do quite enjoy the occasions when I'm frantically weaving around while I cool down from full-on Rudolph mode... Any thoughts on the Ion Bomb? Would I be better putting that in a new thread, or in the round filing cabinet?

Don't hesitate to start a new thread and see what the community is thinking.

BTW, I seem to be wrong with my "not doable"-verdict. But it's the first time I've read about that OXP, I don't have it and I don't know how it works.

I'm very wary of uploading the laser coolant OXP because there are differing views on it and many discussions have taken place, Giles was certainly not happy with it, but now there are many more uber opponents out there and of course Assassins drops you into hornets nests at times.

It may be worth other people testing it, to see how they feel it affects gameplay, what do ohers on the board think? If you are interested PM me.

The Dreamcatcher wrote:

... Seeing as how it's cold in space, why not have some kind of laser that is equipped as an external attachment ...

It can be very hot in space too! If the sun shines directly on a surface in space, it would extremly heat up in a short time.

Cooling is in fact difficult in space, because you can’t use convection cooling. Just putting a heat sink on something has very little effect. You need a large area of radiation, which is harder than a large contact area (as per a traditional heat sink) because you achieve nothing if the radiated heat hits another part of the heat sink.

How about slowing down shield recharge rate instead of cooling lasers quicker?