Oolite Bulletins

Downloaded it last night and played for the first time.

Six hours later, I've Iron Assed my Cobra MK. III, acquired Cr12K, died eight times and having just nailed the Constrictor, am now Dangerous.

Is it just me, or is Oolite harder than this?
I mean, I've rammed (and been rammed by) ships upto and including Pythons and have suffered no worse than losing my forward shields, and maybe one Energy bank. With Military Lasers Fore and Aft, I can turn most ships into a cloud of pixels with 2-3 bursts, not even taking the laser temperature above a quarter. I have a full rack of missiles, which I rarely use. I was able to kill Thargoid Warships with a single salvo of a Beam Laser. And I can dock at full speed without rolling.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Captain Hesperus

Sounds pretty much like the original version to me, of which TNK was an accurate recreation (although I thought Thargoids were a little tougher than that).

Helvellyn wrote:

Sounds pretty much like the original version to me, of which TNK was an accurate recreation (although I thought Thargoids were a little tougher than that).

I first played Elite on the Apple ][c and I had always found docking a hit or miss procedure, to the point that my first ship upgrade was the (then) oh-so-important Docking Computer. In E-TNK, I saved Cr1.5K by not actually having bought one.

And I've re-tested the Thargoid/beam laser thing with a new commander and a mis-jump. I can confirm that a salvo from a Beam Laser will do the job just before overheating.

Another thing I've found (dunno if it's just my relic of a 'puter), contacts on my scanner 'vanish' then reappear like blind spots in the scanner. And also, I got jumped by a pair of Vipers even though I was clean and had not been in combat.

Captain Hesperus

TNK gameplay is based on the original elite, and is very similar. Oolite on the other hand thjough is harder, there is obviously a lot more going on around you as well. One major difference is that you can uber your ship a lot more with hard hats and Qmines etc, but some of your opponents are a lot tougher too, so it balances out.

Don't know why you were jumped by vipers, TNK is basically very solid with no real bugs.

Captain Hesperus wrote:

...I got jumped by a pair of Vipers even though I was clean and had not been in combat.

Maybe they were just being efficient... perhaps your reputation precedes you!

after all, it's only common sense to stem an infestation of trumbles... at it's source. ^^

nijineko wrote:

after all, it's only common sense to stem an infestation of trumbles... at it's source. ^^

I've got my eye Multi-Targeting System on you, chum.

Captain Hesperus

feel free to talk to my lawyers, if it bothers you....

*pats a four-pack of well-used military lasers, with the name "lawyer" stenciled on each.*



(by the way, how does one tell how much hull damage one has? as in ship hit-points or integrity points or whatever is used in oolite. i have a feeling that i'm going to need to know. and pretty soon at that. ^^)

nijineko wrote:

(by the way, how does one tell how much hull damage one has? as in ship hit-points or integrity points or whatever is used in oolite. i have a feeling that i'm going to need to know. and pretty soon at that. ^^)

That's quite good point actually, in Oolite you don't know, In Xelite's targeting identification system, once you locked on to your target, it's speed, distance, and shield strength (as a percentage) were showed in the bottom LH corner of the view screen. This meant that you could see how much life was left in your victim, and how much damage you were inflicting.

You don't get a read out, but when quite low on energy the engine flames flicker, lower still and globes of plasma start to spill out and near dead a lot of plasma starts venting. Many ships also start to plead at this point!

The question was on the damage oneself has, if I understand right. And there is no way of knowing that except the drainage of your energy bars. If no energy is left, you're dead.

speaking of ship damage, i dunno if this should be in the suggestion box, but should damage to a ship be more realistically punishing to the craft? what i mean is, i've been in combat and had ships w/ flickering engines etc and they're still combatting and WFI-ing as normal. to me, if you're that damaged then i think your engines should be glitching, the damage to your hull should perhaps greatly decrease your manoueverability etc. had this in Hardwar and it made it a bit more fun, you'd get the crap shot outta you in battle and limp back to your hangar w/ your dashboard all SNAFu, and you'd be slow and sluggish due to the damage, added a bit tension as you'd be crawling back desperately hoping another hostile wouldn't appear on your scanner.

Usually NPCs with low energy (flickering engines) will flee. That's what I experience pretty much all the time, with very few exceptions. Sometimes it's even annoying: I've almost nailed the first of a group of attackers, and he runs away, depriving me of my kill, as I can't go after him while the others still are going after me. When I'm done with them, he's gone too far away, I don't find him anymore.

But to the idea of damage being more punishing to the player: I definitely like the idea of engines going only with a fraction of their max speed when damaged (like 25 or 30%), so you literally have to crawl to the next dock after a demanding fight.

(And this is definitely something for the suggestions-forum.)

Killer Wolf wrote:

had this in Hardwar and it made it a bit more fun, you'd get the crap shot outta you in battle and limp back to your hangar w/ your dashboard all SNAFu, and you'd be slow and sluggish due to the damage, added a bit tension as you'd be crawling back desperately hoping another hostile wouldn't appear on your scanner.

I think you mean FUBAR, not SNAFU.

Captain Hesperus

They'd both be appropriate