Oolite Bulletins

Hello,

I'm currently trying to complete the Spyhunter mission and have made it to Anerbe. Every time I try to shoot down the Courier he runs off and the target is lost. Are there any tips for killing him quickly? Will an Energy Bomb do the trick or do I actually have to shoot him to complete the mission?

Thanks, Dave

Keep track of which direction he runs. When you're in the clear, punch the Torus and chase after him. By the time you catch up, he would've exausted his fuel and will be an easier kill.

Happy huntin'.

would this be worth an entry on the Requests thread : a long range targetter. Like ATC on Earth we can (perhaps) assume that Galcop had some very powerful scanners and trackers to monitor a whole system, therefore you could buy a unit that would list all craft listed in a system (should be easy, given you can get this in the debug modes) and you can pick one to target (to track only, not lock up w/ a weapon). guess this should be an upgrade to the ASC. would be useful for missions like the Constrictor hunt etc.

I'll be releasing a new version of Spyhunter shortly, using the new Courier model.

That should hopefully fix that little feature where he can zoooom off like a bat out of hell...

Will you be cutting his fuel supply back?
NPCs tend to use the injectors more wisely when the fuel is set around 5.0. At 7.0 and higher, they zip around like mad on full burn till the quirium runs out or they get shot down.

Or would you just remove his injectors entirely?

I think I'll take the first option - I'll reduce the fuel load for the NPC. I think that would make for an intermediate-level challenge rather than making it too easy. I might beef up the armament a bit though.

Don't want you all getting complacent now, do I?

I'm not convinced it needs to be changed, you have to let him clear the scanner range and use the torus to keep with him, I see that as just another variation on hunting down your quarry. But hey it's your OXP, and either way it's good fun.

Excuse my ignorance but what's a Torus?

J on the keyboard. Comes fitted as standard to all ships. The Drive allows you to "warp drive", reaching the witchspace beacon to the station in about one minute. However, the presence of other ships or powered objects within 25km "mass-locks" it, so it can only be used whilst the scanner is clear of ships. (Bascially allows you to skip through boring bits of empty space to improve the gameplay. )

“Torus” is of course topologist jargon for “do[ugh]nut”.

How did it metamorphose Oolite jargon for “witchspace drive”?

Well apparently - discussed elsethread at great lengh - the 'j' drive does it's majik by generating a donut-shaped artificial singularity around the ship, thusly greatly magnifying top velocity. That's how it got to be called a torus drive.

The real life version is that there was a development team called Torus involved with the conversion of Elite to various platforms, and they kind of christened the drive after themselves... [citation needed]

I always imagined that there was a torus-shaped particle accelerator built into the drive that supercharged the system drive reaction...

There's a a copyright notice in the front of my Amstrad manual that says

"Conversion by Torus Ltd.British Telecommunications.plc"

Wow... I'm finding this an incredibly difficult ship to kill!

I've spent well over 50 minutes in an on-off dogfight, during which I'll shoot at him with my lasers for a bit, and then the cowardly targ keeps on using his injectors and zooming off into the distance. Then I catch up with him, and the same thing happens again!

The only time I appeared to get close was when I got fed up, and used an energy bomb, the result of which was to generate the sparks from his engine, and cause him to fly into the distance. By the time I caught up with him, he seemed fully recovered...

I was hoping that at some point he'd run out of fuel for his witchdrive injectors, but there's no sign of that having happened. I've temporarily given up and returned to the main station.

Time for a bit of a break before I give it another go...

Mauiby de Fug wrote:

I've spent well over 50 minutes in an on-off dogfight, during which I'll shoot at him with my lasers for a bit, and then the cowardly targ keeps on using his injectors and zooming off into the distance. Then I catch up with him, and the same thing happens again!

The only time I appeared to get close was when I got fed up, and used an energy bomb, the result of which was to generate the sparks from his engine, and cause him to fly into the distance. By the time I caught up with him, he seemed fully recovered... .

I don't remember fighting that ship in the past. I just tried. Its difficult, or even impossible to kill it with military lasers alone. The ship has an extreme high recharge rate. Energy fills up from zero to full in a few seconds ! And I only managed to half its energy with a full military laser salvo. Turning to use my back lasers took some time, giving it time to recharge. With such high energy recharge one probably needs a combination of full lasers until overheat and than an energy bomb to finish the kill. At the moment your lasers get overheated, the target just will just regenerate.

Starting fuel is also very high for the ship. It has 9 times the normal fuel on board. Oolite has evolved in the meantime and fuel consumption during dogfight is lower nowadays. In the past nps ships also consumed fuel during deceleration. That was different than with the player were fuel was only consumed when pressing the injection button. npc fuel consumption now works as with the player. Result is probably that it takes longer to let him run out of fuel that at the time the oxp was created.

Currently I am busy with some code adjustments that should better prevent some head-on collisions during combat. This ship was a good test candidate as it kept flying at injector speed towards me. But it never touched me. Than I did the bold thing: waiting till it headed towards me at injectors and than accelerated to full speed myself and at the moment it pitched up to avoid me, I also pitched up.
It cost me all my front shields and some energy banks. But the target didn't survive *. Don't try such things with a light weight ship, but a heavy ship like my Boa2 will do.

*I don't think I hit him full as it would have killed me for sure than.