Oolite Bulletins

A quick hello to all my fello combateers.

I have just joined the forum - picking up oolite last week and clocking up about 30 hours over the weekend (wife was away)
I was a zx spectrum and amiga 'pilot' from way back and was stacked when my brother sent me on this mission.

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Reversed my basic cobra out the hanger bay a few hours back now and have clocked up some nice wee kills, trading bits here and there and have a fat 20K payroll in the bank with some usual toys on board. Have already had a run in (and died) with some thargon bad boys and had a visit from some little green fellas. Remembered that taking a wee trip to the sun could kill them off.

Have some real basic questions for anyone who is willing to listen and contribute>>
- How did i pick those little annoying green things up ?
- Is it worthwhile going for a beam laser or do i just go straight for military? (i have the cash)
- Which of the new toys are worthwhile ? Fuel Injectors, system overhaul [?], radar upgrades, tracking upgrades and memory expansions - they are all new to me?
- my communication console thing doesn't seem to work - is this a bug on code (on PC running 1.65) or do i need to buy something. I can see on the spot messages in space when i start blasting the good guys but cant look at logs, cant respond or anything else.
- where do i steal me a cloaking device? )
- I remember you used to get missions, (other than the oxp missions I am reading about) - where do I / who do i stumble across any of the native game missions?

I am really happy to be joining the fight.

Look forward to saying hello.

Welcome to the boards, Jason! 30hrs is a very impressive effort for one weekend!

If you haven't already seen it, do check out the Oolite sections of the Elite Wiki as this explains some of the features that are new or weren't present in some of the original Elite versions.

To answer your questions:

- How did i pick those little annoying green things up?

Those will be Trumbles, spacefaring pests that manage to cause great aggravation to many a pilot. Sometimes they'll be inside cargo pods that you pick up - they usually look a bit different to normal pods.

- Is it worthwhile going for a beam laser or do i just go straight for military? (i have the cash)

If you're already a good shot then go with the military laser - if you find yourself struggling with overheating you can always go back to the beam laser for a while until your accuracy improves.

- Which of the new toys are worthwhile ? Fuel Injectors, system overhaul [?], radar upgrades, tracking upgrades and memory expansions - they are all new to me?

System overhauls should be bought whenever they crop up otherwise you run the risk of witchdrive failures, fuel leaks, etc. Fuel injectors are really useful as they help to avoid mass locking when trying to use the in-system jump drive. If you're doing lots of fighting, radar improvements are definitely worth getting but they're not essential.

- my communication console thing doesn't seem to work - is this a bug on code (on PC running 1.65) or do i need to buy something. I can see on the spot messages in space when i start blasting the good guys but cant look at logs, cant respond or anything else.

You should be able to use the ~ (tilde) key to show your comms log. Note that you can't respond to any messages though.

- where do i steal me a cloaking device?

See below

- I remember you used to get missions, (other than the oxp missions I am reading about) - where do I / who do i stumble across any of the native game missions?

The Missions page of the Wiki has details of the native missions and the requirements for them, as well as a run-down of the OXP missions that are currently available.

Good luck!

Hi Jason, welcome aboard! It looks like you've got the old addiction back again, 30 hours in a weekend huh, join the clan

If you haven't found it yet most of your answers are in the Elite wiki here, just go to the Oolite section, it's a huge and continually updated resource.

Sounds like you've got a dose of the Trumbles in your cabin, it's generic to the game not an OXP, you would have been prompted to buy one and said yes. You might find some spoilers on this board, but I can tell you that they get "uncomfortable" when it's warm.

As far as equipment goes, you want everything you can buy both for offence and defence, and get the biggest and best, so military laser front and back to me is a no brainer. You'll find things like fuel injectors, mult-targeting etc will open up a whole new world of battle strategies. You'll need to be well armoured and tooled up to take on some of the baddies out there if you don't want to be mincemeat.

Keyboard controls are on the Wiki here

The cloaking device cannot be bought individually it comes as a "surprise reward" from a generic mission which occurs in Galaxy 5.

For missions, again check out the wiki.

Hope that helps

Jason Whitelock wrote:

A quick hello to all my fello combateers.

Hi, Jason Whitelock, and welcome to the boards and of course to this great game!

Jason Whitelock wrote:

I have just joined the forum - picking up oolite last week and clocking up about 30 hours over the weekend (wife was away)

Yeah, I think we all know the feeling and remeber how the hours passed by when we got into the first play rush!

Jason Whitelock wrote:

Reversed my basic cobra out the hanger bay a few hours back now and have clocked up some nice wee kills, trading bits here and there and have a fat 20K payroll in the bank with some usual toys on board. Have already had a run in (and died) with some thargon bad boys and had a visit from some little green fellas. Remembered that taking a wee trip to the sun could kill them off.

So your memries from the old times are still working, and you're on a good way. Right On, Commander!

Jason Whitelock wrote:

- How did i pick those little annoying green things up?
- I remember you used to get missions, (other than the oxp missions I am reading about) - where do I / who do i stumble across any of the native game missions?
- where do i steal me a cloaking device? )

You can get trumbles in different ways. One of them is that every new Jameson will get a trumble-offer when he has a certain amount of money. You can also get them by scooping an infested cargopod, if you have a certain OXP installed. There is also a new OXP (work in progress) around trumbles.

Answers to all other mission-related questions can be found in the wiki Missions page. There is a list of built-in and OXP missions together with informations about where and when you can get them.

Jason Whitelock wrote:

- Is it worthwhile going for a beam laser or do i just go straight for military? (i have the cash)
- Which of the new toys are worthwhile ? Fuel Injectors, system overhaul [?], radar upgrades, tracking upgrades and memory expansions - they are all new to me?

Which laser you choose it probably a question of personal taste. In Oolite (probably unlike the old Elite-versions) the lasers have a different range. So with a military laser you can kill your enemies from farther away, which often is a good combat tactic, as the NPCs will fire back only starting from a closer range. On the other hand the military laser heats up quite quickly and then needs to cool again (and to answer your question before you have asked: No, there is no laser cooling device and there will be none. Read the Oolite FAQ for an explanation.) The beam laser does not heat up quite so quickly, but on the other hand has not such a high firing frequency and not quite the firing range of the military version.

My personal opinion: take a military laser and learn to aim well and not waste its fire.

If you have the money (and before long you will have more money than you possibly can spend) they all are worthwhile. Fuel injectors are really helpful, and the scanner upgrades make life a lot easier. You find information on all the items in the equipment section of the wiki. also make sure to maintain your ship regularly. System failures become more likely in a poorly maintained ship. But the main issue is that the sell-in value of your ship drops dramatically if you don't maintain it. So it is especially advisable to have a maintenance overhaul just before you buy a new ship and therefore resell your old one. The difference in resell value is easily a couple of times the cost of the overhaul.

Jason Whitelock wrote:

- my communication console thing doesn't seem to work - is this a bug on code (on PC running 1.65) or do i need to buy something. I can see on the spot messages in space when i start blasting the good guys but cant look at logs, cant respond or anything else.

No, you don't need to buy anything. By pressing the console key (in-flight) a temporary window is opened, showing the last few messages you got from other ships. It's possible that you don't have the default key ('`') on your keyboard. But you can easily re-configure your keyboard configuration and assign another key. You find a short how-to again in the FAQ-page and also in the keyboard control page of the wiki.

Generally the wiki is the place where you find all resources and informations you will need. If your needs are not satisfied there, then feel free to ask more questions here!

Again welcome!

...and get your overhaul done at the highest-tech planet you can! TL14 or 15 for preference -- that way you can be sure that the technicians are fully qualified to maintain ALL your gear. And the complimentary coffee is usually a lot better.

I noticed that if you get your overhaul done at a planet which doesn't stock al the gear you have you have to get it done again at a planet that does.

GothStag wrote:

I noticed that if you get your overhaul done at a planet which doesn't stock al the gear you have you have to get it done again at a planet that does.

Well it's all about tech levels and if you think about it, you wouldn't go to a dental nurse and expect her to perform open heart surgery for you would you

Welcome, and Cheers m8!
I suggest, if you computer can handle it, getting all the OXP's one can get. Its well worth the shiny new additions to everything, as well as all the ship models, that i stare at for hours, drooling at ^.^