Oolite Bulletins

Sometimes I think a 3D coordinate system would be nice. Like when I've piled into a melee of brigands and end up chasing down a fleeing Asp - by the time he's dead the rest of the pack are often off my scanner, and it's bloody difficult flipping exactly 180 to get back to them. With a 3D coordinate system (GPS? - Galactic Positioning System) I could remember the bearing we shoot off on, and at the end subtract 180 and fly back along it.

Also useful in witchspace; if you're not careful about where you destroy the first and last Thargoid you can end up with Tharglets and fragments distributed out of scanner range, which seems a waste. Currently the only way to find all the bits is to fly around in careful loops.

Maybe you could have a portable homing beacon you could eject at any point.

It could emit a signal just as a planet or space station does so you could track it with your space compass.

I would imagine most of the game code would already be there as a planet or space station already does this . All you need is a trigger and to be able to buy a new one at a space station

Naw, it'd drift.

Mad Dan Eccles wrote:

Naw, it'd drift.

As does the Tharglets and fragments. It could drift with them.

The way drift works, it would probably drift in another direction.

Arh ok, then a 3D coordinate system wouldn't work either as things would drift away from any coordinates you set.

Yet if you used the same/simmilar game code as the planets/space stations use then a homing beacon may not drift.

Or what if the homing beacon could be attatched to whatever object you wanted to follow?

It would fire in a straight line, so you'd have to either be pretty close or have great aim, but maybe it could be attached to a "string" so it could be retracted if the shot missed at a slow speed slow enough speed to avoid constant firing, perhaps even preventing the firing of missles while it was being retracted, and the string could be broken at will in case of a hit or if a missle urgently needed to be fired.

Hmm... it'd have to be a pretty long string though, as that would make a maximum range for the homing beacon unless you wanted to take your chances with breaking the string and letting it go further.

1000 years in the future and they're still using balls of string... tsk.

Next you're gonna tell me they're still using good old fashioned toilet paper!!

Darkbee wrote:

1000 years in the future and they're still using balls of string... tsk.

Who said anything about balls? In the future they roll string into hyperspheres!

not sure about a string but you could make them magnetic.

MinatOor. ISAGN.

Commander Gonzo wrote:

Or what if the homing beacon could be attatched to whatever object you wanted to follow?

It would fire in a straight line, so you'd have to either be pretty close or have great aim, but maybe it could be attached to a "string" so it could be retracted if the shot missed at a slow speed slow enough speed to avoid constant firing, perhaps even preventing the firing of missles while it was being retracted, and the string could be broken at will in case of a hit or if a missle urgently needed to be fired.

Hmm... it'd have to be a pretty long string though, as that would make a maximum range for the homing beacon unless you wanted to take your chances with breaking the string and letting it go further.

Perhaps instead of string, a homing beacon could be a small droid ship that is fired like a missile and programmed to "take over" the missile lock that you had on the target ship and basically follow it wherever it goes, maintaining a safe distance. Your space compass could be set to point you in the direction of your beacon droid, and after you dispatched your victim, you could fuel scoop your precious toy back into your hold.

This way, the homing droid could be appropriately expensive, and re-usable. They could be very fast, and also inherit some of the line-of-fire avoidance intelligence that regular AI's possess, to make it really hard for the target to hastily remove the threat of a returning bad-ass by destroying the little bastard (it's be like an annoying housefly that's really hard to swat).

Since this expensive little droid has the ability to follow someone, you should also be able to remotely tell it to forget about it, and return to mama.

PS: I REALLY like this idea. A lot.

So do I,

If you gave it a limited fuel/energy life (say 5-10 mins) it would put some pressure back on you to finish your battle and go get it

mmm . . . yes.

And of course it would be cool if the AI had these, and you could see them on your scanner.


"You're next, sunshine"