Thargoids getting their asses kicked

[Rimbaud]

Hello all

Been a while since I played oolite, but playing v1.71.1 compared with 1.65, wow the game seems really hard, partly because the graphics seem amazingly fast smooth.

Anyway like any good oolite player, I installed lots of new oxps, and have noticed that the Thargoids get battered in Witch Space battles every time. I had often seen before the Thargoids winning in the past, but it seemed that only 1 or 2 behemoths would appear before.

I have behemoth.oxp, and not navyships, and up to 4 behemoths appear, spewing zillions of really hard ships and turretting everything in sight. The thargoids last about a minute. I installed the Thargoid Carrier and that seems to do nothing but spit a couple of warships out and float about being shot at.

It seems like the navy asps and the long torpedo ships (whose name escapes me) can kick Thargoid warships one to one as well, which seems odd. The Thargoid warships wait too long to put the Thargons out, which then go inactive.

I tried the Thargorn Threat oxp, but apparently that introduces bugs and they still got beaten!

Any suggestions: I sometime attack the navy just to even it out!

Jon

[matt634]

The Galactic Navy OXP does two things to balance out witchspace battles. First it adds 3 additional thargoids for every new frigate added to interstellar space. Second, it creates a greater chance of the more dangerous thargoid battleships and cruisers being added to the battle.

[Selezen]

Yeah yeah, so the Thargoid Carrier is crap.

I'm planning on looking at it soon and trying to make it a bit more useful. The trouble with the Thargoids is that when they're confronted with large numbers of adversaries they tend to be a bit rubbish.

Big ships, not very maneouverable. Lots of little maneouverable robot ships that stop working when mother ship is gone.

Maybe what's needed is smaller ships. Lots and lots of smaller ships...

Mu ha ha ha ha!

Watch this space...

[TGHC]

make 'em nasty matey

[Cmdr. Maegil]

Here, here!

[Rimbaud]

The Galactic Navy OXP does two things to balance out witchspace battles. First it adds 3 additional thargoids for every new frigate added to interstellar space. Second, it creates a greater chance of the more dangerous thargoid battleships and cruisers being added to the battle.

These new navy ships are really cool but the Thargoids still get battered. If all the warships put out their thargons straight away they might do a bit better. When four or so behemoths appear, the Thargoids lose in about a minute as they have no answer to the Behemoths firepower, and the fact they pump out so many ships.

DAMNIT. The Thargoids almost just won, they'd put lots of lovely thargons out but then the Thargons started attacking the Thargoid Battleships instead of the almost dead Behemoth. Talk about snatching defeat from the jawws of victory.

[Selezen]

What's missing is little ships that can remain operational even if a mothership is destroyed. That's the advantage the Navy has.

[Rimbaud]

What's also a bit bad about the Thargons going inactive is that the player can ram them for a kill and >= 50 Credits each. That is a very easy way to get kills when the Navy slaughters them all for you (hence I don't take advantage of it).

[Captain Hesperus]

I think it's about time the 'Goids got some reinforcements what with having to play with Behemoths, Leviathans, Navy Frigates and the like. Maybe now the poly count has increased, all the talk of modding up a 'Thargoid Baseship' that spews out copious Thargoid warships of the many and various classes and swarms of Thargons might become a reality. I can see it now:

Code: Select all

+++++GalCom News Network+++++
VO: "Bringing you the news twenty-eight hours a day, three-hundred-and-ninety days a year"

CUTS TO: A typical newsroom set, a backdrop shows various newsfeeds and the GalCom News Network logo spinning lazily in the centre. A yellow Lizard in a grey suit, pink shirt and kipper tie faces the camera with a digital notepad in his hands.

Newscaster: "On tonight's programme: Rumours of a new Thargoid super-ship have finally borne horrific fruit, as a Reservist pilot records this encounter between a GalNavy patrol and a terrifying new alien threat."

CUTS TO: Grainy gunsight camera. The crosshairs indicate a Military Laser and the pilot's voice is audible as part of the ship's recorders. In view are a Leviathan and a squadron of Navy Asp Mk. IIs, flying in open formation through interstellar space.

Pilot: "Log Entry >static<, we're reaching the end of this patrol. Admiral Cohagen has just sent out a comms message that we should prepare to jump back to Or>static<. It's been quiet since that last battle against the bugs, I think we got 'em beat."
Bleeping sound, then threat warning siren sounds

VO: (presumably comms contact) "All pilots to alert status, inbound hostiles. Bearing one-niner-zero by four-five. Intercept and destroy."

Pilot: "Oops, looks like more bugs. Moving to intercept, Command."
View changes as the ship rolls and pitches to face the inbound aliens. 

Pilot: "There's a lot of 'em, they're literally flooding my forward scanners. That....that can't be right.....but it can't be..."
View changes to reveal a ship that looks like two Thargoid cruisers attached together by their undersides to leave a narrow gap between their hulls. It appears very close.

Pilot: "That odd 'Goid ship....my Targetting says it's about 250 klicks away. That means it's gotta be, what, five times the size of an Ico station! And the bug ships, they're being launched from it!"

VO: "Mayday, mayd>static<vy ship >static<ic. We are under att>static<all ships emergency ju>static<ace! Repeat emergency jump to real>static<"
The view changes again, as the ship pitches 180 degrees to head back towards the Leviathan. The Leviathan comes into view, dwarfed by another Thargoid 'baseship' with which it is trading fire. The 'baseship' hits the Leviathan and sends it hurtling away, great plumes of plasma spewing from it's broken hull. The Thargoid ship appears undamaged. It unleashes a burst of bright green laser fire at the crippled Leviathan, which lasts less than a second before being reduced to atoms.

Pilot: (terrified) Holy Giles! Dammit, I don't care if the damn Witchdrive melts a hole through the hull, make it work NOW!"
The forward view suddenly goes blank as the ship enters Hyperspace.

CUTS TO: Newsroom. The Newscaster is staring at the small monitor set into his desk, his face decidedly pale. He slowly looks up and notices the camera is on and swiftly, but unsuccesfully, tries to regain his composure.

Newscaster: "More on this story and the Zero-Gee Hockey results after these words from our sponsors..."

CUTS TO: Advertisments.

Captain Hesperus

[Disembodied]

Hmmm... while I can see the need to boost the Bugs, to make them challenging in the face of Navy superiority, we'd have to be careful not to tilt the whole affair in the other direction. We'd want something powerful, dangerous, and ideally only capable of being taken out through skilful player action. What's required is a Death Star-esque Secret Weakness: a crucial cottar pin or somesuch that, when pulled, causes the entire ship to explode with a tremendous noise. Perhaps this could be done via subentities? Some innocuous-looking little bitty in a hard-to-reach place which, when zapped by a hawkeye player (after flying through a storm of green beams and Bugships), triggers general internal SuperBug mayhem through its death_action.

Is something like this possible? Can subentities have death_actions?

[Lestradae]

Is something like this possible? Can subentities have death_actions?

Subentities could have death actions, Charlie made use of a lot of these with his ships, but wasn`t there talk on the Forum that Ahruman & co. took the death action command out or replaced it or whatnot?

[pagroove]

A Targioid 'WarStar'
Fly into it to take it out! Should be fun!

[Selezen]

Someone came up with a similar idea a while ago - the thargoid Basestar. I was supposed to be texturing it, but never got round to it and I can't remember if the person who asked ever got it done.

[JensAyton]

Subentities could have death actions, Charlie made use of a lot of these with his ships, but wasn`t there talk on the Forum that Ahruman & co. took the death action command out or replaced it or whatnot?

*sigh* no. It is deprecated for post-1.65 stuff, but still works. Just like the other legacy scripting stuff.

[Rimbaud]

Actually, it would be fine if the Thargoid Carrier simply pumped out some more ships: looking at the size, it could easily house two or three behemoths worth. Some plasma turrets would be nice too