Oolite Bulletins

I've been wondering for a while whether there's some other way to cash-in on a ship that's been abandoned by its pilot other than converting it to space-dust.

Is there a tractor beam OXP out there?

JohnnyBoy wrote:

I've been wondering for a while whether there's some other way to cash-in on a ship that's been abandoned by its pilot other than converting it to space-dust.

I think Giles had I ideas in that direction. In the code itself there are functions that call for a new pilot to be flown in, launch a ship with spare pilot and transfer that pilot to the abandoned ship. But it is just unfinished business and will not work in its current state. Anyhow, It was just mend as visual fun as the player would not gain from it.

Yeah, I've had that a couple of times. It breaks my heart to see a good ship go to waste. It would be a big fix. In space and in station. I suppose you might be able to extend some of the scoop code. Difficult to scoop a ship though. Smile

Then there's setting a bounty on station, maybe 20% of the value of the ship? That wouldn't be too over powering. It's not as if it's going to happen every day is it?

sort of an advanced traction scoop.

Definetely agree some sort of salvage should be claimable when use force a pilot to abandon their ship

Of course that goes up there with my wish list for a player owned mini station, player escort, player cargo storage hulks etc etc Something like Rafe Zetters personal mini system "home" for the player

Well if it's played right it could be quite cool. Having another ship latched onto yours would make the handling and top speed go titzy. Ever seen a hot rod with caravan on the back of it?

If you were feeling real nasty you may be able to make "Mr salvage" work for it by disabling the jump drive with another ship under tow.

Although it would be nice to have a grand theft auto style garage where you could stash ships I think that may be one step too far. Push the programme too much and it stops being elite and becomes something else.

Grand theft Python?

Or indeed "Gone in 60 parsecs"*

*deliberately making the same mistake as Mr. Lucas (although reading the explanation of what was meant by Hans line about the Kessel run did make me smile - talk about contrived)

It would be very easy for me to design a salvage mod, since i allready got those functions made for the Fuel Collector..

however i´m against making the player rich in this way

What i´m thinking is that a special Equipment is needed that fits in a missile pylon and bares the cost of say 50.000 or 100.000 credits or even more...

This Equipment would basicly be a Transmission device that contacts the nearest Salvage Company...

A ship jumps in, goes right up next to the ship targeted(that is derelict), performs some code stuff, and both ships jump out, and the player gets a reward of say 10.000 credits, pr ship. we could even make it so that its previous owner would have to be an offender or fugitive... like that not all ships are up for grabs. (thinking, can i make a derelict ship exit i wonder)

If the ships had to go dock to a station, that would take a very long time.

We could also make it so that the player has to have a clean status..

Sadly ATM there is no way to determine the size of the ship, one obvious way would be by radius, but we cant get to that figure yet in java scripting.
also the ships would need to be either trader or pirate or hunter..

We could throw in a possible self-destruct mechanism since pirates would´nt like having their computers siezed by the police...

on a side note, a recent fix made ships in interstellar space, impossible to go Derelict.

btw it is harder than you think to make succesive ships go derelict, something i have done much in the recent time.

Frame wrote:

What i´m thinking is that a special Equipment is needed that fits in a missile pylon and bares the cost of say 50.000 or 100.000 credits or even more...

This Equipment would basicly be a Transmission device that contacts the nearest Salvage Company...

A ship jumps in, goes right up next to the ship targeted(that is derelict), performs some code stuff, and both ships jump out, and the player gets a reward of say 10.000 credits, pr ship. we could even make it so that its previous owner would have to be an offender or fugitive... like that not all ships are up for grabs. (thinking, can i make a derelict ship exit i wonder)

This is a very clever idea - I like it. But the cost of the transmission device would have to be less than the salvage value of the retrieved ship. Also, would I have to stay close to the abandoned ship and defend it until the salvage company arrives to take it away?

JohnnyBoy wrote:

This is a very clever idea - I like it. But the cost of the transmission device would have to be less ?

Id say it would have to be exspensive, because you can use it again and again... they way it would work is that upon launching the device from the missile pylon, which is what you actually do. it well selfdestruct and award you the transmission device again.

and when you dock, you can use the unmount all pylon mounteble weapons, which is what this device is, and get the money back...

So it is more a license that you can sell again... however it can be destroyed while in flight... which ofcourse make no sense... but there are ways to prevent this too that would however prolly conflict with selling the device via the unmount all pylon mounteble weapons... therefore i call it a Transmitter, a peice of equipment that is able to contact salvage companies, which can be destroyed... also i would suggest a feature in the next releases of oolite where you are able to pick what pylon mounteble weapons, you want to sell...

got a whole list of requests soon. lol

Edit, just thought about that i actually will be able to auto repair the device... however docking would be required todo so...

frame wrote:

Sadly ATM there is no way to determine the size of the ship, one obvious way would be by radius, but we cant get to that figure yet in java scripting.

You can get the ships mass in JS. It will be a good measure for size as it directly relates to the ships volume.

Eric Walch wrote:

frame wrote:

Sadly ATM there is no way to determine the size of the ship, one obvious way would be by radius, but we cant get to that figure yet in java scripting.

You can get the ships mass in JS. It will be a good measure for size as it directly relates to the ships volume.

Ahh Thanks

How about making it a little mini-missile that does no damage but attaches to the ship. It hacks into the ships computer and "makes it safe" - stops it blowing up either through system failure or booby-trap. That way you could sell tiered quality of devices - a cheap latch-on/hack/transmit for help may not over come pirate booby-trap protocols, a more expensive device will/should.

Also, the transmission of the cheaper unit has increased chance of being intercepted by other scavengers and/or pirates who like sharks round blood will come and investigate - the more expensive systems use sophisticated encryption techniques and are less likely to be detected/decoded thus making your patient wait for the salvage ship a safer one - plus the more expensive one could give bigger salvage value because the ship's systems are in a better state post shutdown and will need less expensive rebuilding/reprogramming,,,

Just my thoughts - feel free to disregard.

Well if it hacks into the ship's computer, couldn't it point the ship towards the nav beacon, power up the engines and initiate the docking sequence once it arrives at the station? Then the 'mini-missile' could be identified as belonging to the commander that fired it, and he could be recompensed with the value of the ship.

The ship would have no capacity to defend itself, so it would be up to the user of the 'mini-missile' to escort the salvaged ship safely to the Coriolis station.

How about making the hognose (a variant of) player purchasable, with a bit of equipment that allows you to tug a vessel.
If you want to salvage, its fair to pay the price, in that you dont get to fly a sexy ship.

I really dont think it makes a whole lot of sense for fighters and light traders like a cobra (cargo load 30t) to be hauling dead pythons about. Aside from anything else, if they can pull a ship, why not sell a towable trailer as extra storage? It just doesn't quite fit with how I see elite (or oolite).

Just the cargo from a salvaged ship could easily be worth a big lot , an average ship loaded with mundane stuff (let alone gemstones etc.) might easily get you a few hundred credits, which is way more than the bounty is likely to be.

I think that if player salvage is allowed it should be a difficult and risky career choice, with downsides, not just charging an entry fee to the market (a license, or a bit of equipment).

Of course, thats just my opinion.

A missile that tells the derelict ship's computers to power up and take it in on autopiolt could be done with the existing OXP commands fairly easily with a missile that sets the AI of the ship to a custom one that takes the ship into dock, but will not fight (ie the player would have to protect it on its way to the station - no J jumping off and leaving it!) and fly in with it. That'd be quite a nice balance in gameplay terms. You might get (say) 3,000C scrap vaule for an Annaconda, but if the special missile cost 500 (say) and you've had to escort the blighter in it only as much as a trade run and without using J jump or injectors you may well have had to fight a few more battles than you normally wold. The ship's docking would set a variable paying you the ship's value. Not sure though how to have different ships pay different savage amounts. Might be calculateable with the ships mass in Java, so big ships paid more than little ships.