Fuel Collector Release 0.06

[Diziet Sma]

To ensure that escape is always theoretically possible, other ships will sometimes also be brought out of hyperspace by the Thargoid ambush, some of which will have followed an existing wormhole and so have enough fuel to immediately run.

To ensure that the player can't just kill a few Thargoids and then wait, they'll call in reinforcements as the battle continues.

The odds are that if you misjumped with insufficient fuel and no galdrive or OXP-based escape route, the Thargoids will kill you before you can escape - but it's always possible to survive in theory.

So basically, Anonymissimus, to escape you need to:

1) Fgnl nyvir
2) Rafher nal (aba-Gunetbvq) arjpbzref fgnl nyvir
3) Xrrc lbhe rlrf crryrq sbe jvgpufcnpr pybhqf
4) Ubcr yvxr uryy lbh unir rabhtu vawrpgbe shry erznvavat gb ernpu gur pybhq orsber vg qvfnccrnef!

[Anonymissimus]

Without a strong fighter or iron ass the player is thargoid-dead then anyway. So far for the "theoretical" survivability.

How does the position influence the generation of other ships ? My usual way of fighting thargoids generally included running away from them continuously, abusing the greater laser range. At some point all chasing thargoids are dead and you can just wait forever in the void. That could be why I've seen traders so rarely. Or any other ship opening wormwholes. And there's no way to find back to the "witchpoint".

[Anonymissimus]

Happened. Waited forever for someone to jump into the direction, nada. Not enough fuel left even without using injectors. First time with that commander caught in witchspace. Zaonce-Lave, no chance. Really mean. Surviving required running away from the Thargoids, got military lasers but no shield upgrades. (And even with those I still would have needed to flee I guess.) Followed the trail of disabled Thargons back but can't find the "invisible witchpoint". I can only assume I'm somewhere off the position where the Thargoids and traders are generated, the "invisible witchpoint". Even with bounding box debug no chance to find back.
The only sane way to handle this is using extra fuel and restrict oneself to use it if and only if stranded in interstellar space. An OXP could enforce such behaviour I suppose, as any other extra fuel makes the game too easy. Alternatively, there should be some way of orientation in interstellar space, in particular, finding back to the supposed invisible witchpoint in whose vicinity the regenerated thargoids are lurking and traders opening wormholes potentially appear.

[Fritz]

I mentioned the Thargoid respawning problem somewhere else, and I took the freedom of reducing the respawning probability, because the scenario was impossible to win (and not because I could get stuck). For me, winning means to kill all Thargoids and collect all surviving Thargons - that's how it could be done on the C64 version of Elite.

I didn't say it is impossible to survive if you can't jump out, but it should be very, very unlikely - unless there is some trick I don't know of and unless you fly some uber OXP battleship that outclasses even 10 Thargoids at once...

The core game lets you have 2 military lasers, an extra energy unit, shield boosters and a military shield enhancement. Fitted into a strong ship, you have reached kind of a limit. (I don't consider missiles and weapons of mass destruction. Missiles are relatively useless against Thargoids. The energy bomb did at least destroy the Thargons on the C64 version and will probably do this in Oolite too, but this weapon is very near cheating. But this doesn't matter much anyway, because the Thargoids keep respawning and you can't have an infinite number of these weapons.)

With a ship equipped as described, killing 2 or 3 Thargoids appearing together is not too difficult, even 4 and perhaps 5 (the maximum) should or could be possible with some practise and/or luck. But if you're done with them, your shields are probably at least partly down, your energy is low and your lasers are hot, and in this condition you must face the newly appearing fresh and healthy Thargoids. What makes things worse is that the second group usually appears, while you are still battling the first group! You can't regenerate while flying dodging maneuvers, because the Thargoids have turrets and keep hitting. And the number of Thargons keeps increasing...

This scenario was made more difficult at some point: cim mentionend commit 242002. At this stage, exactly 1 Thargoid was added as soon the number had dropped below 2. That was probably survivable for an infinite time, but when I stumbled over the problem in the current version (1.82), there were 2-4 Thargoids added when the number dropped below 3! This is delayed by a random time, but it is impossible to kill 2 or more Thargoids and regenerate shields and energy in the average time you have before the respawning.

Theoretically it is of course possible to survive, because the respawning delay is random, but it is very unlikely, probably much more unlikely than getting stuck in witch space because of a malfunction. And you must have the luck of a long delay not only once but, on average, about 20 times before the trader appears!

One logical solution for the getting-stuck problem without needing to get fuel out of nowhere could be to extract fuel out of inactive Thargons. But this would require the scenario to be winnable with a realistic probability. Or to be able to scoop up living Thargons... I must admit that I never tried to do this.

[RockDoctor]

This very useful OXP seems to have dropped off the OXP list for some reason since the Great DisORGanisation of Oolite.space of 2023-04.

Anybody know the reason? Or did the Thargoids get it?

EDIT : I take it back - I was expecting it in "Equipment", but for some reason it has migrated to "Activities".

[Switeck]

I was expecting it in "Equipment", but for some reason it has migrated to "Activities".

It's kinda both -- equipment that makes new activities possible -- refueling off dying ships, refueling off 'empty' space, and with other add-ons refueling off planet atmospheres too.

[Cholmondely]

Looking at Hiran's Oolite Expansion Index (Dec 2022 version - from before we lost Oolite.org):

Warnings

Category mismatch between OXP Manifest and Expansion Manager at character position 0001 (LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A vs LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E)
Author mismatch between OXP Manifest and Expansion Manager at character position 0001 (LATIN SMALL LETTER V vs LATIN CAPITAL LETTER F)

And the category in the manifest.plist inside the oxz is given as Activities.

So the oxp zipper (Frame?) wrote in Activities to the manifest.plist. But when later uploading it onto the Expansions Manager, selected Equipment instead in the drop down menu in the EM Manifest.

But I've just this week corrected various problems in my EM Manifests on Oolite.Cloud as pointed out by Hiran's Oolite Expansion Index, and every discrepancy which his Index highlighted seemed to be there.

The other change was the Author name: vsfc (manifest.plist) - Frame (EM Manifest)

So something else is going on too. Thargoids?

[RockDoctor]

Massaging databases is an ongoing task.
It would probably be a better investment of time to put some sanitising logic into the uploader ("Do you want it in CatA or CatB, or both? Really?" ; "What is your name, or do you want 'they' pronouns?" ...) and stem the source, and only then actually address sanitising the OXPs that don't get cleaned up by their owner/ manager.

[Cholmondely]

There have been two recent attempts to persuade authors that their categorisation of OXPs was confusing. In each case, it fell on deaf ears, with disinterest in categorising the OXPs in a way which would help newcomers to make sense of the veritable morass which lies in wait for them.

In each case, the OXPs constituted a valuable addition to the morass (in my humble opinion). But our clear categorisation is becoming more incoherent.

I wonder if a new categorisation might make more sense?

I feel strongly that adding an Economics/Trade category would make sense. As would a meta-OXP category. As might a beginner's category.

But we need to discuss this issue and have enough people joining the debate to have a chance of coming to a decision which will not end up upsetting everybody.

The one good thing, is that Hiran's Oolite Starter now shows the tags which can be added on to the manifest.plist, so that the Fuel Collector Activity can also be tagged as equipment. But maybe only 10-20% use the tags - and in some case the tag is merely a restatement of the OXP category.

[Redspear]

There have been two recent attempts to persuade authors that their categorisation of OXPs was confusing. In each case, it fell on deaf ears, with disinterest in categorising the OXPs in a way which would help newcomers to make sense of the veritable morass which lies in wait for them.

Can't be sure if I was one of them or not but regardless...

I think 'disinterest' is a rather harsh accusation when it's not clear what the answer is in many cases.

Categories are distinct: ships, stations, equipment etc.
OXPs however are sometimes far from being so.

Examples are really rather numerous I think but range from the conceptual/contextual such as  Weapon Laws OXP (weapons?/equipment?/systems?/stations?) to the simply dualistic e.g.  WildShips OXP (dockables & ships).

So it's not really a problem of the categories lacking scope but rather of oxps often being complex.

Red, Green, Blue - they give us all of the categories we need to colour everything within oolite and yet... which category does cyan fit into?

In the absence of a formal hierarchy and/or clear methodolgy we're left debating which is the key constituent of an oxp whenever it is even the slightest bit complicated. I would have thought that the author of the oxp is likely better placed than most to make such a judgement if one is necessary.

Which choice would be of most service to the aforementioned newcomers is not always clear I think.

[hiran]

The one good thing, is that Hiran's Oolite Starter now shows the tags which can be added on to the manifest.plist, so that the Fuel Collector Activity can also be tagged as equipment. But maybe only 10-20% use the tags - and in some case the tag is merely a restatement of the OXP category.

... too technical and unwanted facts ...

[Cholmondely]

The one good thing, is that Hiran's Oolite Starter now shows the tags which can be added on to the manifest.plist, so that the Fuel Collector Activity can also be tagged as equipment. But maybe only 10-20% use the tags - and in some case the tag is merely a restatement of the OXP category.

The tagging is even more complex. Just assume one OXP to be tagged as
Trade, Mission and the other tagged as Mission, Trade.

Are they in the same category? After all, comparison is difficult.
So the starter sorts the tags alphabetically, making them both look like Mission, Trade.
Now they can easily be said as equal. However some OXP that is tagged Mission, Trade, Whatever is still different.

Hiran: does that really matter? The important point is that the tags which have hitherto been invisible are now thanks to your Oolite Starter able to be consulted. When we see how our OXP authors (eg. Redspear, Alnivel & Timer) start using them, then we will know what best to do with them!

[hiran]

Hiran: does that really matter?

You're right. At this time it does not.