Oolite Bulletins

Hi, I just downloaded Oolite a few days ago and just started messing with it last night. So far it seems fairly cool, recently iv been interested in space sim games and decided to check out elite, and after several failed attempts at emulation i stumbled across Oolite, so far I'm enjoying it but i was stuck for about 4 hours on docking lol, finally modded my save file to give me a docking computer, anyway. so far iv been doing milk runs and iv got my original ship upgraded somewhat with cargo expansions, fuel injectors. I haven't gotten any weapon upgrades or anything yet.

I'm starting to get bored with milk runs and they aren't making to much money, only about 1400 or so per run, I'm trying to start out with bounty hunting / piracy but not to much luck, even once i did kill something i couldn't figure out how to get anything with the fuel scoop. Also had issues with the radar as in trying to read it, not to much luck

anyway some tips for making money/ starting combat would be great. I was also curious on OXP's I saw a massive collection, but I'm not sure on which ones to grab. If you could let me know which ones you think are must haves/ good for starting out that would be great, thanks

Welcome. OXPs are quite a jungle, there is a lot of good ones and even more great ones. My OXP count is around 40, and I have avoided Griff's ones because I feared hardware problems. For startes, Longway adn Asteroinds are good for starting mission, Planetfall, Your ad Here (+some YAH ads set) and perhaps some government based mods (commies, anarchies, dictators) offer additional trading opportunities. There are more, just browse the OXPs on forums and wiki (since wiki is read-only due to something right now, new OXPs are on forums). If you want lots of ships, use Realistic Shipyards, but since it is most of ship OXPs that existed at that time mended together, I suggest doing your own selection.

For scooping, you have to install scoop first. Then, it is located on belly of your ship so you have to fly a little over canisters to scoop. Docking is not so hard, there is some OXP around I think that help with navigating. Or just stop at buoy, turn to face dock, and slowly get in. When I was starting, I found that waiting for another ship to start docking then following it helps.

I cant Say much for making money as I still haven't found anything better than milk runs, but I Would recommend Realistic shipyards (and the Oxps it needs) All of the government Oxps, TotalPatrol , and any others that catch your eye. Most of the oxps I have tried are very nice and polished and add to the game. This is Just my opinion though (which amounts to little considering I have played for about 3 days )

Anyway I wish you good luck on your space travels and a few less docking accidents than I had my first few flights.

Yeah I was looking at the OXP's right now I don't want to do to much, sort of stay in spirit to the original game for a bit. But I was looking at Random Hits, missile rack. Oh with Your ad here, doesn't that just change stuff into billboards?

Hi DkryptX - as you may find out by trolling through the boards, I fully sympathise with your docking problems (but there are a good few purists on here - we'll just ignore 'em). While you're drifting around Galaxy 1, the OXPs I would install are Longway Round, Scourge of the Black Baron, Taranis, and Asteroid Storm (I'd probably do them in that order too). As you amass a few kills, add Military Fiasco and GalNav. Assuming you've loaded the latest Oolite, don't bother with Local Hero yet - it doesn't work and is in the process of being updated. I'm sure it will be great when it returns to working order. Of course, there are also the native missions which don't need an OXP - you'll recognise those when you hit them.

As you gain experience, you can start adding other OXPs, but be aware that a fair number of them are restricted to certain Galaxies - not all will run in Galaxy 1. The number you load depends upon your hardware capability - with older machines, a large number of OXPs (or, indeed, a large OXP) can slow your display down to "juddering" stage.

But, above all, enjoy the experience. Oolite grows as you use it and you constantly discover new things. I began with Elite in the 1980s and was really sad when hardare outstripped the game. Now Oolite's around, I can be a small boy again - and I'm apologising to no-one. Oolite is the bee's knees.

Mike

DkryptX wrote:

anyway some tips for making money/ starting combat would be great. I was also curious on OXP's I saw a massive collection, but I'm not sure on which ones to grab. If you could let me know which ones you think are must haves/ good for starting out that would be great, thanks

Welcome to the board!

I suggest to consider Simon_Bs reworked ship models a must have, they look much better than the original models!

The famous planets oxp is really nice eye candy.

The deep space pirates add some more fun outside the trading lanes, if you were an elite veteran, you probably would not want to miss it, it's more like the old game with it.

When you are up to bounty hunting and want a good laugh now and then, I suggest to try out Random Hits. You surely do want to have your ship equipped with more offensive and defensive power if you do, but there are missions with different levels of difficulty.

The galactic navy is also nice, but you probably need some good fighting experience, as you will be part of fleet battles!

The thargoid oxps add some more fun with those hostile aliens and probably work well once you've done some successful random hits.

The military fiasco oxp can be pretty tough - you probably will be shot down a few times. Therefore, add it, when you really feel up to some difficult encounters!

The assassins oxp probably is something for much later, as it takes place in G7 and really requires a skilled commander with a powerful ship. Then it's a lot of fun!

When scooping, please keep in mind that you need free cargo space - the scoop icon turnes red once your cargo bay is filled to the limits. It's always a good idea to keep some cargo space free, as every scooped cargo pod is 100% profit. Scooping escape pods also can deliver a good amount of money. Sometimes you get 500cr for a single pod!

There's also some very nice equipment oxps. The scanner enhancements are well worth it, and so is the fuel collector. The ore processor is very costly, probably never pays off, but is fun to have as it can scoop gold, platinum and such riches from asteroids!

I've only seen the same scanner in hostile waters aside from elite. It works the following way:
hostile ships are red or green-red flashing (thargoid)
neutral ships are yellow - they might turn red if they are a pirate and you come too close!
system ships are purple

The scanner shows the position of the ship relative to yours. The upper part of the scanner is before you, the lower part behind you.

Since it's 3D, the scanner also represents how far above or below you the ship is - if the big dot is at the top, the ship is above you, if it's below, it is behind you. The length of the bar shows how far above/below, the small part shows the exact position.

If you want to scoop cargo, it's often a good help to zoom in by pressing y in order to be able to find the cargo pods.

There's two oxp's that nicely add to the cargo experience: pods and cargo & wrecks. Pods has some random bad effects, but also increases rewards on good things in order to balance it.

In general, it's a good idea to visit the oxp page on the wiki and have a look which oxp's do add missions in which galaxy and how difficult they are rated. That way you can plan to have more fun while flying around!

The docking might be difficult in the beginning, but if you train a bit, it should become quite easy (if you use a joystick). I personally find it easier to dock with a high speed instead of slowing down too much. The reason is simple: Once you've positioned your craft and matched rotation of the station, you will reduce the time to keep the rotation matched by docking a bit more quickly Since the DC can be damaged and because it's pretty slow if you cannot shift-d to dock instantly, it really helps to be able to manually dock, as it's much faster. However, you're not alone with the problem to learn docking. Maybe for most of us who played elite in our youth it's so easy because it was much more difficult in elite than it is here, as the joystick technology improved heavily since then.

Screet

I don't think I really need to worry to much about hardware issues, iv sort of went overkill when I built this PC, iv got 2gb of ram, 9800gtx+, and an e8400, so i think I'm fine with that. Anyway I think I'll start adding some of these oxp's soon, I'm messing around with combat now and doing pretty poorly lol, I bought a forward beam laser, missiles, scoop, and all that, but I'm having issues finding pirates / traders, and when I do find the occasional trader, they usually get away. I'm fairly new to space simulators, the only one iv really played was freelancer but I didn't play that to much. Oh another question, where do you find asteroids for mining / hollowed out outposts?

They sort of just arrive in your vicinity (stay on the spacelane). Or then there's always the Rock Hermit Detector OXP. If you're going mining, be sure to have mining lasers. You CAN do it with a normal laser, but most times you'll just blow up the asteroid.

Mike

MKG wrote:

If you're going mining, be sure to have mining lasers. You CAN do it with a normal laser, but most times you'll just blow up the asteroid.

Especially with military lasers the asteroids usually vanish without leaving scoopable remains.

While flying the Boa Class Cruiser I noticed a very easy way to go mining - probably the fastest way possible: Just run those asteroids over! The speed setting should not be too high, though, as otherwise the impact energy might blow up the ship. I did not try this while flying the Cobbie, but I guess it should work with it, too, as it's a pretty big ship!

The Caduceus, my favorite ship, also allows to go mining this way.

Pirate Coves oxp turns some rock hermits into pirate bases which do launch hostile ships. It's well possible to dock on them and check if it's worth trading with them, though. The oxp also adds pirate bases where no rock hermits are, thus increasing the overall amount of sightings. Pirate bases can be shot down safely, something which should not be done to Rock Hermits.

Screet

Woot First blood, decided to hop on and try and practice combat a bit before I installed some of the mission oxp's, I found a lone trader and finally hit something! I was pretty happy till about 5min later I ran into a convoy of pirates you can guess how that ended lol, anyway I'm gonna install longway now then just add as I finish missions, Thanks again for the help guys, and I'm impressed to see a freeware game especially one this old, still has a good community. Anyway if I have anymore questions ill post them in this thread, thanks again


---EDIT---
Hey I just installed Longway, and I didn't get to see what planet I had to go to or who I need to pickup, Is there anyway to see the communication log again? or get a waypoint to where i need to go?

Mission goals appear at F5, you gotta press it twice. BTW when you pick up that guy you gotta go to Qubeen. 8LYs, but since you can't do that in one jump you gotta go all the way around...that is why it is called Longway.

I noticed, I got to the last jump, ran into a pirate literally... lol, are there any mods you could suggest that would also help with gaining currency?

Black Monks can give you a loan, but interst can be killer...literally.

is there anything with repeatable missions aside from random hits?

DkryptX wrote:

is there anything with repeatable missions aside from random hits?

Yepp. Try Erics UPS-Courier.