Oolite Bulletins

Hi,

Can you guess what I want to know?

Any advice welcomed....now I know I'm gonna get flamed.!!

Cheers

Flamed here? Never.

If you have the means then you may as well get one.

The Shield Booster doubles your shield strength. The Military Booster doubles it by half as much again. A must for any Iron Ass!

Agreed with the two above posters.

This is the friendliest board this side of Riedquat, Koshed. Discussions here are always civil. Questions are welcome, as are you.

Absolutely. Get it. Flaunt it...

LittleBear wrote:

... The Military Booster doubles it by half as much again...

hhhmmm... I don't think that quite makes sense...

Star Gazer wrote:

Absolutely. Get it. Flaunt it...

LittleBear wrote:

... The Military Booster doubles it by half as much again...

hhhmmm... I don't think that quite makes sense...

I think what LittleBear meant was this. Adding a Shield Booster doubles your shield strength (shield x 2). The Military Shield Enhancementt is a upgrade of the Shield Booster which doubles the booster strength (shield x 4).

In a more practical terms, there is a ton of other stuff you should have first before buying the military stuff. Just by chance I've written up a doc that covers all this Uncle Blix's Upgrade Guide. It's a alpha version, but it get you pointed in the right direction.

No, it increases the shield power by half again after shield enhancements. Basically, it's another (expensive!) Shield Booster.

KZ9999 wrote:

In a more practical terms, there is a ton of other stuff you should have first before buying the military stuff. Just by chance I've written up a doc that covers all this Uncle Blix's Upgrade Guide. It's a alpha version, but it get you pointed in the right direction.

Nice guide but I feel you are wrong to recommend an extra cargo bay as the first equipment upgrade. Surely the extra capacity is not needed until you have enough cash to fill the basic cargo bay? For me, a much better first buy would be a Witchspace fuel injector. A great all-round piece of kit. Great for attack and defence, makes ECMs less of a must have for the combat commander. Even if your just doing milk runs at first, the injectors will make your cash grow quicker(in RL that is).

Another point I would like to add. If your aim is to make as much money as quickly as possible, only buy equipment with surplus cash. Wait until you’ve got enough cash to fill your hold with computers and still have money left before buying expensive kit. Just like the real world, money goes to money. So always make sure you have plenty of it for trading.

I agree with Azathoth regarding the fuel injectors, but thats provided the young Jameson has a trading route between systems that leaves plenty of fuel after each jump. The classic Zaonce > Isinor milk run is not ideal for this. Otherwise the injectors are great and with docking much easier in Oolite, I'd prioritise that followed by the extended cargo hold, as the first two upgrades for any aspiring Jameson.

Also agree on surplus for upgrade purchases only. Once you've got the cash for 35tonnes of computers or luxuries to trade with whatever nearby poor agricultural work you're trading with, make a note of how much that is and treat that as your baseline. On the right trade route a Cobra MkIII with an extended cargo bay should make enough for most of the reasonably priced upgrades every few runs.

The question after that though is whether you continue pimping your Cobra or save cash for something flashier or that will help you maximise profit on milk runs.

Love the guide though KZ, especially the bit about why you can't buy additional cooling for lasers.

Azathoth wrote:

Nice guide but I feel you are wrong to recommend an extra cargo bay as the first equipment upgrade. Surely the extra capacity is not needed until you have enough cash to fill the basic cargo bay? For me, a much better first buy would be a Witchspace fuel injector. A great all-round piece of kit. Great for attack and defence, makes ECMs less of a must have for the combat commander. Even if your just doing milk runs at first, the injectors will make your cash grow quicker(in RL that is).

I only had four kills when my CM3 was fully equipped. The reason is, that I did avoid the lanes and used torus drive once I found out about the lanes. The kills I had all on my first two flights until I did learn that.

Furthermore, the extra cargo makes it faster to accumulate more money. Injectors are nice to get quicker out of the lane or compensate if the player did not manage to choose a flight path which would only mass lock right beside the station. For combat lovers it's a must have, sure, but even then the money generated from the cargo bay extension helps not only to buy those injectors, but also better weaponry.

It's a matter of choice, though...

Screet

I thought that tactic was a bit unfair, so Deep Space Pirates was one of my first OXPs that I put on.

However, it's a matter of taste. Also, if you avoid the spacelanes, you miss out on many of the interesting things that those OXPs add.

I agree with Screet on Cargo Bay Extensions and Fuel Injectors. They both make things go faster for the player, which is a good thing.

Would say the list of upgrades should go:

1- fuel injectors

2- docking computers

3- Extended cargo bay

4- ECM (this can wait, 'cos with fuel injectors you can burn out of a space lane on arrival in a system, even if hostile ships present, then jump to your system).

Overview: trade first to get cash, then begin to invest in the offensive stuff.

To directly answer the original question: yes: you should eventually get the military enhancements: kinda like real life: the money you have to pay for a relatively small enhacement increases exponentially as you move to the next level up.

This sort of kit is only really necessary for pretty hardcore stuff IMHO - eg the late assassins missions, if you have that OXP installed!

If you're focussing on getting more cash, and simply want to upgrade: i.e. be a trader, then probably not worth it until you can afford it easily.

OOps - just see I messaged twice...

A further thought: can be fun to try upgrading as you go along, rather than trading like mad, getting a crazy iron ass then doing missions - I deliberately chose a fairly average ship - lots of equipment, mind, to do the later assassins missions - means that the payment for completion of these is really needed to eventually upgrade to an uber ship! Just think it adds more challenge to the game.

The equipment choices are down to (it would appear) those which make the game in RL(tm) potentially pass quicker (injecting to a station auto-docking etc) and those which, if Oolite was "really-real" a pilot might fit for himself - and a DC would be way down the list because it's quite expensive and you don't really need it, compared to the ability to trade more (CBE) and run-away (injectors) and not die to a missile hit (ECM (although if you have injectors fitted you invariably don't need an ECM I have found))

My first choice would be the injectors. Docking computers i would say you never need to purchase, if you have managed to get the cash together to buy them then you should of mastered the art of docking anyway. Then followed by large cargo bay, then your weapon upgrades ecm etc.