Oolite Bulletins

This may have been asked before but a search didn't pull up anything obvious:

Why is Chart 4 so strangely organised compared to the rest - No C/States, No Confeds, No Feudals...

This must be rich pickings for an OXP?

This is due to the random number generator which for the Elite seed choice leaves Galaxy 4 with missing government types.
Other seed choices could have left Elite's set of 8 galaxies with even more missing government types, and/or unaesthetic system clustering.
So we can enjoy Galaxy 4's 'features' that allow the communists etc to be a significant force there

Unfortunately i'm not a deep space traveler and have never left galaxy one. I think i need to stop believing the galaxy is flat and you will drop of the side if you get to close to the edge.

I'm still in GC1 too - I only noticed GC4 oddity when searching for Confeds to help Svengali with a new version of Local Hero...

Yes, I'm mapping 4 at the moment (check out the progress on the pdf in the vector map thread) It's a bit of a night mare.

Dr Beeb wrote:

This is due to the random number generator which for the Elite seed choice leaves Galaxy 4 with missing government types.

I dont think this is a technical question, rather a request for a plausible backstory :p

Cmdr James wrote:

Dr Beeb wrote:

This is due to the random number generator which for the Elite seed choice leaves Galaxy 4 with missing government types.

I dont think this is a technical question, rather a request for a plausible backstory :p

Well that ones easy. The entire place is a cold war zone, you've got democracies communist and anarchies. Some planets are stable others are practically shelled out lumps of rock or underground weapon factories.

There is one hell of an oxp to be written here. Planets with orbital defence batteries, raider fleets etc etc. It could be the oolite equivalent of Planet Fall. Truly a meat grinder where it's Very difficult to stay alive.

That's exactly what I was thinking when I saw the chart structure!

It's almost: Gal. H-drive G3-> G4 -> find high tech level stable system and buy new Gal. H drive -> Gal. H.drive to G5!!!

Just carrying on the thought of chart full of cold war states.

Maybe Chart 4 is the region of the GCW that's closest to the Thargoid home system (assuming that they have the same regionally divided domain as the GCW.) Feeling most threatened here, this is where they launch the majority of their raids in to GCW space. The constant attacks would heavily distort the normal pattern of planetary government systems. Only highly organised governments would be able to withstand constant strain of defending themselves against constant attacks. This would also make theses worlds highly paranoid. So paranoid that they would even launch clandestine actions on sister worlds. Actions to either shift Thargoid attention away from themselves or to motivate the GCW to spend more of it's limited resources on defending them.

I get slightly giddy thinking of some of the possible mission threads.

• Spying and espionage mission for the various worlds.
  Smuggling information / equipment / personnel across hostile systems.
  Fighting a serries of delaying actions against the Thargoids while the shattered Navy fleet try's to regroup.
  Chasing after the Thargoid 'Red Barron' across the stars to fight a life or death duel.
  Attempting to capture a new generation tharglet for the Navy.
  Running relief mission to war torn worlds, or defending relief freighters from pirate hordes.
  Having to seed systems with gun-stars (automated defence sat's) or spy sat's.
  Being contract by various governments to defend their instantiations (long periods of patrol boredom, intense moment of battle.)

Not to mention all the high priced and high risk carrier market contract.

Galactic Chart 4 - for the James Bond in every commander (TM)

Hmm. Some nice frontlines here:


The left one could be moved more toward the middle. Smaller ones could cut off the top left and bottom right.

We need some orbital fortresses stat!

Well spotted - the loss of just 3 worlds could literally divide the Chart in two!!! Divide and Conquer!


OXP! OXP! OXP! OXP!

You know Ahruman and DaddyHogry, you would even have to lose those world. They could be disputed territory which there is a constant propaganda war and constant 'terrorist' attacks. Or it could be neutral territory where the power blocks officially play nice but wage a war of espionage.

Just to throw an idea into the pot with Galaxy 4:

If you look at the following map which is a slightly modified version of the first one I did in the thread with my musings on the Origin of Species in the Ooniverse, it may help explain G4:

Ooniverse with Species Idea v2.pdf.

All I have changed from the previous version is move around which species is where to put the Lizards and Felines at G4. These two Species being at war in the recent past could be the basis of the peculiar nature of G4. I kept Felines there and on the right of G4 as the world Teance is used in Lovecats OXP and is right of the divide and I checked and only 4 of the 14 Feline worlds are left of the divide. Lizards was chosen as out of their 14 worlds only 5 are right of the divide. Other species are too homogeneously distributed.

Phantor Gorth

They could be disputed territory which there is a constant propaganda war and constant 'terrorist' attacks. Or it could be neutral territory where the power blocks officially play nice but wage a war of espionage.

I think losing they worlds would be a big mistake and make the galaxy imossible to play except in the mode that you have just 'Dictated'

combine this with active thargoid insurgency and you've got a 3 way war. The best kind!