Oolite Bulletins

i seem to muse a lot!

it was always my ambition to pilot a python, as a teenager, they enthralled me, or a fer de lance for that matter

now i've done it, i'm really really underwhelmed!!!

so i've been thinking, the cobra III has a party piece- its pretty good at everything and has enough cargo capacity to make you money.

now is that such a good party piece because thats what I do in the game, make money and shoot things adequately. i mean if my ambition was something different, would the other ships come into their own?

say, a decent trading journey nets you 600 credits with a cobra thats got a fat tummy, you'd have to do a lot of shooting to make bounty hunting worth it

are bounties too low?

phonebook wrote:

say, a decent trading journey nets you 600 credits with a cobra thats got a fat tummy, you'd have to do a lot of shooting to make bounty hunting worth it

are bounties too low?

Surely any trade ship will create much more profit than you can get as a bounty hunter. Try a Boa Class Cruiser, it's also good for fighting! It's also my recommendation if you want to earn the money for a really costly ship. If you fly outside the trading lanes, you can make immense amounts of money within one real time hour.

Bounty hunting is more fun, though....and with Random Hits it also pays enough to afford ship repairs.

Furthermore, you do miss the point that a bounty hunter will launch with an empty cargo hold and return with one that is filled.

Screet

Pays much better with Random hits installed but you have to work alot harder on the higher priced contracts. But they make the game much more exciting.

In this wide universe there are many things trying to kill you.

There is money, then there is elite. Trading will lead you into fights, bounty hunting will lead you into fights. It depends what you see to be the "win" from this game and how hard you wish that fight to be.

phonebook wrote:

say, a decent trading journey nets you 600 credits with a cobra thats got a fat tummy, you'd have to do a lot of shooting to make bounty hunting worth it

are bounties too low?

Like Screet says, bounty hunters can collect other rewards from killing pirates, as well as the bounty. If you scoop up even just 10 tons of decent cargo you can easily clear 600 credits in profit in a single journey. Sometimes, of course, there are dry runs, or ones where the only cargo-carrying pirates you meet are stuffed with food or minerals or low-value junk like that. But there are bonanza trips, too.

Then there's the respect, the admiration, the free drinks, the groupies ...

ah but shooting and scooping is a job perfect for a cobra III , what about a fer de lance?

Speaking purely from the standpoint of the written fiction as opposed to game play: Trading is portrayed as a barely-scrape-a-profit-on-the-best-of-days career, and the bounty hunters / assassins are the guys with the cash to live comfortably. Game play currently plays out in the opposite. Perhaps it's worth re-evaluating...

The gameplay is balanced as it stands for a player in a Cobra III. If we downgraded trading to barely-scraping-by then there would be an even longer lead-in for starting players before they were able to get into the meat of the game – i.e. shooting other ships. Leaving trading as it is, and increasing bounties, is perhaps an option, but it would increase the player's revenue stream and probably unbalance the game the other way by making it too easy. I don't think it's necessary: Random Hits already adds in a superior (and richer) bounty-hunting system.

I like to mix Hunting and Trading. I reckon a Cobra Mk III is best for this.

An example from earlier today:

Went out loaded 30/35 with Computers (bought at 62, to be sold at 102).
Along the way, stopped off to help some poor trader in a Boa, pleading for help.
Snuffed the bandits and scooped 5 pods containing 73g of Gemstones and 3t of Narcotics.
(I had to eject a few of the less valuable pods, to get the best).

30t Computers @ 40 = 1200cr plus 73g Gemstones @ 22 = 1606cr plus 3t Narcotics @ 98 = 294cr.
Clear profit on one run = 3100cr plus enhanced rep, 4 more kills and the warm glow of rescuing a trader.
(Oh, and 4 bounties worth about 150cr).

This is not unusual. Not every trip, by any means, I grant you, but often enough.
If I run empty, and scoop even half a load, then the profit from one trip can be considerably larger.

The return milk run yielded over 1200cr profit on just 30t of Furs.

And as Disembodied says, there are the extras…

as you say, the cobra iii is best for this

exactly, thats my point- havnt got anything against that by any means i love the cobra, and love it all the more now that i've flown the others, well maybe the boa class cruiser does a very very good job too- in fact its probly the best of the lot

tho more musings! the cobraIIIs that you meet on your travels are never that hard to smash, you would imagine that with such a superb ship flying the space lanes that other fine pilots would have them too

however i do accept all the arguments about game balance etc

phonebook wrote:

tho more musings! the cobraIIIs that you meet on your travels are never that hard to smash, you would imagine that with such a superb ship flying the space lanes that other fine pilots would have them too

Cobra's (all varities) are the ships I find easiest to target and kill. Something about their shape makes them very easy to get a bead on and they rarely take more than half the temp guage to kill, usually less.

It is odd that a ship which is the default best all rounder for a player, is so easily destroyed in the hands of pirates.

Sendraks wrote:

Cobra's (all varities) are the ships I find easiest to target and kill. Something about their shape makes them very easy to get a bead on and they rarely take more than half the temp guage to kill, usually less.

Yes, the NPCs obviously do lack much of the extra equipment and a CM3 is as large as some of the freighters, although most people do not notice it.

Maybe it would help very much if more NPC ships would be randomly better equipped.

As to the Oolite internal ships, my absolute favorite is the Boa Class Cruiser.

For bounty hunters who do not like turrets a Wolf probably is the best ship. It has nice cargo capacity and is very agile.

For players who want to go bounty hunting and do not mind to "cheat" a little, the Merlin probably is the best. Really, I sold it because it's too easy with it. The ship has the cargo capacity of a Caduceus while being similar tiny as a single cargo canister. It can fly between the beams of a Wolf without being hit...

Screet

I’ve often thought that a player Cobra’s stats should drop (10%?) when the cargo bay is extended.
Then, of course, you’d need the option of reverting to the 20t capacity, to restore the stats to max.

More cargo space... or better performance.

El Viejo wrote:

I’ve often thought that a player Cobra’s stats should drop (10%?) when the cargo bay is extended.
Then, of course, you’d need the option of reverting to the 20t capacity, to restore the stats to max.

More cargo space... or better performance.

It would make more sense to reduce pitch/yaw/roll/thrust based upon the cargo load compared to the mass of the empty ship.

If you've ever flown a fighter jet simulation, you surely remember how important it might be to jettison external fuel tanks or heavy bombs in order to have a better chance during a dog fight

Screet

Screet wrote:

It would make more sense to reduce pitch/yaw/roll/thrust based upon the cargo load compared to the mass of the empty ship.

Right on, Commander. A very good idea.