Oolite Bulletins

This has probably been done before but I thought it would be entertaining for members to post their least glorious oolite moments to general acclaim/derision. Perhaps you confused your afterburners with your brakes whilst mining, accidently fired on a behemoth while trying to dock with it, or maybe you did this.....

Picture the scene; Commander Loxley is back in the cockpit after more than twenty years away. He drinks in the familiar sights and sounds and, overcome by a heady wave of nostalgia, thanks the good Lord Giles for the Ooniverse he has bestowed upon us all. Cargo is purchased, hyperspace destination is set and finally... launch.

Like an ancient memory brought to life the planet Lave lies ahead; but what is this? Some miscreant is attacking a trader in the station safe zone!
Thinking quickly Commander Loxley runs the odds. His ship is severely under gunned; balanced against this, however, are the Vipers already deploying from the station and Loxley's, admittedly rusty, skills as a former Elite combateer.

Thinking now only about glory and possible bounty payments he swings his ship around and locks the target. 'Black Monk Gunship', hmm.. rings a bell somewhere... what the hell... FIRE!

Total game time <5 minutes.
Total flight time <10 seconds.

Natural selection at work

Okay, it's time to confess it:

Sometimes it happens to me that I launch and then briefly turn my attention to something completely different on or off the computer. When I return to the Oolite window a couple of seconds later I only see the floating debris of what once was the nav beacon and—of course—the unforgettable words "Press Space, Commander".

So if you're wondering about the stoopid pilots crashing straight into the beacon, you just may have seen me.

While on a Galactic Navy OXP mission, I participated in a Fleet engagement against a Thargoid fleet.

Combat was heavy and ships of all sizes had already been destroyed, some from my own weapons.
I flew into a thicker part of the fray and my ship's shields were penetrated, energy was lost and systems, including the Naval Energy Unit were damaged.
I used witchfuel injectors to gain some separation from the situation. But, I was still feeling as though I could participate in the battle.
From my position, the only active enemy ship on my scanner was a Thargoid Battleship. It was firing randomly at a number of ships, including my own. Being nearly 25k distant, I had been missed a few times already.
I was silently urging my energy banks to recharge. The unassisted recharge rate was painfully slow and I couldn't remember the last time I had observed my ship in such disarray.
Still, I felt it was important that I remained engaged in battle to contribute my meager energies to best effect.
My energy levels were less than one-half of one energy bank and slowly recharging.
The Thargoid Battleship fired again in my direction and scored a direct hit.

I was welcomed into the virtual afterlife with the phrase, "Press Space Commander."
My own expletives were more emotional.

Thank goodness for saved games.

I jumped into some system and used the space compass to locate the station. There I saw something twinkling in the right position and assumed it to be the station. I positioned the twinkling thing into the dead center of the crosshairs, went to jump speed, and continued reading my mail.

When the game announced that I dropped out of jumpspace, I returned to Oolite, just to see me crashing into a large asteroid...

The fun adventures with docking computers. I'm 20k away from a ConStore, I turn on the docking computers and head for the bathroom (sorry if this is TMI), while 'occupied' I hear the red alert alarm, some ship had decided to open fire on my ship while I was 'away'.

I was on jump drive approaching either a rock hermit or a free trade zone (I don't remember which) with intention of docking. I'm going fast but it's ok because the mass lock will take me out of jump drive in plenty of time to spare just like at a main station. Unfortunately, asteroids, even hollowed out ones, don't have enough mass to turn off the jump drive and I slam into it going at a decent fraction of the speed of light and am greeted with 'Press Space Bar'

Well, this one is kind of classic and tends to occur to newbies who are not yet that familiar with the keyboard commands... or to clumsy typists...

... approach a Main Station ...
... invoke the Docking Computer ...
"It didn't work for some reason? What is that white icon on my radar? I'll try it again".
... invoke the Docking Computer ...
"It didn't work for some reason? What are those two white icons on my radar? I'll try it again".
... invoke the Docking Computer ...
"It didn't work for some reason? ARgghhh! White Icons?!? I'll try it again".
... invoke the Docking Computer ...
"It didn't work for some reason? ARgghhh! White Icons?!? Wait a minute... I DON'T HAVE TRUMBLES! What is happening with my cargo hold?".
... invoke the Docking Computer ...
"oh ... SHIFT d!"
"(dammit)"
(scoop... scoop... scoop...)

I have done that before late at night.
especially distressing when you dump luxuries, Hey I want that 96 cr back! I scooped it fair and square!

JeffBTX wrote:

Well, this one is kind of classic and tends to occur to newbies who are not yet that familiar with the keyboard commands... or to clumsy typists...

... approach a Main Station ...
... invoke the Docking Computer ...
"It didn't work for some reason? What is that white icon on my radar? I'll try it again".
... invoke the Docking Computer ...
"It didn't work for some reason? What are those two white icons on my radar? I'll try it again".
... invoke the Docking Computer ...
"It didn't work for some reason? ARgghhh! White Icons?!? I'll try it again".
... invoke the Docking Computer ...
"It didn't work for some reason? ARgghhh! White Icons?!? Wait a minute... I DON'T HAVE TRUMBLES! What is happening with my cargo hold?".
... invoke the Docking Computer ...
"oh ... SHIFT d!"
"(dammit)"
(scoop... scoop... scoop...)

Chrisfs wrote:

I have done that before late at night.
especially distressing when you dump luxuries, Hey I want that 96 cr back! I scooped it fair and square!

Whats worse is when you realised what you have done and are chasing those pods when some barsteward trader in a faster ship overtakes you and scoops first!

It's early days in my Cobra Mk III and I haven't got afterburners or docking computers yet. I am approaching Leesti station and get caught in traffic some way out. I figure I'm not going to get a chance to use hyperspeed again so I aim for the nav beacon and start reading to pass the time. I get so engrossed that I lose track of time. I look up to see the nav beacon looming large in my viewscreen and I am still going at maximum speed. Press Space Commander.

I've done almost all those..
Plus of course, trying to dock with ships from a slightly buggy OXP immediately after escaping a misjump and an epic battle... Docking computer won't lock on it.. hrm.. ok... manual dock...

Press space commander...

Two things. One about me, and one about an NPC

1: I have Escape Capsule Mapped to ! (Shift 1) and Energy Bomb mapped to @ (Shift 2) because I hardly ever use them. And whenever I do use them I always hit the wrong one, Which is OK when you're about to die and need to eject but accidently kill everyone in line of sight... but not so fun when you come across a swarm of enemy ships and think hehe, easy kills and then see your ship flying off in the distance without you.

2: After helping out the fleet defending against invading thargoids I decide to do a little drone hunting (killing the ones with high bounties, scooping the ones with low), and on my way back to the constore to sell a full load of drones I notice another ship (possible a cobra3) also attempting docking with the constore... from behind, to do this he has to go around the constore, cocky pilot flies inches away from the surface which is rotating, and of course one of the sticking-out-bits of the hull rotate in front of him... I see the funniest thing in ages, as 50ish drones of every color in the rainbow suddenly go flying out in all directions, wish I had screenshotted that

One time as a Mostly Harmless Jameson, I'd just launched from Lave Station in my single pulse laser armed Cobby, when I received several comms messages... I didn't have time to read all of them before they faded, so I pressed the ~ key to check the last couple of messages..

At least, that was the plan.. I accidentally hit the Tab key instead, and fired off my shiny new e-bomb! The Viper Squadron Commander took a dim view of my having just killed off 2 of his men, (and a number of innocent bystanders) and dispatched the rest of his Vipers post-haste, who made short work of dispatching me.


Another time, during a rather intense battle with several pirates, I was down to almost no shields and less than a third of an energy unit remaining. I decided to crank on the injectors and put some distance between them and me, so as to recharge before rejoining the fray..

Unfortunately, I'd mapped the injector button on my joystick next to the ECM button, and managed to mash both together in my haste to get away. Press Space Commander..

Needless to say, I rethought my mappings after that incident.

ok two more

The hazards of late night oolite.
I was flaying along carrying a passenger and decided to review the easiest way to get to my destination a ways away. So I hit F6 twice and look at different ways of getting there, and have to refer to F7 a couple times to see about govts,
and at one point pull up the PDF map of Galaxy 1 in another window to see if that's easier than constantly shifting back and forth between F6 and F7,
so I figure that out and switch back to Oolite with the F6 galaxy map up and then 'ok I need to get out of this and back to front view' , and hit ESC to dismss the window... I think the passenger ended up in the capsule with me, lucky fellow. Though he got off shortly thereafter...

I'm approaching a Trans-Hab station for the first time and admiring it's look. It has the stationary port, and those nifty spinning arms. I slow down and take a close up look at the arms, but not too close because I know what I'm doing... and WHACK and Press Space Commander
As they say "Objects in mirror may be closer than they appear"

Diziet Sma wrote:

One time as a Mostly Harmless Jameson, I'd just launched from Lave Station in my single pulse laser armed Cobby, when I received several comms messages... I didn't have time to read all of them before they faded, so I pressed the ~ key to check the last couple of messages..

At least, that was the plan.. I accidentally hit the Tab key instead, and fired off my shiny new e-bomb! The Viper Squadron Commander took a dim view of my having just killed off 2 of his men, (and a number of innocent bystanders) and dispatched the rest of his Vipers post-haste, who made short work of dispatching me.


Another time, during a rather intense battle with several pirates, I was down to almost no shields and less than a third of an energy unit remaining. I decided to crank on the injectors and put some distance between them and me, so as to recharge before rejoining the fray..

Unfortunately, I'd mapped the injector button on my joystick next to the ECM button, and managed to mash both together in my haste to get away. Press Space Commander..

Needless to say, I rethought my mappings after that incident.

Didn't think you could use ECM's when below 50% of your last bar, this from an older version?

It was a nice day so instead of my usual auto dock job I went for a leasurly manual dock. There was a bit of a fight going on outside, but I was in a bit of a crap ship so I thought discression might be the better part of valor (also I had no cargo space to scoop any freebies and the vipers had a habit of flying in front of my laser fire). Heading for the station I had everything nicely lined up when a distress signal came over the comm and I was treated to the sight of another viper barrelling out of the station heading for the fight.

Well it would have done if it hadn't spanked into me first, well and truely punching my space bar in the process. . Yes, fighting close to the station, distress signals going off all over the place, I should have really seen that coming.