Oolite Bulletins

As we have a discussion about favourite missiles, I thought I'd ask another. What would be the features of your ideal Oolite player ship? Either something that is in an existing one, or something that you would like to see (preferrably within the realms of what is possible with the code ).

In my spare time I'm slowly putting together a new player ship, which has a few nice little features. But I thought I'd seek a little inspiration from you lot as to other things that might be nice to include.

It already has some nice new features, but I'm after inspiration for more...

Hi Thargoid,
an idea I've just posted on another thread (almost as a joke but it could be cool), a programmable laser disabler. It disables your laser if you have a police vessel (or any clean vessel depending how you set it) in your targeting reticule, to avoid unfortunate accidents and friendly-fire incidents.

What I want most for my player ship is quick acceleration and braking, in other words a high value for thrust. A high top speed is also nice, as is a good energy recharge. Add to that the ability to fit lasers in all directions, and I am perfectly happy.

What I don't need is high roll, yaw, and especially pitch. On the contrary, I've regularly found myself tuning the values down for ships I bought. I prefer steadiness over fickleness. The rates should be reasonable, and what I want most is good aiming at distant targets, without overshooting by rolling my ship too much with each keypress.

(Sorry, that was probably not what you wanted to hear, but it seems I am rather simple-minded if it comes to my ship.)

Oh, and I forgot one important thing (which I am more than happy to take care of myself on any ship I buy): I want to be the only guy in the game with a white laser.

Hard to say about "ideal" ships. If it's *too* ideal, then it could throw off the game.

I'd like if there could be maybe an OXP for adjusting the sensitivity of the pitch, yaw and roll. I can get a bit of that now, since I'm a joystick user, by toggling the "precision" button, but from what I understand that option is only available to joystick heretics like myself.

Reverse thrust would be nice, even if it had a fixed setting or was some %age of the current throttle setting. Mostly that would be nice for dogfighting and maybe some landings. Probably not logical that the ships could do full reverse thrust, since they mostly don't look like they're designed for it, but if one could throttle back to zero, jink and apply even a limited burst of reverse thrust, it'd be fun for dropping back into the 6 of an opponent that is in close pursuit. Even more fun if the AI would use it as well when the player is close in on a long run and chase.

Zoom for the view screens. Even in the original series of Star Trek, they could change the magnification on the bridge's main screen. I understand that it isn't likely due to the way the core code works, but it'd be nice.

Ship ID for more than just the ship that is currently in your gun sight or weapons lock. Logically, if ships are being IDed by some sort of transponder or whatever, then we'd know more the ID of more than one ship that is at least in close scanning range. Knowing what ships you're currently up against would be really nice when the player is dogfighting against a pack.

Any of that list as options would make a lot of the Oolite ships at least "more ideal" in my opinion.

While it's not ideal, I rather like the Cobra Mk III. It's a good little all-around ship, and I think about the best default choice unless it was possible to have more than one ship. If it was either just a little faster or a little tighter on turns, it'd be close enough to ideal so far as my tastes are concerned. I've tried some others, but I usually come back to the Cobra MK III.

I wanna a iron-assed ships with a very good top speed. Other things are secondary.

If i could choose, I'd like to have a Starfighter

Ganelon wrote:

Ship ID for more than just the ship that is currently in your gun sight or weapons lock. Logically, if ships are being IDed by some sort of transponder or whatever, then we'd know more the ID of more than one ship that is at least in close scanning range. Knowing what ships you're currently up against would be really nice when the player is dogfighting against a pack.

The trunk conains some disabled code which identifies all ships present in scanner range, by printing their name next to their lollipops. This was used at some point for testing purposes and got Ahruman's red card for in-game use, but in case anyone wants to give it a try in their private builds, it is only a matter of changing the 0 to a 1 in the following line inside src/Core/HeadUpDisplay.m.

Commander McLane wrote:

What I don't need is high pitch, yaw, and especially roll. On the contrary, I've regularly found myself tuning the values down for ships I bought. I prefer steadiness over fickleness. The rates should be reasonable, and what I want most is good aiming at distant targets, without overshooting by rolling my ship too much with each keypress.

(Sorry, that was probably not what you wanted to hear, but it seems I am rather simple-minded if it comes to my ship.)

Actually it may surprise you to learn that I often make the same tweak. It was the first thing I noticed when I tested the Caddy - I kept overshooting everything I was trying to turn towards. I'm probably going to set the new ship (the Vortex) up with values somewhere between a Caddy and a Cobra3.

Unfortunately most of the other wishes above (between McLane's post semi-quoted above and this one) aren't OXP-possible...

Re-reading my post I notice that I actually meant "especially pitch". That's the one which is needed most for accurately aiming at a target.

I guess twin forward lasers are both impossible in code and also a tad game breaking in terms of bias towards the player. Obviously, the cooling systems would not be able to cope.

How about some sort of tractor beam? Not sure what use it would be - except for pod/asteroid scooping.

What about a ship that change shape / characteristics on the fly? (if you excuse the pun) For example, you can withdraw missile pylons for extra speed, or reduce shield strength for improved energy recharge rate?

(I know that these are pipe dreams, but you never know...)

This is a tough one because the temptation is to say I want a ship that is as fast a Fer-de-Lance with the cargo carrying capacity of an Anaconda and the maneuverability of an Asp Mk II. (oh and you might as well throw robot fighters in there for good measure too).

I suppose if I take a moment to consider my style of play, I tend to favor a bounty hunter and as such I need a ship that is fast and maneuverable, but also has the ability to carry a decent amount of cargo. To this end I guess the Cobra Mk III really isn't that bad of a choice. Although I currently fly a Wolf Mk II coz it's just awesome and totally kicks ass.

I've often thought about going to the extreme and having a giant impregnable fortress of a ship, used for trading but armed to the teeth with all manner of lasers and other cool equipment like visible shield bubbles around the ship, jamming devices to prevent lock, scanner display and generally disrupt the abilities of other ships. The ability to launch your own squadron of fighters would be epic. (I guess I envision a Battlestar Galatica type deal)

Darkbee wrote:

This is a tough one because the temptation is to say I want a ship that is as fast a Fer-de-Lance with the cargo carrying capacity of an Anaconda and the maneuverability of an Asp Mk II.

Ironically, a ship that was as fast as an Asp Mk II and as maneuverable as a Fer-de-Lance...with the cargo capacity of an Anaconda would be more powerful.

The Fer-de-Lance is slower than a Boa 2, which is slower than a Mamba, which is slower than a Cobra 3, which is slower than a Sidewinder, which is slower than an Asp.

Speaking of 'tractor beams' I was thinking of doing an OXP that would allow a users ship to 'vacuum' or 'magnet' any scoopable objects for a set distance.

I thought about this while being a very lazy miner not wanting to chase all those splinters - It would also be great for when you've blown apart a python or anaconda and the cargo is going in lots of different directions.

So a MagVac (TM) on a ship would be nice!

Vaztr; Maybe a magbeacon that produces a mild magnetic effect slowly pulling all the metal objects (including ships) towards it. It lasts for say 10 seconds then turns into a normal beacon. It's used to arrest and collect spilled cargo around it. Sure there are down sides;

leave it too long before pickup and the cargo could crash into the beacon. OR slowly fly off past the beacon in the opposite direction OR get scooped by someone else.

As for me personally, I as per usual want things that I can't have. Lego ships, with hull spacings you can tetrus fit all this stuff into. Bigger engines more cargo bays. You know really customise a hull and change things in and out as you need them. Totally impossible but hey you did ask.