Oolite Bulletins

Hey all.

I was wondering what your views are on the signifigantly more powerful ships available.. i think they are a great option for people to choose to play (everyone has their own idea of whats good to have and its player choice). But i cant seem to decide wether to install them

Having played a ridiculous amount of time in the last two weeks, and tried a few expansions..i now have a silly amount of cash.. and nothing to spend it on

So, been looking at the more expensive ships... on the one hand it gives me stuff to aim for..on the other hand i dont want to become so uber i just cruise along blasting everything in sight.

I think for me, if the pirates also get the ship.. then id be ok with it.

Is there any way to tell which ships will be available to pirates as well as the player?



Thanks.

sunlover72 wrote:

Is there any way to tell which ships will be available to pirates as well as the player?

Typically, the ship's Wiki page has information on that.

maik wrote:

sunlover72 wrote:

Is there any way to tell which ships will be available to pirates as well as the player?

Typically, the ship's Wiki page has information on that.

Or, if you want to dig into the OXP itself, you have to look into its shipdata.plist. There you'll find one or more entries for NPC variants of the ship, and an entry for the player variant.

The key is in the roles-definition. If it says "player" it's the player variant (which will as a rule only have "player" as a role, because ships for players are a little different from ships for NPCs, even if it is the same ship; for instance, a player ship needs view positions, an NPC doesn't). The non-player variants can have one or more roles. If you find "pirate" among its roles, it will be used as a pirate ship.

sunlover72 wrote:

..on the other hand i dont want to become so uber i just cruise along blasting everything in sight.

This can happen even with an Iron-Ass version of the standard ships, because the game is weighted quite heavily in favour of the player. It has to be that way so that even a beginner in a modest ship stands a chance of surviving.
There are OXPs to overcome this, for example I think Pirate Coves adds lots more pirates and Renegade Pirates adds some well-armed Pirates as well. Also my ToughGuys OXP beefs-up all the baddies with weapons upgrades and greater chance of more defensive equipment.
Generally, but not always, most 'Ships' OXPs won't add a pirate version, as this might un-balance the game, but as Maik said, go through the Wiki pages.
If you are looking for action, Random Hits gives you options for easy, hard and really tough assassinations, so if you've got an Iron Ass and are up for a challenge, it can be done.

One thing which it seems a lot of pirates lack is witchspace injectors. I've seen them on pirate Kraits, Asps, FDLs, Iguanas, Wolf IIs ... nothing else though. Never on, say, a pirate Cobra III or Python. A shame, really, because I like the fact that some enemies are smart enough to flee when the going gets too hot for them (even if I do end up shouting "Come back and fight, you %&*£$!" at the computer).

Many of the Pirate ships aren't hyperspace capable, and therefore are unlikely to have injectors.
Several of the 'ToughGuys' do have an increased chance of injectors, and they seem keen to use them, as well

Thanks guys, ill take another look at the ships, and when im a bit better at everything try tough guys

One thing i do wish i could add since it would be balanced (in my opinion)

is torpedos.. they could be unguided, slow, horrific to hit anything with but pack a wallop. I can remember playing freelancer multiplayer and being in hysterics at the response when i actually managed to hit a player with one (we were duelling).

Have a look at Nukes OXP.

Smivs wrote:

Have a look at Nukes OXP.

gawd, is there anything that there isnt an oxp for

thanks

sunlover72 wrote:

gawd, is there anything that there isnt an oxp for

There's even one for tins of spam.

"There's an OXP for that!" *g*

Yes! But be warned, as the name implies, you'll get LOTS of it.

Disembodied wrote:

One thing which it seems a lot of pirates lack is witchspace injectors.

My mod here:
https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?t=8212
...changes that so almost anything that can have them...has a rare chance of getting them. The NPC ships while fleeing may even change heading quickly while being hit to try to evade fire.

Smivs wrote:

There are OXPs to overcome this, for example I think Pirate Coves adds lots more pirates

Each Pirate Cove adds ~5-7 pirates "around" itself -- and only 5 of those are likely to attack you. If you wait around long enough, most/all 5 aggressive pirates from it will be tied up fighting traders, bounty hunters, and vipers...making the Pirate Cove itself easy to dock with and buy/sell goods. Or just destroy the place for ~100 credits.

Deep Space Pirates on the other hand...will make you wish you stayed in the witchspace beacon-to-planet space lane due to all the random pirates it adds! In Anarchy systems, it can add groups of 5+ pirates at a time. And if some of those are Pythons, they can have 2 escorts as well...pushing the total number of pirate ships you might have to fight at once beyond 10.

Disembodied wrote:

One thing which it seems a lot of pirates lack is witchspace injectors. I've seen them on pirate Kraits, Asps, FDLs, Iguanas, Wolf IIs ... nothing else though. Never on, say, a pirate Cobra III or Python.

Smivs wrote:

Many of the Pirate ships aren't hyperspace capable, and therefore are unlikely to have injectors.

That's not true for CobraIIIs and Pythons, however. Indeed I would call the missing has_fuel_injection in their shipdata a bug. They should have a fuzzy boolean there.

Will it get fixed, then?