Anarchies OXP salvage gang problem.

[Staer9]

The salvage ganges added by the Anarchies OXP have a slight problem... they can be destroyed with a Q-mine.

I am probably the only person who actually does this but I enjoy leaving a station and dropping a Q-mine behind me, then when it detonates I shoot the station, this causes patrol to come out, which inevitably get blow up and start the chain reaction.

When I tried this with the Salvage gang I was quite surprised when the whole thing exploded instead of a cloud of quirium just collecting inside.

This should probably be fixed.

[Commander McLane]

The salvage ganges added by the Anarchies OXP have a slight problem... they can be destroyed with a Q-mine.

This is on purpose. After all, it's nothing but a hollow asteroid, not an actual station. You don't even need a Q-mine to destroy it. A couple of salvos from your laser should suffice.

That's the same like for Rock Hermits, and other stations as well (depending on their energy and energy recharge). The only thing in each system which is indestructible by the built-in weapons (and most OXP weapons) is the main station.

[Mauiby de Fug]

Indeed! Another station which can be blown up is the Royal Hunting Lodge in Feudal States. I dropped a q-bomb to try and speed up the melee tournament event and was rather surprised when I blew up the station.

I think that the Seedy Space Bars in Random Hits can also be destroyed this way, although I may be mis-remembering in this case,,,

[Commander McLane]

One of the premises of Oolite is that everything can be destroyed. There are very few exceptions, and those need a good reason.

Example: the main station of a system cannot be destroyed by any normal weapons mechanism. The reason is that it's the only place to save your game. (However, it is not totally indestructible, because there is an in-built mission that requires a main station to be destroyed. But this is the rare exception from the rule, not the rule.)

Stations which were 'cloned' from one of Oolite's standard station shipdatas are very hard to destroy, but not indestructible. You will need multiple parallel Q-mine blasts in order to overcome their energy recharge.

Many other station-type entities are much weaker. Rock Hermits are the non-OXP example.

So it's an error to assume that all station-type entities should be indestructible in the first place.

[Staer9]

Yes, but the purpose of a q-mine is to destroy hyperspace enabled things

[Commander McLane]

Yes, but the purpose of a q-mine is to destroy hyperspace enabled things

Not exactly. Its purpose it to destroy everything, including rocks, splinters and cargopods. The only difference is that unpowered things don't cascade (= they don't produce another blue sphere of death when exploding).

The Salvage Gang does indeed cascade, and I think that's correct. After all, there are quirium-containing ships docked with it. And you can buy quirium in its equipment department, therefore there must be some of the stuff stored inside the asteroid. And there's the quirium from the salvaged ships, which also has to go somewhere. So, all in all there should be enough quirium inside the asteroid to become part of the chain reaction.

Rock Hermits do cascade, too.

[Staer9]

Yet main stations don't and they contain far more quirium

[Commander McLane]

Yet main stations don't and they contain far more quirium

Yes, and as I just explained in my previous post there is a game-play reason for that.

If you need an in-game reason as well, feel free to invent one. One traditional approach is to assume that they have better shielding.

But it doesn't really matter. Main stations are indestructible for one reason, and one reason only: because it could screw up your game, forcing you to die without you being able to do anything to prevent it. Would you like to play Oolite if every second journey to the next system would end with you finding out that (1) something has destroyed the main station, (2) you therefore cannot save your game, (3) and you cannot reach any other place to save your game because you don't have enough fuel to jump to another system, therefore (4) your only option is to quit the game and restart from your last save. Would that be a game you would want to play? Well, I wouldn't. And so would many other players. And that's the reason why there is one guaranteed fixed save-point in each system.