Oolite Bulletins

Everyone completing the Oolite RunnerG5 Challenge should boast about it here.

The Oolite RunnerG5 Wall Of Shame
349429 galpet
345521 Commander McLane

I assume you mean posting a pic. This sounds cool like the Coonanbal Run or something.

Here's my first shame:


I actually had some more kills than 100, and also was able to make a decent amount of money. Does that influence the final score?


I also found that there are some OXPs that have a considerable impact on the result of the challenge. Thus the challenge won't be the same for any two of us. This means that if we want to have absolute comparability, there must be precise instructions which OXPs must be installed, and which must not.

The OXPs that impacted my result were:

1. Anarchies.oxp randomly added two annoying bounty hunters at the witch point beacon, and also on first launch. Makes it a little harder to start into the new system, but the impact isn't huge.
2. AsteroidStorm.oxp added a nice amount of big asteroids, making it relatively easy to fill my hold. One of the big asteroids, if completely blown to pieces, can create up to 100 splinters. Big impact. My cargo bay was full in the third or fourth system.
3. Fuel Station.oxp added fuel stations or satellites at the witchpoint in almost half the systems I passed through, sparing me some time, because I could skip the sunskimming. Huge impact.
4. NPC-Shields.oxp made all NPCs tougher. It takes more hits to kill a ship, which makes a big difference if you only have one laser. So it had quite some impact on the time it took for 100 kills, only this time to my disadvantage.
5. Pods.oxp can potentially break the challenge, if an exploding or damaging pod gets scooped. Potential impact is huge and fatal.
6. Various ship OXPs also had an impact on the fighting part of the challenge, because many add tougher ships.

That's the OXPs with the most obvious impact. I guess that other players will discover other OXPs that make a difference for the challenge.



Now some general remarks:

I liked that I had to go sunskimming right away. It was a nice touch to see my fuel radius just short of the next system.

Very nice touch to get unexpected help along the way (after the third jump, to be precise). So there's a reason why this challenge takes place in Galaxy 5. (That's all I'm going to spoil.)

It took me some time to get used to the HUD. Too much going on around the target reticle for my liking. I also found the double symbols left and right of the scanner a little irritating. Compared to my usual HUD I found it particularly difficult to keep an eye on my shield status. I guess that may get better with practice.

I absolutely hated the side-mounted mining laser. I'm quite sure that I won't get used to that, and I don't want to. I found it particularly annoying that the reticle sensitivity thingy (when the reticle turns red) is wrong. It calculates too little parallax. I'd rather have no aiming indicator than a false one. This is however an Oolite problem, and not a problem of the OXP. Still, it makes mining so much more tedious.

I also found scooping a hassle. This is maybe because I'm not used to the Anaconda's size and shape. Or the scoop position isn't optimal. Anyway, cargo or splinters tend to float around me for ages without being scooped. Again annoying.

Overall I liked the challenge. I think it could use some more control of the OXP-environment in order to become a universal fair contest.

Commander McLane, let me congratulate you on being the first to accept and complete my challenge. Well Done, This is my first oxp, and I am greatly relieved that you were able to complete the challenge without some bug or bad coding on my part rearing it's ugly head.

Now to answer the points you raised.

Commander McLane wrote:

I actually had some more kills than 100, and also was able to make a decent amount of money. Does that influence the final score?

No, it does not influence the final score.

The scoring is simple, you are allowed 12.5 days or 300 hours or 1080000 seconds to complete the challenge. You took 8.5 days or 204 hours or 734400 seconds (approx). 1080000-734400=345600. In effect your additional 13 kills reduced your score by the time you took to dispatch the pirates. An acceptable strategy on achieving your 750T/100kill target is to rabbit, press "0", press "i", all the way to Ceered.

The money is generated from bounties and escape pods you salvaged. I did not want random events like these influencing the score.

Commander McLane wrote:

I also found that there are some OXPs that have a considerable impact on the result of the challenge. Thus the challenge won't be the same for any two of us. This means that if we want to have absolute comparability, there must be precise instructions which OXPs must be installed, and which must not.

To be a purist, no additional OXP's should be installed, only the RunnerG5.oxp. This would put everyone on a level playing field and the effects you list would not impact on the game. I did however have 2 additional OXP's for my challenges, customsounds, and a keyboard reconfigure oxp. I would suggest that any OXP that doesn't change the game play of the Ooniverse like re-texturing or sounds or things like BGS would be OK.

Getting 100T from 1 asteroid, would have huge impact. Considering the default asteroid average yield is maybe 20T (a guess) that's a 5:1 advantage.

Not having to sun skim because fuel stations are at every other system, would again, be a huge time saver, and greatly affect the score.

Commander McLane wrote:

I liked that I had to go sunskimming right away. It was a nice touch to see my fuel radius just short of the next system.

Good. I was worried that it might upset some players.

Commander McLane wrote:

Very nice touch to get unexpected help along the way (after the third jump, to be precise). So there's a reason why this challenge takes place in Galaxy 5. (That's all I'm going to spoil.)

Yes. It is a nice touch, that's why G5.

Commander McLane wrote:

It took me some time to get used to the HUD. Too much going on around the target reticle for my liking. I also found the double symbols left and right of the scanner a little irritating. Compared to my usual HUD I found it particularly difficult to keep an eye on my shield status. I guess that may get better with practice.

Yes there is "much going on around the target reticle", you have the forward and aft shields, speed, weapons temp, all there, so I'm not sure why you "found it particularly difficult to keep an eye on my shield status". Maybe I have been using this HUD for so long I am not used to taking my eyes off the target reticle to check my shield status.

Commander McLane wrote:

I absolutely hated the side-mounted mining laser. I'm quite sure that I won't get used to that, and I don't want to. I found it particularly annoying that the reticle sensitivity thingy (when the reticle turns red) is wrong. It calculates too little parallax. I'd rather have no aiming indicator than a false one. This is however an Oolite problem, and not a problem of the OXP. Still, it makes mining so much more tedious.

How/where else do you mount a mining laser. Again this is my first OXP, and I don't know much of what can be done in an OXP or how to do it. So any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Commander McLane wrote:

I also found scooping a hassle. This is maybe because I'm not used to the Anaconda's size and shape. Or the scoop position isn't optimal. Anyway, cargo or splinters tend to float around me for ages without being scooped. Again annoying.

Not sure about this one. I've always had to collect cargo individually. Is this OXP equipment, and therefore not installed on the ship?

Commander McLane wrote:

Overall I liked the challenge. I think it could use some more control of the OXP-environment in order to become a universal fair contest.

Thanks.

If you want to really test your skill then you can remove all OXP (rename the AddOns directory) and get back to basics. But, I suggested this in the forum and got the impression that most players would not be willing to do this. For now I would just like to generate some interest in the concept. Get people playing, get some competition going, get people to register their score, get more discussion on how to improve the challenge. Comments like yours are exactly what I want to improve the challenge.

If there is enough interest, I would like to take this further, maybe a tournament with specific rules "allowed OXP's", etc.

Thanks again.

galpet wrote:

Commander McLane wrote:

I actually had some more kills than 100, and also was able to make a decent amount of money. Does that influence the final score?

No, it does not influence the final score.

The scoring is simple, you are allowed 12.5 days or 300 hours or 1080000 seconds to complete the challenge. You took 8.5 days or 204 hours or 734400 seconds (approx). 1080000-734400=345600. In effect your additional 13 kills reduced your score by the time you took to dispatch the pirates. An acceptable strategy on achieving your 750T/100kill target is to rabbit, press "0", press "i", all the way to Ceered.

The money is generated from bounties and escape pods you salvaged. I did not want random events like these influencing the score.

That's a shame. I was kind of hoping that the final credit score and kill count would bring me some bonus points. But okay, purely time it is then. This will change my priorities for the next run.

galpet wrote:

Commander McLane wrote:

I liked that I had to go sunskimming right away. It was a nice touch to see my fuel radius just short of the next system.

Good. I was worried that it might upset some players.

I can't speak for others, of course. Maybe it will upset them? I have to admit that I was a little frustrated for a second when I first pressed F6. But then I thought, yep, this is about a challenge, and headed for the sun.

galpet wrote:

Commander McLane wrote:

I absolutely hated the side-mounted mining laser. I'm quite sure that I won't get used to that, and I don't want to. I found it particularly annoying that the reticle sensitivity thingy (when the reticle turns red) is wrong. It calculates too little parallax. I'd rather have no aiming indicator than a false one. This is however an Oolite problem, and not a problem of the OXP. Still, it makes mining so much more tedious.

How/where else do you mount a mining laser. Again this is my first OXP, and I don't know much of what can be done in an OXP or how to do it. So any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Why not in the rear position? You'd need longer to turn around for scooping, but aiming would be much easier. In the save game, make aft_weapon into a 4 instead of starboard_weapon.

galpet wrote:

Commander McLane wrote:

I also found scooping a hassle. This is maybe because I'm not used to the Anaconda's size and shape. Or the scoop position isn't optimal. Anyway, cargo or splinters tend to float around me for ages without being scooped. Again annoying.

Not sure about this one. I've always had to collect cargo individually. Is this OXP equipment, and therefore not installed on the ship?

No, it's about where the fuel scoop is positioned relative to the centre of the ship. Obviously the default position isn't optimal, because it is the centre of the ship, deep inside its hull. You can change its position via the scoop_position key in shipdata.plist. If you look into Oolite's own shipdata.plist you will see that for the Anaconda the position is defined as 0.0 -30.0 -60, a little below the ship and towards its back, which is where you would expect the fuel scoop to be located.

To see the difference, try to scoop cargo or splinters while in an external view. Without the scoop_position key the containers seem to magically enter your ship, they may even exit again through the stern and bounce back. With the key it looks more like they're getting scooped beneath the ship's belly, which makes much more sense.

Commander McLane wrote:

This will change my priorities for the next run.

It not only changes your priorities, it hones your skills. You get very proficient at bounty hunting, mining and salvage.

Commander McLane wrote:

Why not in the rear position? You'd need longer to turn around for scooping, but aiming would be much easier. In the save game, make aft_weapon into a 4 instead of starboard_weapon.

It's all to do with comfort zone. I'm so used to mining with a starboard laser I would be lost without it. So it stays. But, I have no problem with installing an additional aft mounted laser. Fixed and will be available on the next release.

I don't have any problem in you editing the saved file to add an aft laser for your next run.

The interesting thing about a challenge like this, is that you find out how other players differ in their approach to playing Oolite.

Commander McLane wrote:

No, it's about where the fuel scoop is positioned relative to the centre of the ship.........You can change its position via the scoop_position key in shipdata.plist.

Obviously missed this line when I copied the data from the shipdata.plist. Fixed and will be available on the next release.

This fix may help improve my time.

As-is, when your front laser overheats you either have to fire the mining laser or a missile or nothing at all.
If I'm using such a kitted-out ship, I'd expect there to be lasers on every facing. At the least, Beam Lasers...probably Military Lasers since cost isn't really an object. Of course this means keeping the 1 side-mounted Mining Laser.

Bounty OXP might be amusing to show just how high your bounty is after a bunch of jumps.