Dictators OXP

Overview

This OXP is a flavour expansion for the Dictatorship systems. It adds a range of ships and stations to each dictatorship, differentiating between those with agricultural and industrial economies, and offers new trading opportunities to players. The political and economic conditions introduced by this OXP are set out in specially-compiled System Profiles, which are included in the download.

Ships and Stations

The arrangement dictatorships have with GalCop means GalCop are unable to deploy any of their standard Viper ships for patrolling the spacelanes and keeping the peace. Instead, each dictatorship has relied on refurbished ex-surplus Viper ships to fill this role. The Quaestor and Guard ships are based on the standard Viper, the Censor and Enforcer are based on the Viper Interceptor, and the Lictor is based on the Viper Pursuit.

Ships

Imperial Censor

Imperial Lictor

Imperial Quaestor

Junta Enforcer

Revolutionary Guard

Imperial Freighter

Imperial Tanker

Prison Ship

Stations

Imperial AstroFactory

Lore

From Cim's Ship's Manual, tucked away inside his Ship's Library OXP:

A Dictatorship is defined as “a system in which all political power is owned by a relatively small group of individuals, who also control admittance to that group”.

Beveinve in Chart 5 is a hereditary absolute monarchy. The monarch rules the system, with their eldest child usually being their successor (although others may be appointed in their place). A small court of around a hundred nobles directs regional operations at the pleasure of the monarch, with executions for displeasing performance commonplace. Living standards are extremely low outside the nobility, but careful control of imports and exports prevents the peasantry from getting their paws on the means of revolution.

Maatis in Chart 6 is less controlled about its appointments. A caste system allocates individuals to one of several hundred roles at birth, of which Politician is one, based on claims made by the existing members of the castes. Once allocated to the role, citizens are trained to fulfil it, beginning at a low level when they reach the age of majority, and slowly rising through the ranks according to luck and ability as they age. In the Political role, most will have gained some regional leadership role in the planet's bureaucracy by old age, with a few obtaining planetary ranks.

Zaragete in Chart 2 has an unusual political system. Like Beveinve, political rule is technically absolute, and the leader appoints their successor. However, unlike Beveinve, the term of office is strictly limited to one planetary year. Should the planet make a trading profit in that year, the outgoing leader may keep a percent of the profit, generally making them extremely rich. If the planet does not make a trading profit, the outgoing leader will be executed. Choice of appointment varies therefore between friends and enemies of the current leader, depending on economic projections. The government is solely responsible for interplanetary trade and diplomacy, with all domestic affairs carried out by private businesses and charities.

• Commies – Dictators question: Why are there GalCop police in these systems? (2008)

Commies and Dictators add a certain flavour to the respective systems, e.g. by giving them their own police force. But this is about the system, meaning the planet and its government.

And while the system's government may exert a certain influence in its spacelanes, we should never forget that the main orbital stations are not run by the system's government, but by GalCop itself. So it is not only correct and understandable that GalCop has its police ships on and around the station, but it wouldn't be possible otherwise. If you never would meet any GalCop presence in Communist or Dictatorship systems, something would be very wrong. You would perhaps witness the very beginning of a secession-movement that could end in the break-up of GalCop itself...

(Note: This is not to say that a scenario like this couldn't be scripted and implemented in the Ooniverse, and BTW it has been discussed before; but in their present form neither Commies nor Dictators feature this scenario.)

PDF

Tucked away inside this oxp is one of Ramirez's famous .pdf's stashed full of information (6 pages!). To extract it, you can use the Expansions Manager, or just expand it with your computer's software unzipper and peek into the folder. See Sector7/Isriveen‎ & Sector7/Esverara for most of the contents.

Version History

2.6, 3 Sept 2023 (by phkb)

• Added a shiplibraryplist file so Dictators ships will appear in the Ship Library. With thanks to Cholmondely.

2.5, 23 June 2020 (by phkb)

• Added some shipdata entries to provide compatibility with Resistance Commander OXP.

2.4, 13 April 2019 (by phkb)

• Added normal map to frieghter.
• Small corrections to shipdata.plist.
• Allowed for game to be saved at Astro Factories.

2.3, 12 October 2017 (by phkb and gsagostinho)

• Corrected errors in shipdata.plist.
• Small correction to the spawning conditions to prevent prisonships in industrial systems.

2.2, 31 July 2017 (by phkb and gsagostinho)

• Updates to shipdata and scripts to better control spawning.

2.1, 31 July 2017 (by phkb and gsagostinho)

• Added new textures, normal and emission maps to all ships.
• Adjustments to shipdata.plist file.
• Adjustments to population routines to ensure Dictators police ships will be used exclusively in Dictatorship systems.

2.0, 16 December 2016 (by phkb)

• Updated scripts and config for current version of Oolite (1.82 and onwards)
• Updated ship models to use Griff variants.
• Added code to utilise Station Validator.
• Made Spara's updated Astrofactory model a requirement for the OXP. The original model is kept for compatibility reasons.

• Updated scripts

1.5, 21 July 2011

• Minor correction to fix inconsistency between script and shipdata regarding spawn conditions for AstroFactories

1.4, 19 June 2010

• Updated ship population script for compatibility with Oolite v1.74

1.3, 31 May 2008

• Fixed freighter and tanker AI to avoid conflict with station behaviour
  
• Minor fixes to ship models

1.2, 9 February 2007

• Added Imperial Freighter

1.1, 30 January 2007

• Added Imperial Tanker
  
• Modified script to prevent appearance of multiple AstroFactories on launch, and tweaked positioning of ships and stations

1.0, 22 January 2007

• Initial version including:
  • Revolutionary Guards and Junta Enforcers for the agricultural dictatorships
    
  • Imperial Quaestors, Censors and Lictors for the industrial dictatorships
    
  • Imperial AstroFarms, located within asteroid fields in the wealthier industrial dictatorships and marked as 'F' on the Advanced Space Compass
    
  • Detailed System Profiles courtesy of GalCop Intelligence
    

As well as providing some hints on trading opportunities, the System Profiles also give an idea of things to come in future versions.

Credits

Many thanks to Dr. Nil for the Commies OXP which inspired this expansion, and for additional advice and suggestions.
All models and textures by Ramirez, with some use of existing Oolite meshes and base textures.

Version 2.0 and following by phkb (code) and gsagostinho (textures). Original ship models courtesy of Griff.

Download

Download Dictators.oxz v2.6 (downloaded 962 times).

An updated version of the AstroFactory is available for download here: AstroFactory.oxz (v2.4 downloaded 1412 times)

A discussion of the updated AstroFactory can be found at: Oolite Forum

Version 1.5 of this OXP is available at: Ramirez' Oolite Pages

Links

• Flavour Expansions (2006) includes Ramirez's early thoughts about this OXP which also included Asteroid Farms as well as the Imperial Factories
• If there was an original BB thread, it may have perished in the Great Deletion
• circular escort reference in Dictators 1.3 (2009-11)
• There are several other BB threads about specific bugs with early versions of Dictators OXP

Quick Facts

Version	Released	License	Features	Category	Author(s)	Feedback
2.6	2023-09-03	CC BY-NC-SA 3.0	Ships, Stations	Systems OXPs	Ramirez, phkb, gsagostinho, Griff	Oolite BB

Gameplay and Balance indicator