ToughGuys

ToughGuys 3 OXP

Overview

This OXP affects the level of equipment fitted to NPC ships. It can be used in two ways.

1) As an experienced Commander, you might feel that the 'enemy' are getting too easy to deal with, so you can use this OXP to re-balance the game, giving you tougher adversaries more suited to your combat skills. The first level (ToughGuys:Anarchy) would be suitable for this. The enemy will have a range of weapons upgrades and extra equipment, giving you a wide variety of abilities to deal with. Some enemies will still be quite weak while others will be noticably stronger than in standard Oolite. While making life much harder, an experienced Commander shouldn't find themselves overwhelmed. Only ships with the role 'Pirate' are effected, so Police ships and Traders will remain un-changed.

An Ace Commander might want things even tougher though! TG3-EveryDayMayhem will give you a much harsher existance. EveryDayMayhem is pitched between the Apocalypse and Armageddon levels. You will find a witchpoint ambush at roughly one in five of the systems you visit, and all other systems will have extra pirates added. You will also encounter the 'War Dogs' with a similar frequency as at Apocalypse level, and might rarely see Police Constrictors operating in some anarchy systems.

2) Using your imagination and degree of immersion in the game this OXP will also allow you to witness and participate in a descent into total lawlessness across the Ooniverse where Pirates and Criminals are in the ascendancy and GalCop forces are overwhelmed. There are no specific missions and it's entirely up to you and your imagination to flesh-out the scenarios. This OXP will give you the environment you need to do this. This fall towards Armageddon occurs in three phases, and you can work through this as you see fit, quickly if you want to, or perhaps over many weeks or even months. When you think it's time for things to get worse remove the current level from your AddOns folder and install the next level. Of course if you want the situation to improve, you can re-install a lesser level at any time.

A possible time-line might look like this-

ToughGuys:Anarchy - Law and Order is collapsing across the Eight Galaxies. Criminals and Pirate Gangs are growing stronger and more bold, and the threat to innocent citizens is causing great concern. The spacelanes are becoming very dangerous places, but you should still be safe in an Iron-Ass ship with a good Commander at the helm.

ToughGuys:Apocalypse - As time passes, the situation becomes critical. Civilian and Merchant shipping is becoming ever more heavily armed to deal with the criminal insurgency. With the Navy fully occupied dealing with the Thargoid threat GalCop forces are out-gunned and struggling to contain the menace. The Pirate marauders continue to re-arm and strengthen, adding bigger stronger ships to their fleets, while the civilian population cowers. Open warfare is commonplace throughout the spacelanes.

ToughGuys:Armageddon - Out-gunned and out-numbered, GalCop forces can no longer maintain Law and Order, and the Pirate Alliances become the dominant force in the Ooniverse, their heavily-armed ships destroying all in their path. Anarchy rules the spaceways and no ship is left to pass in peace. In a last-ditch attempt to restore Order, GalCop takes the expensive step of up-grading the weaponry on it's vast fleets of Vipers, and learning that the Navy is about to take delivery of several hundred of their much-delayed new super-fighter the Constrictor, GalCop controversially requisitions these and adds them to their Police Fleet. In a bid to gain total supremacy, the Pirate Alliance forces begin to blockade the industrial worlds across the Eight Galaxies in a bid to cripple trade and force GalCop into capitulating. Even with their new-found fire-power, the GalCop forces struggle to make any impact. And yet against all the odds, a few brave souls, known only as 'The Commanders' still fight back. These pilots are the finest warriors the Ooniverse has, and they will not concede defeat. They continue the fight to rid the spacelanes of danger in the full knowledge that the odds are against them, their cause is hopeless, and their death lies but a Jump away.

Details:

Level one (Anarchy) gives 'Pirates' better weapons and a higher chance of more equipment, making them stronger than in standard Oolite. Pulse Lasers are replaced with Beam Lasers, and Beam Lasers are replaced with Military Lasers. The chance of pirates having extra defensive equipment such as Shield Boosters and ECM are increased. This level is the equivalent of the original ToughGuys OXP.

Level 2 (Apocalypse) increases further the strength of Pirates and Criminals and introduces the feared 'War Dogs', large strong vessels such as the Boa Pitbull and Boa2 Rottweiler. Level 2 also adds tougher Traders and escort vessels in an attempt to counter the Pirate threat. A script also adds extra pirates to the 'quiet' systems to give a more uniform spread of pirates around the galaxies.

Level 3 (Armageddon) gives the criminal elements very strong to fully equipped Iron-Ass ships including many 'War Dogs'. The Constrictor is added as a Police ship in some Industrial systems. Scripts add more extra pirates to the 'quiet' systems and add a large pirate blockade to the witchpoint at most Industrial worlds. The Blockade script also places a Police Constrictor with two wingmen just out of scanner range approaching the witchpoint. All Police vessels have military Lasers.

Editions and Compatibility

Three editions are available.

The standard edition is suitable for basic Oolite (where no other OXPs are installed). It should also work well with most other OXPs, although you may find some interesting cross-OXP 'features'. Please report any incompatibilities via the ToughGuys2 thread on the Bulletin Board. It has been coded for and tested as working with the individual download versions of Griff's Ships, and should work with any other replacement ship set using the default ship names including Griff's 'replace' set.

There are also two special editions.

The 'forGriff's' is optimised for Griff's 'addition' all-in-one ship set and also the non-shader version (produced by Capt. Solo).

The 'forSmivs' version is specifically intended for users of Smivs'Shipset v4.1.1, and includes special textures for the the GalCop Constrictor, and the Boa and Boa2 pirates (see picture to right) which have the same texture-switching and death effects features as the main shipset. It is suitable for both 'Add' and 'Replace' versions of Smivs'Shipset, and if the 'Add' version is used both Smivs ships and the default ships will be toughened.

Installation

Place the chosen '***.oxp' folder into your 'AddOns' folder and when you start the game, hold down 'Shift' until you see the spinning Cobra.

Licence/Author/Credits

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

The OXP was developed by Smivs.

Special thanks go to El Viejo for many hours of testing and much invaluable feedback and to Griff for help and advice regarding making this work with his ship sets. Thanks also go to Another_Commander, Fatleaf and Gogz69 for help and advice.

Version History

TG3 standard version is now v1.1 - minor tweak to avoid log errors due to like_ship resolution issues. 17th Oct 2012.

TG3 v1.0 released 18th May, 2012

Download

Download ToughGuys 3 here

Download ToughGuys 3 for Griff's 'addition' all-in-one set here

Download ToughGuys 3 for Smivs'Shipset here

Oolite Forum thread

Any questions, problems or bug reports should be posted on this OXP's BB thread here