Star-Jelly

Overview

The Star-jelly is a strange, translucent space-dwelling organism, often found in large numbers in asteroid fields, where they may remain for some time trapped in the weak gravitational fields of the asteroids. Star-jellys have limited movement, and are normally content to float free in space being wafted around by the solar wind. They are seldom found in interstellar space.

They are not thought to be intelligent, and although their biology is un-clear they are thought to be more like plants than animals.

They are believed to 'feed' by absorbing the small traces of Quirium found in interplanetary space. Because of their high Quirium content, destroying them is not recommended. Commanders should be vigilant when in asteroid fields where mining is carried out. Miners are aware of the dangers of accidentally shooting a Star-Jelly while mining, and although there has never been a reported case of a miner triggering a Quirium explosion in this way, the possibility does exist.

Most commonly seen is the female which is thought to be twice as common as the larger and more colouful male, and you will also often see Star-Jelly larvae. Star-Jellies produce blue eggs, and these pose a danger to unwary spacers as they are extemely small and hard to see, but just like the larvae and adults will explode in a quirium blast if attacked or hit.

Fortunately all Star-Jellies, including their eggs, will show up on a ship's scanner, and a recent software update has allowed them to have a grey scanner flag to distinguish Star-Jellies from inanimate objects such as cargo pods and rocks.

You can see a video of the Star-Jellies here

Fiction

So I've set up shop out in Orrira. Perfect system for a guy like me - no regulation on mining policy, no mandated asteroid cleanup, plenty of stations in the fields. Pretty much ideal for long-term mining ops. Only downside's the pirates, but most of 'em won't pay attention to the real far-out fields. Y'know, the ones out between the corona and the other planets in the system, where whole heaps of the larg - ah, but I shouldn't be telling you too much. Business concerns, n' all.

But anyways, my last trip out to the fields was quite the strange one. Before I continue, let me enlighten you to the basics of how I really operate. Generally speaking, I don't like to risk asteroids I've picked out to drift off. So, to keep my potential wealth in one place, I break up the valuable asteroids in a cluster, and then proceed to pop a shepherd. Those units are one hell of a blessing, tell ya what - pulls all the splinters into a nice cluster. From a really good field, I can get hundreds of tons of valuables just floating around this little beacon. Scoop what I can, process it onboard on the trip back, and sell it all to one of the stations on the spacelane fields. A few round trips, and I can easily make 10 grand, sometimes more.

Agh, I keep getting on tangents. Sorry, friend. Back to the story.

Now, this was what I like to call a virgin trip - when I've exhausted the last thicket I worked in, and have to find a new one. I'd gotten some pretty great intel from one of the passing Hacker goons - some massive rocks clumping together near a star-jelly breeding ground at the edge of the star's corona. Big rocks mean big money, so you just know I was itching to head out.

Largely, things went off without a hitch. Naturally, you can't ever fully trust a Hacker, which is probably why some fool in an Eagle II tried to jump me. Probably told the kid I was easy pickins'. Good for him he had a pod (although I didn't appreciate being delayed by the whole ferrying-the-idiot-back part). So yeah, that little episode over, and I was on my way.

Now, despite his loose lips regarding my departure, I can't say that goon was a liar. That field was a hell of a sight. Must've been at least a dozen adult jellies out in the rocks, gigantic pillars of ice floating through space, gigantic veins of precious metals streaking some of the largest lumps I've ever seen...something special, yeah? I got away from the jelly cluster pretty quick - no need to be vaporized by one of my camera drones puncturing a membrane or some crap like that - and got to work tearing down an asteroid mostly composed of radioactives and processable alloys. It was about 7 hours later - perhaps halfway through the rock - when he showed up.

Like most ships, my sensors picked up his exhaust signature long before I'd be able to pick him up with the cameras, drone or onboard. He popped up about 25 klicks out, coming from the direction of Orrira III. Of course, Orrira doesn't really have a functional security force, so I was cautious. Recalled my drones, set up my targeting system to lock onto him once he passed into identifiable range, armed the hardhead, the works. He wasn't picking up on comms, and was heading pretty directly towards me.

As he passed into identifiable range, I ran all the tests. First, identity. The ship came up as the Divine Claw, a Worm. Clean, legally. That eased my nerves a bit - not much harm to come from some poor guy without a record. Diagnostic scans showed pretty much the expected - it was a beat up old junker with no special characteristics to speak of. Once he hit within 10 klicks, things started to get interesting.

Pretty much the moment he passed that golden distance, my comms exploded. Know all that Witchspace Lobster Cult bullcrap you see on the...-stranger-...net channels? It was like all of those programs condensed into one, concentrated broadcast. The tumult of noise almost instantly made me sick to my stomach - just a wall of sound interrupting and crashing into itself. Visually...well, if vizscreens could cry, I'm pretty sure they would have done just that. It was this massive blur of color, indescribably garish.

I didn't have to worry about this for long, though. Some safety must have gone off in my data core, and pretty much every display and audio dock went dead within a minute. By that point, I was out cold. Sensory overload, and all.

Ship's clock showed it was about 4 hours before I woke up. Everything looked pretty much untouched - no damage, vizs rebooted, ship still in the same orientation. Scanners showed no contacts, other than the asteroids. After I did a quick check of the ship's core systems, I got back to work.

If I had to guess, I'd say there's some people out there who are just completely out of it. Fringe, even for the lobster cultists. Don't see why else you'd set up a transmission that flOopin' insane. Guess I just got unlucky.

Really hope there aren't more where he came from, though. Hope even more that I don't meet another. (Twisp, 2013)

Installation

Download the .zip file from the link below, extract it and place the .oxp folder in your Oolite AddOns folder.

Licence

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.

Authors

The OXP was developed by Smivs. Star-jelly models by Staer9. Thanks to Fatleaf for pre-release testing.

Download

The OXP is available here.

Download Star-jelly_v3.0 OXZ (downloaded 4869 times), or via the Expansions Manager.

History

v3.0 Released 1st July, 2014. OXZ release. Updated shipdata for Oolite v1.80. Reduced chance of jellies appearing.

v2.0 released 16th March 2012. More varieties added.

v1.1 released 25th May, 2011. Bugfix to reduce the excessive number generated when Rock Hermits are present.

v1.0 released 25th May, 2011

Oolite Forum thread

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

Gameplay and Balance indicator