User:Redspear

For an insight into Redspear's thinking (BB thread on his Weapon Laws .oxp):

For me, flavour always beats complexity in a game (unless it's a puzzle) but then everything is subject to taste of course.

There is however an important point here that may not be immediately obvious.

Whilst it's true that most of my oxps (and even source code changes) may appear to be employing game changes to promote realism, it's actually the other way around.

I didn't rescale Oolite so that it could be more realistic, it did it so that it could be more fun. I wanted to be able to hide large items in space, to get a sense of massive ships and tiny ships and generally of feeling small in a vast(ish) galaxy(or 8). I just used 'reality' as a guide and excuse to head in that direction: as a compass rather than a desired destination.

Likewise, with this .oxp I've identified the problem as the best equipment being available (at least occasionally) in the safest systems. I wanted to change that in order to rebalance risk and reward. I used just enough realism to justify that change because that change was all I needed to solve the problem (in my mind at least).

No accounting for inhabitants (maybe they specialise in different items), planet radius (maybe there could be gravity issues for some techs and their development), neighboring suppliers (with their own tech levels and trade influence), system star (could influence development of tech within societies), etc. etc. etc. All could be realistic but not all would be useful.

So you see, I had no problem with the lack of realism as such, rather I had a problem with it being too easy to fully equip your ship of choice. This oxp was/is my attempt to address that.

OXPs

Be aware that in some cases Redspear placed a major essay in his threads explaining the justification for eg Re-imagining Laser Combat or Redistributing traffic.

Ambience (done with collaborators: Spara etc)

• Additional Planets Demux Pack Redspear, spara and collaborators
• Additional Planets Redux Pack Redspear, spara and collaborators
• Additional Planets SR Demux Volcanic Pack Redspear, spara and collaborators
• Additional Planets SR Others Gas Giants pack Redspear, spara and collaborators
• Additional Planets SR: Alien Worlds Redspear, spara and collaborators
• Additional Planets SR: Earthlike Redspear, spara and collaborators
• Additional Planets SR: free bitmaps dusty Redspear, spara and collaborators
• Additional Planets SR: free bitmaps icy Redspear, spara and collaborators
• Additional Planets SR: free bitmaps rocky Redspear, spara and collaborators
• Additional Planets SR: Ocean Worlds Redspear, spara and collaborators
• Additional Planets SR Base Redspear, Spara, PHKB

Equipment

• Missile Combat Reimagined: higher tech, fragile ECMs & 3 types of missile
• Weapon Laws means that the government system now affects availability (not just the TL)

Mechanics

• Equipment by Ship Class: Size of ship, tech level and grade all affect equipment perfermance
• Escape Pod As Standard
• Hyperdrives: size, tech level & equipment (eg the EEU) all affect countdown time & maximum distance of witchspace jumps
• Indestructible Injectors
• Masslock Compensator: passive (neutral) masslocks are less inhibitory than active (combative) masslocks.
• Power To Engines: 50% speed boost when weapons are off-line
• Star Fuel: speed bonus for fuel scooped from larger stars
• Traffic Redistributer: changing the speeds of different ships helps reduce mass-lock

Ships

• FdL Lightspeeder: a sleeker, faster, Fer-de-Lance

Weapons

• Laser Combat Reimagined: pulse laser gets longer range, several new laser types, not all ships can carry all lasers.
• New lasers 21 new lasers: availability depends on which species inhabits the planet!

Humour

From the Bulletin Board

Re: Introduce Yourself.

Post by JamesonBond007 » Sat Apr 01, 2017 7:53 am

Hello, gentlemen!

My name is ... mmm... Bond, Commander Jameson Bond :). Probably my story is not much different than others, but I think it has one strong difference. Through ELITE I learned English language. Not at all like native speaker, but enough to express my tons of thanks to developers for their brilliant job.

In beginning of 90' when I was young teenager I had ZX Spectrum. When I first time saw ELITE I didn't understand what to do and what about the game. In same time I've got an instruction how to play and I fall in love to ELITE. In ELITE everything were in English. At that time there is no Internet nor translation of the game, neither friends who know English. But I had strong desire to understand everything in the game to play the one. I've got a dictionary and I began to translate ELITE for my own purposes. I travelled across eight galaxies, fought with pirates, mined asteroids, trade goods, completed all missions and became ELITE rank. I dreamed how it will be nice if such brilliant game would have nice graphics and much more missions, equipment, etc. After many years I've got a computer, Internet connection and my dream came back. I tried to play a lot of cosmosims, but all of them were not a tiny bit of that ELITE. Even I tried to play ELITE DOS version. :cry: I started to think to buy ELITE Dangerous, but… but… bingo! I found dreamed ELITE. Dreamed ELITE name is Oolite.

Gen, sorry for my terrible English. I studied English by ELITE as described above.

Sincerely yours ComJaBo

Re: Introduce Yourself.

Post by Redspear » Sat Apr 01, 2017 3:02 pm

"Now listen carefully 007.

This is a fully-equipped, state of the art, Cobra Mk III multi-role ship. The Mk I wasn't much to shout about, and the Mk II was a bit of a disaster to be frank, but this time I think we've cracked it. Homing missiles, military lasers front and rear, sides too should you need them, and a 7 light-year range. Fuel-injected thrusters, ECM anti-missile system, shield boosters and fuel scoops for self-sufficiency."

"What's this?"

"DON'T touch that 007... It's the trigger for the quirium cascade mine, a highly sensitive device that could blow up every hyperdive within the vicinity, including this one. You'd better be ready to run if you're going to deploy that, especially as I want the ship back in one piece this time! :| "

"But of course :wink: "

"Yes, well... With four energy banks she's pretty tough and fast enough to keep even you away from trouble... in theory :roll:

There is also a passenger seat SHOULD you happen to fraternise with any of the locals :? "

"Oh, you know me Q, I'll be very focused just getting on top of things :wink: "

"Quite... Well you won't be needing the escape pod that comes with it then or the docking computers for hands-free landings, were you to be otherwise occupied."

"Very thoughtful :wink: "

"Do be careful 007 :| "

8)

Welcome Mr. Bond.

Once you enter Oolite you will find that escape is, quite impossible...

Glad to have you with us and I hope you enjoy your stay

The original with the emoticons is here.