Masslock Reimagined
From Elite Wiki
Redspear's 4th Masslock-solving OXP
Contents
Overview
Masslocks without this mod
- Masslocks interrupt torus drive use
- Torus drive only reusable once masslock escaped
- Masslock clearances can take upwards of five minutes without steering around them
- Slower ships can get trapped in traffic jams if staying on lane, making them less attractive and faster NPC vessels problematic
Masslocks with this mod
- Masslocks interrupt torus drive use
- Torus drive reusable after a short delay
- Masslock clearances can take less than a minute
- Ship speed is no longer critical in determining masslock clearance
How it Works
Initial Masslock
The player is masslocked as normal as the torus drive begins to recalibrate around the new masslocking bodies.
Masslock Neutralisation
After a short period the player receives the message, "Torus Drive Online", as the existing masslock is temporarily removed.
Masslock Escape
There is now a short window for the player to re-employ the torus drive before "Mass-Lock Sensitivity Restored" and thye torus drive requires further recalibration.
Masslock Dominance
The following factors prevent the torus drive from overpowering a masslock.
- Gravity wells of stars and planets
- Aegis of station
- Taking fire
Current Settings
- 30 seconds before torus drive is back online (almost certainly too short but good for testing)
- 10 seconds before masslock sensitivity returns (perhaps slightly too long but starts from masslock release rather than torus engagement)
- Torus Drive Online
- Mass-Lock Sensitivity Restored
- Gravity Well Influence Detected
Download
From the in-game Expansions Manager or from here: File:Oolite.oxp.redspear.masslock reimagined.oxz
Version History
- v1.2 fixed a bug with combat overrides not resetting
- avoid taking fire for 60 seconds and you can torus out of there
- removed 'escape window' (it was too short for convenience but also too long not to risk skipping other encounters)
- instead a scanner check function makes sure you escape current/overlapping masslocks only
- v1.1 Minor tweaks to masslock sensitivity returning and torus drive status reports.
- v1.0 Original release
Links
Other oxp's with similar effects
- Masslock Compensator (Redspear, 2018)
- Power To Engines (Redspear, 2019)
- Variable Masslock (Norby, 2015)
- Note that Redspear's three older oxp's are compatible with each other!
Redspear's summary of his four Masslock OXP's (from the BB)
- Speedboost (150%) when weapons offline
- Useful for escaping faster opponents (if they did same then they wouldn't be able to shoot)
- Helps reduce duration of masslocks
- Speedboost (200%) when masslocked but cancelled by red alert
- No benefit for combat
- Significant reduction of time spent in masslock
- Adjusts traffic to increase frequency of slower traders (and so that the 'best' courier ships aren't also the most common)
- Station bound traffic becomes easier to overtake because it's usually slower
- Pirates, hunters and police are unaffected
- Masslock lasts for a fixed duration rather than until scanner is clear
- No speed changes to either player or average encountered NPC
- Taking fire negates the effect but possible to dodge your way out of a masslock without being the faster ship
- Likely to make Masslock Compensators obsolete if it develops as I hope
Gameplay and Balance indicator
