Oolite Bulletins

Alright, thanks for clearing that up for me!

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Food - Fuel - Fuzzy Aliens

Why not pay us a visit?

Greetings all.

My nifty new HUD upgrade shows me that my hull degrades. Will that continue until my ship is no longer flyable? Is there a way to repair it?

Hi Starlock, and welcome
No, it will be OK. Check the outfitters on F3 from time to time and you will be offered a maintenance overhaul which fixes that. It is generally best to have this done at a high TL world as they do a better job. Happy flying!

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Commander Smivs, the friendliest Gourd this side of Riedquat.

Hoopy! Thanks.

Hi guys! I have some gameplay-related questions (playing vanilla game no OXPs for now).

I`ve seen some kind of expensive military shields on the F3 parts shops. The description said that it works with conjunction of shild boosters and so on. Does it mean that shields ARE stacking and i should buy shield boost first, not because it`s cheaper and faster to save up for them, but because i`ll get more protection then?

And second is there any reason to buy a new ship (for example Boa Cruiser) or that Cobra Mk 3 is sufficient for anything, since enough upgrades are installed. The reason i want that Boa ship is it`s cargo bay, while it still seems to be good enough for fighting. Am i wrong? Are there any other pros and cons when choosing a ship (since that isn`t X2 game, where you could have all of them same time)?

And also is there general difference between the poor and the rich systems, disregarding industrial and agricultural specialisations?

Hi Amon2501. Shields and shield boosters all add to your shield strength. I don't think there's any technical reason why you can't buy the Military Shield Enhancement before you buy the standard Shield Boosters: it's more of a budget issue for most people.

Buying a different ship will give you different capabilities. The Cobra III is a good all-round ship, with decent speed, cargo space, armaments and manoeuvrability, but there are obviously ships out there which are better in some (or, in the case of some OXP ships, all) areas. The Boa Cruiser is tough, and a good fighting ship - but one thing to remember is that it is larger than the Cobra III, and bigger targets get hit more often!

In the vanilla game, some ships don't work very well - for example, many of the smaller and older ships are not fast enough to overhaul other ships and escape from mass lock, so you have to navigate around traffic if you want to use your Torus drive. Which is not to say that these ships are wholly without charm: flying an Adder, especially in combat, is a real experience … just watch your energy levels.

The main difference between Rich and Poor systems is the price of goods. The most advantageous price differentials are to be found between Poor Agricultural and Rich Industrial worlds. Like  Mr Gimlet says:

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Oofiction: Calliope: a Captain Hesperus adventure | Stranglehold: a Captain Hesperus adventure | Local Midnight in the Vacuum Bar | A Farewell to Arms, Legs, etc.: the Blaze O'Glory Story

Ain't that the truth!

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Knowledge is a deadly friend, if no one sets the rules
The fate of all mankind, I see, is in the hands of fools

As for the Agricultural and the Industrial systems, i`ve found a rule of thumb - It doesnt matter how they`re rich (or poor), just buy the furs while heading to the Industrial one and buy the computers while heading to the Agricultural one. Profit is guaranteed. But still i could not figure out whats the main difference between JUST poor and JUST rich systems. For example im leaving the poor industrial system and heading to the industrial system too, but for the rich one. What should i buy then? And what if vice versa?

There's not much good to trade between Industrial systems (or between Agricultural systems, for that matter). You might be able to make a little bit of money filling up with e.g. Furs from a Poor Agricultural and selling them on a Rich Agricultural, but to be honest you'd be better off just refuelling and taking them on to a Rich Industrial, if there's one in range. Not all trades have to be made in a single jump!

With practice, you'll get an eye for what are low prices, and what are high. This especially applies to trade in gold, platinum, and gemstones: if you have the cash, these latter items are worth snapping up when you see them selling cheap, so that you can make a killing when you come across a planet where the prices are high. Below 500 kilos they don't take up any cargo space (they're stored in a safe in your cockpit), so even a small profit per kg (or per gram) can really add up …

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Oofiction: Calliope: a Captain Hesperus adventure | Stranglehold: a Captain Hesperus adventure | Local Midnight in the Vacuum Bar | A Farewell to Arms, Legs, etc.: the Blaze O'Glory Story

This is one of the advantages of a bigger ship like the Boa Cruiser. You have the space to buy stuff really cheaply when you can, and just keep it for a while till you arrive at a planet with a high buying price.

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Commander Smivs, the friendliest Gourd this side of Riedquat.

Well i dont like an empty run`s. Every jump costs some money to refuel the ship, and its`s too long and dangerous to refuel it by using the scoops (btw if there were an EMPTY systems without stations at all, there`ll be the reason for that too). So i decided to make refills by just trading some goods and investing some profit in refilling,
Now buying a Boa Cruiser makes more sense. And how does it feels in combat? Can i dogfight the enemy pointing them blank like i did in Cobra mk 3 or it`s too slow? And what about it`s shields and firepower? Will i also need a windcreen wipers for the dead pirates while visiting the anarchy system or it`s gonna be just the big sitting duck?

Many would argue that it is the best of all the core ships. Not quite as fast or nimble as a cobby, but still a great fighting machine. Big, yes, so easier to hit but tough as old boots.

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Commander Smivs, the friendliest Gourd this side of Riedquat.

One more question. I dont want these Trumples creatures ever. Never had a c64, never played the c64 version of Elite, so that`s more trouble, than a nostalgic thoughts for me. Of course i can just delete it`s file from the game dir and remove all references of them from the remaining files. But how should i avoid them without such a cheat? Of course i`m declining every offer of buying the box, after docking the stations, but i also know that one could just grab them while scavenging the cargo from dead pirates. So my question is: Is there a way to distinguish that Trumples cargopod right in space, before taking it? Does it have some painting on it or different look (just like in the wiki)?

You cannot get trumbles by scooping in the core game, not sure if what you are saying is part of an OXP. So in the standard game there is no need to distinguish any cargo pod from any other.

Also, if you do decide to accept the offer and take one of those critters onboard, don't try to edit the savefile to remove it; it won't help. The game has ways of finding out when a savefile has been tampered with and, while most edits are allowed, editing out trumbles is a no-no. If you want to play safe, just refuse the offer and it eventually stop showing up.

That`s good to see, i could avoid them just by declining an offers, but the wiki says that cargopods CAN contain them, look http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Cargo_ ... ommodities there. Also there is a Standard category not an OXP mentioned in the right tab. Is that a typo?

And also here is another maybe_wiki bug:

Here`s the Tite of the page named Boa 2 Cruiser http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Boa_2_Class_Cruiser
and in the game i can only see just a Boa Cruisers in the shipyards.


Was that a typo, or that`s really NOT the Boa 2 but just Boa ship? That shipyard belongs to the 15 TL rich planet BTW.