UPS Courier

Intro

In the universe there is a lot of commercial traffic. Goods and documents are transported from one solar system to another solar system. Like transportation on Earth, only a small percentage of the jobs is offered on the open market. Almost anybody can accept such free contracts provided their ship has the right cargo capacity. However, most of the lucrative transport jobs aren't offered on the open market. You have to use connections to gain such contracts.

UPS is only one of the many organization in the universe for delivering goods between planet systems. Normally they use their own ships and pilots. On rare occasions they ask strangers to do some deliveries for them. If they do it well, the chances rise of getting more offers. Only the very skilled pilots get the best offers. UPS is present in the whole universe with business points in every solar system with a political level of Multi-Government and higher. They don't have their own combat ships to protect their transport ships, but rely on police and occasionally on unbound fighters like yourself.

Earning money is hard and competition is strong in the universe. For regular transport missions UPS pays very little. If you don't find the payment enough, go to the passenger / cargo contract market, maybe there is a better offer displayed there. But bear in mind: for their regular delivery pilots UPS sometimes has very good paying jobs to offer.

Overview

This OXP adds several random mission that run simultaneously. There could be up to 5 missions simultaneously active. The first sets of missions that are offered are mainly various transport missions. After you run enough transport missions, a series of combat jobs is offered, but the main focus of the OXP stays at friendly transports. See the missions as a more advanced version of the passenger / cargo / parcel contracts that are offered if you press F4 (or F8-F8 on older Oolite versions). Unlike most mission OXPs that offer a story that is only run once, this OXP will continually offer random missions, but with a low probability of appearing. You will get an end message when the last type of regular combat mission has successfully ended and nothing new can be expected. Occasionally, however, some small variations on existing missions may appear. The OXP itself never ends as long as it stays in the AddOns folder of Oolite.

Most missions only work as long one stays in the galaxy where the mission is accepted. On intergalactic jumps those missions are aborted when there is no solution in the new galaxy, but a new mission will be presented soon in the new galaxy. So intergalactic jumping in the middle of a mission should do no real harm. Because of the nature of this OXP you can leave it in place and forget about it. It should be compatible with most other mission OXP's.

Difficulty Rating

"Medium". The ships appearing in the OXP are within the power-range of the standard set of ships. No new type of ships are added, nonetheless, mission ships have more often than usual the maximum shielding and firepower for their type of ship. You wouldn't need a full Iron Ass to take them on, but you should have some basic upgrades fitted such as a beam laser, fuel injectors, an energy unit and perhaps a shield booster.

Download

• Download UPS_Courier.oxz v2.0.5 Version for Oolite 1.82+ users. (downloaded 841 times).
• Download UPS Courier v 1.8.4 Version for Oolite 1.75+ users. (Will only work with 1.75 and upwards.)
  • Feedback/comments on v1.8.4 can be found at this BB Link.
• Older versions: Download UPS Courier v 1.4.3 Version for Oolite 1.65 only.

Important Change for Oolite 1.77 users

Until Oolite 1.76, the courier reputation was the same as Oolites own reputation for Cargo contracts. Both increased the same counter. But, as Oolite 1.77 introduces Parcel contracts and a reputation counter for it, it seemed logic to use that counter because of the resemblance between parcel and UPS contracts. (Small deliveries that don't take cargo space.) As a result, any build up reputation is lost and the player has to start building a reputation again. Doing a lot of the native Oolite parcel missions will help in this. Also make sure you only use version 1.8.2 or higher. There is a bug in all previous versions making you loose important equipment during one of the mission when playing with Oolite 1.77 or newer.

Installing and Playing

To play the OXP, unzip the download file. This will create a folder named "UPS-Courier V1.x.x". Open this folder and you will see a folder named "UPS-Courier.oxp" and a readme. Move the UPS-Courier.oxp folder to AddOns. As with all OXPs, it's the folder ending in .oxp that you need to put in Oolite's AddOns folder, otherwise Oolite will not read it.

Update Notes

• Version 2.0.5:
  • Small changes to some beacon labels in shipdata.plist.
  • Added additional entries to save game data.
• Version 2.0.4:
  • Added code to prevent missions to unreachable destinations.
  • Displaying a mission destination on a system map will no longer reset the current hyperspace destination.
  • Small adjustments to missiontext items.
• Version 2.0.3:
  • Really fixed errors in slave market adjustment code.
• Version 2.0.2:
  • Added new texture for Solar Researcher, provided by Keeper.
  • Added role-categories.plist file to replace the "pirate-victim-roles.plist" file.
  • Converted demoships.plist file to OpenStep format.
• Version 2.0.1: Update by phkb
  • Removed legacy script that added AstroFactories after launching.
  • Removed code relating to pre-1.77 versions of Oolite. Minimum version now 1.82.
  • Fixed Javascript error in slaves market adjustment code.
• Version 2.0: Update by phkb
  • Updates to ship/container models to better fit with the Griff models post-Oolite 1.80.
  • Switched Black Box to be the same as cim's Black box from Rescue Stations.
  • Added screenID's to all mission screens.
  • Update to UPS mission screen overlay image.
  • Spelling/grammar corrections in missiontext.plist and descriptions.plist.
  • Update of market data to work with newer system post-Oolite 1.82.
  • Converted readme.rtf to txt file.
  • Bug fixes.
• Version 1.9: Update by spara
  • For compatibility with various shipsets, all references to core models have been removed and replaced with like_ships.
  • Ships
    • For compatibility, removed special exhausts
    • Replaced oxp specific boas and python with like_ships
    • Unified ship naming overall and updated to use randomshipnames oxp, if present.
    • Updated escorts to use escort formations oxp, if present
  • Asteroids
    • No more custom asteroids in missions. Uses any available asteroids now.
    • Special splinter models are now re-textured Griff models. Corrected to work with Ore Processor's scan function.
  • Stations
    • Solar research station is replaced with a turretless Kiota Solar station, if present.
    • Pirate bases are replaced with Griff's hermit, if present
  • Other
    • Fixed black box to work correctly with Griff's barrel
    • Metal plates normal mapped by Keeper
    • Ground radars enhanced with normal & emission maps
    • Fixed ground radars from being stations with docking possibilities
• version 1.8.3: Fixed bug with python mission were you got no reward for captured pirates.
• version 1.8.2: Fixed an equipment bug.
• version 1.8.1: Fixed a bug in 1.8.0 were missions did not start or end correct.
• version 1.8.0: Added oolite 1.77 support. Raised minimum Oolite version to 1.75.
• version 1.7.12: Fixed some more string bugs that only will give problems after Oolite 1.76.x.
  
• version 1.7.0: Changed minimum version to 1.74.
  
• version 1.6.0: Raised minimum Oolite version to 1.73.
  
• version 1.4.3: Last version for 1.71 and 1.65 users.
  
• version 1.4.0: First version adapted to Oolite 1.71
  
• version 1.3.8: Final version for 1.70 users
  
• version 1.3.4: Some ships now have a Java Script
  
• version 1.3.3: All mission series are translated to Java Script
  

Quick Facts

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Version	Released	License	Features	Category	Author(s)	Feedback
2.0.5	2017-06-23	(C)2007-2013	Adds courier missions	Missions OXPs	Eric Walch, spara, Keeper, phkb	BB-Link