Escort Contracts OXP

Overview

Escort Contracts test version 0.9.1 (29/4/11) By Capt Murphy 2011 Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 Tested on Oolite versions 1.75.1 and (trunk) 1.75.2.4517

Allow players to enter into short-term escort contracts with NPC lone wolf traders. Fully functional test release.

Description

The Independent Traders and Hauliers Association have reacted to demand from lone wolf NPC Traders and introduced a system to allow them to enter into short-term escort contracts with vetted and rated freelance escort pilots.

Players who wish want to access these contracts must purchase a I.T.H.A Independent Escort License available to players with a Clean legal status at non Anarchy systems with a Tech Level of 3 or above.

Once purchased players whose legal rating is still Clean may be offered short term escort contracts on docking at a systems main station. The chance of being offered contracts is based on the players reputation as an escort. The fees offered are also affected by the players reputation as an escort and government type of the target system. Target systems are always within 1 jump of the starting system. Reputation is increased when a contract is successfully fulfilled and reduced when a contract is failed.

Once agreed the player has 3 game hours to launch from the station or the contract is failed. The NPC trader (or 'mother') will be waiting in the station aegis and will prompt the player to approach as they prepare to jump to the target system. The player can follow them through their wormhole or alternatively jump themselves to the target system (within a time limit). Failure to arrive at the target system ends the contract.

Once in the target system the players task is to escort the mother to the system's main station. Mothers will issue various prompts to players in flight, will request assistance if attacked, and will assist the player if the player is attacked. The contract is fulfilled once the mother has entered the aegis of the target system's main station.

Game Balance and Playability

In order to avoid these missions being long and rather dull (in between hostile encounters), this OXP gives the mother the ability to 'synchronise jump drives' with the player. The mother has been given scan_class CLASS_ROCK (but with custom scanner colours) so will not mass-lock the player. In flight if there is nothing else to mass-lock the player the mother will prompt the player to approach within 2500m. Within this distance the mother will synchronise jump drives with the player and 'hop' towards the mother's destination, taking the player with it (checking to see if the player is mass-locked just before every 'hop'). 'Hops' are 1 scanner range and occur very 2 seconds so this method should not avoid contact with other ships.

If the player is masslocked but with no hostile contacts in the vicinity the mother will also after a few minutes decide to try and use injectors to get out of the mass-locked situation so that the player and mother can take advantage of the mothers synchronised jump drive capability.

Mothers are also a bit beefier than standard traders, sporting front military lasers, rear beam lasers, shield boosters, ECM's, and fuel injectors as standard.

Known Issues

Mothers should be visible on the Advanced Space Compass as a 'M'. Unfortunately due to a bug in 1.75.1 this does not work after the mother has jumped to the target system. This has been fixed in trunk with version 1.75.2.4517

Change Log

Version 0.9 (24/4/11) - Initial Release.

Version 0.9.1 (29/4/11) - Fixed a bug in detecting player kills (the mother should pay a bonus for hostile kills made during the contract - was broken in version 0.9). Added code for mother to use injectors to try and escape from mass lock situations after a few minutes. Made criteria for contract success arrival in target system's station aegis rather than mother safely docked to save player time. Replaced the shield enhancers with shield boosters as standard equipment for mothers as mothers were a bit too tough and contracts too easy in 0.9. Added code to stop the I.T.H.A. Independent Escort License being damaged in combat. Added an additional world script to display the players escort reputation on the manifest screen.

Feedback can be left on the OXPs discussion topic at Oolite BB

Download Links

Download version 0.9.1: box.net