Topic: There *IS* going to be another OP patch.

[Chris Jones]

Good to see OP in the news again.. It was always my favorite over EAW.

[Gamester]

I'm sorry - didn't mean to spoil the parade. . . Perhaps we testers should have a discussion in the tester's forum over what we will or will not say about the patch. I just like to keep ppl up to speed on what we are working on, because being totally clueless really sucks, AND I feel that it drums up flagging interest in OP (my fave SFC, BTW).

Gamester

[FireSoul]

It doesn't matter much at this point..
.. We can just shut up here and let them all sweat it out.

-- Luc

[FireSoul]

nah-huh.

THAT's always been DavidF's to do. Besides, the list is still growing.
 

[FireSoul]

David's busy making a patch. Don't bug him, please.

[Strafer]

ROFL!

"Don't feed the programmers."!

[kosh2000]

The cartel map can a on off be put in the gf files as a setting or get it out all together or put the cartels on the empire map instead ethier way the cartel layer has to go.

[FireSoul]

No. Instead the cartel layer should stay, and be fixed.

I really don't know why people want to remove the cartel layer. Seriously. Just fix it.
Besides, what is "Orion Pirates" without pirates? No, it's the product that was sold and it should just be fixed.

[FireSoul]

The problem was not what you could do with it, the problem was what you couldn't do with it. Attacks on hexes which have a cartel owner underneath would affect the DV result of the attack. The bugs there are weird.. and I can't explain it right. However with the current debugging we're doing, it'll probably get fixed.

If the cartel layer doesn't affect the normal layer's DV results, and vice-versa, there are no problems. The 2 maps can coexist flawlessly. Removing the layer completely would cause a lot of problems on the DB side, I would suspect.. and is a lot more trouble than just fixing the bugs.

-- Luc

[Cleaven]

And make the cartel DV's visible too.  

[FPF_TraceyG]

The Pirate Cartel layer lends itself to being modded quite well, off hand, perhaps its possible to use the Pirate slots for different 'factions' within an empire eg. in Federation space, we might find Vulcans, Tellarites, Andorians, etc.
Another possibility is to use the cartel layer for non-military or commercial traffic for each empire simulating some kind of economy or universe in the background (and not using up valuable slots in the shiplist with freighters without having to remove them), and so on. This would work particularly well if SQL ever works for OP.

[FireSoul]

.. what about engine doubling? That would screw up the modded pirates quite horribly.

[FireSoul]

Quote:
So would an empire attacking an empire hex affect a cartel hex now?  And vice versa?  

The idea is that they never should have affected each other's DV at all.

[FireSoul]

Quote:
And make the cartel DV's visible too.    

That's definitely been asked.

[Cleaven]

I've posted this before and also asked if anybody knew how the dual map was supposed to operate. To this end I will give my own description of how I think it should work. It is a little complex though:

- Firstly Cartels should be enemies of their related empires eg Prime operates in Romulan space and the Romulans would be doing pretty poorly if all their space was riddled with high DV pirate space. So when Romulans want to raise DV's in empire space they should first have to neutralise the pirate DV first by taking it to zero or one (make it a  variable that the admin can change). Once the pirate hex is neutral then further missions will raise the empire hex. Same goes for the cartels. They should have to reduce the empire DV before they can start putting their criminal plans into action.

- Next thing to consider is state sponsered criminal/rebel activity in enemy space. This is where cartels may be allied to empires, but is not required for DV shifts, however the presence of an allied cartel should not restrict the DV changes on the empire map. Raising empire DV's should not have any effect on allied cartel DV's, and vice versa.

- I know that the simplest thing to do would be to completely separate the two maps so that there is no interaction, but the allied/enemy cartels could add to the game if it works right. And if empires only is preferred then simply set all cartel space neutral, and nobody will know the difference.
   

[Toasty0]

Quote:
So would an empire attacking an empire hex affect a cartel hex now?  And vice versa?  

So, are you asking;

1.) Is that how it operates now?
2.)Is that how it's supposed to operate?
3.)Is that how it will operate after its patched?

And, is your question asking something firesoul already said he would not anwer? }~

My favorite fix is {EDITED FOR CONTENT}. I think you OP fans should enjoy that new feature as much as I do.

Best,
Toasty0 the meanie  

[jdmckinney]

Re: engine doubling and pirates in general ...

Really, who is left playing the game who hasn't modded it or played someone else's mods? If a few tweaks could be made that would add flexibility for modders, wouldn't that expand the life expectancy of the game? Adding a .gf-settable option to disable engine doubling for any or all of the cartels would be such a change. A lot of people would like to have just one or a couple cartels and use the rest of the slots for mods.

A much more extreme change would be to add empty but configurable (playable) race slots or moving the pirates to the empire map. These would also have side-effects that give modders more options.

Another approach to the pirate layer would be to have pirate DVs only change if a pirate vessels is involved in a mission, but I think that would require a lot more work that's not really necessary. If we could at least get the two layers to work independently, it would be far better than anything we've been able to do with workarounds so far.

[Sethan]

Quote:
A much more extreme change would be to add empty but configurable (playable) race slots or moving the pirates to the empire map. These would also have side-effects that give modders more options.

*DING*

I'd love to see this.  A .gf setting that determines whether a race is on the Pirate Map or Cartel Map.  The next logical step from here would be a .gf setting that allows server admins to choose what color or color pattern (from a .gif perhaps) a race uses on the map.

This would allow admins to use OP to have a server with 15 races and still have a single pirate cartel on the cartel map - if that is what they want to do.

[jdmckinney]

FS, has anyone asked about getting a code change to allow PFs to launch in nebulae? They should be able to, but because they are treated like fighters as if they were inside the towing ship, they can't launch into nebs now. As long as fighter and PF races are going to stay segregated, wouldn't it be best to get this working for the PF races. After all, they already have many disadvantages by not having access to all those carriers and fighters they might normally get, plus the general dominance of good carriers vs. good tenders available.

It would also help spice up nebula battles.

Just a thought.

[FireSoul]

we're trying to be very cautious about requests at this point.. we don't want to piss off the patcher.
.. but I will definitely remember this one, and pass it along if he's receptive.