OOS Revisited™

[ezra-r]

For those still unfamiliar:

OOS : Out Of Sector
Calculations of what happens when you are not there.

Can someone at @Egosoft say if there are plans to modify this somehow?

Since I have modded my game with OOZ I noticed:

* Making OOS a little slower for fights, pays off since ships no longer report they are under attack and die before you can even check.

* Warnings or notifications when ships start getting hit at higher level, gives you some more time to react, or allow you to tell the ship to jump out, escape.

* Traders "trading" should always change their priority to try to escape from bigger enemies before trying to go back to station for trading, instead of mindlessly try to dock and die, at least while OOS.

Since OOS is very important for the game, because practically everything happens in places you are not, I think this needs greater consideration.


What would you guys add?

[UniTrader]

OOS : Out Of Sector
Calculations of what happens when you are not there.

You can be in the same Sector and the calculations are still simplified
It depends on distance which kind of calculations are used (I think I saw a file in libraries which defined these for different object classes) - it is called attentionlevel "visible" internally which is between inzone and insector - thats why I use OoS and IS as OutOfSight and InSight respectively

[ezra-r]

OOS : Out Of Sector
Calculations of what happens when you are not there.

You can be in the same Sector and the calculations are still simplified
It depends on distance which kind of calculations are used (I think I saw a file in libraries which defined these for different object classes) - it is called attentionlevel "visible" internally which is between inzone and insector - thats why I use OoS and IS as OutOfSight and InSight respectively

Thanks for the feedback, but on the matter at hand, any specific feedback?

[mr.WHO]

IMO it's a good idea. What is the point of your NPC asking for help if they die literally 0.7 second after the alert?
With 4.0 addition of Skunk jumpdrive and with slower OOS combat you would actually have a chance to react and save the ship (either by issuing retreat command of Jumping to hot spot yourself).

[Gligli]

You can be in the same Sector and the calculations are still simplified
It depends on distance which kind of calculations are used (I think I saw a file in libraries which defined these for different object classes) - it is called attentionlevel "visible" internally which is between inzone and insector - thats why I use OoS and IS as OutOfSight and InSight respectively

As it can bring a large confusing panel, could dev give us a bit more information?
Is it LOD related? Is there other choices available for this attentionlevel?

[Xenon_Slayer]

I did write something about that here. The low attention combat is when objects are not visible, which yes, can also be when in the same sector.

As for the issues such as not getting warnings in time when one of your ships is attacked, I can understand what that may be worse in low attention. I'll take a look to see if there's something to be done there but as you say, the majority of the game is in low attention, so we have to be careful with impacts on performance.

[mr.WHO]

One thing I do not understand is why the jump drive capable freighters do not boost/jump away when something dangerous (e.g. Capship) is closing to them. This could be captain skill related that he can estimate the risk and make a decision to run.

I mean c'mon you see a damn Taranis heading straight or you from 20 km, as a captain you should not wait till it get in firing range but boost/jump the hell out of here.


Right now ships try to run when they are fire upon which for OOS combat is too late.

For warship I'd also like to see the auto-retreat limit for captain setting (e.g. shields below 10% or hull below 50%).

[pref]

Emergency jump settings would be nice to have again.
This was the last issue for me before i stopped playing this game, my station sending its miners right into an enemy station.

Actually at that point emergency jump would not have much helped either, only AI pathing that could avoid enemy objects OOS. Or if avoiding is too complicated, then at least chose another destination where there is no danger en route.
For warships it would be really useful still.

[Saquavin]

I'll take a look to see if there's something to be done there but as you say, the majority of the game is in low attention, so we have to be careful with impacts on performance.

Without considering the numerous possible scenarios, what about just lowering the damage of everything OOS ?

OOS damage = 0.1 IS damage. For everything.
No balance changer, just more time to react.

Stations will still destroy a capital, a capital will still destroy fighters, etc...
The only "problem" I see there (may not be a real problem) is that ships could travel through / escape from dangerous zone, instead of being destroyed.
Since we can't order to avoid a zone, especially for trade (and cry when your ship die in wrecksville), it's not a gamebreaker to have ship pass through this kind of zones.

[ezra-r]

I did write something about that here. The low attention combat is when objects are not visible, which yes, can also be when in the same sector.

As for the issues such as not getting warnings in time when one of your ships is attacked, I can understand what that may be worse in low attention. I'll take a look to see if there's something to be done there but as you say, the majority of the game is in low attention, so we have to be careful with impacts on performance.

Thanks.

Saquaving makes a great advice too.

I have played X Rebirth unmodded to exhaustion (400 hours) and nearly 300 hours with the mod OOZ Combat tweaks http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=377455 and I can say the latter results were quite good with no hindrance, with enough reaction time given, OOS combat results more according what I saw while I was IS, and also, the reports when ships got attacked in the mod were quite useful to keep an eye on what was going on without to constantly check the map..

Maybe you guys do not need to "work" much to modify but just tweak OOS a little in the direction of this mod or at least check it out yourselves.

Cheers and keep up the great work!

[Snafu_X3]

Since we can't order to avoid a zone, especially for trade

This is alleviated somewhat by the new 'fly to position' command

If you've annoyed <PMC> beyond the plot defaults (IIRC -20) whereby your traders are under attack due to KoS orders, you can now tell them to fly to a specific position in <zone> well away from the hostile stations. You can then get them to boost though the gate to safety (for limited values of 'safety'; don't expect forces on the other side of the gate to ignore you!)