Some new advice and a bit of lore

[zonkmachine]

I have some new pieces of advice (for the Advice module) that could perhaps work in the game. Thought I'd post it here for feedback.

Bounce in
"When you jump to a system, you allways end up close to the biggest mass, a star or a stellar remnant. If you are in the outskirts of a system, and there is another star system close by, you can jump to that system and back again to get you to the inner parts faster than what an in-system journey would have taken. The only reason not to bounce off Proxima Centauri when you want to go from Pluto to Earth, for instance, is if you don't have a hyperdrive."

I thought of some lore around this. The first name that came up was 'Billie Bounce', after the engineer that figured it out, which incidentally was the same engineer who invented the modern hyperdrive. Alternative names for the maneuver are, 'Bouncing off a system', 'Out/In no reverse' (more official term. No reverse because you can't bounce out). Something along those lines.
I did a test by comparing a trip from Pluto to Mars with full cargo room and full fuel tanks. The trip when bouncing via Proxima Centauri took three days and via the system only, more like thirty.

Running on fumes
"If you run missions on stretches that use little fuel, like a smaller planet surrounded by moons and orbital stations, you can get away with not filling the tank all the way up. You will run faster and use less fuel, but you need to keep an eye on the fuel level all the time."

I tested this by doing a run to all the stations around Mars in the default Coronatrix fully loaded and with full tanks or just a quarter of a tank.
Cydonia > Bradbury > Olympus Mons > Mars High > Phobos > Deimos > Cydonia
It's about a three hour run and dropping the fuel to a quarter will make the run about 15 minutes quicker and you save fuel. I didn't keep a keen eye on the fuel meter though and it's going to matter what ship is flying.
Running on fumes. Maybe a better title for this one?

A clear way out
"'Smile, and the whole world smiles with you!'. Not everybody smiles back, and not all smiles come with good intentions. You may want to set the next jump point in advance, before jumping to an unfamiliar place."
Maybe a better title is needed here and/or a different wording of the advice?

[impaktor]

BONUCE
For the bounce advice, I would change the wording:

Headline could be something like:
- "The faster detour"
- "The Billy Bounce detour"

The first option would be more in keeping with the existing ones, the latter would be more of a "conversation in a bar"-type which inscribes lore/legend into the advice - I don't know which is preferable, but the code wants a number as well for headline e.g. "Traveller advice #53" as if it's from a manual, so it's more of a "hitch hikers guide to the galaxy"-feeling that allows the player to read age old advice in some manual.

Suggested wording:

"When you find yourself in the outskirts of a system and need to return to the inner planets, a detour to a sufficiently close neighbouring system might be the fastest way."

I don't think we need much more words and explanation than that. Or do you want Billy Bounce in there as well?

I would be weary to also attribute inventing hyperdrive to anyone, as we probably want to keep that lore open / vague still.


RUNNING ON FUMES
I like the title, but perhaps this advice is fragile to changes in ship specs and engine mechanics - something we change, tweak and re-balance frequently (well... in pioneer dev time that is). Could re-frame it to something about how hauling fuel takes precious mass which you pay for in time and fuel use, and shame pilots who land with still full tanks. But I dunno.

"For short distances ... [something about don't haul fuel]"


A CLEAR WAY OUT
Intention of the advice is good, but I would change the body of the text entirely. I had to think a bit what "smiling" had to do with planning hyperjump route, but I assume it's for quickly being able to bugger out of a intermediate system if attacked?
Perhaps emphasize the virtue of planning somehow?. Is there some expression or saying on this? Like "an X i the hand is better than Y in the bank"?(???) but for planning?

"when stringing multiple jumps together, queuing them before departure will save you both a headache and perhaps your life, depending on how welcome you will be during your route."

(just a suggestion/for inspiration)

[zonkmachine]

Thanks! I'm glad I brought it up here first rather than in a PR. I find it quite frustrating to write in English and some of the strings I suggest in PR's seem perfectly logical to me and just don't seem to reason with anyone else in the project. Oh, well. I don't think that I would do any better if I was using Swedish as I'm not any better in expressing myself there, I'm afraid. The git branch has been brooding for some two months now so there are lore indices stuck to them already. #203, #194 and #49 to be more precise.

BONUCE
For the bounce advice, I would change the wording:

Headline could be something like:
- "The faster detour"
- "The Billy Bounce detour"

The first option would be more in keeping with the existing ones, the latter would be more of a "conversation in a bar"-type which inscribes lore/legend into the advice - I don't know which is preferable, but the code wants a number as well for headline e.g. "Traveller advice #53" as if it's from a manual, so it's more of a "hitch hikers guide to the galaxy"-feeling that allows the player to read age old advice in some manual.

Suggested wording:

"When you find yourself in the outskirts of a system and need to return to the inner planets, a detour to a sufficiently close neighbouring system might be the fastest way."

I don't think we need much more words and explanation than that. Or do you want Billy Bounce in there as well?

I would be weary to also attribute inventing hyperdrive to anyone, as we probably want to keep that lore open / vague still.

The name that popped up in my mind was Billie, and I thought of Billie Holiday for some reason. I just did a search for "billie holiday bounce" and something else came up. A song by Charlie Parker with uncertain origin of it's name. That's in line with keeping things open and vague.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billie%27s_Bounce
So. 'The Billie Bounce detour'. That works for me. More lore: 'Silent bounce'. You bounce via an uninhabited system when there is an inhabited at the same, or closer, range.

RUNNING ON FUMES
I like the title, but perhaps this advice is fragile to changes in ship specs and engine mechanics - something we change, tweak and re-balance frequently (well... in pioneer dev time that is). Could re-frame it to something about how hauling fuel takes precious mass which you pay for in time and fuel use, and shame pilots who land with still full tanks. But I dunno.

"For short distances ... [something about don't haul fuel]"

I thought about how you could add a News Article, if those would be used for something else than the hints for trade, you could add something about the problem with cutting corners in space flight and hypermiling (alternative title...), when enough ships have popped up in the BBS needing fuel shipped to them. This way the News and Advice would balance themselves up in the long run.
I don't think this will be fragile to changes. About 50% of the ships mass is fuel when the tanks and cargo compartment are both full. Carrying less fuel should always result in less fuel consumption. Always, or that's a bug I think. Isn't this just Tsiolkovsky's rocket equation or the essence of it?

A CLEAR WAY OUT
Intention of the advice is good, but I would change the body of the text entirely. I had to think a bit what "smiling" had to do with planning hyperjump route, but I assume it's for quickly being able to bugger out of a intermediate system if attacked?
Perhaps emphasize the virtue of planning somehow?. Is there some expression or saying on this? Like "an X i the hand is better than Y in the bank"?(???) but for planning?

"when stringing multiple jumps together, queuing them before departure will save you both a headache and perhaps your life, depending on how welcome you will be during your route."

(just a suggestion/for inspiration)

I though it was a brilliant move to derail that old saying. :) But it could do some shortening. I'll try your string in there.

[zonkmachine]

Updated Advice. 1st and 3rd are your strings and running on fumes I rewrote.

TRAVELLER'S ADVICE #203
The Billie Bounce detour - When you find yourself in the outskirts of a system and need to return to the inner planets, a detour to a sufficiently close neighbouring system might be the fastest way.


TRAVELLER'S ADVICE #194
Running on fumes - Half of a ships mass when the tanks are full consists of fuel. If you're doing shorter runs, or if you know for certain that you will have enough margin, you may fill up the tanks to a lower degree. Lower mass means less fuel consumption and a faster ship. Just remember to keep an eye on the fuel level.


TRAVELLER'S ADVICE #49
A clear way out - When stringing multiple jumps together, queuing them before departure will save you both a headache and perhaps your life, depending on how welcome you will be during your route.

Q - welcome or welcomed?

[impaktor]

I thought about how you could add a News Article, if those would be used for something else than the hints for trade

I have a branch that adds 'News' that are there just for advice / information about the universe. However, I built it as a copy-paste of the advice module, and I'd like to refactor it to use News module (thus no PR yet). You can see the strings here (I'm quite happy with several of them, though some (all?) are in collaboration with szlrd (nozminer)): https://github.com/impaktor/pioneer/blo ... ry/en.json

welcome or welcomed?

I'll let some native speaker settle that.

TRAVELLER'S ADVICE #49
A clear way out - When stringing multiple jumps together, queuing them before departure will save you both a headache and perhaps your life, depending on how welcome you will be during your route.

Great!

Half of a ship's mass when the tanks are full consists of fuel. If you're doing shorter runs, or if you know for certain that you will have enough margin, you may fill up the tanks to a lower degree. Lower mass means less fuel consumption and a faster ship. Just remember to keep an eye on the fuel level.

Above text is fine for wiki or manual where you can describe things in detail. Perhaps it's just me, but for the advice module I try to keep it not too detailed, and not too explicit e.g. rather than "if X you do Y because Z, but only if Q is also fulfilled", I would prefer to just have something like "When X, consider Y".

I'd word it something like:

Running on fumes
Mass in movement is time and money. Fuel is mass. For shorter routes running on empty tanks can save you both.

I don't think we need to tell player to keep an eye on the fuel level (unless the sentence sounds 'lorey' and cool), nor the 'if you know for certain'. That's my thinking.
(Actually, if I wrote it I would word it such to include the term 'Friction in mass', then muse over the fact that I've included a reference to a great Manilla Road song, well, great if you like high paced 80s metal guitar solos, and no one would know).

Regarding my suggestion: I think player aught to understand "running on empty tanks" is an expression for "very little fuel", and the 'save you both' refers to time and money two sentences before, but I don't know a better way to word it, without repeating time & money which I don't want to do.

[zonkmachine]

I have a branch that adds 'News' that are there just for advice / information about the universe.

Cool!

Half of a ship's mass when the tanks are full consists of fuel. If you're doing shorter runs, or if you know for certain that you will have enough margin, you may fill up the tanks to a lower degree. Lower mass means less fuel consumption and a faster ship. Just remember to keep an eye on the fuel level.

Above text is fine for wiki or manual where you can describe things in detail. Perhaps it's just me, but for the advice module I try to keep it not too detailed, and not too explicit e.g. rather than "if X you do Y because Z, but only if Q is also fulfilled", I would prefer to just have something like "When X, consider Y".

Yes. I didn't have short in me this time. :p

I'd word it something like:

Running on fumes
Mass in movement is time and money. Fuel is mass. For shorter routes running on empty tanks can save you both.

I don't know about this. It's not specific for shorter routes. A real world example is this.
A - Fully loaded ship with full fuel tanks. Go to a station and drop the cargo. Check what fuel is left. 40% left.
B - Return route. Full cargo bay again. Since we had 40% fuel left we can now fill the tanks a little less. Say 70%.
For this method to start to really matter, dropping fuel could allow you to bring more cargo. At least a bit more. That could make fore some interesting strategic decisions. Apparently this is how modern traffic jets works. They balance fuel and passengers/cargo. They can't take off with both at max.

Maybe:
Running on fumes
Mass in movement is time and money. Fuel is mass. For some routes running with less fuel in the tanks can save you both.

Regarding my suggestion: I think player aught to understand "running on empty tanks" is an expression for "very little fuel", and the 'save you both' refers to time and money two sentences before, but I don't know a better way to word it, without repeating time & money which I don't want to do.

'Running on fumes' to me means: "very little fuel .. at the end of a run and we may not make it all the way there." I don't think it is a fit in that sentence. We're talking about filling the tanks before take off.

[impaktor]

Sounds like it could be PR time to me.

[zonkmachine]

https://github.com/pioneerspacesim/pioneer/pull/6234

Thanks! This was fun and a good cooperation. It looks like it ended up more your strings this time.
Definitely for the better. I may be more a conceptual kind of guy. :P