Is there angst in this game? Yes
Why? Plugin Abuse, Broken Features & Human Nature

Solution: Shoot each other in game........ Oh wait that's broken too except that's how the game is supposed to work.

Plugin Abuse - The idea of allowing users to write their own plugins to improve the game is great on paper. Are there some really good enhacements that are publicly available? yes, without question. Are there plugins not publiclly available that offer an unfair advantage? Most likely. Herein lies the issue. If you can program you can write a plugin that let's you take advantage of mechanics or reuse mechanics in a way not intended. Is this used to give certain players or groups of players an advantage? Most definitely. Is this issue going to ever be properly addressed? Highly unlikely. What does this create? ANGST

Proposed solution to angst - Shoot each other in game. Well hell that sounds like the thing to do...except wait....the only safe place you can shoot your KOS standing rivals is Grey Space or unmonitored sectors otherwise you risk TEMP KOS from your own nation for shooting them or standing loss because the Ai strike force fly into your line of fire and die. Does that sound broken to you? "Friendly Fire" is a hazard of the game.....so space ships can be built, worhmholes mapped and used, advanced weapons platforms that due hella damage used but they don't have an IFF system that 21st Century atomsphereic fighter planes do? riiiiiiiiiight. Result: More angst.

While you guys fight and figure this out I'm going to go sit in a storm and look at the blobs.

Removing the sandbox/API for plugins to function would cause even more angst, especially among those who already spent hundreds of hours developing plugins. Probably the best and only valid route, but problematic, indeed!

Calling a spade, a spade...if they would remove the ability to load plugins, the game would die almost literally overnight.

But I do get your point, and have no good ideas on how to mitigate these sort of complaints.

"That other thread got locked, but I have things to say! They might not make any sense, but I just gotta say them!"

Why do you think the game would die Darth? Do you think VO cannot be played without plug-ins?
Do you think GS are incompetent and they made a game that would not work if you cannot use custom made cheat and hack plug-ins with it?

For a long time VO had only some binds and quite a nice bunch of players.
There were no hacks or cheats, nobody ever thought we would have any plug-ins and we were all happy playing the game as it was supposed to be played.

Thanks genka, now I don't actually have to say anything.

Are we supposed to RP this? I'm confused.

I personally wouldn't play VO without plugins.

Otherwise, I think the solution is very simple. Everyone meet up in an abandoned warehouse with the weapon(s) of their choice and hash out their differences in person. The survivors win VO.

I would win by default fluffy. My weapon of choice would be a room full of man u supporters after they lost a match.

You don't count Fluffy, you are TGFT.
We all know that you lot would rather lose a limb then play VO without your TGFT cheat and hack plug-ins.

Between this and his Swarm-Hound whining, HWW is the current contender for VO's coveted 2016 Most Butt-Hurt Noob award.

I cant do droid buttons...mental breakdown everytime I try :/ plugins are just stupid cheats! rar

Well Dr. Lecter I tried to address these issues via support ticket and was told to bring it to the forums.

I'm sorry if this upsets your desired status quo. Please feel free to continue with ninny name calling as obviously you do not have any logical counter argument to present.

I for one want to see a better game with a more level playing field and much larger player base.

Actually, angst exists in game only because people take it way, way, WAY too seriously.

So, you got killed by someone you don't like and you can't seem to return the favor. chill. It's not the end of the world.

It is indeed a tragedy that certain people have invested thousands of hours into VO and woke up one day to realize that it's all for naught, a big waste of time. Unfortunately, they find themselves trapped in the time drain, unable to quit. That also is the source of a big portion of the angst in game right now.

just so you're clear though, even in a game without the plugins you'd still lose and get grumpy because there is no magic AllShotsHitSerco() plugin like you seem to believe

I think a lot of the people that people think take it too serious are the ones who take it too serious.

I also think that a lot of the people that have smak-talk wars, and talk a load of shit are actually just having fun in their own ways. I know when I get involved in some in-game banter it's just me having a giggle. A load of folk over the years have made the mistake in thinking I actually get mad or angry at in-game events and stuff, when in reality I'm sat at home laughing my head off.

Sometimes I do get a bit pissy when I'm intoxicated and let it spill over on to the forums, but the next day when I wake I'm always like "ooops, did I post that? What a newb!". But this thread just nails it for me.

Plugins cannot give anyone that much of an advantage really, not since they removed the ability for people to control ship movements with them. Even before the Lua interface there were bash/perl/php/java scripts that did what most plugins do now. The playing field is WAY more level with plugins than without them, because we had no reasons to share our scripts before the Lua interface was opened.

Take auto follow for example, here's a snippet from a bash script I STILL use to follow a fleeing target:

if echo "${readout}" | egrep -q 'ffff00.*to.*System'
then
preydest=`echo "${readout}" | sed 's/ffff00.*jumped\ to\ //g'`
followprey=`echo "${preydest}" | sed 's/System\,\ Sector//g'`
echo "navroute save Temp; navroute clear; navroute add "${followprey}"; activate" >> ${PFILE}
echo echo Pilot tracked\. >> ${PFILE}
sleep 1
rm ${PFILE}
fi

So before you cry about Lua, and advantages, just think what can be achieved even without it if you are a programmer...

" Unfortunately, they find themselves trapped in the time drain, unable to quit. That also is a source of a big portion of the angst in game right now."

The solution to this is to play just enough to get to the real value of VO which is the forums. Why I can play for a few days or a week and have something to say for months!

And yes, I do indeed bear the distinction for good or ill of being TGFT. While I take advantage of guild tech when I do play (I do think there is something that can be lost by having too much information freely accessible- particularly for newer players- but that is not relevant to this discussion), I am more concerned about maintaining access to the information provided by targetless and tools of tcs since GS does not seem inclined to integrate that into the actual game.

Yoda, I'm sure they will rework how command line interacts with the game when/if they revamp the whole sandbox and API thing. Congrats for leaking the info that bash can be used to control the game.

Oh dear, if VO is your entire life and you don't have anything else better going on, I'm worried for you.

I get you Fluffy. I use TCS and target list but before those plugins entered VO we all used that plain 'u' key to open sector list and nobody had any problems playing.

So before you cry about Lua, and advantages, just think what can be achieved even without it if you are a programmer...

yoda's words made me realize that you can cheat and hack your way in VO any way you like if you have the knowledge to do it. Not a very comforting thought.

Joyless, its not my entire life, and there really isn't much that can be done about external scripting. Put it this way, took me about 15 minutes to get that working back in the day. If your life is 15 minutes long, I feel bad for you.

My point was, even without Lua, I had trade data bases, auto following scripts, etc etc. The playing field WITH Lua is much more level. If you do not get what I am trying to say, well I'm not really bothered, cos you suck anyway.