Missing Ship Specifications

[Cholmondely]

Thanks to Montana05 & Murgh we've seen the addition of many new ships to the Ship Library/View Ship Specifications database.

But this means that the lack of in-game information about the following is now much more pointed.

Behemoth
Deep Space Dredgers & bits & bobs

Anarchies - Hacker Outpost, Salvager Hognose & Phoenix (not sure about adding the rest)
Commies - Astromine Penal Colony, Astromine Guard, Collective ZGF, Ray Mk.I, Giant Ray, Astrogulag Mining Pod, Astrogulag Scavenger Ray, Worker's Commuter, SLAPU (ditto)
Dictatorships - add Imperial Freighter, Tanker & Prison Ship (and change master category of Imperial Astrofactory)
Feudal States - Jäger, Korvette, Zerstörer, Royal Hunting Lodge
Free Trade Zones
Random Hits OXP - Space Bar, Mining Pod, Autominer. But what about the non-Vanilla ships?
Rescue Stations - RSS station, Arafura, black box, solar thingy etc.

Miner Cobra
Generation Ships

Lave Academy There is just the one - should it have a ship library entry?
Superhub
Torus Stations

Galactic Navy

Ice Asteroids - both Staer9's & Griff's.

Are there any important ones which I've missed?

I'm willing to help do this. Any ideas? Or others with similar concerns?

Reference: https://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Shiplibrary.plist (now updated to be more useful).



And how does one use "oolite-ship-library-classified" & "oolite-ship-library-unknown"?

This first post is being continually updated (to create a directory to the finished shiplibrary.plists)

Edited to add Random Hits (I never realised how much it adds to Oolite!) & Rescue Stations

I'm also pondering adding this in to the next release of Addons for Beginners (Vital Statistics).

[Slartibartfast]

Hi

i would like to help ( something like that -- i am able to do )

fx:

I'm willing to help do this. Any ideas? Or others with similar concerns? (NB: I utterly failed to change the category of the Imperial Astrofactory).

i think you wanna have it under "Installations" in "Ship Library"
simply set
"class = "station";
in shiplibrary.plist.

btw. its not easy to help
- no upload in Wiki
- missing/wrong description of functions/variables
- new undocumented features
- the copyright problem
- nobody who manages "ideas/tweaks"

matthias

[Old Murgh]

But this means that the lack of in-game information about the following is now much more pointed.
Behemoth (?)
Deep Space Dredgers & Sabers..

Don't see why any additional library info couldn't be in a supplementary OXP, no need for surgery on the original files.
That should be easy, oldskool tech. Writing interesting concise texts is the hard work
Those entries go into a shiplibrary file..

For one big CompleteLibrary.OXP, even if one didn't have all the OXPs installed it shouldn't matter, those entries wouldn't show up if Oolite can't find a correct shiplibrary object anywhere that is referred to, with a correct model. –Or one could make many small companion OXPs. Best to start with that.

In some cases, the existing categories won't be suitable enough. For instance, for the Behemoths, bulkies and generation ships I'm playing with now, some new ones were needed. These new cats go in a descriptions file.

And how does one use "oolite-ship-library-classified" & "oolite-ship-library-unknown"?

These are just secretive/redacted fillers for the stats sections, to avoid revealing everything about Vipers and Constrictors etc.

[Cholmondely]

Don't see why any additional library info couldn't be in a supplementary OXP, no need for surgery on the original files.

That was my original idea. But there are so many oxp's that it seems ridiculous to add another one just for this. The number of oxp's must be truly daunting for new players, and there seems no good reason to leave the details out of the original oxp's.

[Cholmondely]

i would like to help ( something like that -- i am able to do )

Thank you, Sir Matthias!

Which would you like to start off with?

Or, possibly, which ones were the very first which you downloaded?

[Slartibartfast]

Hi Cholmondely

...later ( this causes a longer answer )

i'll go get some "night beer"

cheers

[Old Murgh]

That was my original idea. But there are so many oxp's that it seems ridiculous to add another one just for this. The number of oxp's must be truly daunting for new players, and there seems no good reason to leave the details out of the original oxp's.

Yes, you are potentially describing a ship's Encyclopedia Galactica. Big librarian's job.

Are you thinking to offer supplementary library.plist (and descriptions.plist if needed) for the user to place inside the Config themselves, made available on the OXP's wikipage, –or actually to integrate and re-upload the these OXP/OXZs?

[Cholmondely]

That was my original idea. But there are so many oxp's that it seems ridiculous to add another one just for this. The number of oxp's must be truly daunting for new players, and there seems no good reason to leave the details out of the original oxp's.

Yes, you are potentially describing a ship's Encyclopedia Galactica. Big librarian's job.

Are you thinking to offer supplementary library.plist (and descriptions.plist if needed) for the user to place inside the Config themselves, made available on the OXP's wikipage, –or actually to integrate and re-upload the these OXP/OXZs?

I'm not suggesting that we do all of the ship oxp's - just the most popular ones.

We can't go for #2 until Sir Winston has finished with his work on the wiki. So #1 will have to do for now.

The great advantage of your .oxp suggestion, now that I sit back with a gin-and-tonic and think about it, is that we could translate everything into Cavezzi!

[Old Murgh]

I'm not suggesting that we do all of the ship oxp's - just the most popular ones.

We can't go for #2 until Sir Winston has finished with his work on the wiki. So #1 will have to do for now.

The great advantage of your .oxp suggestion, now that I sit back with a gin-and-tonic and think about it, is that we could translate everything into Cavezzi!

It's possible you could stage a little cavezzi coup with a sneaky override OXP.

Yes, prioritising is a good idea. See if your G&T helps you with some fun blurbs.

[Cholmondely]

Yes, prioritising is a good idea. See if your G&T helps you with some fun blurbs.

Looking at yours, I see that you have included summaries. Where do I find a list of the various possibilities? And do these summaries do anything?

Code: Select all

       {
        class = ship;
        description = "The Bushmaster Miner is a professional vessel, manned only by operatives belonging to the Mining Guild. Dillllligently mining, these ships are offered extra protection by GalCop.";
        ship = "relop_bushmaster";
        summary = "[oolite-ship-library-summary-MT]";
    },

[Slartibartfast]

Hi

I'm not suggesting that we do all of the ship oxp's - just the most popular ones.

why? there is a description in the oxz-manager.

matthias

[montana05]

The shiplibrary is a great concept but nowadays is getting a bit unorganized and, from my personal point of view, could use some improvement. A search function for example would be nice.

Since authors (including me) seems to have a habit to create their own categories now there are a lot of them. My first suggestion would be to enhance the existing core categories. I started with my resource pack already to add more police crafts and military ships, which in my latest release, I renamed to warships. Additionally, I added Alien Ships.

However, Murgh is right, no need to check for licenses, if we create an independent file there will be no problem. For maintained OXP's it's later just a copy & paste to include the relevant ships in the package.

Looking at yours, I see that you have included summaries. Where do I find a list of the various possibilities? And do these summaries do anything?

Yes, these summaries add more details, MT for example would be medium transport. Same like categories, the summaries should be expanded accordingly.

[Old Murgh]

Looking at yours, I see that you have included summaries. Where do I find a list of the various possibilities? And do these summaries do anything?

Code: Select all

       {
        class = ship;
        description = "The Bushmaster Miner is a professional vessel, manned only by operatives belonging to the Mining Guild. Dillllligently mining, these ships are offered extra protection by GalCop.";
        ship = "relop_bushmaster";
        summary = "[oolite-ship-library-summary-MT]";
    },

Just that line does very little, just states the category that is requested –in this case, MT, resulting in showing the words "Medium Transport".

The whole roster of library categories is in Oolite main's descriptions.plist, down a little below the middle.

Just had to check, that typo was corrected..

[Cholmondely]

The whole roster of library categories is in Oolite main's descriptions.plist, down a little below the middle.

Just had to check, that typo was corrected..

1) Do you mean in the Vanilla game code?

2) No, I exaggerrrrrated it to make it stand out.

[Cholmondely]

Hi

I'm not suggesting that we do all of the ship oxp's - just the most popular ones.

why? there is a description in the oxz-manager.

matthias

For the player who is playing in-game - the library can be checked when docked (F4 Ship Specifications) or just before choosing a New Commander/loading an old Commander. It's vanilla game code.