How does it work? First read over this thread, if you like. There we discussed the possibility of including you and me in their Ooniverse. And, what shall I say, possible it is.
But of course first it requires you and me to spend some thoughts on how we would like to be represented in the Ooniverse. Many of us have one save-file which sort of represents us. This is the character we have created for our own Oolite experience. So all we need to do is to export this character into the Ooniverse of everybody else.
This is, in short, what personalities.oxp is all about. Below is a detailed list of what is needed to make your favourite representation of yourself available to other players.
Sorry if some of this is a little technical. I include links to the Wiki. If you need explanations, please look there first, before you PM me or ask your question here.
I need of you
- your character name, as it shall appear if the player targets your ship; the formula is shipname: charactername, like in "Imperial Courier: Commander McLane",
- your ship, consisting of three different informations:
- the model,
- a (unique?) texture (if model and/or texture are of a standard OXP ship, please tell me which OXP it is from, if it isn't obvious),
- the shipdata; please invest some time here, what I want is to have specs as close as possible to your actual player ship which you are using in your game; especially in regard to:
- max_flight_speed,
- max_flight_pitch,
- max_flight_roll,
- thrust,
- max_energy,
- energy_recharge_rate,
- laser types (sorry, only forward and aft laser available),
- laser_color,
- the number of missiles you carry and their main type,
- frangibility of your ship (if applicable),
- the cargo you are most likely to carry (if any),
- and the installed equipment extras, namely:
- ECM,
- Escape Capsule,
- Fuel Injectors,
- Fuel Scoops,
- Shield Boosters,
- Shield Enhancers,
- an Extra Energy Unit or Naval Energy Unit (will influence the max_energy),
- Heat Shields,
- Cloaking Device,
- and whether you carry a Q-bomb,
- note: other extra equipment (notably all OXP equipment) is technically not available for NPCs, and can therefore not be emulated for your character,
- note 2: for all these equipment there are only two cases, either you have them, or you don't; therefore using a probability number between 0 and 1 makes no sense,
- some information about your character, namely:
- your full character name (can be longer than the one used for your ship, for instance containing a first name, example "Cliff Allister McLane"),
- a short description ("a Furry, Yellow Insectoid") along the lines of the Oolite races, or independent of that,
- whether you are clean, or have a bounty on your head (and if yes, how much),
- in case you're clean, how much will your insurance pay for you (I think in case of the famous characters we can exceed the usual 500₢ limit, let's say up to 1000₢),
- note: some of these will only be used if you have an escape capsule, but in this case it is especially important to give some attention to full name, description, and insurance/bounty, as these will be displayed on the arrival screen in a station after the player has scooped your character's escape pod,
- some information about your character's behaviour; in order to achieve that you can do either of the following:
- choose one of the basic behaviours (roles) contained in the game, or in an OXP (in this case tell me which), like trader, pirate, bounty hunter, etc.,
or, if none of these fits your character, create and send me a unique AI of yours,(no longer preferred, as there is currently only one common AI for all personalities, the rest is done by ship script; and nobody has committed an AI so far, anyway)- or, if you either cannot script AIs, or only want to modify certain aspects of one of the basic behaviours, tell me which; examples:
- I hit fuel injectors as soon as my shields are depleted (or: I am low on energy), and get as far away from the action as I can,
- I have always locked in my next witchjump coordinates, and if a fight gets too hot I hit the 'H' key and jump out,
- I especially attack police vessels,
- I am a Thargoid hunter first and foremost,
- I do some pirating, but only if there is no police to be seen nearby,
- if nothing else interesting is in the vicinity, I do some asteroid mining,
- I always use the fuel station at the witchpoint, if there is one,
- I use my cloak only briefly to avoid missiles,
- I always go sun-skimming first (note: I'm not completely sure whether this should be a supported behaviour, because it reduces the likelyhood of an encounter with the player),
- etc. pp. (try to put some characteristics of your gameplay in one short sentence each; if you can do that without too complicated explanations, chances are that I can emulate this behaviour for your character),
- a list of catch-phrases for communication with the player, ordered by:
- popping out of witchspace,
- after launching from a station,
- before jumping out after launching from a station (note: this is different from jumping out of a fight; obviously you wouldn't say things like "I am running away from you" here),
- docking with the main station,
- chatter during flight,
- blowing an asteroid up,
- shoutouts at your attacker,
- and if you are the attacker (either as a pirate, or as a hunter attacking offenders/fugitives, depending on which role you chose),
- hitting your opponent with your laser,
- cloaking during a fight, if you don't want to cloak from the onset of the fight,
- using your ECM,
- running away from a fight (injectors), if this is your habit,
- jumping out of a fight, if this is your habit,
- victory exclamations (when you killed your opponent),
- last words,
- note: each of these categories may contain none, one, or more than one phrases; in fact you are encouraged to send in multiple phrases at least for the 'chatter during flight' category; better still for all categories,
- note 2: feel free to add other categories to your character, just make clear for which situation they shall be used.
Of course you may also just post an answer here, but in that case your character won't be a surprise anymore for everybody else.
EDIT: added one more category of chatter, distinguishing between running away and jumping out of a fight
EDIT: added another category of chatter (killing your opponent), and the possibility to tell me what cargo you are most likely to ship
EDIT: stroke the "make your own AI", added a few behaviours, and added some new categories of chatter which have been brought up by contributors
EDIT: added another category of chatter (docking with the main station)
EDIT: added encouragement to provide more varied chatter
