Oolite 2.0 or II

[Stormrider]

[Oolite shuffles away, shoulders slumped] A toy? A tool? [Oolite sobs]

Humbly thanks Oolite for teaching me how to create my own vision of what a game might be.

[Redspear]

IMHO Griff's very nice looking ships should not have been included to the core distribution. The reason being that the original bland and simple ships encouraged to mod the game. It was kind of an empty canvas that was inviting the player to try modding, since the textures were so easy to tweak. Griff's (still awesome looking) ships also set a standard for modding by making a core graphical standard.

And yet, similar has been done with regards to planet textures (even if they are compter generated, they were still improved upon). Speaking of which, does anyone know if the two-tone hexagonal planet maps are still within the code and can they be activated? Crude as they were, I kinda liked em...

Just yesterday I started a new commander. First trip to Zaonce. What I see there is a Black Monastery, an RSS station, and a Salvage Gang all "stupidly" clamped together in the middle of the lane. I also see an extra planet in the distance and a moon. So I think "A new player might think this is a bit messy. They should have put the Monastery on orbit around the moon and the RSS station maybe midway to the second planet".

That, along with their high visibility, was a major motivation in terms of the rescaling work I've done. Whilst it doesn't truly fix the problem, I find that it helps a great deal.

Rarity is quite rare

Er... I think I know what you mean

The near 'blank canvas' of the core game doesn't really encourage subtlety of modding IMHO, especially when the default player ship is so superior to nearly all of the others. Despite this, the current approach allows for great flexibility which I value highly.

A compromise might be not to change the core but rather to have a sort of bolt-on package of well tested oxps.
I know, I'm straying into recommendation territory here but suppose it was something like:

• BGS
  Additional Planets
  New Cargoes
  Planetary Rings
  Povray Planets
  Escort Contracts
  Custom Shields

You'd then have a game environment that looks and sounds more interesting (BGS, Shields, Planets, Rings) as well as one were there is more to do (Cargoes, Contracts) and yet, crucially I think, it wolud still play almost exactly like the default oolite game. In short, a richer experience but no different in terms of flavour - just as oolite has tried to do in relation to the original elite.

A complementary download option - not in the manager but available alongside the game as an additional option (and seperate download) should anyone want it. Why? Because it's there from the start, while the prospective player is still looking at screenshots and reading about gameplay he or she can see the package and understand what it adds (because the screenshots and gameplay decriptions explain it in a few images and a simple paragraph). It could be self-installing (reamaining subject to updates and removals as per standard oxzs) and so they could get started right away.

We could debate forever which oxps might be in such a package of course but more important I would suggest is the nature of any such oxps.

The Likes of Big Ships and Buoy Repair for example might be cool but they also highlight the scale issues and so detract as well as add. There are quite a few ship mechanics and equipment items oxps that influence gameplay significantly. Likewise with adding other ships or entities - rather than just enhancing what is already present they are adding to (and therefore influencing) the default game. True, moons and extra planets are adding but their influence is almost entirely cosmetic.

Just an idea, I'm not convinced by it myself but if this were to remain an issue then it may present an alternative. Whether or not this truly addresses Astrobe's concerns I'm not entirely sure...

[Astrobe]

Just an idea, I'm not convinced by it myself but if this were to remain an issue then it may present an alternative. Whether or not this truly addresses Astrobe's concerns I'm not entirely sure...

If only cosmetic stuff gets in, it's fine. At least more people will see more similar things, which is a saner basis to discuss deeper fixes and improvements. And more importantly, the process (the poll and standard OXP stuff) to get there is a tool to drive the evolution of the game, something I believe all readers of this thread are interested in.

[Cody]

A basic recipe for Oolite II

You will need: one project lead, one graphics wizard, several coders, oodles of time.

• Fork the game

• Rename it (not Oolite II)

• Rescale it

• Turn the graphics up to 11

• Increase the number of charts/systems (x8 at least)

• Add 'realistic' suns

• Add multiple planets (in most systems) on orbits

• Add Griff's ships and Random Ship Names

• Stir together, cook on a low heat, and allow to mature

Piece of cake!

[Smivs]

Add Griff's ships and Random Ship Names

RSN definitely.
As for the ships, well! The game is moving ever further away from the original (Elite) already. With the original ship designs now gone from the core game, and all the recent changes and additions the look and feel of the game is now distinctly non-Elitey.
If there is to be an 'Oolite II' perhaps it is time to move on from the Elite names and consider a whole new range of ships, with new designs and new names, which could be more suitable for a game where many players will change ships frequently.
This would also be a sensible move to avoid er, overlap with a certain proprietary game.

[Redspear]

As for the ships, well! The game is moving ever further away from the original (Elite) already. With the original ship designs now gone from the core game, and all the recent changes and additions the look and feel of the game is now distinctly non-Elitey.

Interestingly, those early oolite models weren't that faithful to elite.
I've mentioned the fer de lance and its 'weight gain' at some length and the poor asp was stretched out and even turned upside down! Has anyone else noticed that the cobra was changed too?

I'm not talking about the mk I here but rather the mk III, the default legacy player ship. I could be wrong here, and I don't have time to post evidence so feel free to prove me wrong but... it's too fat.

The 'give-away' is front triangle on the top side. In oolite (and by extension nearly all of the oxp versions) the triangle is clearly isoceles whereas in the original elite it is almost perfectly equilateral. The result: an extended front, less sweeping sides and a fatter, less streamlined look.

Personally, I don't consider Griff's models to have deviated as far from the old oolite ones as the oolite ones did from the elite originals.

I wonder if the old elite manuals measurements were all that proportional to the models they described.

[Cody]

Has anyone else noticed that the cobra was changed too? ... it's too fat.

That could be one of the reasons I like Griff's late-model Cobra so much. Even though it's the same width and height as the core model, it feels slimmer, sleaker. It looks closer to the original Elite Cobra too. Looking at the model's dimensions, it's actually ten metres longer than the core Cobra - perhaps that's why.

[Redspear]

Yeah, you can see it in the Deepspace, Sung's et. al. all the ones that use the old oolite model and many others that used it as a starting point. I may have a go at it myself some time...

[Astrobe]

A basic recipe for Oolite II

You will need: one project lead, one graphics wizard, several coders, oodles of time.

I'd say several graphics (and sound!) wizards and one coder, because this stuff seems extremely time-consuming to me (but maybe it's because I'm a programmer and have no skill in anything graphics related).

But if we can go completely wild about what to do:
- Don't fork Oolite, splitting communities is bad. Unless your game is vastly better in every way.
- Armour instead of shields, and armour repair charges on pylons.
- rescale bounties (armour repairs will cost a lot).
- do something about missiles: perhaps a lot slower but with longer lifespan.
- Consistent ship-based progression rather than an equipment-based progression, with a progression ladder for each role (trader/hunter/multirole). In any case hardware upgrades should result in less cargo space (and conversely - something like phkb's ship configurations but a lot more limited). Allow to browse the the shipyards in the neighbourhood.
- special equipment to transport gold, gems and platinum. Costs 1 TC of cargo space for each type. Perhaps 2 or 3 TC variants to allow to transport more.
- provide more escape mechanisms than just injectors (which are too common among pirates to be really dependable, esp. with armour instead of shields). Maybe a cloaking device or booster rockets or a long-range distress beacon. All single-use and pylon mounted.
- OR make it so that you're less alone versus the rest of the Ooniverse by improving player-NPC cooperation. I think the problem with non player-centric philosophy is that you have to provide an über-ship to the player, which leads to "power creep".
- better ships cost more to maintain/repair, so they are reserved to more experienced commanders who can be "cost-efficient" with them.
- single, infinite, explorable procedurally-generated galaxy OR a single finite galaxy with feature-rich, hand-crafted, evolving and unique systems (multiple planets/multiple stations with various small money-making opportunities).
- make piracy viable. Build your own hideout in a dark corner of an anarchy system and defend it against the self-righteous Galcop.
- campaign/career in the Galcop Navy, starting as a Viper pilot. End Game: become a Navy general and defend against a massive Thargoid assault in a strategy mini-game. Outcome of battles depends on the player's performance in skirmishes against Thargoids.

"How hard can it be?"

[cim]

This is the sort of thing I developed scenario support for - rather than needing to fork Oolite to make a new game, you could just package it as OXZs (and if core changes were needed or desirable, write them in such a way that they could be enabled by the scenario file, push them into the core in that way, and then both games get the potential benefit)

[Redspear]

This is the sort of thing I developed scenario support for - rather than needing to fork Oolite to make a new game, you could just package it as OXZs (and if core changes were needed or desirable, write them in such a way that they could be enabled by the scenario file, push them into the core in that way, and then both games get the potential benefit)

Besides scenarios.plist on the wiki explaining how to disable a core plist, is there any other documentation on how to exploit scenario support?

This has always been a feature that sounded very appealing to me but I've never been sure where to start. It is introduced on the oolite.org site but I've not found much else (should I just be looking under the hood of SOTL?)

The SOTL thread mentions a proposed scenario-settings.plist but I couldn't find that on the wiki...

[cim]

Besides scenarios.plist on the wiki explaining how to disable a core plist, is there any other documentation on how to exploit scenario support?

No, that page is basically it - there's not that much to it in terms of file editing, but you looking at SOTL to see how the pieces fit together may be easiest.

scenario-settings.plist was a plan for dealing with things like "systems-per-galaxy" and similar, if the work to allow those settings was introduced.

[Redspear]

Belated thanks cim.

I must have a proper poke around in SOTL at some point.

[Astrobe]

Posts below this point merged from the Why is Diso So Dangerous topic.

So it's not just me. Jamesons really have no better choices than making half a dozen Tionisla-Isinor milk runs before they can get the bare minimum equipment, and all this time you're at the mercy of the PRNG being in a bad mood (in which case at the very best you have to drop some cargo, which means you have to endure that mistreatment even longer)... And we're talking about surviving there, not about fighting back.

Cargo contracts? Parcel contracts? Exploring the Ooniverse? Well, you have to play two or three hours before you can even consider them.

Hopefully more experienced players not about a bunch of OXPs that make that a bit less tedious (OP: find for instance the "Starting choices" OXP in the OXP manager and choose the "fast track" start, which should be named "Sane start" actually)...

Sorry for the harsh tone, but this is terrible game design - unless you don't give a frack about something called "player retention". I'm talking about people like Britnoth that post nine messages here and that we never seen again.

[Cody]

<sighs>