Looking ahead

[Svengali]

Will Oolite2 support multiple voices and usability for the eSpeak voices for OXZs?

[Fatleaf]

On another discussion TGHC made the suggestion...

Great idea using G.

Perhaps some cleverclogs out there could do an H for a hardhead, an M for a mine, an F for a fuelpod etc. etc

Would it be a good idea overhauling the icons used for pylons. It could even be done for the current release!

[Commander McLane]

On another discussion TGHC made the suggestion...

Great idea using G.

Perhaps some cleverclogs out there could do an H for a hardhead, an M for a mine, an F for a fuelpod etc. etc

Would it be a good idea overhauling the icons used for pylons. It could even be done for the current release!

I don't think, though, that they all should be letters.

Apart from other problems, there are only 26 of them in the alphabet, and some are more frequently used than others. Would for instance 'M' be a Mine? Or a Missile? Or a Military missile?

[Thargoid]

None of the above. M is currently the missile machine in Armoury.oxp.

[Kaks]

Hopefully 2.0 would also include multiple docking bays per station!

[Smivs]

On another discussion TGHC made the suggestion...

Great idea using G.

Perhaps some cleverclogs out there could do an H for a hardhead, an M for a mine, an F for a fuelpod etc. etc

Would it be a good idea overhauling the icons used for pylons. It could even be done for the current release!

I don't think, though, that they all should be letters.

Apart from other problems, there are only 26 of them in the alphabet, and some are more frequently used than others. Would for instance 'M' be a Mine? Or a Missile? Or a Military missile?

None of the above. M is currently the missile machine in Armoury.oxp.

Please note also that 'X' is spoken for.

[DaddyHoggy]

Wow - RL(tm) kicks in for a couple of weeks and I return to find a huge debate about Oolite 2 and its spin off thread.

The changes Ahruman are interesting - and a double edged sword...

Oolite has two kinds of players - those of us who used to play Elite, those who never heard of Elite have come first to Oolite, having accepted that the game is what it is, but don't have any issues about changing it because it's not precious to them, its just a bit quirky, limiting.

I'm happy with the 7ly limit - I grew up with EE Doc Smith and he introduced some hard limits in his Space Operas, no matter how big and powerful ships got they could only go so fast, communicate so far, travel so far without recharging their engines. He introduced a few very specialist ships that could take these limits to the extreme, but they were massively limited in all other capacities that the balance was maintained.

Given the amazing work the members of this BB have extracted from 2048 procedurally generated system placements and system descriptions with the Vector Maps, Snoopers (to name the obvious two) shows that with a little bit of imagination depth not previously seen is extracted from the Ooniverse.

As everybody has their opinion I thought I'd have mine - if taking the original system structure and creating it in a programmatically differently way aids the Dev team develop the game further, faster, easier then so be it but please leave me the Ooniverse as I remember it. Of course there's a way round introducing more systems but leaving the core game as it is - it's always been hypothesised based on the Trader's Guide and TDW that there are 1000s of systems not part of Galcop that do not have witchpoint beacons and cannot be jumped to by normal means. So in the space between all those Galcop systems could be thousands of other ones - empires, collectives, struggling systems, lost systems - you would just need the right permissions or the right adaptation/modification to your witchdrive computer and the right set of coordinates to jump to. (you could even take a punt and program the coordinates yourself - get them wrong and you find yourself flying right in to a supernova...). If we treat the current system maps as a Galcop simplified (think London underground map) of a 3D Ooniverse then introducing a 3rd degree into the system map would leave the current core map as it was but open up an endless amount of space for OX* writer's to fill in the gaps.

As for the new minimum spec for playing Oolite - seems completely reasonable - I've got no money and an ten year old Athlon XP 2800 with a 6600GT card - but if even I don't own a Core 2 system with some better graphics by the time Oolite 2.0 comes out then I'll have gone very wrong somewhere...

If Oolite 2.0 is to have better graphics then I'd like transparencies, shadows, proper light sources (other than a single sun) and reflections, and some nice particle effects - nebulas you could fly through, or the rings of a Saturn equivalent... (all of which I presume Ahruman is going to say 'no' too with the exception of the lighting)

I'd like every system to have more than a single planet by default, but for those other planets to be out of the Goldilocks zone and therefore uninhabited except for research bases, mines and processing plants - that way, if things were really desperate you could buy a transporter/worm and trade and ferry and courier within a single system for those who starting an an adder just isn't tough enough.

Anyway, just my first thoughts/reactions to the thread as I've read it so far...

The thing that pleases me most of course is that Ahruman and the rest of the Devs have a plan for Oolite 2.0, have the will and the interest to carry on, that really does make me very happyt indeed.

Thank-you.

[Cody]

Wow - RL(tm) kicks in for a couple of weeks and I return to find a huge debate about Oolite 2 and its spin off thread.

Ditto... I'm still pondering on all this, but I think that I like it... so far.

[Fatleaf]

This has been mentioned before in other discussions but it might be possible here. How about reverse? The ability to go backwards!

[Killer Wolf]

Transparencies would really be a major step forward for models, some of the effects of gantries and the like would really add to the look of ships/stations.to

[Zireael]

Another idea - different colored lasers depending on their type, as in ArcElite.

[Smivs]

That could easily be done now. What would be good is to be able to specify different colours for Front and Rear on NPCs

[Commander McLane]

Another idea - different colored lasers depending on their type, as in ArcElite.

I don't find that a good idea.

(1) There are only three different laser types in the game (four if you count the mining laser, and five if you count the thargoid laser). Currently there are a lot more colours used. Why should we limit ourselves to less?

(2) I guess that 80% (or more) of NPC lasers you encounter are beam lasers. Therefore, during normal gameplay you'd actually mostly see only one single colour.

I would find that boring.

[JensAyton]

Another idea - different colored lasers depending on their type, as in ArcElite.

Funnily enough, I wrote a note on this yesterday. The basic idea is that NPC laser types should be equipment types, and the colour of the laser (as well as its power) should be specified in equipment rather than per-ship overrides. If you want a ship to have a custom laser colour, you can add a new equipment type. (For instance, police ships might have a tweaked beam laser in a fetching shade of violet.)

Limiting lasers to exactly five combinations of range and rate of fire while allowing a wide range of power levels is, when you get right down to it, rather silly. You’ll probably be able to set these independently, within limits. There will probably be a cap on total DPS, and heat will probably be proportional to DPS modified by range.

[Griff]

...and heat will probably be proportional to DPS modified by range

Will this be hard coded? it would be awesome if we could modify these settings
[spoiler]
laser cooling boosters *hopeful expression*
[/spoiler]