An Easy/Fun Mode? (& other suggestions)

Nic · Post by **Nic** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 6:32 pm

@Murgh:

a crime because the warping side-effects to the local space fabric? or something?

Nope, because if your like me you can forget to turn it off and end up flying into ships, stations, atmospheres. So it could be perceived dangerous and hence a crime in some systems.....I suppose

I still say if you go with n00b mode, you never get to be Elite!

Oh, I see your point now, I thought you meant you meant the player would never get enough kills. D'oh! Ok. I agree with that. Make that rank unobtainable in easy/training/newbie mode.

that would be great if a system's price chart (stamped with the space date of recent visit) could be recalled from the star charts. certainly should be within the technology we're simulating here..

I think so too. Might start coding that up.

Alex Ryder definitely did have it easy (plus he got a woman to go a long with him! The lucky b*st*rd). The cobra is too great a ship. At present it doesn't take many runs to get to 10,000 credits and then you buy most of what you need. The only other thing to spend your cash on is more ships, which really aren't worth the money in some respects (Oolite could do with an external camera mode, so at least you could gaze at your new vessel

)

I wonder how Giles feels about it.

That is true, he is the boss. But hopefully if I keep the code changes small and separate from regular standard Oolite mode he won't mind, as I really do think it could open it up to a wider audience.

-Nic

Murgh · Post by **Murgh** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 6:47 pm

yes, I think playing the self-admitted 'twitch' mode at the cost of never possibly attaining the highest rank (and maybe some other esteemed perks) would open up for some leniency.
I am a little intoxicated right now, but the whole 'trainee mode' seems like a very good idea, and I wish you the best of luck and stamina in coding it.

and of course you're right about the external camera. but Giles has been busy with many other cool things

Nic · Post by **Nic** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 6:53 pm

but Giles has been busy with many other cool things

Hasn't he just

It's amazing how far Oolite has come as an open source game. I just want more people to play it (more importantly I want my friends to play it, but I know they'll have difficulty enjoying it because now, unlike when we were in the 80s without a care in the world, we all have jobs, women, bills, etc that get in the way)

Ok well I may start coding things up then, everyone please keep posting suggestions and thoughts as I want to make sure that this is something we all roughly agree on as being a "Good Thing".

Thanks again all,
-Nic

lex_talionis · Post by **lex_talionis** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 8:09 pm

Nic wrote:
Oolite could do with an external camera mode, so at least you could gaze at your new vessel

i agree. having just purchases the Jabberwocky (oh, how i love it

) i'd like to be able to see the thing. i mean, just going up to 8 energy bars is all very well... but apart from that, there's no real diference.

how hard would it be to code in custom dash's for the ships?

Murgh · Post by **Murgh** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 8:19 pm

Nic wrote:
how hard would it be to code in custom dash's for the ships?

not insanely hard at all. all you need is a pList editor.
look at the two HUDs inside Oolite, and the 2 or 3 on oosat, and between them you should get the idea.

lex_talionis · Post by **lex_talionis** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 8:31 pm

pList editor - such as? or is it as simple as just opening it up with TextEditor?

(sorry - never done this before

)

Murgh · Post by **Murgh** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 8:39 pm

SubEthaEdit is a nice pList editor. not much more difficult than text edit and you can do a lot with it.

I use it for my webkeeping on OoSat

Nic · Post by **Nic** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 12:01 am

Minor Update: I've implemented a Twitch mode that you set the same ways as Strict mode. With Twitch mode turned on, you are able to turn on and off safety mode. With safety mode off you can 'j'/hyperspace at any point as long as you don't have hostiles around, if you do, you are "threat locked". With safety turned on 'j'/hyperspace works as normal.

Also with Twitch Mode on the energy cooling rate is 3 times the norm (!). Maybe that's overkill, but it really makes dogfighting more fun.

So that's the easy bits done. I'll add more and keep you updated. Then hopefully supply binaries/diffs of the source for people to try.

How's it sounding so far?

-Nic

Rxke · Post by **Rxke** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 12:20 am

I like masslocks. It tells me there's something in range that I can shoot down

Flying_Circus · Post by **Flying_Circus** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 12:40 am

Ships like the jabberwocky (and it's successor, the forthcoming 'Bandersnatch'

) actually raise an interesting point about external viewing. In my plist, the jabberwocky's viewpoints are all placed exactly where the cabin is on the model - just a smidgen the voidside of the glass, in other words. However, from where you sit on a ship like that - and on others, like the Krait - you should actually see bits of your own ship getting in the way of your view, when looking from the cockpit...

So (radical, and probably brain-dead, suggestion coming up), could the external view be set so that the ship was actually "there" around you, all the time you are flying, so that when looking to port from a Krait, say, you would see your port 'prong'?

(Yes, I know the Krait isn't really a player ship, and in all probability, neither should be the Jabberwocky, FWIW, even if I did tone it down a bit)

I was just thinking that, in such a case, the external view would simply mean shifting the camera angle to include the ship you were flying in. Modellers would need to include viewpoint vertices in their plists that would avoid the embarrassment of seeing the inside faces of their ships, it's true. However, this approach seems - on the surface, at least - to accommodate other possible 'feature requests' that might arise in future, as a logical consequence of implementing "external view mode" in the first place.

lex_talionis · Post by **lex_talionis** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 12:45 am

FlyingCircus - i couldn't agree more! that was the first thing that i thought when flying the Jabberwocky out of the dock - "where's the wings of my ship?! i can't see them!"

i would be great to have that sorta thing, being able to see the bits of your ship that protrude in front of the cockpit. it would raise interesting handicaps, with blindspots etc - yes, the jabberwocky's a great ship, but you can't see bugger all, sorta thing

aegidian · Post by **aegidian** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 2:01 am

The recent addition of proper xyz offsets for the various viewing positions will facilitate that sort of view. I'll have a look again at adding a drawn player ship model to the drawing routines when I've finished with this sliding over frozen water business.

Arexack_Heretic · Post by **Arexack_Heretic** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 2:02 am

problem is, the player ship is not drawn at all.

There are some major rewrites of the code necesary to accomodate even inside cockpit view....
(ask Giles)

unless offcourse, one designs a new cockpit layout (like the magawalnut dash) with the wings drawn in for every ship that could conceivably have parts of ship extending in view.

So for all purposes the captain af any vessel is considered to sit behind a viewscreen with a keyboard/flightstick interface just as in the oldtime elites.

But you are not alone in your wish.
Virtually every eliteer has at some point expressed his desire to have an external view or to see parts of the ship.
Only natural after Frontier.
I have crashed several times, when admiring the external view of my ship with the nice backdrop of a planet, into a station.

Murgh · Post by **Murgh** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 10:32 am

twitch mode seems like it already has a lot of what it set out have. what else do 'twitches' need?

sniperscope?

Arexack_Heretic · Post by **Arexack_Heretic** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 10:38 am

yay Giles!

Seems you were just ahead of me there.