Various suggestions

An area for discussing new ideas and additions to Oolite.

Moderators: winston, another_commander

Post Reply
popsch
Above Average
Above Average
Posts: 27
Joined: Sun Jan 01, 2006 3:50 pm

Various suggestions

Post by popsch »

- Asteroid spliters should sometimes contain radioactives, <5kb platin, <10kg gold, or <20g gems. (minor change to scoopUp). Maybe there should a some special equipment, which turns spliters into gravel and get these more valuable things.

- addShips should also add the escorts automatically.

- Killing a behemoth should drop some firearms cargo.

- Traders should eject cargo when they flee.

- Cargo should self-destruct after some time floating in space, so you can either go for the trader or get the cargo (let's just say 2mins). Would allow smarter AI, because it can use the cargo as distraction during a battle.

- Some pseudo market (not a full market as suggested in other threads). Each time you sell cargo that item gets cheaper, each time you buy it it gets more expensive. After each witchspace jump, you re-evaluate all prices and make them move a little towards the normal price. This involves no complex simulation, just blows up the savegame, since you need to save a pricelist for each planet.

- Different AI scripting. I don't know how to improve it, but in the long run the current system is not viable. You cannot do complex stuff or computation (e.g., base the numer of spawned ships on the player's score). Also, you will always end up reimplementing all objC functions as scriptable functions, for example it would be nice to have an 'worsenLegalStatus' method, which is similar to "setLegalStatus: legalStatus_number + XY".

Well, and maybe some more...
User avatar
JensAyton
Grand Admiral Emeritus
Grand Admiral Emeritus
Posts: 6657
Joined: Sat Apr 02, 2005 2:43 pm
Location: Sweden
Contact:

Post by JensAyton »

Traders do eject cargo when they flee.

I’ve considered suggesting integrating Lua scripting. The language integration looks easy (there’s an Objective-C bridge) but I’m not sure how easy setting up the necessary hooks for scripting would be.
User avatar
Rxke
Retired Assassin
Retired Assassin
Posts: 1760
Joined: Thu Aug 12, 2004 4:54 pm
Location: Belgium

Re: Various suggestions

Post by Rxke »

popsch wrote:
-Different AI scripting. I don't know how to improve it, but in the long run the current system is not viable. You cannot do complex stuff or computation (e.g., base the numer of spawned ships on the player's score). Also, you will always end up reimplementing all objC functions as scriptable functions, for example it would be nice to have an 'worsenLegalStatus' method, which is similar to "setLegalStatus: legalStatus_number + XY".
If you ask Giles, good chance he just implements such stuff in a future upgrade.
popsch
Above Average
Above Average
Posts: 27
Joined: Sun Jan 01, 2006 3:50 pm

Post by popsch »

Ahruman wrote:
I’ve considered suggesting integrating Lua scripting. The language integration looks easy (there’s an Objective-C bridge) but I’m not sure how easy setting up the necessary hooks for scripting would be.
I would rather suggest Python. It's quite popular now and there seems to be a bridge, too: http://pyobjc.sourceforge.net/
Kleptoid
Mostly Harmless
Mostly Harmless
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Jan 09, 2006 10:11 pm

Post by Kleptoid »

Personally I'd like to see scripting in Ruby ;)
User avatar
winston
Pirate
Pirate
Posts: 731
Joined: Mon Sep 27, 2004 10:21 pm
Location: Port St. Mary, Isle of Man
Contact:

Post by winston »

The trouble with Python or Ruby is that it would drag in significantly huge dependencies into the game. Perl is supported out of the box on OS X and Linux (and it would drag a huge dependency for Windows, unfortunately Windows does not have any cross platform scripting by default, and the scripting it has built in is mind-numbingly awful).

Ahruman's suggestion of Lua is probably the best, looking at the website it is designed to be a small, lightweight language that is aimed at people who want to extend programs, and it could be shipped with the game without bloating it too much.
User avatar
Star Gazer
---- E L I T E ----
---- E L I T E ----
Posts: 633
Joined: Sat Aug 14, 2004 4:55 pm
Location: North Norfolk, UK, (Average Agricultural, Feudal States,Tech Level 8)

Post by Star Gazer »

Going back to the original theme of breaking down asteroid splinters into component matter would require a bulky extraction unit - possibly a large expensive accessory - 50kCr + 25tons mass?

This could then only be sensibly accomodated in one of the larger ships, which seems logical to me...
Very funny, Scotty, now beam down my clothes...
User avatar
Arexack_Heretic
Dangerous Subversive Element
Dangerous Subversive Element
Posts: 1876
Joined: Tue Jun 07, 2005 7:32 pm
Location: [%H] = Earth surface, Lattitude 52°10'58.19"N, longtitude 4°30'0.25"E.
Contact:

Post by Arexack_Heretic »

then again, a mininglaser just breaks down an asteroid into ore-rich mineralsplinters, not pure metals.
The minerals are sold cheap to stations, where it is bought by bulk refineries (possibly even housed in the station!) to be refined into pure metals and alloys.

A rockhermit may probably have a smallscale smelter or gem extractor machinery.

Besides, I don't think smelters function well under variable g-forces, such as experienced by ships.

edit: I think the mininglaser functions by superheating the asteroid, gasses will escape violently and only the denser (metal) fragments will remain intact.
Riding the Rocket!
Alien
Average
Average
Posts: 11
Joined: Wed Dec 15, 2004 1:18 pm

Post by Alien »

I know I'm making some kind of parasiting, but would it be possible to display his own ship when in the buy/sell ship docking section ?

Would be useful for texture testing too.
User avatar
Selezen
---- E L I T E ----
---- E L I T E ----
Posts: 2530
Joined: Tue Mar 29, 2005 9:14 am
Location: Tionisla
Contact:

Post by Selezen »

Dunno if it could be shown there, but I do think it could be shown on the Commander Summary screen.

Giles? :D
User avatar
aegidian
Master and Commander
Master and Commander
Posts: 1161
Joined: Thu May 20, 2004 10:46 pm
Location: London UK
Contact:

Post by aegidian »

Selezen wrote:
Dunno if it could be shown there, but I do think it could be shown on the Commander Summary screen.

Giles? :D
I'll consider it for v1.63. :wink:
"The planet Rear is scourged by well-intentioned OXZs."

Oolite models and gear? click here!
Alien
Average
Average
Posts: 11
Joined: Wed Dec 15, 2004 1:18 pm

Post by Alien »

In fact, I discover today that in v1.62, I can see my ship if I load my commander file in full screen (but not in windowed).

Cool. I like to see my ship time to time.
Post Reply