Dark Rainbow 2011.09.14 - OXZ for Oolite 1.82 now available

[CommonSenseOTB]

These things never occurred to me! And I think that the brown cannon just might be going a bit far . .

As Charlie Brown once said, "AUGH!"

Never trust a signed document....

http://youtu.be/GsSXMT0NrB4

[ClymAngus]

Now that you've been kind enough to ressurrect (re-erect ? ) the issue, it came to me that he might actually be referring, albeit subconsciously, to a Klingon genitive organ - in which case it would indeed be called by a different name. I've never personally seen one of these myself though... the thought just passed thru my mind, given the general Klingon feeling of the Caddy and of the Dark Rainbow.

I must admit, the first time I ever saw a Caddy in-flight, the thought that crossed my mind was "it's a Klingon d*ldo, something you'd see sticking out of an alien porn star". Nice to know someone elses mind is as sick and twisted as mine

That's not to say of course that it's not a lovely design, with the deepest respect for ClymAngus and his work.

Hey, your the one who handed over the self regenerating code. If I made a flying chunk of manhood, then you are responsible for maintaining it's smooth, throbbing bullet like exterior.

Look at it this way. If nothing else it is honest;

Smooth, hard and if you get too close; it'll f**k ya.


(Anyway car designers make wangs with wheels every other month. People should be thanking me for finally making something pretty out of something as dog ugly as a nob. Sure, it looks a bit like tackle, but we're talking intimidating, tickle your tonsils from behind tackle here. None of your pee-wee Herman.)

I don't see what the problem is, I really don't.

[Thargoid]

Like I said - it's a lovely design. And kudos for the subtle honest my friend

[ClymAngus]

I know,

And your code is fantastic and greatly appreciated.

If we're talking looks; Then, what's the point of trying to defuse a bomb after it's gone off?
As my father used to say: "Stand upon the perception of others. Digging will not help you."

It is what it is, a potent iconic symbol. Not to be taken lightly.....
I was initially thinking "hunting arrow head" when I was first making it. But I'll take credit for "Deep space meat whistle" or "intergalactic black ribbed nobbler" ..... That's cool too.

[BlackKnight]

I've just tried downloading the ZIP from the location on the first post but the file is no longer publically available - does that mean it's available privately somehow, or is the link now completely useless?

If this link is now dead, can the Warty Popsicle be downloaded from anywhere else (if all else fails, can someone email the ZIP?)

(Thank you for creating the ship sdrubble).

(EDIT: corrected typo's. It is just so embaressing when non-native English speakers spell better than me!)

[sdrubble]

I've just tried downloading the ZIP from the location on the first post but the file is no longer publically available - does that mean it's available privately somehow, or is the link now completely useless?

If this link is now dead, can the Warty Popsicle be downloaded from anywhere else (if all else fails, can someone email the ZIP?)

Download link (at the end of the first post in this thread) has now been reactivated.

It will be good for another 14 days... Sorry, it's a small quirk from adrive.com. I can renew it again whenever someone requests it.

You'll surely enjoy the Warty Popsicle... now that you've decided to disregard all my ridiculous warnings about uberness, you'll learn how really fun it is to command such a beast.

Pls DO post any queries or comments you might have about the ship in this thread.

(Thank you for creating the ship sdrubble).

Actually I'm just a genetic engineer who enjoys tweaking other people's creations... the Dark Rainbow is a direct descendant of the Caduceus, an original creation of ClymAngus.

[sdrubble]

@BlackKnight (and all others downloading The Dark Rainbow):

Pls take a look at THIS POST (and optionally, to the whole thread it's in).

It describes a performance tweak made by Eric Walch to the DCN script, which reduces its resource consumption by various orders of magnitude (that's especially noticeable on a netbook).

The DCN script is NOT included in the download of the Dark Rainbow; rather, it's contained in the download of the Neocaduceus OXP, which is a pre-req to the DR (as described in the DR install instructions).

I suspect that the DCN script contained in the current Neocaduceus download has NOT been updated to reflect Eric's revision, in which case I'd advise you to manually apply it yourself. It's just a matter of commenting (with leading '//') all the lines of the this.checkSystems function (i.e. , up to the start of the this.repairSystems function), and pasting Eric's code in its place. Oh, and BTW it's the [b]script.js[/b] file in the Config folder.

Again, pls post in this thread any queries about this issue.

Cheers - and enjoy !!!

[BlackKnight]

Ta muchly, I have downloaded the ZIP and will sort it out tomorrow...

For now, the lure of my bed is overwhelming my desire to carry on playing, and I've got to get up again in, oh, just under three hours.

Yikes!

[BlackKnight]

Tomorrow? What am I on about? How about '...sort it out later.'

Well, I edited the js file as recommended and Oolite hasn't fallen over laughing at me (yet) so I obviously got it mostly right, but the spinning image on the 'Buy ship' screen is all white except for the turrets.
I used Notepad++ to edit the .js file so I don't think it's Windoze playing silly beggars with unwanted changers to the files - is there anything else obvious I've missed?
I'm not a programmer so I don't have a clue of my own, and searching the forum hasn't helped much as I don't know the right words to describe the exact problem; everything I've tried has come up with loads of entries but none that really help me.
To 'install' the OXP I copied the neocaddy OXP to another location, renamed it and then copied the renamed file back into my OXP folder - is there something inside one of the files that needs to be renamed so Dark Rainbow picks up textures or am I missing something so glaringly obvious it's a wonder I don't fall over my own eyeballs?

Also, which file is it I need to hack edit to get the ship of my dreams?

[sdrubble]

... but the spinning image on the 'Buy ship' screen is all white except for the turrets.

Mmmm... I suspect you didn't really follow the instructions inside the file DR_installation_2011.09.14_A.txt ... but of course I'm sure you've actually READ it.

Just reminding: the file describes two alternative install modes, i.e.:

Code: Select all

To INSTALL the Dark Rainbow OXP *ALONGSIDE* an already working version of neoCaduceus OXP:

[ . . . ]

To INSTALL the Dark Rainbow OXP *WITHOUT* keeping a working version of neoCaduceus OXP:

[ . . . ]

Well, before helping you any further I need to know WHICH of the install modes you wish to follow. Maybe I can make it a bit more clear by stating that the first install mode will make both the Caduceus AND the Dark Rainbow available for purchase, whilst in the 2nd mode you'll find only the DR and not the Caddy.

Other than that, I reckon that the instruction below, which I put on that same file...

Code: Select all

2. Install the Caduceus OXP in the normal fashion.

... might be a bit too terse for someone who has been absent from the forum - and of the game itself - for a long while (I checked your most recent posts and BTW, took note of your Misjump Inducer discussion - I liked that, and intend to take a closer look at that myself ).

But anyway, the correct form to install an OXP is to unzip some WHOLE whatever.OXP folder directly below the \AddOns folder. Stating this in a different way: under the \AddOns folder you should have a number of folders, and each of these folders' name should end in .oxp (upper/lower case is irrelevant under Windoze).

Each of these .oxp folders should have been created preserving the entire subfolder structure that lies within the downloaded OXP archive file (which could have been a .ZIP, .RAR or .7Z one).

and then copied the renamed file

From what I said above, you'll see that there's not a file to be copied anywhere (other than 3 very specific file replacements described in the install file), but rather an entire folder instead...

It follows that, depending on which of the above install modes you choose, you should end up with either one or two .OXP folders under the \AddOns folder.

And always remember: every time you've done whatever change under the \AddOns folder, your next restart of Oolite should be done with the Shift key held down - that's in order to refresh Oolite's disk cache with your brand new changes (which otherwise might not be totally seen by the game).

I hope there's enough material above for you to figure out ... return the ball again whenever you're ready.

Cheers and good luck

[Commander McLane]

And always remember: every time you've done whatever change under the \AddOns folder, your next restart of Oolite should be done with the Shift key held down - that's in order to refresh Oolite's disk cache with your brand new changes (which otherwise might not be totally seen by the game).

While it doesn't hurt to start Oolite with SHIFT each time, it should be noted that this is not true.

Whenever the folder structure changes (adding another OXP or removing an OXP obviously does change the folder structure) Oolite rebuilds its cache all by itself on the next run. Oolite isn't that stupid. If obviously something new was added (or something was removed) that potentially contains a shipdata, it is clear that the cache containing the blend of all shipdatas (and other stuff) has to be rebuilt. Adding an OXP is a user-friendly task. No ordinary player needs to know about any cache in the first place, so no player should be bothered to rebuild it.

Only if you make a change to a single file inside an OXP that already resides in the AddOns folder (like editing a plist) Oolite doesn't know that you have changed something. The folder structure stays the same. Therefore only OXPers who edit things are required to even know about the cache. Normal end users who don't edit things don't need to know, and never need to rebuild the cache manually.

The only time they need to rebuild the cache is if they replace one OXP version with an identically named newer version without starting the game in-between. In that case Oolite can't know that what looks like the same folder as before may have new and changed content.

[another_commander]

The only time they need to rebuild the cache is if they replace one OXP version with an identically named newer version without starting the game in-between. In that case Oolite can't know that what looks like the same folder as before may have new and changed content.

Unless the date/time stamps of the two folders (the one being replaced and the identically named one replacing it) are exactly the same, Oolite will also in this case recognize a change in the AddOns structure and rebuild the cache without user interference. The message generated in cases like this (when the date/time stamp in an OXP folder has changed) is "Cache is stale (modification dates have changed). Rebuilding from scratch."

[BlackKnight]

and then copied the renamed file

That would be the 'Dark_Rainbow.OXP' file... the one that has an icon that looks like a folder

I wanted to have both the Neo and Rainbow variants so chose option 1 - the exact process I followed was:

1) Make sure I had installed the neoCaddy OXP properly into \Addons (yes I had).

2) Right-click and Copy the neoCaddy .OXP and paste it into another (non-Oolite) directory.

3) Rename from neocaduceus.oxp to Dark_Rainbow.oxp.

4) Copy the three .plist files from the \Config folder from the unpacked Dark Rainbow .zip files into the newly-renamed Dark_Rainbow.oxp \config folder, replacing the three neoCaddy files.

5) Opened the script.js file in Dark_Rainbow.oxp\config and changed the DCN section to this using notepad++ ...

Code: Select all

//this.checkSystems = function()	
	//{
	//this.playerDamagedList = [];
	//var listCounter = 0 ; // reset the counter
	//for(listCounter = 0;listCounter<player.ship.equipment.length;listCounter++)
		//{
		//var scriptEq = EquipmentInfo.infoForKey(player.ship.equipment[listCounter].equipmentKey);
		//if(	player.ship.equipmentStatus(player.ship.equipment[listCounter].equipmentKey) == "EQUIPMENT_DAMAGED"
			//&& ((scriptEq.scriptInfo.thargoidRepairBotChance === undefined 
				//|| isNaN(scriptEq.scriptInfo.thargoidRepairBotChance))
			//|| (!isNaN(scriptEq.scriptInfo.thargoidRepairBotChance)
				//&& scriptEq.scriptInfo.thargoidRepairBotChance > 0))
			//)
			//{
			//this.playerDamagedList.push(player.ship.equipment[listCounter].equipmentKey); // if it's broke and fixable, add it to the list.
			//}
		//}
	//}
	this.checkSystems = function()   
   {
   this.playerDamagedList = [];
    var equipment = player.ship.equipment
   var listCounter = 0 ; // reset the counter
   for(listCounter = 0;listCounter<equipment.length;listCounter++)
      {
      if(   player.ship.equipmentStatus(equipment[listCounter].equipmentKey) !== "EQUIPMENT_DAMAGED")
      {continue}
      var scriptEqInfo = EquipmentInfo.infoForKey(equipment[listCounter].equipmentKey).scriptInfo;
      if((scriptEqInfo.thargoidRepairBotChance === undefined 
            || isNaN(scriptEqInfo.thargoidRepairBotChance))
         || (!isNaN(scriptEqInfo.thargoidRepairBotChance)
            && scriptEqInfo.thargoidRepairBotChance > 0))
         {
         this.playerDamagedList.push(equipment[listCounter].equipmentKey); // if it's broke and fixable, add it to the list.
         }
      }
   }

6) Copied my renamed Dark_Rainbow.oxp folder (D'Oh!) back into \Addons.

7) Started Oolite and got a white-hulled Warty Popsicle.

As far as I can recall, that's exactly what I did and it still isn't displaying properly.

Thank you for taking the time to help me with this.

[sdrubble]

Oh well... I'm at a loss now. The procedure you described looks 100% correct.

Now I'd suggest you investigate the following for possible hints into what might be causing your issues:

1. Are you running Oolite 1.76 ? The Dark Rainbow, AFAIK, has not been tested at any other version than 1.75.3.

2. Do you get any error messages in the oolite log ? The log folder is at ..\Oolite\oolite.app\Logs.

3. Since you also have the Caddy installed - does it display on the purchase screen any differently than the Dark Rainbow ? (you might have to go to a higher TL system in order to find it for sale). Both the Caddy and the DR should look exactly alike, except that the DR has one additional turret under its chin and another one perched atop the engine exhausts.

4. (?) I was going to ask an additional question about any hardware issues you might have (shaders for instance, although my 4-year old netbook doesn't support shaders and that doesn't cause any issues). However, question #3 should clear that up, since any hardware or video driver issues would equally affect the Caddy and the DR, so I don't think there's anything worth investigating here.

5. My understanding is that you complain about DR's appearance in the purchasing screen. Have you actually tried to buy and fly it and see what happens ?

I'm running out of things to check... hope that one of those above might clear something up!

Oh, and BTW - would you pls post a screenshot of your albino DR ? (Pause the game, press '*' [Shift+8], and retrieve a .PNG file under the [color=#0000FF]..\Oolite\oolite.app\oolite-saves\snapshots[/color] folder).

Good luck matey

[Capt. Murphy]

Your problem sounds similar to the one I had with the standard neocaduceus.oxp on my old machine.

https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.ph ... 60#p133747

which was solved by doing this...

https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.ph ... 75#p133926

It seems to be GPU specific as the download has not changed and works out of the box on my new machine.