Show and Tell (new ships/ ships in progress)

[BlauJ]

I have nothing as cool as an array, nor as big. But I just recently felt the joy of shooting up a ship I'd made in game.

It was reallly rather fun, out it popped out of the darkness bight white and easy to spot/shoot, I let it fly around (i knew it didn't have any weapons) then I blew it to pieces. I now have ambitions to make them spawn cargo crates that have to be shot up before they yield cargo pods

Before I got chance to do this or even work out how to I thought maybe I should make something with a solar sail.
So then I started this:


Starting this last night was really rather timely because after putting my son in sunday school thinking how I would make a solar wind helped the sermon pass.

I have to say that making pretend spaceships is a terriebly addictive thing, it should come with health warnings. You are very bad people - frankly I'm glad the wiki's down today because at least I can get some work done....

[Ramirez]

Excellent station designs there, Thargoid.

I've been trying out some ideas today that could lead to some interesting new gameplay options, including meaningful use of a ship's crew - I'll post some thoughts in the relevant thread on that. Anyway, as these ideas will probably need a specific ship I thought I'd design one. A few hours later, I ended up with this - it hasn't left the safety of Wings3D but here's the basic concept:

[Selezen]

Ooh, I like that. Very "functional". I like functional.

[Thargoid]

The Kiota stations are now just about done, including the texturing and final shader tweak (thanks Griff!). Also the aforementioned solar variant is now sorted out, in the above shots from both sides (about 6km range on approach toward the sun - the entity visible launching from the station is a Cobbie3, and 12km range when pointing back toward the planet).

A few minor tweaks to go, then on to the ships for the OXP...

[DaddyHoggy]

Stunning Thargoid. Nice work!

[Ramirez]

I give you my most complex and possibly mindbending creation yet - behold: the Holebox!



Is it a box made purely of holes? Perhaps a hole shaped like a box? Or maybe - it's actually both at the same time!

I wanted to find a way to place a beacon at a point in space (actually to designate a distant target) without having to slap a beacon code onto an unsightly cargo canister, a splinter or some infinitesimally-small object. So, I thought, why don't I just use a hole? Sure enough, a simple flasher attached to this 'model' (official dimensions: 0 x 0 x 0) acts as a sort of virtual beacon, appearing on the viewscreen, scanner and space compass but having no 'real' existence - certainly nothing to have an embarrassing collision with.

Now I'm sure I've tried doing this sort of thing in the past but I ever remember it working. It probably shouldn't really be working now to be honest but it seems to serve a purpose and I thought it was quite amusing!

b.t.w. this virtual beacon business is described briefly in this thread and forms one of the funky target acquisition systems destined for the new ship design I posted earlier.

All hail the Holebox!

[Commander McLane]

The Kiota stations are now just about done, including the texturing and final shader tweak (thanks Griff!). Also the aforementioned solar variant is now sorted out, in the above shots from both sides (about 6km range on approach toward the sun - the entity visible launching from the station is a Cobbie3, and 12km range when pointing back toward the planet).

The shot against the sun seems to indicate a fly-through dock. Is that the case?

[Thargoid]

The shot against the sun seems to indicate a fly-through dock. Is that the case?

Yup. Same principle as Lave Academy - you can dock from either side (and launched ships come out both ways too)

[Gimbal Locke]

Same principle as Lave Academy - you can dock from either side (and launched ships come out both ways too)

Does that mean we could also have stations with multiple docking ports in the Ooniverse?

[Thargoid]

With a suitable design, yes (technically both LA and my new designs have 2 docks, and the technique could any number limited by access to a given volume within a model. It works by defining a docking radius rather than a specific dock model. Then when the player or NPC ship enters that docking radius the docking occurs.

There are other work-arounds such as using a defined ring or similar "line" to cross (or perhaps just use a timered/callback scan of a given area and act on that ship) and then moving the crossing ship to a docking position (or just script-docking the ship) plus a few other workarounds. But I believe also that "true" multiple docks were planned for an upcoming version of Oolite anyway.

[SandJ]

Does that mean we could also have stations with multiple docking ports in the Ooniverse?

Like a dice with 6 docking ports, or a docking port on every face of a dodo station?

Kewl!

And weird.

[Gimbal Locke]

Thanks for your explanation, Thargoid.

Would it be possible to separate the docking port (entrance) from the launching port (exit)?

[Thargoid]

Yes. There's a ship script event for a station launching a ship. You just use that to move the launched ship (which is how the Kiota stations launch out both ways).

[Thargoid]

Does that mean we could also have stations with multiple docking ports in the Ooniverse?

Like a dice with 6 docking ports, or a docking port on every face of a dodo station?

Kewl!

And weird.

Exactly. The only limitation is that any ports off the axis of rotation for a spinning station would be a bitch to get into and out of...

[Fatleaf]

So a ship designed around the The Battlestar Galactica, with both docking ports workable would be feasible then!