TAF and game build configurations

[Switeck]

This is why I like Deep Space Pirates -- if you're avoiding the space-lanes so you can use the torus, you risk a rather large and nasty pirate encounter...even if only rarely. The torus effectively compresses a very large length of space into a "short" trip, but that also means Deep Space Pirates can be very rare per section of space and yet still a credible threat to just using the torus all the time.

There is a safe zone from Deep Space Pirates that's "barely" outside the usual space-lanes, but it's narrow and sometimes dogfights that start in the space-lanes wander out to it.

[Diziet Sma]

Heh.. I like DSP because the (mostly) dribs & drabs of pirates in ones and twos helps boost my combat rating without even breaking a sweat, most of of the time..

[Dustin542]

I pretty much use below 1.0 TAF so I can control better during fights since I just use the keyboard. Wasn't there going to be some work on a way to facilitate that (better keyboard control)? The OXP that keeps our crosshairs stay on target has been helping though.

[cim]

I pretty much use below 1.0 TAF so I can control better during fights since I just use the keyboard. Wasn't there going to be some work on a way to facilitate that (better keyboard control)?

In trunk, if you hold Ctrl while turning, the rate of acceleration to full turn is halved (this is adjustable). Very useful.

[Yodeebe]

aha! that is good news.
Something for my 6th finger on my right hand to do on the keyboard!



I prefer TAF to torus drive too.
slowmo battles are just epic, and 'larger' when on TAF0.5
and shortening long journeys doesn't cheat the clock.
Maybe customised TAF could be OXPable?
Apologies if that has been discussed, I haven't read through the whole thread.

[Diziet Sma]

aha! that is good news.
Something for my 6th finger on my right hand to do on the keyboard!

Took the words right out of my mouth!

It wouldn't be OXP-able though.. TAF is a core game-engine kind of thing.

And yep, slo-mo battles are epic!

[Tricky]

aha! that is good news.
Something for my 6th finger on my right hand to do on the keyboard!

Took the words right out of my mouth!

It wouldn't be OXP-able though.. TAF is a core game-engine kind of thing.

And yep, slo-mo battles are epic!

Err... As was mentioned about 30+ posts ago I got the impression it was
In JavaScript

Code: Select all

timeAccelerationFactor = 0.0625;

[Diziet Sma]

Oops.. for some reason, I was thinking Yodeebe meant, if it's removed from trunk, could it be added as an OXP..

[Tricky]

Oops.. for some reason, I was thinking Yodeebe meant, if it's removed from trunk, could it be added as an OXP..

Actually that is a good question. Is TAF going to be removed entirely or will it still be available via JavaScript?

[cim]

Oops.. for some reason, I was thinking Yodeebe meant, if it's removed from trunk, could it be added as an OXP..

Actually that is a good question. Is TAF going to be removed entirely or will it still be available via JavaScript?

http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Oolite ... tionFactor

[Yodeebe]

double post - quoted myself, I think?

[Yodeebe]

Oops.. for some reason, I was thinking Yodeebe meant, if it's removed from trunk, could it be added as an OXP..

That is what I meant.
If it's going to be removed from 'the game' could a version of it be OXPable?
Quite easy to insert some 'handwavium'.

"Space is huge. Huge, & long, reeally long, & in order for space pilots to not die before their arrival, standard procedure is for pilots to connect their helmets up to the cabin's Handwavium Gas Canisters, which when breathed in, slows the body's processes down just enough that they are still competent at dealing with most tasks, but their life span, and attention span are greatly increased.
The resulting experience of the pilot is that everything appears to happen much faster than 'reality, ' which is why space pilots often appear agitated, & nervous when docked.
New developments by H.G.C. corp have managed to synthesize H.G.C. from a by-product of the ships fuel burning process, and have now developed a controllable H.G.C. dispenser.
The new device has two settings.
1/ normal operation - as you were, commander
2/ for extra boring long routes, the dosage can be increased (TAF- x4?) although care must be taken, for if you get ambushed while on a high dose, you might be dead by the time you wake up!
H.G.C corp has incorporated an 'Auto-Arrette' on the high dose, triggered by the ships 'red status,' to avoid this, although no-one has yet come back to complain about this problem.

Some pilots have discovered that physically jamming the pipe under the pilots seat can stop the H.G.C completely, returning the pilot to complete awareness, which can be an invaluable tool during epic space battles!"


oh, I don't know, something like that.

[Yodeebe]

It wouldn't be OXP-able though.. TAF is a core game-engine kind of thing.

Oh, ok.

[Eric Walch]

In trunk, if you hold Ctrl while turning, the rate of acceleration to full turn is halved (this is adjustable). Very useful.

Not if you are on a Mac with Lion or newer. I just noticed that cntr-⤎ is used to cycle through the different screens / desktop / widgets. With the new code it now also works when playing in full screen. I was a bit surprised when trying to cntr-turn left, I saw the whole Oolite screen be replaced by my dexktop

This kind of changing screens was already in Oolite Leopard, but now the keys are on the contr-cursor keys. On my desktop computer I never used it, but on a small notebook screen it seems quite handy to have different desktops/screens around.

[cim]

No, the more I think about it, the more it seems clear: the current in-game ship speeds are ideal for dogfighting, but far too slow for transiting a large amount of space. I think we need to keep the large amounts of empty space, so some form of acceleration through the empty bits is therefore required which automatically slows down again in the presence of other ships. The torus-and-masslock system works, but can only ever be player-only; the TAF would remove the player-only problem - but it doesn't work ...

I had a quick play (emulated) of the original BBC Elite a couple of days ago. In that:
- the planet appears smaller than the Oolite planet on witchspace exit
- the stations are barely visible until planetary orbit is reached (and even then the compass change is needed to actually find them; also, there's more than one without it looking crowded)
- it takes just ten minutes without jump drive to reach the planet (and in an Anarchy, that will all be full of pirates, but what did you expect...).

So that gave me an unusual idea for a third option - non-linear display of space (since we aren't going for realistic scales anyway...). I hacked together a (very inefficient and buggy) way of doing that which basically kept apparent distance the same until X real distance, then after that made it rise in proportion to d-squared. The result:
- space looks much bigger than it is. The sun from the planet looks "realistic" in size; the planet from the sun is a marble. You can actually go out into (what looks like) deep space very easily.
- distant objects smaller than a planet are invisible until you get relatively close (so that the station looks much smaller compared with the planet)
- so you end up with a system that feels bigger than the current one visually, with dogfighting unchanged (X is greater than scanner radius), but it takes less time to fly through the boring bits. As a bonus, the ASC is actually useful.

Doing it properly would take quite a bit of work, including the obvious (but lengthy) fix for the coordinate-precision problem, so this is all hypothetical, but I did quite like the look of it at first glance.