X-Frontier, A Bridge Between Oolite & Pioneer?

[Geraldine]

Hi Ooliters

I've seen some mention of being able to land on planets brought to Oolite, if you would like to see what that might be like, I thought I would highlight this project being worked on by a dev called Nevil Clavain, titled X-Frontier.
In it, it is possible to land on planets (just like in Pioneer), but get this Ooliters, the flight model is NOT Newtonian. You have absolute velocities as you do in Oolite, although it also does the yaw and pitch thing too. Perhaps someone on here might suggest to Nevil to incorporate the "Elite style" control method of turn and roll too?

There is a blog for the game [*]here[*][/url] ,a thread at the SSC [*]here[*][/url] and a download link for the latest build [*]here[*][/url]

I should point out that Nevil has been working away on this all by himself and it is early days, but all in all, mighty impressive work so far for just one man.

Finally, here is a vid showing the planetary engine [*]here[*][/url]

Well, what do you think Ooliters?

[Commander McLane]

The video looks impressive. But at least with a quick scrolling through the SSC thread I failed to find out on which platform(s) the game runs.

[Diziet Sma]

with a quick scrolling through the SSC thread I failed to find out on which platform(s) the game runs.

Going by his blog and screenshots there, I'm guessing Windoze only..

Edit: Yep. Found it in the SSC thread.. Win only (for now).

[Commander McLane]

Yep. Found it in the SSC thread.. Win only (for now).

… and there my kindled interest is immediately fading again. Pity.

[Cody]

… and there my kindled interest is immediately fading again. Pity.

Give him time, McLane - Oolite was Mac-only once.

It does look good, but I wish he'd chosen a different title - it reminds me too much of X: Beyond the Frontier (which was basically naff)!

[Commander McLane]

Oolite was Mac-only once.

… which at the time of course sparkled my interest.

So yes, I am of course totally subjective and maybe a little unfair. On the other hand, games being Windows-only has been practically the norm for so long that I didn't really expect it to be different in this case.

Oolite is an exceptional game for more than one reason.

[Geraldine]

Yep. Found it in the SSC thread.. Win only (for now).

… and there my kindled interest is immediately fading again. Pity.

You should ask him if he would consider Mac or even Linux ports. You never know. Or perhaps he might release the source for others to port it. At this time, with the game in so early in development, I don't know what kind of release licence he will make the game available under once it's finished or with WIP Alphas. If it's GPL (like Pioneer) then it's very possible. What licence is Oolite under out of interest?

[Cody]

What licence is Oolite under out of interest?

Open source, under the GNU General Public License.

[Geraldine]

Thanks for that Co...er..I mean El Viejo Thats what I thought but wasn't sure. Well heres hoping Nevil does likewise with his game, then everyone can get a chance to port it to anything

[Cody]

Thanks for that Co...er..I mean El Viejo

Heh! Strangely, I'm more at ease with Cody, to be honest - it's been my main commander's moniker for a long, long time!

[Tricky]

I like this video DirectX11 Planet Renderer - ocean II from the project.

[Griff]

This looks really great, thanks for the info and the example vids, that ocean one is amazing! It's really impressive that the landscape doesn't distort at all as the camera flies off into space, you often see mountains and stuff pop into existance in other demos when higher/lower resolution objects get swapped in and it always breaks the spell a bit