[Release]Freighttrain OXP

[Rorschachhamster]

In my installation, I went ahead with my idea that these trains are delivering goods for the big convenience store companies already established by the YAH OXP's constores. While I couldn't figure out how to make it choose the same store brand that's already in the system (assuming one is in the system), I figure these brands have plenty of stores planetside so you'd still see their delivery vehicles once in a while even if they don't have a station in the system.

Thus I have set it up that it will spawn as one of the seven different brands (in my installation, I replaced one of the two Star constores with a GalaxyMart -- parody of the Japanese chain FamilyMart), i.e. all its escorts will be the constore defender Sidewinders for that particular brand.

While I was at it, I set it up to have differently coloured locomotives at the front, so they're not always that pinkish purple. Initially, I broke up the textures and used shaders to generate a random colour, but the lighting on the locomotive never looked good, so I just made four different textures. Two brands use the original pinkish purple, two use blue, two use red, and one uses green.

The temptation now is to put the store logos on some of the trailer containers... I'll try to resist going that far.

If Rorschachhamster doesn't mind, I can put up the changed/new files I made, for those who'd like the same setup (of course you must have all the constores installed to get the constore escorts).

Of course, I don't mind. Very interested to see this changes.

I don't know, if the sidewinders are buff enough to hinder the pirates or a dedicated player pirate from obliterating the trains and spam the lanes with quite a lot cargo canisters, though...

But, as my oolite installation does not work with my replacement graphic card, AND I'll probably get another one soonish, I'm somewhat not able to play oolite or test any OXPs atm.

So, screenshots or it didn't happen!
Please!

[Keeper]

Why would anyone want to change the train tow ship?
It looks like the Fruitbat was designed for the job and thus I see no reason to replace it :).

The Fruitbat is not the tow ship; it is the intended escort ship(s). The tow ship shown in the pictures IS included (as is a cargobot but I haven't seen those in action yet... where do those appear?).

I don't know if the Sidewinders are buff enough to hinder the pirates or a dedicated player pirate from obliterating the trains and spam the lanes with quite a lot cargo canisters, though...

Here is a comparison.

Code: Select all

                        Fruit Bat       Constore Sidewinder
Max Energy              225             250
Energy Recharge Rate    2.2             2.5
Forward Weapon          Military Laser  Military Laser
Aft Weapon              Military Laser  none
Has ECM                 0.95            no entry (can add line)
Pitch                   1.7             1.6
Roll                    1.95            2.8
Max Speed               350             370
Missiles                4               1
Thrust                  65              37

A line can be added to give the Sidewinders the same 1.8 Pitch rate that a default Sidewinder escort is supposed to have, unless the idea is that they don't pitch as quickly as a normal Sidewinder escort because these constore defenders have had a missile added which a standard Sidewinder doesn't have.

Otherwise, they have more energy and faster recharge, are quicker and more maneuverable than the Fruit Bat, but don't accelerate as quickly, only have a forward weapon, and only have a single missile. But, as your specs for the Fruit Bat say that it's the same size as a Sidewinder, I wonder whether a ship this size has room for four missiles... (indeed, the normal Sidewinders in the game have no missiles, so the constore defenders having one is already quite an upgrade).

So, I dunno... they seem like a pretty good deterrent. I'm open to opinions... I could, perhaps, give the Sidewinders shield boosters and/or enhancers.

[Rorschachhamster]

Here is a comparison.

Code: Select all

                        Fruit Bat       Constore Sidewinder
Max Energy              225             250
Energy Recharge Rate    2.2             2.5
Forward Weapon          Military Laser  Military Laser
Aft Weapon              Military Laser  none
Has ECM                 0.95            no entry (can add line)
Pitch                   1.7             1.6
Roll                    1.95            2.8
Max Speed               350             370
Missiles                4               1
Thrust                  65              37

A line can be added to give the Sidewinders the same 1.8 Pitch rate that a default Sidewinder escort is supposed to have, unless the idea is that they don't pitch as quickly as a normal Sidewinder escort because these constore defenders have had a missile added which a standard Sidewinder doesn't have.

Otherwise, they have more energy and faster recharge, are quicker and more maneuverable than the Fruit Bat, but don't accelerate as quickly, only have a forward weapon, and only have a single missile. But, as your specs for the Fruit Bat say that it's the same size as a Sidewinder, I wonder whether a ship this size has room for four missiles... (indeed, the normal Sidewinders in the game have no missiles, so the constore defenders having one is already quite an upgrade).

So, I dunno... they seem like a pretty good deterrent. I'm open to opinions... I could, perhaps, give the Sidewinders shield boosters and/or enhancers.

Huh, I didn't check the stats of the constore sidewinder. Seeing them, they probably could do the job as well.
Having no back laser is a little crippling, though. I added one to the fruit bats specs after seeing their performance, after a massive onslaught they had problems with keeping this one front laser of them cool...
On the other hand, the sidewinders are quite a bit more maneuverable around the z-axis. Regarding the missiles one could argue, that the place is created by using less powerful thrusters for rolling...

[Keeper]

I just noticed that there are a lot of debug data appearing in the log about the Freighttrain OXP. I figured it was the this.ship.reportAIMessages = true; line in the tractionengine.js script. I set it to False, but still there's a lot of data being written to the log (though not as much), apparently from the trailer.js script, though I can't figure out what is causing it.

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21:48:04.818 [script.javaScript.timeLimit]: ***** ERROR: Script "(nil)" ran for 0.131054 seconds and has been terminated.
21:48:04.818 [script.javaScript.stackTrace]:  0 (trailer.js:83) <anonymous function>
21:48:04.818 [script.javaScript.stackTrace]:     this: [Script "trailer.js" version 1.00]
21:48:04.818 [script.javaScript.stackTrace]:     delta: 0.017000019550323486
21:48:04.818 [script.javaScript.stackTrace]:     cross: (-0.29312, 0.763288, 0.575736)
21:48:04.818 [script.javaScript.stackTrace]:     angle: 0
21:48:04.818 [script.javaScript.stackTrace]:     targetVector: (0.952906, 0.282235, 0.110969)
21:50:40.541 [script.javaScript.timeLimit]: ***** ERROR: Script "(nil)" ran for 0.124887 seconds and has been terminated.
21:50:40.541 [script.javaScript.stackTrace]:  0 (trailer.js:98) <anonymous function>
21:50:40.541 [script.javaScript.stackTrace]:     this: [Script "trailer.js" version 1.00]
21:50:40.541 [script.javaScript.stackTrace]:     delta: 0.018999993801116943
21:50:40.541 [script.javaScript.stackTrace]:     cross: (-0.341722, 0.861442, 0.375691)
21:50:40.541 [script.javaScript.stackTrace]:     angle: 0
21:50:40.542 [script.javaScript.stackTrace]:     targetVector: (0.938838, 0.330998, 0.094988)
21:52:54.167 [script.javaScript.timeLimit]: ***** ERROR: Script "(nil)" ran for 0.117729 seconds and has been terminated.
21:52:54.168 [script.javaScript.stackTrace]:  0 (trailer.js:72) <anonymous function>
21:52:54.168 [script.javaScript.stackTrace]:     this: [Script "trailer.js" version 1.00]
21:52:54.168 [script.javaScript.stackTrace]:     delta: 0.010000050067901611
21:52:54.168 [script.javaScript.stackTrace]:     cross: undefined
21:52:54.168 [script.javaScript.stackTrace]:     angle: undefined
21:52:54.168 [script.javaScript.stackTrace]:     targetVector: (0.948859, 0.308602, 0.0665615)

...and so on and so on.

[Commander McLane]

It could be that the ship's AI tries to call a non-existing function in the JS-script once every two seconds (which is something AIs usually do). Check whether there is a sendScriptMessage: xxxx somewhere in the AI, whereby there is an obvious typo in the xxxx.

[Zieman]

Why would anyone want to change the train tow ship?
It looks like the Fruitbat was designed for the job and thus I see no reason to replace it .

The Fruitbat is not the tow ship; it is the intended escort ship(s). The tow ship shown in the pictures IS included (as is a cargobot but I haven't seen those in action yet... where do those appear?).

Oops, my bad .
Looks like my brains (that little what is left of them) are becoming less and less functional by the day ...

[JazHaz]

Why would anyone want to change the train tow ship?
It looks like the Fruitbat was designed for the job and thus I see no reason to replace it .

The Fruitbat is not the tow ship; it is the intended escort ship(s). The tow ship shown in the pictures IS included (as is a cargobot but I haven't seen those in action yet... where do those appear?).

Oops, my bad .
Looks like my brains (that little what is left of them) are becoming less and less functional by the day ...

This might be because of my mistake. I didn't realise that the Fruitbat wasn't the towing ship, but an escort ship:

Does the fruitbat appear as a separate ship or only with the freighttrain?

I'd like it only as the latter.

I objected to the towing ship as it doesn't fit in with my Griffied Ooniverse.

[Keeper]

I objected to the towing ship as it doesn't fit in with my Griffied Ooniverse.

I have a largely Griffified Ooniverse also (indeed I spent several days altering the shipdata, textures and specular maps of the Staer9 shipset so they would react to light the same way), but I think the tow ship looks just fine. I did turn on shaders for it in my experimentation but it looked worse. I probably could make a specular map for it to improve that, but really, this is a freight train engine, so it isn't going to be shiny at all. It does react to light and looks like a normal matte finish, so it seems fine to me.

[Keeper]

BTW, here's a ZIP file with the altered plist to have the Freighttrain OXP use constore defenders instead of the Fruitbat as escorts. It also has the three new colours for the tow engine (perhaps someone artistic would like to make different patterns on the different coloured paint jobs, otherwise one could just make the new colours using shaders with a bit more work -- but working with PNG is a pain for me as I have to convert to DDS in order to work with the alpha channel, and I was a bit lazy so didn't go that far).

http://www.keeper1st.com/pics/oolite/fr ... nstore.zip

Here's a screenshot, showing a GalaxyMart train (green engine and GalaxyMart Sidewinders). For default YAH installations, these would show up as another Star brand. The GalaxyMart idea and paint jobs were my own. In my YAH installation, I'm using Neolite Sidewinders in lieu of Griff Sidewinders with store paint jobs (I haven't seen any, so Neolite is the next best thing). Whatever Sidewinders your YAH installation has will determine which Sidewinders you will see.



Full-size image: http://www.keeper1st.com/pics/oolite/oolite-008.png

These escort Constore Sidewinders were given two missiles and shield boosters, to make up a bit for the fact that they don't have a rear laser like the Fruitbat had.

This zip file does NOT include any altered script files. I do recommend changing the reportAImessages line at the beginning of tractionengine.js, to save your system from constantly writing debugging data to the log. The occasional errors I mentioned earlier I haven't be able to solve, but they at least are only once in a while. With the default "this.ship.reportAIMessages = true" your system will be writing to the log file constantly, so you should set that to false.

[Rorschachhamster]

Ok, I have finally edited the Ai-report messages out...
Oh, and as I presumed download size isn't as much of an issue anymore, I added the fruit bat to the folder, unaltered.
Here is the new link:
Freighttrain 1.01