More/ larger galaxies

[maik]

The folly, grief, despair etc names, in combination with the bones file suggestion gave me another idea... If you die in the vicinity of/ by crashing into an unnamed rock / planet / star, the responsible spacerock gets automatically named [commander]'s grave or [commander]'s grief or something equally morbid...

I understand this makes sense in a multiplayer game, but how would this be useful in single-player? You die, the rock is named, and you remain dead and reload your last save file where you are still alive and the rock has not been named yet.

Read a few posts back where I suggest a "bones file" types system, that lets players share system names. In this case, the game would upload the name to the bones server immediately after player death, where it could be shared with anyone using the same galaxy-set, (potentially including the re-loaded player himself, so he can see his own grave..? Spooky!)

Ah, thanks. Now I understand the bones part That would work with main planets/suns, not with asteroids as they are created dynamically at the moment as far as I'm aware.

[Pleb]

I prefer the exploration style that Disembodied was talking about earlier. Oolite is a single player game and I dislike an ideas or features that make it more social. If people wanted to share their galaxies they can make them into OXP/OXZs to download.

[Zireael]

@ Pleb: I like that settings suggestion. Are you going to do a settings screen in code or just a plist?

Adding this to the planetinfo.plist file would be simple enough for now. This would allow the player to define the options Oolite would use to generate the new galaxies. Anything else could/would then be OXP/OXZ-able, people could release their own exploration-style missions to either randomly generated galaxies or predefined galaxies.

Anyway this is all hypothetical of course, but implementing most of this wouldn't be hard. Last night I rewrote the coding required to add the new galaxies and systems into Oolite. All I need to do now is play around with the settings to get the grids the right size. However I'm also interested in seeing if I can implement a scrolling long range chart, similar to the scrolling short range one we now have.

Can't wait to see it in action, even if the long range chart doesn't scroll.

[Neelix]

The folly, grief, despair etc names, in combination with the bones file suggestion gave me another idea... If you die in the vicinity of/ by crashing into an unnamed rock / planet / star, the responsible spacerock gets automatically named [commander]'s grave or [commander]'s grief or something equally morbid...

I understand this makes sense in a multiplayer game, but how would this be useful in single-player? You die, the rock is named, and you remain dead and reload your last save file where you are still alive and the rock has not been named yet.

Read a few posts back where I suggest a "bones file" types system, that lets players share system names. In this case, the game would upload the name to the bones server immediately after player death, where it could be shared with anyone using the same galaxy-set, (potentially including the re-loaded player himself, so he can see his own grave..? Spooky!)

I'd suggest only allowing that to work once per player per area, or you'll potentially end up with a lot of similarly named rocks...

- Neelix

[StathisR]

I'd suggest only allowing that to work once per player per area, or you'll potentially end up with a lot of similarly named rocks...

- Neelix

Yes, otherwise you will need a whole galaxy just for me

[Zireael]

Guys, it is just an idea for an option (sharing files via wiki, not a server), so it doesn't mean we're suddenly making Oolite social

[mossfoot]

I could totally get into this idea... once I've played out my narrative possibilities in Galaxy 1 it would be great to get "stuck" in the frontier trying to survive as well as explore

For narrative purposes, I'd picture a Galactic Hyperspace malfunction, like the kind between stars, only between parts of the galaxy, where people have gone to and been stuck in over the centuries, and can't get the technology to get out of (yet) (oooh, that could be a mission there. A lost galactic hyperdrive that can get you home or to the next actual stop in the civilization route )

[Pleb]

That's already been done in cim's Galactic Misjump OXP. Also being reused in the HIMSN OXZ.

[Pleb]

Okay I've been playing around with this idea a bit lately. Haven't got anywhere with a new naming scheme yet, but I have improved the whole extra/larger galaxies idea that was originally thought of.

Essentially now what I have are the following options, added into planetinfo.plist:

Code: Select all

	// Choose whether to enable an extra 8 galaxies (yes/no - default is no):
	extra_galaxies_enabled = yes;
	// Uncomment to specify a starting galaxy seed for galaxy 9 (if not specified a default one will be used):
	extra_galaxy_starting_seed = "17 245 0 234 119 178";
	
	// Settings for Galaxy 9:
	"galaxy_8_settings" =
	{
		// Add an extra 256 systems and expand size of galaxy (yes/no - default is no):
		extra_systems = yes;
		// Enable whether the entire galaxy is uninhabited (yes/no - default is no):
		uninhabited_galaxy = no;
		// Uncomment to specify a galaxy seed for this galaxy (if not specified the previous one will be rolled over to generate a new one):
		//galaxy_seed = "56 176 45 69 212 150";
	};

So as you can see this gives the OXP/OXZ writer the choice to create 8 new galaxies, and to specify either a starting seed or individual seeds for each galaxy. Also you can specify whether a galaxy has extra systems (I have set this as 512 systems as due to the new improved long range chart, anything more than 512 now creates major memory problems) with an enlarged galaxy chart area. Also you can specify whether a galaxy is uninhabited. Only issue with this is that you create a completely blank galaxy with no ships or stations. However this would be a starting point for an exploration OXP/OXZ.

Some screenshots are below. First is the short range chart. Note, although it looks like the fuel is below 7 light years, I have changed how the game determines the distances so even though the green circle is smaller it is actually 7 light years:



Second is the long range chart. As you can see the galaxy is more crowded but not too crowded. There are also still islands of 'unreachable' systems:



Next is the short range chart, but with an uninhabited galaxy. Note that the system names have been changed to just be a blank designation of a letter and some numbers:



And lastly, this is how an uninhabited system looks on the system info screen:



If anyone is interested in having a go with this, I have a compiled copy of the code that can be tested and a testing save game file in galaxy 8, waiting for a jump into galaxy 9. Let me know and I will PM you the link (I don't want to post up a binary here and get it confused with an official release).

[DGill]

Looks awesome - would be nice to have a mission to Thargoid home world system!

[Smivs]

- would be nice to have a mission to Thargoid home world system!

No it wouldn't!

[Pleb]

Looks awesome - would be nice to have a mission to Thargoid home world system!

This is of a proof of concept or experiment really. To be honest cim has now included functionality to allow OXZs to be dependant on a scenario, which you could use to create something similar to this without having to modify the code. You'd have to edit the save file for the scenario to load a different seed at the start and then manually script in your new Galaxy like that. That will probably be how this is done instead but I thought I'd just finish this up slightly before moving onto something else.

[ffutures]

Obvious question - what do you do with uninhabited systems? Refuel and mine asteroids, perhaps, but what happens once equipment starts to fail?

[Pleb]

Obvious question - what do you do with uninhabited systems? Refuel and mine asteroids, perhaps, but what happens once equipment starts to fail?

Well this was why I was saying you'd need to use it as a template for an Exploration OXZ/OXP. At present you can't go very far unless you sunskim and even then as there are no ships or stations it's empty with nothing to see. Again you'd have to add to it as its essentially a blank canvas.

[Zireael]

Wow, great!

Gonna grab the compiled version as soon as I'm back to my normal wireless connection (this one has a limited bandwidth)