Broken OXZs and OXZ Manager

[Norby]

Moderator: Split from Fuel Injectors thread

When the limit for entities was reached, lasers no longer appeared when fired, though they still seemed to work invisibly-- sound effects and damage to other ships. Once I stopped using Engine Trails, the problem vanished.

@Devs: how about removing this addon from the manager? I think if somebody wants then can install it by hand but somehow the core team shoud defend regular players from installing addons with a serious problem.

[another_commander]

@Devs: how about removing this addon from the manager? I think if somebody wants then can install it by hand but somehow the core team shoud defend regular players from installing addons with a serious problem.

The dev team does not officially support nor reject any OXP published by the community. Having OXPs in the manager list does not imply that the core team has quality-checked them or approved them. The manager is just a tool for facilitating easier usage of expansions and nothing more. Maybe this should be made more clear in the OXZ manager's in-game pages.

For cases like this, my personal opinion is that the best plan of action would be to contact the author directly and ask them to either fix or remove their OXP from the manager.

[Norby]

Ok, I sent a PM and I hope there will be an answer regardless of he is missing a few months ago, just I think there should be an "enough long" timelimit if the author is not responding in the case of a game-crasher bug. I often produce these also like endless loops combined with resource consuming activities which can crash before the timelimit can stop the js code. Of couse I fix these when I found but there is a chance to a similar bug stay hidden and the author fade away before start produce problems, like in this case.

[Alex]

ERRR..
I had a wee problem with my game play. I asked in the problems section, got a reply, and went on to solve it.
That is what BB is about as well as sharing game fun.
Not about controlling content as cencors.
If you download a oxp/oxz or anything else for that matter. It is your sole resposability

[Alex]

@Devs: how about removing this addon from the manager? I think if somebody wants then can install it by hand but somehow the core team shoud defend regular players from installing addons with a serious problem.

The dev team does not officially support nor reject any OXP published by the community. Having OXPs in the manager list does not imply that the core team has quality-checked them or approved them. The manager is just a tool for facilitating easier usage of expansions and nothing more. Maybe this should be made more clear in the OXZ manager's in-game pages.

For cases like this, my personal opinion is that the best plan of action would be to contact the author directly and ask them to either fix or remove their OXP from the manager.

What Manager?
You mean someone else is saying what Addons I should have?

[Cody]

No, the OXZ manager is an in-game method of installing OXZs (in Oolite 1.80 and later, that is).

[Vincentz]

When the limit for entities was reached, lasers no longer appeared when fired, though they still seemed to work invisibly-- sound effects and damage to other ships. Once I stopped using Engine Trails, the problem vanished.

@Devs: how about removing this addon from the manager? I think if somebody wants then can install it by hand but somehow the core team shoud defend regular players from installing addons with a serious problem.

2nd this.

I understand that we all have different preferences. Some of the add-on ships are very OP, and not many like f.ex my New Deal add-on, but this one is really broken, and should imho be removed.

[another_commander]

Seeing that there is potential for lengthy discussion here, split from Fuel Injectors.

[Layne]

I disagree about removing it-- but I do think there should be a way to tag large errors and oxps which are broken by newer versions of Oolite in the manager. Let the oxp stay but have it flagged as 'play at your own risk'. If someone really likes a mod, maybe they'll see something in the original worth salvaging and reworking, just as Norby did with the original Engine Trails. Having the original around to examine may help save work if a redesign is in order.

Would it be possible to add another color flag to the OXP manager for 'broken' files? Just as it marks files with dependencies in a color, or outdated ones with newer versions?

[Vincentz]

Being reasonably new here, I still remember installing mods after mods, only to realize that modX was broken, or modY did have some "extra" effect not described, which made it really hard to track down. There are more than 300 addons alone in the manager. It literally took me weeks to figure out which was what and what they did.

One thing that would REALLY have helped a lot is if the web-address shown in manager was a hyperlink, so clicking it would open default webbrowser with site. Usually the wikis or bb threads are much more informative, plus, especially the bb threads tells (either by author or other) that addon is WIP/Broken/Over-Powered/etc etc.
It was a PITA to google search 500+ addons, when source more or less already was ingame.

Another "fun" thing could be a voting system. Either by stars (1-5) or simply "upvote/downvote". That way its easier to spot the "good" addons as a newbee.

[Smivs]

One thing that would REALLY have helped a lot is if the web-address shown in manager was a hyperlink

I think this is a feature of the up-coming v1.82

Another "fun" thing could be a voting system. Either by stars (1-5) or simply "upvote/downvote". That way its easier to spot the "good" addons as a newbee.

Fun, maybe, but not an idea I'd favour. There are enough 'beauty contests' scattered around these parts already, and what makes a 'good' AddOn anyway? Broken ones should be flagged, yes, but I don't agree with the idea of 'OXZ Police' deciding which should stay and which should go.
It is up to the author to decide on their work's merits and even whether it should be made available or not. This is one reason we always recommend adding Expansions slowly, one by one. To give players a chance to get used to them and weed out those they don't actually want, or broken ones.
Broken ones by absent authors are a problem, I know, but dealing with them needs to be considered very carefully.

[Vincentz]

This is one reason we always recommend adding Expansions slowly, one by one. To gve players a chance to get used to them and weed out those they don't actually want, or broken ones.

I understand, but doing the 1 by 1 would take more than a year trying out if playing with a new one every single day, and some features of the addons are either hidden, or kicks in much later for the player (equipment/ships/etc). By giving an addon a "stamp of approval", it would be easier for newcomers to set up a decent game. Then later the more "obscure" or experimental addons could be tried in above manner.

[Cody]

By giving an addon a "stamp of approval", it would be easier for newcomers to set up a decent game.

<chortles> We have been here before, and it really ain't on, tbh. Trying to reach a consensus on which OXPs should be 'approved' or otherwise is impossible.

[Norby]

Let the oxp stay but have it flagged as 'play at your own risk'.

Good idea. Assuming everybody read the small notes of addons before install, I suggest to add into the description field something like this:

"Warning: this addon is reported that causing problems from invisible lasers to crash to desktop after a few minutes, use at your own risk."

[Smivs]

...it would be easier for newcomers to set up a decent game.

I think newcomers get a decent game anyway
It's how they want to enhance/corrupt/break it we're discussing here.