(Release) Ship Configuration

[Cody]

Does anyone else see a broken image links?

No problem with any of your images here.

[Zireael]

They seem to have auto-fixed themselves

I have to make some time and play Oolite again...

[phkb]

The latest version of Ship Configuration (v 0.1.0) is now available for download. This version includes a deeper integration of ship heat into the gameplay. Now some activities will make your ship's temperature rise, things like using fuel injectors, using the cloaking device, your laser temperature and even laser strikes on unshielded hulls all influence the overall temperature of your ship. To counter this you can purchase heat sinks from most stations (TL2 and above) that can be deployed when your temperature gets too high to reduce the ship's temperature. Doing one thing (like using injectors) the temp will rise slowly, but do two or three things at the same time (eg use your cloaking device or overheat your laser) and your temp could rise sharply.

The electrical bus overload chance is now visible on the configuration screen. Running your ship with a bus overload will increase the base temp of your ship - that is, your ship will have a higher standard temperature (which will be a blessing to those species who like warm, humid environments!). You may decide to run with a bus overload if you want to save space and weight, and you are planning on avoiding all combat.

Armour plating has been added to the list of configuration options. There are 7 classes of armour available, each with a different weight, strength and damage point. The damage point is the percentage of remaining armour at which damage may be passed through to equipment items. So, if the damage point of your armour is 80%, then damage to equipment may start to occur when 20% of your armour is destroyed. Armour is applied the same way as shields, forward and aft.

Another big change in this version is the application of base ship configuration items to all ships (well, at least all the manned, non-station, non-thargoid ones). I found that once you have a few OXP's installed that spawn ships with a non-core primary role, the config wasn't being applied because I was only applying to the roles I was aware of. Now all ships will get the standard config, and for those ships with a core role there are additional config settings which will be applied. So a hunter ship will be configured differently to a pirate ship. Feedback on my choices would be great!

Balance is again the operative word here. I've done a lot of testing and I think I've got it close, but suggestions are very welcome. Particularly if you're using an OXP ship I'm not familiar with, the default calculations for space and weight might need to be tweaked.

Once again, please be aware that this is a fairly big change to the way the game works. I've created a Wiki page for this OXP, so you can easily read up on all the details -  Ship Configuration. Don't use it on your primary save game unless you're really sure you want to, and even then make sure you have a backup! The first time you open your save game with this OXP installed, the base equipment will be assigned to your ship and, combined with any other equipment you have installed, this may result in equipment taking up cargo space. If your cargo hold is full, then cargo will be sold until all equipment can be fitted. And if you have a lot of equipment items installed you may need to remove some in order to fit inside the space restrictions on your ship.

Configuration changes are still free for the moment. If this release proves to be reasonably stable then the next release will probably have the costs charged.

As always, comments, feedback, suggestions and bug reports all welcome.

Edit: Oh, and here's some links (they're in the first post too, but this will save you a couple of clicks:
ShipConfiguration.oxz. For this file, just put it in your AddOns folder.
ShipConfiguration.zip. For this file, you'll need to extract the "ShipConfiguration.oxp" folder from the ZIP file, plonk it in your AddOns folder, and restart Oolite holding the Shift key down. If you use this on an existing save game, make sure you take a backup!

[Cody]

Hmm, guess I'll have to try this... time to fork a commander, methinks. For 1.83 only, or can it be dropped into a 1.82 install?

[phkb]

Should work in 1.82. I do a majority of my development in 1.82.

[Rustem]

May be Trading Assistant AI, Auto Crosshair add to 0 equip space? They is software equip.

Also may be Turret Toggler reduce to small space.

[phkb]

I must have missed those items in my "great equipment search". I'll add them in shortly. Thanks for letting me know!

[Amah]

nice one, phkb! I'll give this a test, tomorrow.

Adds a crpg element to the ooniverse I really enjoyed when playing baldurs gate or icewind dale.

[Amah]

Looks and feels good so far. I was tinkering with my Yasen-N vessel balancing speed and agility with shields and protection and cargo space. For me it "feels" alright. Had a quick fight with some pirates, who backed off after a while, when they realized I wasn't an easy prey and bit back.


The only thing I had problems at first was the heat sink concept (which reminds me of "healing" potions) I kept buying them thinking it doesn't work before realizing I'm piling them up. (Hint for anybody in the same boat: you can sell these easily via ship-configuration).

One thing about the armour... Having no armour is like playing vanilla, meaning shields down, damage full on the equipment? Does it interfere with ironhide? Or is it better to remove it and others like it?

[phkb]

It should work along side IronHide in that it won't let you install both types of armour. If you have IronHide installed, you can't install ship config armour. If you install IronHide while also packing ship config armour, the latter will be removed (or at least I'm pretty sure it does! Might have to test that again to make sure).

But yes, having no armour is like playing vanilla.

As for the heat sinks, I've found it beneficial to set them up to automatically fire when the temp gets too high. That way I don't have to think about them too much. Once you've bought one heat sink you should get an F4 interface screen that allows you to configure how you want them to work.

[phkb]

New version 0.1.1 now available. In this version:

• Added some additional equipment items to the "No equipment space" list.
• Added equipment items from Separated Lasers, Multiple Lasers, Sniper Gun, Trail Detector, Tionisla Reporter, Headlights, FarPlanets.
• Configured the heat sink and the breakable torus drive entity to not get ship configuration.
• Adding in missing JS file for the breakable torus drive.
• Fixed issue with the cleanup routine for heatsinks causing a Javascript error.
• Added missing ";" in shipdata.plist.
• Code improvements.

[phkb]

Argh. Just when I thought I had nailed all the bugs...

There's a small bug that will make your ship's cabin temp really, well, cool, if you've got a heat shield installed and it gets damaged. It should rectify itself when the heat shield is repaired. I'll get another release out in a couple of days.

[Norby]

Added equipment items from Separated Lasers

Thank you for the support!
A note: separated lasers mean that the ship hold 2, 3, 4 or 5 lasers (from Oolite 1.83) so I think the applied mass should be exact multiplication of the single mass. This is true for Gatling lasers also where the damage is linear with the number in the key so the mass could be linear also.

[phkb]

Thanks for the clarification Norby. I'll make some adjustments to the next version.

[Ngalo]

phkb, there's a small problem with the thrust adjustment code: it looks like you're setting maxThrust but thrust does not automatically reduce to match; you need to set it explicitly to have any effect. If you want to confirm this try player.ship.maxThrust = 0; in debug console-- it does nothing unless you also set player.ship.thrust=0.