[Release] Trails v1.11

[Cody]

I'll find a large bunch of bandits later for a better comparison.

Still taking a big performance hit when in the thick of it!

[Norby]

Thanks for the snapshots!

I uploaded a separated Trail Detector OXP for those who want to see trails at long range like in the old versions.
[wiki]Trails[/wiki] is an ambience pack without any help in detecting ships at long range, moreover small ships leave less visible trails. If you decide to buy a Trail Detector equipment for merely 100 Cr then these limits are gone, at least until it is undamaged.

[ffutures]

I'll find a large bunch of bandits later for a better comparison.

Still taking a big performance hit when in the thick of it!

Same here - afraid it's going to have to go for now.

[phkb]

I, however, have found 1.8 to be far more usable that the previous versions. I've just had an epic battle with 3 different sets of pirates, with about 15-20 ships involved at one time, and there was very little stutter.

I did, though, spot this:



Visually it looks like the ship is spewing a small stream blue dots every so often, which then disappear suddenly. I've only noticed it on Gnats - not on any other ship.

[another_commander]

@phkb: Out of curiosity, could you post your system specs please?

[phkb]

Lenovo T440 laptop, Core I7 vPro processor, 8GB ram, Intel HD graphics, Win 8.1

[Norby]

1.8 to be far more usable that the previous versions. I've just had an epic battle with 3 different sets of pirates, with about 15-20 ships

Because ships counts only in front of you.

noticed it on Gnats

Thank you for spotting, fixed now. This was a rare problem with ships where engines are placed before the center point of the ship using positive z value.

Moreover I added an auto turn off in combat if FPS is not stable good with trails, due to should be an ambience pack and not a drawback in hot situations.

v1.9 :
-No trails in Red Alert below 50 FPS if weapons are online for smooth combat.
-Fixed trail on Gnat, thanks to phkb.

[ffutures]

OK, that seems to be working much better now, not noticing any stuttering. Many thanks!

[Norby]

In v1.11 no trails after mini ships below 10t mass like TIE Fighters.

[Keeper]

It would be awfully nice if this could read the "exhaust_emissive_color" value of a ship (accessible through javascript as "exhaustEmissivecolor") and match the trail color to that...

[Norby]

It would be awfully nice if this could read the "exhaust_emissive_color" value of a ship and match the trail color to that...

Sure, but it is not so easy due to the colors of flashers are not writable. A workaround could create limited variations only, moreover must use the current fix low brightness only to create fog and not christmas tree garland. Very few OXP ships define custom exhaust colors (my search result Gnat, Griffin, Griff's Cobra Mk1 alt and Hognose only) so this would be a small feature.

[Keeper]

All of the Griff replacement ships do; for example there are nine variations of each Sidewinder model purely for having different exhaust colors. Anacondas have three exhaust-color variations of the trader and pirate NPCs (none of which is shared; the traders and pirates have unique color sets) as well as a seventh variation for the player only (which doesn't matter in this case of course).

But yeah... how to implement it for trails. Checking the values then estimating the nearest base value to read from in the script? So anything vaguely red gets the red trail, anything vaguely green gets the green trail, etc.? Blue, red, green, yellow, purple... probably enough. Maybe grey just in case somebody makes exhaust white/grey.

[Keeper]

FWIW (more for my own interest in case I want to add variations to the Staer9 set), here I have mapped out the colors used by the Griff Sidewinder, Anaconda and Cobra Mk I (starting to get some duplicates so I've stopped for now). http://www.keeper1st.com/Oolite/exhausts.html

The first column is the base color. Before any shaders are applied this is the exhaust color. The next two columns are colors blended in by shaders (second column is blended into the hull heat glow; the third is a modifier applied as engine power is increased).

[Norby]

Thank you! Based on these values I think 0.25 and 0.75 are good borders for rounding to 0, 0.5 and 1, then I can tone down these to 0, 0.05 and 0.1 for fog effect. This way allow 3*3*3=27 colors, including 2 greys and black - just in case somebody makes an engine which output dark matter.

[private_lock]

The other day I was idling around the navigation buoy waiting for my landing allowance. A viper on patrol was looping the Coriolis station ... well so far so nice, and I would not have paid more attention to it, as I was perfectly clean carrying strictly legal goods. Only the advertising was to far away to keep me occupied. So my eye fell back on that viper, as it did a trick I would not have expected: a perfect right angel! Not stopping, no inertia, it just turned on the spot and went off in another direction. What I perceived as a "loop" before, was in fact a square! Without the trails, I wouldn't have noticed.

private_lock