Installing old OXPs

[Potential Debris]

Hey, I've recently come back to Oolite after a few years off.

I've had a new PC in the meantime, so I've had to reinstall the latest version from scratch, then spend an hour or two downloading all my preferred OXPs. Hooray for the OXP manager, it makes that bit sooo much easier.
Anyway, everything is pretty much as I remember it, and I'm really enjoying building up my ship and my rating. Looking forward to getting into some missions and proper scraps, and eventually upgrading to a better ship.

However there are a few things that seem to be missing from the "old days", things that I miss. It seems that certain OXPs I remember simply aren't available in the OXP manager. I guess either they are no longer compatible, or their authors moved on before the OXP manager was introduced so they never got packaged up and included.

Presumably it is still possible to manually install an OXP the old-fashioned way, if I can still find a download for it somewhere. Just drop it in the addons folder then hold shift while loading the game, right?

My question is this: How do I know if an old OXP is compatible with the latest version of the game? I don't want to break stuff.

I'm guessing most old ship OXPs would still work - the SuperCobra or the Terrapin or the Eagles for instance. I don't think a basic ship model, texture and AI file would be hugely different between Oolite 1.7x and 1.8x

But what about things like the awesome Galactic Navy OXP, where you flew with a squadron of Navy ships to battle Thargoids and Pirates? Would that still work? I *really* miss that one.

Are there any good, compatible addons that I'm missing because they aren't in the OXP manager? Do you guys play with a mixture of OXP-managed and older, manually-installed oxps?

[Cody]

Presumably it is still possible to manually install an OXP the old-fashioned way, if I can still find a download for it somewhere. Just drop it in the addons folder then hold shift while loading the game, right?

Right (but the shift-start shouldn't be needed)! And welcome back!

[montana05]

But what about things like the awesome Galactic Navy OXP, where you flew with a squadron of Navy ships to battle Thargoids and Pirates? Would that still work? I *really* miss that one.

Welcome back, Galactic Navy is still there and while there are some minor bugs the OXP is still working. I would recommend to install the Additions as well, better textures and some bug fixes.

[Potential Debris]

Excellent news on the Navy OXP, I have downloaded it (with additions) and will hopefully get a chance to try it out later. Not that my Cobby is sufficiently equipped yet, but I can try...

How about ships? Can I safely install all those old ships? I used to love flying about in the terrapin.

[montana05]

How about ships? Can I safely install all those old ships? I used to love flying about in the terrapin.

Most ship OXP's I checked are still working, you might face some graphic display problems (strange look) and once in a while a wrong assigned laser but except 4 or 5 which are broken everything else is still usable.

[Disembodied]

One risk with installing older OXPs is that those which predate the Great AI Upgrade may provide you with really dangerous enemies. Back when NPCs were dependably dumb, many OXP creators beefed up their baddies to give the player a bit of a challenge. Now, though, those same steroidal villains combine military lasers and bags of energy with at least a modicum of tactical nous …

[Potential Debris]

Thanks for the heads up. If any of them give me too much trouble, I'll try to tweak the config files to tone them down a bit .