What "can" be changed without re-compiling?

[Cmdr James]

The thing is, you asked a very open ended question, and although it might not sound like it, you did get a sensible answer.

Instead of asking what is possible, you will probably get further with telling us what you would like to do and we can help you understand if thats possible.

[Chrisfs]

Comannder McLane:
May i ask how i deserve this treatment?
Because i do not like where this seems to be going with us both.
Not everybody is a programmer by heart and just by a slight hint
starts reading 2500 pages of in-comprehensive data or so.

And this is not the place, so i stop.
Just wanted to let you know, that i see it and am not happy about
how you let me stand around here.

You asked a very comprehensive question. If you want an answer that's more detailed than "quite a bit really, look at the variety of OXPs to give some idea of the things that can be done", you are really better off reading some of the docs. There's nothing harsh intended with that. You just asked a question that was very broad.
I'm not a programmer, but with about 10 minutes of fooling around I have been able to:
switch key codes (space bar is my laser fire key now, much easier to find and hit)

Changing the letter that some items use in the compass

Reduce the strength of Black Monk ships, (so you have a chance of defeating them)

Copying a saved mission and increasing the cash I have, so I can try out high end ships without spending weeks to get the cash together. (I have a 'fair' mission that I play most of the time, but occasionally I play with my other ships).

All these were accomplished through using a text editor and no prior knowledge of plists or javascript before starting to play oolite.
I'm pretty sure that if I spent some time, I could do more stuff. I intended to fix the time keeping mechanism of Black Monks so it matches that of the cargo/person method (since I got burned on that), but haven't taken the time.

[DaddyHoggy]

Comannder McLane:
May i ask how i deserve this treatment?
Because i do not like where this seems to be going with us both.
Not everybody is a programmer by heart and just by a slight hint
starts reading 2500 pages of in-comprehensive data or so.

And this is not the place, so i stop.
Just wanted to let you know, that i see it and am not happy about
how you let me stand around here.

What a peculiar response to a perfectly reasonable explanation by Commander McLane - as you've only been on the forum for three days perhaps we just need to get used to your particular mannerisms and you to ours. This is the friendliest forum this side of Riedquat(tm), you won't find a more congenial and helpful bunch of people anywhere...

[Yrol_Denjeah]

°waits til all the other 2054 members had their go
and goes making new tea°

[Kaks]

°waits til all the other 2054 members had their go
and goes making new tea°

Ooh, I seem to have forgotten to add my 2p!

Here it is: your best option is to download an existing OXP that more or less does at least part of whatever you want to do, then have a look at the wiki, hoping to see the relevant section. If you don't fancy reading the wiki at all, do ask in the forum something like: I'd like to make a ship/system/station/Oolite component do this & that, how do I do it?


If you really want to do some proper modding, it's definitely worth having a good look at the wiki. The documentation there is not perfect, but at least it should give you a general impression of all that could be done. I personally find that a quick read through will help figure things out a few days later, when suddenly everything will kind of start falling into place...

Hopefully that tea is ready by now!

And now for something slightly different: you might have noticed some similarity in all the answers. It's basically because the question was... well... 'big' for lack of a better word...
Still, have you got a 'smaller' question to ask? All of us could conceivably write a list of what is possible, but it would take ages to do, since at least 90% of everything you see amd do in game can be changed one way or another. (Sneak preview: at least 95% - well, it seems like 98% to me, but let's err on the side of caution - will be moddable in 1.74 when we release it! )

Whose turn is it next?

PS & plug: my farsun oxp is one of the smallest ones around, load it, look inside it, and see how it does its stuff to get a feel of what needs to be done when changing the way the game works. Or maybe look inside a replacement sounds oxp, for a different - and actually simpler - style of modding.

[Commander McLane]

@ Yrol_Denjeah: Sorry, didn't mean to hurt you. Please take my offer seriously, because I meant it so. If you let us know (if only very generally) what you want to do, I (or someone else of this actually very helpful bunch) will be able to tell you how to do it.

However, if you want to do things yourself (and this is what I understood from you; or am I wrong?), you will have to learn the tools yourself. That seems quite obvious to me. And for this the Wiki is the best we have (plus the occasional question to this helpful bunch).

[Yrol_Denjeah]

Commander McLane:
°breaths heavily° Apology... °breaths heavily° Acceppted, Captain Needa.°breaths heavily°

No, you are not wrong. I like to do thing myself, mostly because
its things that are not there ( yet ) or in a way that is not to my liking.
( which is pretty much how we all got into modding after all, aye? )
°smiles° Im fine.

I'll be more detailed the next time i ask something then.

[Cholmondely]

It might be easier to list what can't be changed ... here's my attempt at such a list ...

1) You can't assign new functions to new keyboard presses.

2) You can't change the fundamental physics of Oolite spaceflight.

3) You can't (directly) give a ship a range of more than 7 light-years in one jump.

4) you can't give a player_ship more than one forward-firing laser. (introduced from Dizzy's post)

I understand that there are also hardware issues such as those with Maik's external dashboards, multi-player games etc.

Is this it? Or are there other things too?

[Cody]

5) You can't get off with your shoes on.



From Joni Mitchell to Barefoot Jerry - how good is that?

[phkb]

6) You can't directly reference and/or assign a script to a character.
7) You can't detect when the player changes the selected menu item on a mission screen. (You only know they selected it if they press "enter" while it's selected)
8 ) The only keypress that can be "read" from a mission screen is "enter" ie. from a standard mission screen with a simple menu, you can't for instance, determine if the player presses "shift-X', or "alt-P", or even simpler ones like "q", "w", "e" etc. You can read a line of entered data on a mission screen with a specific setting (the "textEntry" property of the runScreen parameters object), but you can't interact with individual key presses.

[montana05]

4) you can't give a player_ship more than one forward-firing laser. (introduced from Dizzy's post)

In the meanwhile possible and in use

[Cholmondely]

What about adding more solar-systems than the 256 in each of the Eight?

Or adding to the Eight?

Or mucking about with the Galaxy Seeds?

[phkb]

See this experimental OXP from cim: SOTL
It pretty much redefines the entire galaxy.

[theolodger]

It might be easier to list what can't be changed ... here's my attempt at such a list ...

1) You can't assign new functions to new keyboard presses.

2) You can't change the fundamental physics of Oolite spaceflight.

3) You can't (directly) give a ship a range of more than 7 light-years in one jump.

4) you can't give a player_ship more than one forward-firing laser. (introduced from Dizzy's post)

I understand that there are also hardware issues such as those with Maik's external dashboards, multi-player games etc.

Is this it? Or are there other things too?

Do people just not get mad about necroposting here

[Cholmondely]

It might be easier to list what can't be changed ... here's my attempt at such a list ...

1) You can't assign new functions to new keyboard presses.

2) You can't change the fundamental physics of Oolite spaceflight.

3) You can't (directly) give a ship a range of more than 7 light-years in one jump.

4) you can't give a player_ship more than one forward-firing laser. (introduced from Dizzy's post)

I understand that there are also hardware issues such as those with Maik's external dashboards, multi-player games etc.

Is this it? Or are there other things too?

Do people just not get mad about necroposting here

Welcome to the boards! Enjoy! I hope you get as much fun out of all of this as I have managed!

As regards necroposting, all the people who fumed about it seem to have died off!

Honestly, in my reading of old posts, I could never work out why that handful of people got so upset about it. If somebody made a good point 15 years ago, and it is still a good point today, why is it verboten to repeat it? Or to add to the relevant thread?

Is it some sort of post-modernist fetish that has passed me by?