MasterClass: How to OXP (updating SoThisTC)

[Cholmondely]

Spara (the maestro of the markets) has very kindly offered to teach me a tad about programming OXPs through this thread.

It will focus on updating the SoThisTC orbital station.

Click for image ---> http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/File:S ... tation.png

Sothis was originally written by Killer Wolf whose last post was in 2012. Spara joined in 2012 and launched Market Aide (forerunner of Market Observer). He then wrote Troomp.oxp which combined Market Aide with Sothis and also some new ideas. With the immense upswelling of transgalactic enthusiasm and exhilaration for Troompism, it was decided to lower the temperature and split Troomp.oxp back into SothisTC.oxp & the new Market Observer.

There are 3 downloadable versions of Sothis (and one of SothisTC):
*https://www.dropbox.com/s/uhqwo97a5bcgr ... p.zip?dl=0 Diziet Sma's 2017 rejig incorporating the newer post 2014 markets script
*https://www.box.com/s/q98qf9z2kxh0gadr2k3m Spara's 2013 rejig (after splitting it off from Troomp.oxp)
*https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... -5tPZqGsS0 Killer Wolf's original (2010): mix of Javascript & OpenStep legacy script

Spara's original rejig located SoThis purely at Corporate Systems with a tweaked market and made it a base for the NewCargoes.oxp where one could access TradeNet for free and where there are more special cargo opportunities than in the main station.

Dizzy's rejig made SoThis usable again with the new markets BUT lost the special trade advantages which Spara had built in, and the restrictions of location. This class will focus on tweaking Spara's 2013 TC variant (links below in his post).
____________________________________________________________________________________________

The goals of this OXP masterclass:

*To restore the trade advantages which Spara built in to the 2013 SoThis so that they operate in the 2021 game
(tweaked market, free access to TradeNet, more market opportunities)
*Move the station further from the main orbital.
*To restore the exclusivity of location at high-tech Corporate states - and possibly include a mere handful of other stable regimes)
*To have it in the Ship's Library/Ship Comparisons at game launch with the other ships & stations

*To give non-programming types (such as your humble servant) an understanding of the Dark Side the world of the OXP
____________________________________________________________________________________________

References:
Sothis wiki page: http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/SothisTC

SoThis threads
*https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=13660 Oolite BB (2013)
*https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=13336 related Market Observer discussion - see middle of first page
*https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=12921 Troomp.oxp (2012-3) - forerunner of SothisTC & of MarketObserver
*https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=8352 [RELEASE] ~ Isis Interstellar's Sothis Stations - original launch (2010-11).

Killer Wolf's very last posts: https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11576

Spara's wiki page: http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/User:Spara
Spara teaches computing/maths at a rather good Finnish school. He wrote this back in 2012:

By profession, I see a huge potential in using Oolite as an educational programming tool. Stepping into a world of programming can't be much easier. And you almost instantly see the effects in game. Amazing. Currently my mind is racing to find a way to use Oolite in my day job. I think it's safe to say that it's much more appealing to start modding a REAL 3D space game that trying to print "Hello World!" in a command prompt.

So I see Oolite as an excellent game and as a potent programming toy. And if I have understood it correctly there are a lot of people in this forum that use it as a programming toy rather than a game. You refer it as a "dark side", I believe.

From the educational perspective there is also great potential for 3d-modelling and graphical use (wings and gimp preferably). But I'm no good with those so can't really say anything more about that. I'll have to bite into those some time.

I would be amazed to see anything like this in the new Elite.

If there is another teacher aboard who has been thinking about using or maybe has used Oolite in education, please drop a line. Or pm, if you like. I would like to share some thoughts.

Post edited to make clear distinction between 3 versions of Sothis & one 2013 "overriding version" of SothisTC

[LittleBear]

Hi,

Sothis is one of the OXPs I'm naming in Random Station names. In terms of keeping things Cannon I’ve handwaved the fact that the Gal Cop translator clearly cannot translate insectoid communications correctly. This is why Thagoid transmissions appear as meaningless English words such as “Eat Parking Meters” on your coms display. Insect languages use wing positions, movement and pheromones as well as sounds which cannot be translated into text. Your onboard translator therefore translates the names of friendly insect members of the Gal Cop Union of Worlds into the nearest Ancient Earthian Latin meaning. Latin is chosen as this is a common known language of all human colonials regardless of local dialect for reasons lost in pre-history.

What the code actually does is combine two Latin words from separate look up table. Each one is an English word translated into Latin (by Google Translate). It is very much dog Latin, but the names have a genuine Latin meaning (kind of) relation to Insects, Hives and other Insect related activities. For Example: Argenti Insecta (Silver Insect), Sophos Alvearium (Wise Hive), Pacificae Domum (Peaceful Home). This generates more than enough unique names to name each Sothis Station generated.

I have enough for 3,200 names and it doesn't matter that there are different versions of Sothis that add different amounts of stations as Random Station names runs a loop to name each station it finds with a different name. But to set it up, I'd need to know the maximum number of Sothis stations that can appear in a single system so I know when to stop my loop.

One thing I have noticied whist doing Random Station Names is that some of the older OXPs (including sothis) only add theire stations on Launching or making a jump. This isn't a major issue, but if you are updating it, then it probabley would be better to do the adding of the station under this.systemwillpopulate. It just means when you load a game, Sothis doesn't appear on the Almanc Screen as it doesn't exist yet. When you launch and redock then it does. As it is added on a jump this means if you jump to system where a Sothis is then it exists. But if you save your game and reload then it doesn't exist as it's only added when you jump back their.

[Cody]

Killer Wolf's very last posts:

Rather sad, reading that again - an example of thread derailment gone a step too far.

[andrax_iON]

Spara (the maestro of the markets) has very kindly offered to teach me a tad about programming OXPs through this thread.

Thanks to both of you for doing this - looking fwd to the discussion 8~)

cheers!

[spara]

Thank you Cholmondely for suggesting this. This will be fun ... and slow, since time is a limited resource

Let's get started with the environment. I dev in Linux, but that should not matter.

You want to work in a stable vanilla Oolite environment to minimize the weird stuff from happening. That way, the weird stuff is basically always caused by your tweaks. Unless you happen to stumble on a core bug of course, which very rarely happens with Oolite.

The minimal setup for this is
* Oolite dev version (1.90 currently) + the debug console from the home page.
* Sothis 1.0.
* SothisTC 1.0.3 (SothisTC_1.0.3_2013-05-16.zip).
* New Cargoes 1.2.3 (from the manager)

Launch the debug console (Python required etc.) and the game (in that order), start a new commader, give yourself some essential equipment by using the debug console and fly to Zaonce. That's a TL12 system and has a Sothis on orbit.

Award yourself equipment by entering these into the debug console

Code: Select all

PS.awardEquipment("EQ_FUEL_INJECTION")
PS.awardEquipment("EQ_ADVANCED_COMPASS")

After the jump award yourself more fuel and fly to the main station for saving.

Code: Select all

PS.fuel = 7

TAF in the dev version saves time, so shift-f to show TAF information, P to pause and right arrow to speed the game up.

Get close to the station, slow the game down and dock. Save with some descriptive name like "sothistc" and you're set to start tweaking.

That's a start. We'll probably have to make a short break down of the inner works of SothisTC to see what it does and what needs to be brought up to date. And of course to gain some understanding.

To be continued...

Edit. Changed Oolite dev _version_ to Oolite dev _release_ to avoid the mix up with the dev version and dev release.

[Cody]

Oolite dev version (1.90 currently)

Do you mean trunk (v1.91)? You'll need that for TAF.

[spara]

Oolite dev version (1.90 currently)

Do you mean trunk (v1.91)? You'll need that for TAF.

Trunk is the current nightly, right? Trunk is not needed for TAF. Just download the developer release for 1.90 from the download page.

In this case I find it better to use the current release version so you don't accidentally use features that are not in the current release version.

[Cody]

Ah, you're using the converter. Fine, carry on, Teacher! I'll return to what I was doing - being a dumb pilot! <chortles>

[Cholmondely]

The minimal setup for this is
* Oolite dev version (1.90 currently) + the debug console from the home page.
* Sothis 1.0.
* SothisTC 1.0.3 (SothisTC_1.0.3_2013-05-16.zip).
* New Cargoes 1.2.3 (from the manager)

Launch the debug console (Python required etc.) and the game (in that order), start a new commander, give yourself some essential equipment by using the debug console and fly to Zaonce. That's a TL12 system and has a Sothis on orbit.

Award yourself equipment by entering these into the debug console

Code: Select all

PS.awardEquipment("EQ_FUEL_INJECTION")
PS.awardEquipment("EQ_ADVANCED_COMPASS")

After the jump award yourself more fuel and fly to the main station for saving.

Code: Select all

PS.fuel = 7

TAF in the dev version saves time, so shift-f to show TAF information, P to pause and right arrow to speed the game up.

Get close to the station, slow the game down and dock. Save with some descriptive name like "sothistc" and you're set to start tweaking.

That's a start. We'll probably have to make a short break down of the inner works of SothisTC to see what it does and what needs to be brought up to date. And of course to gain some understanding.

To be continued...

Edit. Changed Oolite dev _version_ to Oolite dev _release_ to avoid the mix up with the dev version and dev release.

First challenge! I'm using a Mighty, Marvellous & Magnificent Apple Macintosh computer.
On the one hand, I'm a tad unsure what to do with Debug Console which seems to be incompatible with the MMMAM. On the other hand, according to the blurb, Debug.oxp has extra abilities on the MMMAM.

Done. The debug.oxp worked fine despite having no Debug Console/Python loaded - Debug.oxp seems to have commandeered the AppleMac's own console program instead.

I renamed the SoThis.oxps as SoThis (2010) & (2013) and put them together into the AddOns folder with the Debug.oxp. Visited the SoThisTC en route which had no market (only the View Ship Specifications entry showed up on the F4 screen) and thus no access to TradeNet but it did have a shipyard. That buoy is really rather elegant. Happily docked, awaiting instruction!

[andrax_iON]

Hi folks - still hoping to get a working install here so I can follow along, but despite many attempts I've been unable to access the download for Spara's 2013 version (SothisTC_1.0.3_2013-05-16.zip) from box.com; I get stuck in an endless 'preview didn't load/download in progress' loop, tho' no download results. Behaviour's the same with Chromium or Epiphany on Mint 20.1, also with Firefox on Win7.

Sorry to be a pain, any help or alternate links greatly appreciated.. 8~/

cheers

[montana05]

Hi folks - still hoping to get a working install here so I can follow along, but despite many attempts I've been unable to access the download for Spara's 2013 version (SothisTC_1.0.3_2013-05-16.zip) from box.com; I get stuck in an endless 'preview didn't load/download in progress' loop, tho' no download results. Behaviour's the same with Chromium or Epiphany on Mint 20.1, also with Firefox on Win7.

Sorry to be a pain, any help or alternate links greatly appreciated.. 8~/

cheers

https://www.dropbox.com/s/uhqwo97a5bcgr ... p.zip?dl=0 Diziet Sma's 2017 rejig from dropbox is working fine, I just downloaded from there using Win10 and Firefox like you.

[spara]

Don't know what has happened to box and old links, but here's a new link to the same old file (SothisTC_1.0.3_2013-05-16.zip): https://app.box.com/s/q98qf9z2kxh0gadr2k3m. Does this work?

Edit. By the way, since there are people here who are interested in old OXPs, I found this "old_oxp_archive"-folder from my box: https://app.box.com/s/8r1jmsoi5tm7cqfncy2wbs82bzkf8fx8. Might be of interest. or not.

[Cody]

Copperhead grabbed! Thanks, spara! I presume that's an updated/replacement version of Solo's original?

[spara]

Copperhead grabbed! Thanks, spara! I presume that's an updated/replacement version of Solo's original?

To be honest, I have no idea. I was a bit surprised to find the folder from my box account . I have no memory of creating the folder. Probably a backup of some sort.

[Cody]

Hmm... perhaps I'd better trawl through my box Oolite archive, see what's in there.