49ers OXP - The Oolite Gold Rush (was: Ore processor)

[Dr. Nil]

A quick test with version 1.02. Results: The edible gemstones bug persists, sad to say.
Unless someone smarter than us - aka Giles or Winston - can offer some insight, the only workaround to getting rock candy instead of gems I can think of is removing the gemstone splinters.

So it shall be done.

Ore Processor 1.03

[GoreLeech]

is this the one on Oosat 2?

[Dr. Nil]

is this the one on Oosat 2?

Yes. If you have downloaded it after 7.50 pm GMT yesterday. (I replace the file at the same url when updating).

[Griff]

Doc, not sure if you're still working on the ore processor, and i'm not sure if this is a direction you want to take your oxp in, but i thought i'd post these here in case they're useful.

mining outpost station:-


some mining machinery



i've only got the 'outpost station' in the game at the moment, when i've convert the rest of them to .dat i'll upload them all to a file sharing site if anybody wants them.

[Captain Hesperus]

Nurse, bring the defibrilator! I think my heart's stopped!!

I am soooo jealous that there are such talented model makers in the BB.

Nice work.

Captain Hesperus
"Great, something else for me to scrape paint onto while docking."

[DaddyHoggy]

Griff - you must warn us before posting up piccies of such amazing things!

Between you and Sung Oolite's appearance has changed so much its just breath-taking!

Now, we have brilliant oxp writers, brilliant wiki entry writers, fantastic 3D-modellers, and fantastic artists/texturers, where will it end! I feel very lucky to be amongst such talents

[Charlie]

Holy Crap!!!

More - more.

[Sung]

Thats it!! So must Oolite Look like, and the game blow all away that we know

Go on Griff!

[CaptKev]

Wow! Absolutely fantastic and with only 320 vertices as well!

[Dr. Nil]

Doc, not sure if you're still working on the ore processor, and i'm not sure if this is a direction you want to take your oxp in, but i thought i'd post these here in case they're useful.

Double the eight s and a heart attack awarded so far.

It's really hard to comment on something this cool looking.

I am most honored that you'd trust me to use them. It will take some time to come up with something that does those models justice to the ankles

I think that I've mentioned that I did have a vague idea of making a mining related OXP named 49ers.oxp (the Oolite gold rush) your models would be so cool to have in such an expansion.

Vague ideas: "United Mining Companies" mining corporation owned by a single individual a person somewhat like a mix between Holt Fasner of Stephen R. Donaldson's Gap Cycle and George Hearst as depicted in the TV series Deadwood. I was thinking of having the company's presence grow and cause conflicts with independent miners, smaller companies, local governments and such.

If you was thinking of something completely different then please say so.

@everybody: Further input or dissent is welcome.

[Griff]

Hi Guys
Thank you but honestly photoshop & lightwave do all the tricky stuff, and i've pinched the ideas from thoughts other people have posted up on here, plus i'm very lucky in that i've been dabbling with graphics for years!
@Doc, those ideas sound great! I was just creating various industrial type ships inspired by your mining ideas and ways of bigging up that element of the game, i was also trying to create a busy outpost type oxp with various ships arriving/departing unloading cargo etc but to be honest the amount of scripting was way above what's safe for my sanity, so i thought i'd try and pimp the models out to you guys! it's a shame we can't get the 'shipyard' collaberative area working, there must be loads of great stuff laying dormant on hard drives

@CaptKev you can get around the poly & vertex limitations by splitting up your models into subentities, here's a wireframe of the outpost:-


The lower section is the actual station as far as oolite is concerned, and the upper part, docking bay, and pipes etc are subentities of this lower sectionand and are combined together in the game to make the complete ship:-

Here's the code from the ships shipdata.plist file that combines all the subentities into one cpmplete station:-

Code: Select all

<key>subentities</key>
		<array>
			<string>griff_outpost_subents 0 0 0 1 0 0 0</string>
			<string>griff_outpost_upper   0 0 0 1 0 0 0</string>
			<string>griff_station_bay     0 0 455.881 1 0 0 0</string>	
		</array>

if you build all the pieces 'in place' in your 3d program, there's no complex quaternions stuff needed in the shipdata.plist!, just leave the x y z co ordinates as 0 0 0 and use the quaternon 1 0 0 0 so that oolite knows to point subentities the correct way (all ships and stations should rest along the Z axis, with the front at Z+ and back at Z-)

[LittleBear]

Wow great models as always Griff!

@ Doc, really like the idea of these featuring in a gold-rush OXP! Could you maybe do it as some sort of mission? Picking up on your vaugh ideas: perhaps there are rival clans trying to stake claims to systems. Player hired by one to take some Claims to the GalCop Registery Office as mission1. Of course if he succeds other clans won't be happy, leading on to further missions perhaps?

@ Griff. As Heretic has retired, I don't suppose you fancy having a go at modeling a Massive Battle Cursier (much bigger than a Behoemoth) for Assassins. The idea is the player will have to travel to one system and collect a Mega Missile from a hidden rebel base, then go to the system where the Civil War is taking place to take it out. I have all the code done so that a hugh battle (featuring both your ships and Ramon's) is taking place in the System, but lack the skill to make a Massive Battle Crusier that woudn't look crap next to your Friggates and Ramon's Scorpions and Mongose Fighters.

[Dr. Nil]

@Griff: I'm still completely stunned by those models and their textures. I think that it might be easier to generate most of the normal operation of the bases and ships that interact with them through AIs.

@LB: Nice mission idea. Perhaps there could be a number of different mission types related to what ideas come up for this expansion? It shouldn't be that hard to integrate a number of dependent and independent mission types into a single script -like the built-in mission script does. If the script ends up being made up from parts made by different players, it's probably a good idea to start out with a common prefix for variables and perhaps stick to some sort of naming scheme.

Thinking aloud: Damn those witchspace rings would be nice. Having a company slowly build a trans-some-galaxy 'rail-road' with caravans of new settlers further out in that galaxy and trailblazers even further. UMC operation spreading (e.g. spreads to one system more of the types it can be in with every 10 or so jump the player makes) .

Btw: Did johnsmith's idea of abandoned Rock Hermits make it into a finished expansion? I've got ideas for at least 4 variants:

Most common ones that are just empty. Some that yield a varying amount of gold (market with gold at 0.0 per kilo. Some that infest the ship with trumbles . And one which initiates a treasure hunt mission.

I've really only used script for placing some ships and the simple in-system escort missions. It's very laborious with the way the variables and everything operate. Again this will probably take quite some time.

My own first priority will probably be to try to get these models to interact with each other in the way Griff has envisioned (AIs) and think up some ideas for the non-player-centric part of the scripting - the way this oxp develops regardless of player action. If LB and or others have ideas for their interaction with the player (missions or the player-centric part of the scripting) I hope you'll just throw yourself at it.

I'll rename this thread to 49ers then we can use it to throw in ideas and debate how we all think the finished product should be.

Sorry about a messy post, nut I'd rather ramble than forget an idea

[LittleBear]

Well, I can script and AI but my modeling is poor!

Assassins has a massive script (nearly 40 Mission Briefing Screens) and was really an excause to pull together lots of cool models by Griff, Ramon, Wyven, Murgh, et all in a massive 20 mission OXP and remodel a Galaxy with lots of new non-player centric powers interacting with each other and the player. I'd like to see you do somthing similar with 49ers! Galaxy 8 is still blank Perhaps some big project here!

Its actually faily easy to do. The hard part was comming up with the ideas and the plot! The Assassins readme is massive, as I included a walk-though to the code in the hope somebody else would try somthing similar!

This is what I really like about the Oolite Community. I posted the idea for Assassins under Random Assassination Contracts and was indudated with ideas and desginers building ships to order. I had the idea for a long "story" unfolding over time, but could not have produced the 30 odd ships necessary to develope it. The Community came to the rescue of the project by building the ships and stations. That enabled me to get on with the Script, AIs and mission text to produce a Big OXP, with the Guild tying the story together and News Broadcasts advancing the plot.

EDIT: If 49s became a G8 Mission Pack, then Suggest Griffs Miner Station repaces the normal Oolite Main Station in G8. Easy to do with script/planetinfo. That would give G8 a distinct theam and a reason to go there.

[Griff]

i've placed some of the stuff here (still missing are the mining equipment objects) have a pick though and see what you think.

http://www.box.net/public/um19jjbp1s
this pack includes the mining outpost station, a freighter and the cargo unloader bots. there's a simple script to add a freighter, the mining station (find it using nav beacon T on the compass) and a group of cargo loader bots which unfortunately will just fly straight into the station side!
(the bots have an AI that scans for a custom nav_buoy so they can line up with the docking port but i couldn't ever get this nav_buoy placed adjacent to the docking bay reliably, it either shifts it's position or the station is created with a different orientation each time it's called for so the buoy no longer lines up withthe docking port. i thought i could fix this by having the buoy as a subentity of the station but it didn't work, but then again this might be a non-issue if the freighters AI gets them to park outside the station adjacent to the bay before unloading the bots, if you want to test them out what you can do is fly and dock at the station, launch, don't touch the controls but fly a short distance from the station, press shift+F, make a note of your co-ords, exit oolite and ammend the co-ords for the nav_buoy in the script to what you wrote down, with a bit of luck when you retart oolite the nav_buoy will be lined up with the docking port until you shut down your pc - or at least this is how it is on my pc! crazy!