Brainstorming for a MultiUser OXP

[Cody]

On Github we can see Oolite 1.90 has been downloaded about 6000 times.

I presume such stats wouldn't include penguinistas who downloaded the game from a repo?

[another_commander]

I presume such stats wouldn't include penguinistas who downloaded the game from a repo?

You are right, it does not. And 6.6K is only the 64-bit Windows downloads on github. The actual number across platforms is closer to 13K.

Of course, this number of downloads does not necessarily represent individual users, but it should be close enough for generic user population estimates.

[Cholmondely]

I presume such stats wouldn't include penguinistas who downloaded the game from a repo?

You are right, it does not. And 6.6K is only the 64-bit Windows downloads on github. The actual number across platforms is closer to 13K.

Of course, this number of downloads does not necessarily represent individual users, but it should be close enough for generic user population estimates.

Why all these submarine admirals? In the Royal Navy we have Full Admirals, Vice Admirals & Rear Admirals (we originally used to have Admirals of the White, Blue & Red).

Whence all these sub-admirals?

[Cody]

The forum ranks were created by Giles and/or Jens, and are somewhat whimsical. Sword-Toting Nut-Job, being a good example.
Unfortunately, I no longer have the admin permissions to create new ranks, I can only assign already existing ranks.

[hiran]

Only in basic HUD OXP... I have made an AWESOME (for me at least ) cockpit/station OXP that mimic Elite Dangerous using screenshots and musics from ED... alas too many copyrighted materials and incompatibilities to share
I have also altered the galaxy 1 in order to mimic ED empty systems in the bubble.
But I haven't yet tried mission scripts, for example in order to add salvage/blackbox missions, discovery scanner in order to add unidentified signal sources, but it is on my todo list if i have enough motivation (which could be the case when I see where FDev is going )

I making all of this because I've chosen to give up my gaming computer for a simple laptop in order to reduce my energy consumption... yeah don't ask
And so Oolite is the perfect replacement, and that's why I'm interested in those "Community Events"

Wow, this is a lot more than I had hoped for!

Would you feel fit to create somewhat of an OXP that could fire up life into the messaging system that is built into Oolite?
We would need some user interface (inside the station would be sufficient), the features to list and read messages as well as the ability to write messages. Not sure if some address book made sense.

At the same time we'd need a server that can then handle the messages in the background. I could take care for something like that, offering some easy-to-use API that the OXP could then trigger.

This would not build one common mission, but it could show interaction between the players inside the game.
Goods or money transfers could be some sort of specialized messages. And off we go with the minimum viable product...

[hiran]

Ignoring for a moment the resource cost (hosting, programming and maintenance), how many people do you think will be playing along at any given time?
100? 10? 2?

I'd like to come back at resource cost related to hosting.
If, as indicated in the above post we could get the MVP implemented, it still will not run without a central server helping to dispatch all the messages.

So how could we cover that?

[hiran]

Ok, it seems I am left alone for now. Still I am convinced with the idea, and I would like to test it out myself.

So far I studied a bit the Oolite JavaScript Reference but somehow I do not see any entrypoint where an OXP could modify a station so the player can send/receive messages. But in the discussion above we thought technically it should be doable.

Can someone give me a push in the right direction for an OXP?

[Redspear]

Can someone give me a push in the right direction for an OXP?

What I didn't realise when first looking at that reference is that you typically need an 'event handler' in order to trigger something to happen within the game.

So, for example shipEnteredStationAegis could be the condition to trigger an event happening (or testing to see if it could happen subject to any conditions that you define) upon the player entering the station aegis.

Opening up a few oxps containing script files will likely be helpful in working out how to use what.
Look out for 'this.' statements (often 'event handlers') and the code parenthesised within (often the effects and their associated conditions and/or variables).

[hiran]

Can someone give me a push in the right direction for an OXP?

What I didn't realise when first looking at that reference is that you typically need an 'event handler' in order to trigger something to happen within the game.

So, for example shipEnteredStationAegis could be the condition to trigger an event happening (or testing to see if it could happen subject to any conditions that you define) upon the player entering the station aegis.

Opening up a few oxps containing script files will likely be helpful in working out how to use what.
Look out for 'this.' statements (often 'event handlers') and the code parenthesised within (often the effects and their associated conditions and/or variables).

Well, I checked event handlers, and there is an event that is called when the game starts. That might be the moment when the OXP starts connecting to the server to receive events from there in parallel (assuming it is allowed to have a thread running besides the Oolite event handlers).

But I did not see any chance of registering some menu or screen that might get activated in the station. Without that I have no chance to allow the player check his messages or send new ones.

[phkb]

I think shipDockedWithStation is what you’re looking for.

[hiran]

I think shipDockedWithStation is what you’re looking for.

Actually I was playing around with that one. A 'Hello world' message to the logfile was successful, a 'HTTP GET' request so far not.
But let's assume the EcmaScript Engine is not limited and thus can run networking code, and one day I have the data transfer running.

What do I need to do in the event handler so the station would display messages or have one more menu option?

[Redspear]

Apologies if any of the following is patronising but it's not clear where you are stuck beyond generally not knowing what to do.

So, you have your event handler (when something happens) next you're going to need to define the event itself and so given that you want something to happen when docked at a station then Oolite JavaScript Reference: Station might be a good first place to look.

Now this is something I haven't programmed before so I'd only accept my advice in the absence of others, however...

setInterface could be one way to do it, with this particular entry linking to another that you might need/find helpful.

[hiran]

Apologies if any of the following is patronising but it's not clear where you are stuck beyond generally not knowing what to do.

So, you have your event handler (when something happens) next you're going to need to define the event itself and so given that you want something to happen when docked at a station then Oolite JavaScript Reference: Station might be a good first place to look.

Now this is something I haven't programmed before so I'd only accept my advice in the absence of others, however...

setInterface could be one way to do it, with this particular entry linking to another that you might need/find helpful.

Yes, this seems to be the right direction. I now checked out script.js from the oocheat expansion. After all it adds some menu entries for cheating, and it uses player.ship.dockedStation.setInterface(...) and a log of mission stuff.

This could be my approach vector into the functionality I need.

[hiran]

I may as well need some help with Hidden Settings.
To make it easier for others to follow I added this section to the tutorial: http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/OXP_tu ... ting_Ready

But several times now I edited that file to have Oolite always flush the caches - whenever the game ends the file gets overwritten and my changes are gone. What am I doing wrong?

[Nite Owl]

Very useful thing that always-flush-cache entry in .GNUstepDefaults especially if you do a lot of tweaking to or creation of OXP's/OXZ's. Never could remember to hold down the <Shift> key every time the game got restarted. The game does take a bit longer to load but it is well worth the wait. Be sure that your entry in .GNUstepDefaults looks exactly like the following and it should work.

Code: Select all

"always-flush-cache" = yes;

The entry should be near the bottom of the file grouped with several other settings. Although, if memory serves, the file does a very good job of sorting itself out as far as loading and listing are concerned. If the entry does look exactly like the above but it is still not being written to the file on a permanent basis then only one other possibility occurs to me. Does the folder/location of the .GNUstepDefaults file have writable permissions enabled?