Nerdy Analysis For Fun (NAFF)

[montana05]

Actually, the Interceptor still has a hyperdrive.

It does? I can't see it in the core shipdata.plist - am I missing something?

As long as hyperspace_motor = no; is not included the default is a hyperdrive.

[Cody]

As long as hyperspace_motor = no; is not included the default is a hyperdrive.

Ah, I see - that's why I'm a dumb pilot. The ordinary Viper certainly has that line.

[Redspear]

As long as hyperspace_motor = no; is not included the default is a hyperdrive.

I don't think it was ever in the relevant AI though.

Could this still be significant however?

If so the hyperspace_motor line might be as likely a candidate for an omission as any deficiency in the AI.

I rarely look at AIs and so others can likely read them more efficiently (and perhaps accurately) than myself.

...Anyway if I'm including the interceptor then I don't think it needs a hyperdrive.

EDIT: Looked myself. The interceptor uses the same AI as the 'standard' viperwhich has no behaviour for hyperspace jumps (as far as I could tell).
So it would appear to be the case that the interceptor can jump but (without other intervention) never does.

[hiran]

<getting interested> Whoa, could that mean we are going to document the ships?

Hiran, are they not already documented? Or do you mean something else by this?

I am referring to https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?p=277093#p277093 ...

Cody, our wiki says:
Viper: 50m×16m×55m
Viper Interceptor: 64m×20m×64m

How can we actually find the size of a ship? Is that part of some OXP manifest/plist/shipyard file, or would we have to scan the model data?
Even if it is model data, how can that be read?

[hiran]

I think that the great ambition that everything be not only represented but also integrated is increasingly problematic the more the game gets modded. It might start with simple things like, "That ship name's already been taken", but then it turns into, "The mk III does 0.35LM... except in some OXPs where it does 0.3LM", and eventually, "The following trade goods are controlled... except here where the following are controlled instead, unless you've installed X in which case it's these goods but not if you've installed Y where those goods are replaced by these".

Personally, and this is just my opinion which I'm not entirely convinced by, I think the wiki should document most things according to the core game. Someone like me is going to tweak a whole bunch of stuff to their individual liking and it's only going to present a 'problem' because someone's already 'defined' a cobra mk IV for example. And someone else is not going to want 'their' game, or even 'the' wiki, polluted by 'my' imaginings. Better perhaps to place such in carefully labeled, sealed jars, confined to their own pages for players to open if they wish and remain sealed if they don't

I totally agree here. If someone's interested about how many elements get overwritten already, have a look at the warnings marked as 'global' (which means not related to one OXP):
http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Index_ ... 2_Warnings

[montana05]

EDIT: Looked myself. The interceptor uses the same AI as the 'standard' viperwhich has no behaviour for hyperspace jumps (as far as I could tell).
So it would appear to be the case that the interceptor can jump but (without other intervention) never does.

Correct, if you don't use a custom-AI an Interceptor will never jump.

[Cody]

Once the 'perps' have left the system then job done surely?

Suppose the perp was a cop-killer, having fragged a Viper or two. Then I think the cops may choose to pursue the son of a bitch!

The interceptor uses the same AI as the 'standard' viper which has no behaviour for hyperspace jumps

<nods> Thought so!

[Redspear]

Suppose the perp was a cop-killer, having fragged a Viper or two. Then I think the cops may choose to pursue the son of a bitch!

Oh I think there are reasons, no doubt, but for the interceptors to have them as standard seems odd. I think a hyperdrive serves the pilots much more than it does their employers in this instance. Of course, they wouldn't need a hyperdrive to pursue but they would to return... that would put a dent in their seemingly endless injector fuel supply.

If someone's interested about how many elements get overwritten already, have a look at the warnings marked as 'global' (which means not related to one OXP):
http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Index_ ... 2_Warnings

Just a few then

[Astrobe]

5) Every ship is multi-role, and most of them are terrible at it. Freighters like the Python and Boa are basically just much bigger versions of the Mamba or Sidewinder - they fly about the same, they're just slightly tougher (and not even that much tougher). Compare with something like Tie Fighter or Freespace where a freighter is very definitely not a slightly bigger fighter.

I'm happy to edit stuff about this if told what to do. But what do our Admirals and Montana05 say? Or others with a good feel for the ships? Will we also need to make changes in the Vanilla game? And... why were they changed in the first place? Surely people knew what they were doing?

This apparently is me quoting someone else, cause I've never been in a Tie or played Freespace. Maybe I was agreeing with the quoted element at that time. Today it seems to me a bit of an exaggeration ; a Sidewinder with no cargo doesn't play the same, and the turn rates, max speed etc. do make a difference.

I have been away from Oolite for some time now and I have only read a few bits from this thread, so take it for what it is worth. Currently I am into another highly moddable game, Minetest. Actually, Minetest is "officially" a voxel game engine, and it has both entire games and mods.

Minetest "Games" (or "subgames" in their previous terminology) can be seen as a collection of mods. Some servers are basically just that: mods piled over mods in a more-or-less consistent way.

My experience in Minetest as a humble mod maker and game maker is that, at some point, mods are not a good idea. Mods are good for a weak base game. It is typically the case for the "default" game currently shipped with Minetest, which is very "meh" compared to the king of the genre (Minecraft of course) and gives a quite bad first impression as a result. However the "default" game has served as a basis for many different games, and also is the subject of many mods. Those mods can in turn be used as libraries. That's what I need for my game: I have adapted community mods to fit into my game. In some cases, the mod was modded (sic) by me beyond recognition.

The paradox is that, as I mentioned, when you start piling mods, you are actually making a game (with its own internal consistency etc.). And when you have a game, you cannot add just any mod anymore, because it will often destroy the internal consistency of the game. This is when you start to see (sub)game-specific mods, and it is exactly what is happening in Minetest. In Oolite, there's certainly mods from a same author that are designed to work well together. This is the prototype of a "subgame".
The paradox is, the stronger your game is the more trivial and the less significant (i.e. they don't affect the game in significant ways) the serious mods become.

Whole game genres have emerged from mods that outgrew their "host" game (e.g. MOBAs).

Now, Oolite is not a space games engine, nor an Elite-like engine, it wants to be at the very least a 21st century Elite, or if you are more ambitious the spiritual successor of Elite. I think the player base would generally agree on not to go the "subgame" way, even though it is often said that "you make your own game with Oolite". This is a gentle lie. One likely prefers to benefit from the synergies created by a player base that play essentially the same game, not thousands of different games. Certainly one game that can be played in different ways is preferable.

But if one agrees on "let's have a stronger core game", who can guarantee it will go in the direction *I* want ? This is perhaps the unspoken dilemma.

[Redspear]

How can we actually find the size of a ship? Is that part of some OXP manifest/plist/shipyard file, or would we have to scan the model data?
Even if it is model data, how can that be read?

I think the normal way is to load the dat file into a piece of modelling software and get your device to calculate it through that.

I used the 'Mass' data from Norby's chart here treating commas as decimal points (which explains why some of my data re standard models was estimated (not all ships are listed).

...

Actually, I think it might be possible to access the data via logging mass from spawned ships. Not tried it myself.

[hiran]

How can we actually find the size of a ship? Is that part of some OXP manifest/plist/shipyard file, or would we have to scan the model data?
Even if it is model data, how can that be read?

I think the normal way is to load the dat file into a piece of modelling software and get your device to calculate it through that.

I used the 'Mass' data from Norby's chart here treating commas as decimal points (which explains why some of my data re standard models was estimated (not all ships are listed).

...

Actually, I think it might be possible to access the data via logging mass from spawned ships. Not tried it myself.

My feeling is that interpreting the .dat files should not be too difficult - however the file format seems not documented (please correct me here).
When looking at a sample dat file it seems to me that it just contains vertexes and faces. The faces span between the vertexes and have some texture applied. So calculating ship size could happen simply by looking at the vertexes. The sizes then would be from minimum to maximum values. Maybe some rotation or scaling is also applied.

If I knew which axes are interpreted as length/width/height by Oolite and the scale to apply this would not be too difficult a task. I could then add that information for every ship in Ooniverse tot he generated index files.

Who can tell me how to interprete the .dat files?

[Redspear]

Who can tell me how to interprete the .dat files?

Well, its been a while for me but I used to use Wings 3D, requiring me to convert .dat files to .obj (and then back again if keeping any changes).

The thread with the necessary info is here.

I'm not sure how it presents the volume data (i.e. units) but the value of it is that it can be compared to other models which suits my purposes just fine.

[Cholmondely]

How can we actually find the size of a ship? Is that part of some OXP manifest/plist/shipyard file, or would we have to scan the model data?
Even if it is model data, how can that be read?

I think the normal way is to load the dat file into a piece of modelling software and get your device to calculate it through that.

I used the 'Mass' data from Norby's chart here treating commas as decimal points (which explains why some of my data re standard models was estimated (not all ships are listed).

...

Actually, I think it might be possible to access the data via logging mass from spawned ships. Not tried it myself.

My feeling is that interpreting the .dat files should not be too difficult - however the file format seems not documented (please correct me here).
When looking at a sample dat file it seems to me that it just contains vertexes and faces. The faces span between the vertexes and have some texture applied. So calculating ship size could happen simply by looking at the vertexes. The sizes then would be from minimum to maximum values. Maybe some rotation or scaling is also applied.

If I knew which axes are interpreted as length/width/height by Oolite and the scale to apply this would not be too difficult a task. I could then add that information for every ship in Ooniverse tot he generated index files.

Who can tell me how to interprete the .dat files?

Apologies if this has already been mentioned.

Just to note, when I was adding your Imperial Star Destroyer to http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Biggest_Ships_(Oolite), the volume was calculated thus: Note: Cubic Meters value is the size of the ship's rectangular bounding box, not actual volume.

[another_commander]

To find the size of a ship, you can simply query its bounding box in the debug console. For example:

Code: Select all

> player.ship.boundingBox

returns

Code: Select all

(130, 34.9649, 81.3726)

for the Cobra MkIII.

[Redspear]

To find the size of a ship, you can simply query its bounding box in the debug console.

That's not the volume of the model though, is it?

The cobra is somewhat triangular and so won't occupy as much if its bounding box as say an orbital shuttle, right?