An alternative to ship distribution convention

[Cody]

If there's one thing I've learned from following the Elite Dangerous bandwagon around all over the internet, it's that there are, in fact, fairly large numbers of people actually playing Oolite, the vast majority of whom have never signed up here.

<nods sagely - waves at lurkers>

[Cholmondely]

If I've understood this correctly, what about having just the one oxp for each shipset - but have it configurable as to whether it was a replacement or an addition?

•It could be done as an option in the OXP itself which was then accessed via (eg) OXP config.oxp

•Or might it be possible to build that function into (eg) OXP config itself without mucking about with shipsets?

•Or, further, to have all the shipsets loaded, and then restrict (with the above options) those available to different galaxies - or possibly even regions within the galaxy (slightly similar to what the Darkside Moonshine Distillery OXZ does with the whiskey prices?).

[phkb]

what about having just the one oxp for each shipset - but have it configurable as to whether it was a replacement or an addition?

All the configuration being referenced is stuff that must be done before Oolite loads all the OXPs. Once the game has loaded, it’s too late to configure this sort of change.

[Milo]

I haven't done any shipset modding. I don't mind multiple OXPs (with dependencies and conflicts in the manifest to enforce appropriate combinations), if that has a benefit. It seems that we have several factors here:

1) A replacer shipset overrides "core" ships, an addition shipset does not
2) Some OXP authors may want to use models from an addition /or/ replacer shipset as a template for their own non-"core" ships
3) Some OXP authors may want to use core ship models as template for their own non-"core" ships and do /not/ want replacer models
4) A user can freely pick addition or replacer variant of a shipset
5) A replacer (or addition) pack could include "extra" ship types beyond the core ships

So an OXP author who is adding new ships but not providing models, instead relying on templates, has some uncertainty:

1) If using a core template, it may or may not be replaced
2) If using a "shipset" template (and making it a requirement), the user may be using addition or replacer version of that shipset

From a packaging perspective, given multiple variants (replacer / addition), minimizing duplication is a good idea. Easier to maintain, less risk of divergence between the variants, if they use templates / incorporate by reference as much as possible.

Not sure if these observations help.

Edit: A few more thoughts came to mind. As a user, I might not want to see addition or replacer ships "in the wild", but I might want to use an OXP that /requires/ a shipset. In this situation, it would be ideal (from user perspective) if I could minimize the intrusion of the shipset into my Ooniverse by having the added ships appear /only/ when spawned by that other (dependent) OXP which is the only reason I need the shipset. For this, if the shipset came with a separate "models" pack that doesn't spawn anything in the game, it would allow other OXPs to make use of those models without forcing users to use the shipset globally.

Separating models from replacer/addition OXP and allowing models pack to be used standalone would also make it easier for addition/replacer OXPs to mix and match from multiple model packs. If someone likes most of the Griff replacers but wants to pick a couple of models from another pack, for example, that could be done without requiring any editing of the shipset OXPs (to prevent independent spawning / replacement).