Random Station Names OXP (Development Thread)

[phkb]

Does the wiki say you can apply a visual effect to the ASC image? I couldn’t find it. All I could find was this: shipdata.plist#beacon, which allows you to change the shape of the descriptive code applied to the beacon in a similar fashion to how missile images are created. I do a custom version for the Manual Witchspace Alignment OXP.

[LittleBear]

I think Thargoid had done it with his planatary compass using:-

Code: Select all

if(this.stellarArray[loopCounter].hasAtmosphere)
			{ 
			this.beacon = system.addVisualEffect("planetaryCompass_planet", this.stellarArray[loopCounter].position); 
			if(this.stellarArray[loopCounter].hasOwnProperty("isGasGiant") && this.stellarArray[loopCounter].isGasGiant)
				{ this.planetType = "Gas Giant"; }
			else
				{ this.planetType = "Planet"; }

			this.beacon.beaconCode = system.name + " " + this.planetNames[planetCount];
			this.beacon.beaconLabel = system.name + " " + this.planetNames[planetCount] + " (" + this.planetType + ")";
			planetCount++;
			}
		else
			{ 
			this.beacon = system.addVisualEffect("planetaryCompass_moon", this.stellarArray[loopCounter].position);
			this.beacon.beaconCode = systemMoons[moonCount];
			this.beacon.beaconLabel = systemMoons[moonCount] + " (Moon)";
			moonCount++;
			}
		}

After several hours of puzzeling why that was working for Thargoid but not me, I installed the OXP and it is a rombus on Thargoid's moon packs as well! I pretty sure when I played about 6 years ago it did add the planet symbol he'd set up in his effects files.

[Nite Owl]

Not sure how it is done but have a look at FUEL STATION and CARGO SHEPARD. They both use an icon on the Advanced Space Compass instead of a letter designation or a rhombus.

[Cholmondely]

Bug Reporting

Since the OXZ is a pure ambience OXZ which only changes the display names of game objects, it is not really capable of introducing any game breaking bugs. The worst it can really do if it goes wrong is either fail to name an object it should have done or add a name which is a duplication of name used by another object in another system. Before release I have visited 516 systems across the eight galaxies and not found any howlers in the naming system.

However, the OXP uses both long lists of real names and procedurally generated names. It is possible therefore that I have created my own Fabled Planet Arse in Latin, Hindi, Russian, Arabic, Ancient Sumerian or one of the other languages the generator uses as a base. The OXZ also features long lists of proper names from all Real Life Earth cultures. It is possible therefore that a name which sounds cool and exotic to by English ear is the equivalent of coming across a planet named Dave to a native speaker. The third type of bug which could occur is a name is used by two stations or planets in different systems.

As you play the game you will receive a news broadcast from GNN reporting that GalCop is offering a 1,000 Credit reward to any Commander reporting errors in the Galactic Almanac. This is a genuine offer, although you will have to wait for me to release the next version of the OXZ to receive your in game reward. Please post any bug reports on the Oolite Bulletin Boards Galactic Almanac Development Thread

This third type of bug is reality, surely... why call it a bug? and why obliterate it? Unless one is a perfervid Platonist pursuing perfection...

[LittleBear]

Made a start on a Wiki Page.

http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/The_Ga ... lmanac_OXZ

On duplications, as the OXZ contains about 250,000 names and there are only about 13,000 stations in the game, they might as well all be used. If there is a duplication, its so easy to change that if anyone spots one it'll only take me a mo to fix it. There are almost bound to be typos and spelling errors. If peeps want to report them it is a really quick job for me to S&R the text file and fix em.

Edit: The code is meant to check that a name has not been used. If it is working therefore every station and planet in the game should have a unique name as there are about 10 times the number of names in the generator as there are objects in the game. It's not a massive issue, but if the code is working as intended then there should not be any duplicated names. So it is a bug in that sense as it means my code is slight off if names are duplicated.

[Cody]

Nice!

...a planet named Dave...

Dave: A Gujarati surname, from Gujarati from Sanskrit द्विवेदिन् (dvivedin, “(one who has studied) two Vedas”)

[LittleBear]

Table of Objects named now added to the Wiki Page.

Cholmondely would you mind having a look and seeing if I've missed anything out?

[Cholmondely]

Table of Objects named now added to the Wiki Page.

Cholmondely would you mind having a look and seeing if I've missed anything out?

Pleasure!

[Cody]

I was with you all the way - 'til I saw the giant space pizzas! <wanders off into the night, shaking head bemusedly>

[Cholmondely]

The Mandotech stations are just one per galaxy (there are not 256 of them unless Pleb has given you something special to build more galaxies!).

Darkside Moonshine Saloons are uncommon, but the Distilleries are much rarer: 2/3 per galaxy? So I'd cut the names for distilleries (unless your whisky-loving soul rebels!) but boost the number just a tad for the saloons.

And I think the Tionisla Chronicle Array (again, just one per galaxy) might already be named:
Tionisla Chronicle Array, Tionisla
The Views of the Worlds Array, Xeabiti, Chart 2
The GNN Array, Geusdi, Chart 3
The Daily Wail Array, Quonso, Chart 4
The G5TVN Array, Maeser, Chart 5
The Rooters Array, Edla, Chart 6
The StarSports Array, Zarausxe, Chart 7
The Snoopers Array, Maabile, Chart 8

Transhab, Tetrahedra, Octahedra, Globes are of course included under your "main stations" heading.

I don't see Navy stations.

Stranger's World adds
KOS-RJ Jovian research orbiter
KOS-RM Martian research orbiter
KOS-RT Terran research orbiter
KOS-RS Superterran research orbiter

These Research orbital stations occur in high-tech systems with stable governments and a high GNP. All research orbiters except the Jovian orbiter have the same configuration.

KOS-M A mining complex in a heliocentric orbit. Located in high-tech systems with stable governments and high GNP.
KOS-P An orbital plant orbiting a large moon of the main planet. Located in most advanced high-tech systems with stable governments and high GNP.

And of course Stranger's World also adds planets & moons.

[LittleBear]

Thanks Guys,

Adding a flavour to the Pizzas was more an easter egg / code test. I needed a way of testing the code to read system descriptions and the Pizzas were a good way of testing it. So a system famous for edible poets is assigned a “Poet & Parmesan” flavour pizza, one with edible deadly goats gets a “Goat & Garlic” flavour and a system known for its wolf cutlets gets “Wolf Surprise”. Commanders choosing to visit these unusual features can rest assured that they were created using only organic locally sourced ingredients! This was more because I wanted to customise the Kioto Habitats so insects live in hives, rodents in burrows and so on but I needed a way of testing the code to read the system description and adapt the name accordingly.

The number on the wiki refers to the pool size rather than the number of stations that actually appear. Although OXZ such as Feudal States, RSS, Lave Academy and Mandotech Stations only add between 8 and 50 stations to the whole game, the name pools for all stations contain a minimum of 256 names regardless of the number of stations which actually appear. So to name the Manotech Stations (for example) I rolled off 256 general names which fit the station’s style and then hand replaced the names at the 8 positions in the array which will actually be used.

This is needed because any OXZ in the future could change the number of stations appearing and where they are. For example, Taxi Galactica adds one station to every Corporate State system in the game. Galaxy 4 contains no corporate states and therefore at present there are no Taxi Galactica stations in Galaxy 4. However if in the future an OXP were to modify some of the G4 systems into Corporate States then this would in turn cause Taxi Galactica to add Taxi Stations to these systems, where at present it does not. Using a pool of 256 names per station type means that the OXZ is automatically future proof and will automatically adapt to any changes in conditions the original author makes or changes made by another OXZ without me having to update the Galactic Almanac.

Although untested, I think the code would also work if in the future more Galaxies were added to the game. The OXZ works by multiplying the Galaxy number by the system number to find its stating point in the array lists. If someone did add a 9th Galaxy, the Almanac would still name all the objects in the new Galaxies, but the name pool for G9 would be the same as G1, G10 the same as G2 and so on.

Navy Stations are not named, since as best I could work out there are only three in the game: Giles’s original Diso B, the Pulsar Monitoring Station and the Supreme Court from my own Assassins OXP. As all these Navy stations already have names, they are not named by the Almanac.

Think that just leaves me with Stranger’s stations. Planets and Moons are already automatically found by the OXP is I can test for isPlanet, isMoon or isGasGiant. Stations have to be checked by their individual role though in order to assign the station an appropriate naming style.

[Cholmondely]

Just a thought.

The number of asteroids in Oolite strikes me as pathetically meagre. The asteroid miners and rock hermits really should be winding up as they run out of resources.

At some stage, the number of these might be increased (especially as computers get more powerful and can manage all the many different objects in a solar system).

More names (or numbers really) might be an idea. More like planetary landing sites!

Of course, if they are named, then it implies that they are owned. Which has implications for mining... !

[LittleBear]

Depending on your OXP set up there can actually be quite a lot. I'm playing with Rock Hermit locator installed and it always adds 50 asteroids around each hermit. Playing with OXPs like Salvage Gang as well its quite common to have 200 odd rocks in a system. Names are persitant and an unintended feature is due to the sequencial naming rocks around a particular installation will always have names in the same style. So you may come across a Salvage Gang surrounded by rocks named after famouse scientists or a hermit surrounded by rocks named after greek heros. The names stay the same for each individual rock cluster on different vistits to the same system. As Oolite throws in a ceritain number of random rocks as well, the names change slightly. 90% will be the same but some will have changed (handwave to some being mined and others captured), but the sytle of naming for each cluster always stays the same as the same positions in the array are being read.