Introduce Yourself.

[Old Murgh]

Welcome.
Nice background story with a classical theme.

[Cholmondely]

G'day Commanders.

Commander BooDog here; returning to the fold after decades. Bought and played through to Elite on my Apple //e in the mid '80s when I should have been studying for my Computer Science degree. Thoroughly enjoyed The Dark Wheel and was amused it was written by Robert Holdstock, being already familiar with his other works, although to me it didn't quite gel with the game as played on the Apple. A bit later played a bit of Frontier on my first PC clone, but never really came to grips with combat under the Newtonian physics model. I then got married, etc., and life and work intervened for decades - no more playing games, or flying control-line model planes for that matter.

About a year ago I was searching around for a decent Apple II emulator for my Linux box (Ubuntu 20.04). Nothing really suitable turned up, mainly problems with emulating the //e open-Apple/closed-Apple keys, until I found the very fine Windows based AppleWin that runs beautifully under Wine. That led to playing Apple II Elite once more (pirate edition "Cracked by the Student'). Got through to about Dangerous again, then decided that wireframe graphics wasn't doing it for me any more and *surely* there must be a modern Elite-like game out there.

A couple Google searches later, here I am. One false start (argh, can't control this thing) and installed the BBC keyboard map. Once I had s, x, <, > back where they should be I was in the groove and now am back to Competent and on my way. Currently doing much exploring of OXPs and OXZs, reading a bit of the fiction, Drew's books in particular, and slowly tailoring this beautiful example of the coding arts to present me with MY personal Ooniverse.

regards,
Commander BooDog

Welcome to the friendliest board this side of Riedquat!

If you are interested, Hiran has been working on a multi-player version, and is always eager for victims fellow experimenters...

What sort of things have you been working on?

[BooDog]

Thanks all for the welcome.

I started off just fiddling with OXPs and OXZs, e.g. tweaking Povray Planets to coexist better with FPO Lave and FPO Zaonce (just plist edits).

I've now pulled the source using Git and waded though installing the dependencies to get things building on Ubuntu 20.04 / gcc 9.3. It builds, but doesn't really work properly, so I'm guessing my compiler & default versions of libraries in 20.04 may not be a "known good" combo. Will take this discussion over to the appropriate place however.

Longer term, want to get things self-building and running well on my current distro with up-to-date compilers, then dig into the source and understand what's going on. If I could manage to get things building and running on the new 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS that would be a bonus ... I think Oolite on the Pi 400 would be kind of appropriate.

[Cholmondely]

FIRST: I started off just fiddling with OXPs and OXZs, e.g. tweaking Povray Planets to coexist better with FPO Lave and FPO Zaonce (just plist edits).

SECOND: I've now pulled the source using Git and waded though installing the dependencies to get things building on Ubuntu 20.04 / gcc 9.3. It builds, but doesn't really work properly, so I'm guessing my compiler & default versions of libraries in 20.04 may not be a "known good" combo. Will take this discussion over to the appropriate place however.

THIRD: Longer term, want to get things self-building and running well on my current distro with up-to-date compilers, then dig into the source and understand what's going on. If I could manage to get things building and running on the new 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS that would be a bonus ... I think Oolite on the Pi 400 would be kind of appropriate.

Hiran has been working on the second.

These may be relevant for your third: see the "Handmade" section here & External Dashboards (Maik's creation of a second dashboard using raspberry pi)

[BooDog]

Thanks Cholmondely, I'll follow those links and see if I can at least get a current Ubuntu build going, bearing in mind that I'll need to repeat the process in a couple months when 22.04 LTS lands.

[Cody]

... although to me it didn't quite gel with the game as played...

You are not alone! TDW never grabbed me!

[Cholmondely]

G'day Commanders.

Commander BooDog here; returning to the fold after decades.

Which of HM's antipodean penal colonies?

[Cody]

My guess is Brizzie! They're all in Brizzie!

[BooDog]

My guess is Brizzie! They're all in Brizzie!

Right you are! The Moreton Bay Penal Colony it is.

[Redspear]

Right you are! The Moreton Bay Penal Colony it is.

I was reading the above exchange,including Cholmondely's remarks thinking: I hope BooDog has a sense of humour...
Then I noticed your location info

Welcome BooDog!

[Cholmondely]

I'll ... see if I can at least get a current Ubuntu build going, bearing in mind that I'll need to repeat the process in a couple months when 22.04 LTS lands.

Did it work?

[Starhopper]

Hi Guys, Starhopper signing in!
I used to play Elite on my friends computer a long time ago. I would always get killed by pirates or end up splattered all over the docking station. I remember that it took an excruciating amount of time to fly anywhere or dock....

.... fast forward to a few days ago when I found Arquebus's excellent series of youtube vids
on Oolite 1.90 (why didn't he put them in a playlist? Does he know how irritating it is having to trawl through hundreds of vids to find the next one in the series?)
Anyhow, I have decided I'm going to play this fantastic updated version, I'm currently trawling through the OXZs and trying to decide what to add to the Vanilla version.

[Old Murgh]

Greetings, Cmdr Starhopper.
Have you considered the POVRAY planets (outside the exp manager)?

[Cody]

Welcome aboard, Commander! Advice: stick to eye-candy/ambience expansions at first.

[Cholmondely]

... I have decided I'm going to play this fantastic updated version, I'm currently trawling through the OXZs and trying to decide what to add to the Vanilla version.

Welcome to the merry throng!

Do let us know which OXP's you settle on... and what sort of game do you like - one that is "realistic"? one with lots of gorgeous vistas to admire? lots of missions? Trading-based? Exploration-based? Combat-based?

Last time I checked Arquebus had just the 3 Oolite playlists and was filling out the third...