Introduce Yourself.

[Cholmondely]

Hi, just thought I should introduce myself.

I started playing Elite possibly back in 1984, on an Acorn Electron.

White on black wireframes only. It was very austere, but I still loved it.

Now I am on Oolite, trying to dock on Isinor (near Lave), and the space station will not give me permission. I don't have a missle in order to target the station, in order to press SHIFT + L to ask for permission. They just won't let me dock.

... Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

Try Category:Help pages on the wiki

There are several pages on Docking: How to Dock & Docking. There is also a docking tutorial in the in-game Tutorial.


Have you tired out any of the oxp's yet?

[szaumix]

I wonder if we could get a roll call going, where commanders show their stock oxp list. Might be interesting to see what everyone's Ooniverse setups look like after nearly two decades of customisation. Might also be a way to see what is common and what is not.

Or not. Or another thread another time perhaps.

[Cholmondely]

I wonder if we could get a roll call going, where commanders show their stock oxp list. Might be interesting to see what everyone's Ooniverse setups look like after nearly two decades of customisation. Might also be a way to see what is common and what is not.

Or not. Or another thread another time perhaps.

Start a thread and I'll contribute...

[starmox]

So to introduce myself to ooLite community,

I am just a computer(gaming) aficionado that played games many years ago....then life mixed in.....and now slowly maybe returning to this a bit.

I am a space-opera fan definitely and played mainly original X-wing, then T-fighter (good times), then Wing Commander III (remember Mark Hamill there?), and great X-wing Alliance. I remember my brother playing Privateer but I don't know how I did not... It was interesting to watch. I stumbled upon ooLite actually and realized I never played original Elite and know very little lore. But I can appreciate the Elite universe is very much evolved as I learn. I guess ooLite is the perfect intro to this. I am dabbing my toes in ooLite now and I am amazed by this OpenSource project! Hats off to all!

So lets go...

p.s. I am aware there is Elite Dangerous but I don't know what is going on there. Interested to maybe try the next-gen space sims? (do You recommend it? I do not care that much for Star Citizen and all that is going on there..... I hope ED maybe stays more player-oriented? But now it is 7 years old already, is it a mature propper next-gen space sim?)

[Old Murgh]

So to introduce myself to ooLite community,

Hello, young commander. Welcome.
Some of us are very old here. Speaking for myself, too old and gnarled in the tooth to know much of anything else, and unable to make any insightful recommendation about ED.

[Cody]

Ah... Elite: Dangerous! Beautiful flight model (Flight Assist on or off), lovely scenery, great fun docking on outposts - and my long-range Cobra MkIII has now been parked-up at Teveri for seven years. Maybe I'll go back to it one day - perhaps!

[Cholmondely]

I am a space-opera fan definitely

...I am aware there is Elite Dangerous but I don't know what is going on there. Interested to maybe try the next-gen space sims? (do you recommend it? I do not care that much for Star Citizen and all that is going on there..... I hope ED maybe stays more player-oriented? But now it is 7 years old already, is it a mature proper next-gen space sim?)

I would presume that the Space Opera elements in Oolite are provided by the missions. I'm reasonably sure that Xeptatl's Sword is an example of the genre. See https://www.smitheman.org/xeptatl/index.htm

As for E:D, the old-timers here are the people who stayed with Oolite and avoided it (maybe after dabbling in it for a bit). There was a major outflow of community members to it when it started up, few have returned (and many seem to have since moved on to other things - such as Drew, JazHaz, Selezen, etc).

[starmox]

@Old Murgh: Hello. They say wine gets better with age (no matter about ED)
@Cody: Yes ED is beautiful indeed. But I read now, the community is not that thrilled, especially by new Addons. Apparently, the planet landing mechanic is something that separates children from men in Space Simulations (and ED delivered only halfway or something, something....)
@Cholmondely: I am still on the complete beginning with Norby's addons. But wow, thank You for the recommendation on Xeptatl's Sword! When I make a circle around galaxy one I'll install it. Now I am trying to build up my combat acumen

Yes, I can imagine people went to ED... By the way, what good read about (oo)Elite lore do you recommend?

p.s. Did anyone think of adapting ooLite for VR tech? Maybe this could be the door to new community members.....

[another_commander]

p.s. Did anyone think of adapting ooLite for VR tech? Maybe this could be the door to new community members.....

Yes, it has been investigated already. Unfortunately, it requires render to texture support in the engine and currently we don't have that. RTT is certainly doable (and would allow for many more graphics and post processing improvements too), but it needs either someone with plenty of OpenGL experience to code it in or someone with enough time to learn how to do it.

The closest we've achieved thus far is head tracking support. This had been researched about 7 years ago by Getafix. Check out the headtrack branch on github: https://github.com/OoliteProject/oolite/tree/headtrack
And here is a video of Getafix demonstrating progress: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3ZTh7lBpOs . It was actually pretty good and functional, but it never really took off, probably due to its complexity in setting the hardware up. It was a cool proof of concept though.

[starmox]

@another_commander: What an amazing tech demo... From here to VR is I guess, less than I imagined.

(btw. I believe IR tracking hardware setup nowadays should not be that difficult, I see it often used by home sim pilots using their sometimes more or often less elaborate setups.)

But yes, I get You. It just needs manpower, as always.....and that is the most challenging obstacle......
(maybe the first step is to merge Getafix work and officially support modern IR tracking?....)

[Cholmondely]

@Cholmondely: I am still on the complete beginning with Norby's addons. But wow, thank You for the recommendation on Xeptatl's Sword! When I make a circle around galaxy one I'll install it. Now I am trying to build up my combat acumen

Yes, I can imagine people went to ED... By the way, what good read about (oo)Elite lore do you recommend?

p.s. Did anyone think of adapting ooLite for VR tech? Maybe this could be the door to new community members.....

I personally found that there were two stories which really enriched the Ooniverse for me: Carver's Anarchy (about an anarchy - 9 parts) and Ships That Pass In The Night (about Communist utopia - several parts). Drew Wagar is also good (but I never got into Frontier, so his attempts to synthesise it with Oolite leave me bamboozled). Oh! And Alien Items is a must! But I'm sure others will chime in with their favourites...

As for VR: there have been various discussions on these bulletin boards of the difficulties involved in doing this. Apparently the amount of work involved is phenomenal.

[Cody]

But I'm sure others will chime in with their favourites...

Local Midnight in the Vacuum Bar

[starmox]

@@Cholmondely, Cody: Thank You. But first, The Dark Wheel

p.s. On the topic of VR. I believe so. It would be a worthy attempt... (I do not have VR, but I guess Space Sims lend themselves the best to this technology)

[tsoj]

Unfortunately, it requires render to texture support in the engine and currently we don't have that. RTT is certainly doable (and would allow for many more graphics and post processing improvements too), but it needs either someone with plenty of OpenGL experience to code it in or someone with enough time to learn how to do it.

I think it is quite easy to render to a texture. At least if I'm not misunderstanding the problem.
Basically before drawing, one can call glBindFramebuffer(GL_FRAMEBUFFER, 0) to draw to the screen, or glBindFramebuffer(GL_FRAMEBUFFER, some_framebuffer_id) to render into a texture that has been previously attached to some_framebuffer_id. It's a bit verbose to create this framebuffer though (see below).

In case this is indeed what you wanted, how could it be implemented such that it is useful? Have - (void) drawUniverse optionally render into a texture?

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Create a framebuffer with texture (also found a YouTube video that explains this, because I don't know anymore what's actually happening here, I just took this from an earlier project I had):

Code: Select all

// window width and height
int width = 1000, height = 500;

// creating texture that should be rendered into
GLuint texture_id;
glGenTextures(1, &texture_id);
glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, texture_id);
glTexImage2D(GL_TEXTURE_2D, 0, GL_RGBA, width, height, 0, GL_RGBA, GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE, nullptr);
glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_MIN_FILTER, GL_LINEAR);
glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_MAG_FILTER, GL_LINEAR);
glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_S, GL_REPEAT);
glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_T, GL_REPEAT);

// create necessary render buffer for depth
GLuint depth_buffer_id;
glGenRenderbuffers(1, &depth_buffer_id);
glBindRenderbuffer(GL_RENDERBUFFER, depth_buffer_id);
glRenderbufferStorage(GL_RENDERBUFFER, GL_DEPTH_COMPONENT32F, width, height);


// create framebuffer and attach texture and depth buffer
GLuint target_framebuffer_id;
glGenFramebuffers(1, &target_framebuffer_id);
glBindFramebuffer(GL_FRAMEBUFFER, target_framebuffer_id);
glDrawBuffer(GL_NONE);
glReadBuffer(GL_NONE);
glFramebufferRenderbuffer(GL_FRAMEBUFFER, GL_DEPTH_ATTACHMENT, GL_RENDERBUFFER, depth_buffer_id);
glFramebufferTexture2D(GL_FRAMEBUFFER, GL_COLOR_ATTACHMENT0, GL_TEXTURE_2D, texture_id, 0);
const GLenum att_type = GL_COLOR_ATTACHMENT0;
glDrawBuffers(1, &att_type);


// draw to screen
glBindFramebuffer(GL_FRAMEBUFFER, 0);
...
glDrawArrays(...)

// next, draw to texture (texure_id)
glBindFramebuffer(GL_FRAMEBUFFER, target_framebuffer_id);
...
glDrawArrays(...)

[another_commander]

Pull request on github please? I do not have the time to experiment with it, will need something that is tested and works,

We would also need the framebuffer to be 16-bit floating point. I think the format is RGBA16F.