Will we see this implemented before real world witchdrives?

[Captain Hesperus]

The guy claims you'll be able to buy stations, buildings in cities, cities and if you get rich enough whole planets...

I wouldn't be happy until they implement a mod that allows you to go to Magrathea and have a planet built for you. Slartibartfast, of course would do the fjords!

Captain Hesperus
"Hey, check this book. The cover has 'Don't Panic!' written on in big, friendly letters...*"

*All credit to Douglas Adams.

[Roberto]

He won an award, y'know

[Kriken Overlord]

Deep thought!
THINK DEEP, man.
Think deep.
Well, guys, you know, if they did include Magrathea, it would HAVE to be 42 lightyears away from Lave. Just HAVE to.
And if you had that, there would have to be Vogon ships, and the like.
That would rock.
*goes of to write OXP that will soon be neglected.*

[LittleBear]

They should hang in space, just in the way that bricks don't.

[Killer Wolf]

if the OXP ends up anything like the file, someone will have to be killed.

[DaddyHoggy]

I had a look - does look v cool. But the "Macintosh port is unlikely" bit's a killer

Sorry Roberto, since we got rid of our SUNs, Macs and SGI machines at work I've become a bit PC-centric, which is just wrong, wrong, wrong.

[Star Gazer]

...I've become a bit PC-centric, which is just wrong, wrong, wrong.

...well... ....you said it...

NOTE
I have to use a PC at work, and, as a result, I would rather stuff my head up a camel's bottom, than have to use a PC at home!!

[DaddyHoggy]

@Star Gazer - If you could build Macs from spare parts and second hand (often free) cast offs from other users I would gladly have a Mac at home - but I've built my last 5 PCs mostly from 2nd hand parts - cost and not sanity has always been my driving factor

Can I ask a Mac user what he thinks about Apple's move away from Motorola CPUs and towards Intel - as an old time Amiga owner I have a softspot for Motorola cpus...

[Dr. Nil]

Dammit! This is what I have been wanting since Frontier was conceived!!!

I even started writing one before discovering that I can't program that well.

To be honest, the concept isn't that hard nowadays, what with the availability of OpenGL development tools that use a standard 3D environment. All that needs to change between a flight or space sim and an FPS is the control method and the style of movement (also known as Camera Mode).

The big size problem is textures. 3D objects take up very little space in comparison to the textures that cover them. The more detailed and realistic the textures then the bigger the files. Flight Sim is huge and bloated because it contains detailed texture files for the WHOLE PLANET, including the cities that are on it, plus the planes and cockpits.

An FPS Elite game would probably be substantially smaller than that, because stations could use standard interior textures or tiles. If planets were to be explorable, it might be possible to use the same idea. It all depends on how realistic or detailed one wants to be. Intricately mapping all 2000 planets would be unfeasably large. However, having a standard texture for each landscape type would be easier. These could be procedurally mapped onto the planet using some sort of pseudo-random model like the Fibonacci sequence.

We could start throwing in some ideas for what we might want such an extension of the game to do and how it could work. Then it will be around for any programmer with the time and drive to pick up on.

[Commander McLane]

Can I ask a Mac user what he thinks about Apple's move away from Motorola CPUs and towards Intel - as an old time Amiga owner I have a softspot for Motorola cpus...

Of course, it's a shame, and to be honest, I really hesitated to buy myself a new Mac - I mean, weren't "they"* THE enemy?

On the other hand side: With my old G3 Processor (first generation iBook) I hardly could open Oolite (well, actually I could, but with 2-3 FPS there is no playing ). So I overcame my hesitation.

And where am I now? With my nice MacBook Pro (2GHz DuoCore) I enjoy smooth gameplay with a constant 100 FPS (well, if I once again have blown up two Thargoid Carriers (they show up quite often once you are ELITE ) and there are some 700 objects in space, it goes down to 33). So, I say, to hell with old enmities, welcome new friends! Having said that, of course Bill Gates still IS the enemy!

*read: WIntel

[NHMick]

Can I ask a Mac user what he thinks about Apple's move away from Motorola CPUs and towards Intel - as an old time Amiga owner I have a softspot for Motorola cpus...

Of course, it's a shame, and to be honest, I really hesitated to buy myself a new Mac - I mean, weren't "they"* THE enemy?

On the other hand side: With my old G3 Processor (first generation iBook) I hardly could open Oolite (well, actually I could, but with 2-3 FPS there is no playing ). So I overcame my hesitation.

And where am I now? With my nice MacBook Pro (2GHz DuoCore) I enjoy smooth gameplay with a constant 100 FPS (well, if I once again have blown up two Thargoid Carriers (they show up quite often once you are ELITE ) and there are some 700 objects in space, it goes down to 33). So, I say, to hell with old enmities, welcome new friends! Having said that, of course Bill Gates still IS the enemy!

*read: WIntel

I'm a recent convert (2 years ago) to Mac, having always been a PC user before that. So I guess I don't have the history with the Motorolla chips, although that is what I currently have in my PowerBook G4. But my brother is a HUGE Mac fan (we had an old Apple II-C back in the day), and he just got the new MacBook Pro and he pretty much drools all over it. He introduced me to Oolite (read: got me totally addicted to it), and now of course I'm incredibly jealous of his superior frame rates. That bastard. Guess I'll have to go get one of those fancy new DualCore jobbies myself.