Musings for v.1.92

[Redspear]

The crew of 12 on the FdL is intriguing: butler, valet, cooks, footmen, chambermaids, parlourmaids, stillroom maids, pages etc, one presumes. So what is going on when the bounty hunters take one over? Bags of free space for cargo canisters? Or just empty disused servant's quarters gathering dust and mildew?

And the dozen or so in an FdL? Well there is a pilot and an engineer, and a butler, a chambermaid, a chef and seven polishers to keep the ship sparkling and clean.

Perisc Scanning Observatory Aft Berth.

Ah look, there's Perkins... At ease Perkins!

[cbr]

The crew of 12 on the FdL is intriguing: butler, valet, cooks, footmen, chambermaids, parlourmaids, stillroom maids, pages etc, one presumes. So what is going on when the bounty hunters take one over? Bags of free space for cargo canisters? Or just empty disused servant's quarters gathering dust and mildew?

Perisc Scanning Observatory Aft Berth.

Coming soon to any theatre in the 8th galaxies, a redspearian play featuring the cholly chambermaids...

(sorry, I did not dare to finish the joke

[Redspear]

Coming soon to any theatre in the 8th galaxies, a redspearian play featuring the cholly chambermaids...

...The Merchant of Vetitice

[Cody]

Lave's Labour's Lost

[Redspear]

Mössbauer-Krantz and Guilded-Worm in... Tharglet

[cbr]

Excellent excellent titles looking forward reading the reviews in the Life_in_the_frontier Gazette...

[Cholmondely]

Appendix 4

Oolite lighting model

From a 2011 discussion on Headlights and the Oolite lighting model (3 years before Norby's Headlights.oxp).

The good news is, OpenGL has support for a spotlight lighting model.

The bad news is, it looks crap on low-poly models (since lighting is per-vertex).

The usual solution is to use a projected light-map texture. This’d be a big, big change to the rendering model, though.

Does this mean that it would be a "doddle" to introduce this for our current Griffificated Oolite? Or does the projected light-map texture (whatever it is) need to be implemented for everything?

Or have things changed since this was written and it is now irrelevant?

[Cholmondely]

Tutorial (docking)

And yet another:

I've seen at least two mentions over the years on this BB from people who did not realise that one has to fly into the wall at the back of the docking bay. I've just had a look at the tutorial, and this still seems to be missing.

Any chance of adding a line to the tutorial to make that more obvious?

Greetings! New player here...

- I find manual docking to be easy enough, but initially it was not clear to me at all that I had to move towards the end wall of the dock. I would just enter the dock and stop the engines, wondering what I am supposed to do next. Tutorials explain how to enter the dock , but not what to do next.

[Cholmondely]

Maybe add in as "Docking Tips 4/6":

Don't forget to fly through the doors at the back of the docking bay (which open automatically and let your ship dock inside the station)!

And renumber:

Docking Tips 1/5 as Docking Tips 1/6
Docking Tips 2/5 as Docking Tips 2/6
Docking Tips 3/5 as Docking Tips 3/6
insert new 4/6
Docking Tips 4/5 as Docking Tips 5/6
Docking Tips 5/5 as Docking Tips 6/6

[hiran]

Maybe add in as "Docking Tips 4/6":

Don't forget to fly through the doors at the back of the docking bay (which open automatically and let your ship dock inside the station)!

And renumber:

Docking Tips 1/5 as Docking Tips 1/6
Docking Tips 2/5 as Docking Tips 2/6
Docking Tips 3/5 as Docking Tips 3/6
insert new 4/6
Docking Tips 4/5 as Docking Tips 5/6
Docking Tips 5/5 as Docking Tips 6/6

We even have a video tutorial about docking at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69VZOIipJ5Y

[Cholmondely]

And two pages on our wiki. And the section in the Tutorial. A lot of material generated over the years.

But how to make new players aware of it?

[Cholmondely]

9) Console Messages

Console messages disappear after a few seconds and are never recoverable. Unlike communications from ships/stations/beacons (which use the ¬ on some keyboards and ~ on others).

Might it be an idea to change this so that one can recover them? OR maybe keep them displayed until cancelled with a key-press?

[Cholmondely]

10) 9/F9 screen for OXPs

Would there be point in creating an F9 screen for role-playing while in flight? To be used by oxp's like the docked F4 screen for ship-station interfaces (in the same way that the 2 MFDs which come with the vanilla game are only used by oxp's)

It could be used for accessing the other parts of the ship:
- immersively resetting the Fast Activation Buttons whilst in flight,
- "physically" putting the gold, gems and contracted parcels in the ship's safe!
- reading cim's excellent "Ship's Manual" with the pictures attached!
- wandering around the ship and seeing that Orixon Behan (Long Way Round) is truly on-board
- making an indecent brew down in the canteen (Smiv's TeaPot)
- trying to fight off the invading hordes of Jellybabies/Trumbles!
- donning one's space suit inside the ship prior to taking food, water & medicine over to a refugee adder (using Knotty's Astronaut oxp)
- the MediStim Bay for healing needed on board due to "Life in the Frontier" accrued wounds
- managing crew members on a large ship
- conversing with passengers

It could be used for accessing the F4 information screens which one would expect to be able to do while flying:
- accessing the Ship Library/View ship specifications analysis for ships/stations etc. (this might be a Vanilla game use)
- accessing the Damage MFD's geographical repair suggestions and attendant route planning
- accessing the GalCop Galactic Registry
- accessing the Galactic Almanac
- accessing the political information from Diplomancy (who is at war with whom), checking one's current visas, changing the ship's flag
- consulting one's PAD (Library OXP)
- GNN news flashes (and maybe even viewing older, dated messages)
- configuring Telescope Options for v2
- gloating over one's Trophy Collection Log

It could be fun to have some red-alert warning attached, to warn the pilot to return to his seat (alarm bells and the screen flashing red!)...

Reference:
- the various ideas of Disembodied re filling in time while flying -
1. Peruse the news (GNN)
2. Bid for cargoes and contracts, in advance - perhaps with time-dependent elements, so there would be pressure/reward in reaching the station by a certain time
3. Communicate with nearby ships
4. Enable further interaction with other ships - side-to-side docking, perhaps, and inter-ship trading
5. Run system checks and perform onboard repairs and tune-ups
6. Run long-range scans, and try to discover information about what other ships and stations are out there, and where
7. Look back over the ship's log

I understand that this is probably wishful thinking - as a failed programmer I presume that the complexities involved in doing this would make it nearly impossible - and throw up all manner of conflicts.

Copied & pasted from https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?p=287526#p287526 (and then tweaked)

[Cholmondely]

I’ll put a simple OXP together for this shortly, so it can be tweaked a bit before I commit anything to the core code.

I doubt that yet another oxp would help this one. By the time a new player has discovered it, they will probably already be familiar with the quirks. I think that what it really needs is a minor change in the Vanilla game for the first time player to make it easier for the poor wight.

And might it be better to change the text from

Set first fast activation (key 0) to Set first "fast activation key" (key 0)

Select the equipment to bind to this fast activation control to Select the equipment to bind to this fast activation control key


?

Phkb has fixed this (may the Witchspace Lobster bless his cotton socks!). But just to drive the point home, just watch this (set the YouTube time to 16 minutes, 25 or so seconds)!

[phkb]

Maybe add in as "Docking Tips 4/6":

Don't forget to fly through the doors at the back of the docking bay (which open automatically and let your ship dock inside the station)!

And renumber:

Docking Tips 1/5 as Docking Tips 1/6
Docking Tips 2/5 as Docking Tips 2/6
Docking Tips 3/5 as Docking Tips 3/6
insert new 4/6
Docking Tips 4/5 as Docking Tips 5/6
Docking Tips 5/5 as Docking Tips 6/6

Based on the text of the existing tips, I'd probably slot it into position 5, and make the existing 5 number 6.