Enable Oolite development (2)

[Cholmondely]

I get the idea, and it is not too difficult to implement. What do other players think? Is this what would help to make the UI more intuitive?

Bumped into this:

I'm sure it's come up before - but multi OXP/OXZ download would be useful from the in-game
I know a few people who have spent many (many!) hours downloading one OXP at a time... besides some "collections" which makes it a bit easier.. how hard would it be to have a download checkbox beside the ones you want to get, then DOWNLOAD ALL.

Some of us have very slow internet connections (I'm looking at you, Australian Government). Of course, personally I just copy the entire folder between versions, but not so easy for other people who want to get into the game.

The problem would be of course that newbie players would just "select all" and cause conflict chaos.

[hiran]

I get the idea, and it is not too difficult to implement. What do other players think? Is this what would help to make the UI more intuitive?

Bumped into this:

I'm sure it's come up before - but multi OXP/OXZ download would be useful from the in-game
I know a few people who have spent many (many!) hours downloading one OXP at a time... besides some "collections" which makes it a bit easier.. how hard would it be to have a download checkbox beside the ones you want to get, then DOWNLOAD ALL.

Some of us have very slow internet connections (I'm looking at you, Australian Government). Of course, personally I just copy the entire folder between versions, but not so easy for other people who want to get into the game.

The problem would be of course that newbie players would just "select all" and cause conflict chaos.

This can now be easily covered with expansion sets.
Configure Oolite so it has a reasonable combination (or all if you so like), then export it and share that file with others.
Some 'popular' or 'highly valueable' expansion sets could go into OoliteStarter to be offered actively.

Possibilities are endless - I just would not know which way is reasonable. The more features I add the less intuitive it becomes...

[Cholmondely]

The more features I add the less intuitive it becomes...

My idea was to have a starter GUI and an advanced GUI with a toggle between the two. The Starter GUI just having the basics and the Advanced having all the various bells, whistles and church organs...

[hiran]

The more features I add the less intuitive it becomes...

My idea was to have a starter GUI and an advanced GUI with a toggle between the two. The Starter GUI just having the basics and the Advanced having all the various bells, whistles and church organs...

Grant. So let's figure out what the basic UI could look like.

[arquebus]

Grant. So let's figure out what the basic UI could look like.

I think the precursor question is this: what features should be part of a Basic UI, and what features should only be in the Advanced UI? If we can sort the features (that currently exist and may exist in the future) between the two buckets, it'll be easier to distinguish the UI requirements.

[hiran]

Grant. So let's figure out what the basic UI could look like.

I think the precursor question is this: what features should be part of a Basic UI, and what features should only be in the Advanced UI? If we can sort the features (that currently exist and may exist in the future) between the two buckets, it'll be easier to distinguish the UI requirements.

I like that approach. Continue...

[Cholmondely]

I'd have thought that the basic GUI needs to duplicate the in-game Expansions Manager with the addition of marrying the saved games to the the relevant OXP cocktail recipes. And including ihaveamo's tweak.

The other gubbins would be for the advanced versions (different Oolite versions, Expansion set management etc.).

[hiran]

What a novice user for sure would want:
- Start the game fresh.
- Resume a saved game.
- Choose to play the vanilla game or some upgraded version. Upgrade means OXP installation, but let's offer a few preselections rather than the full complexity of almost 750 OXPs.
- Configuration is a necessity, but a novice would hardly have several versions of Oolite installed in parallel. UI options could be very decent.
- a button to access the full UI

For OXP preselection we need to agree on a few (two or three):
- One with lots of military action.
- One with lots of trading options.
- One with missions.

All of them should have great graphics, of course.


Would that make sense?

[Switeck]

For OXP preselection we need to agree on a few (two or three):
- One with lots of military action.
- One with lots of trading options.
- One with missions.

Adding a few relevant OXPs will tend to add more ship traffic.
Even adding a new paint scheme to an existing ship can skew ships seen due to role weight changes.
This tends to raise the difficulty.

I remember years ago constantly getting wrecked by random Rattle Cutter pirates and taking a little while to figure out what OXP added them.

Something I still struggle with is setting up targeting and tracking OXPs -- such as showing escape pods, targeting memory, etc.
There are a couple that are doing similar function.
New players might have some trouble picking a good selection.

[hiran]

New players might have some trouble picking a good selection.

That is exactly where we need players with good knowledge over the game play and available expansions to make nice to play selections.
New players simply get to pick and enjoy from such pre-selections.

[Cholmondely]

For OXP preselection we need to agree on a few (two or three):
- One with lots of military action.
- One with lots of trading options.
- One with missions.

All of them should have great graphics, of course.


Would that make sense?

How about these? (initial thoughts, standing on one leg...)

These are chosen just for G1 - the assumption being that by the time the player gets to G2 they know enough to make their own choices about individual oxps
00) Better Graphics pack (Griff packs asteroid & station packs, Povray Planets G1, Normal and Specular+Gloss Maps for Oolite v1.88+, rings, sunspots, ZygoUgo Nebulae, BGS, FPO Lave, FPO Zaonce, ZygoUgo's Explosions)
0) Information pack (XenonUI, Vimana-X, Ship's Library, etc. - in effect the Addons for Beginners (Vital Statistics) ).
1) Thargoid pack (Extra Thargoids, Thargorn Threat oxp, Second Wave OXP, Wormhole restoration OXP)
2) Pirates pack (DeepSpacePirates, GalCop's Most Wanted, Renegade Viper, Spicy Hermits, Pirate Coves OXP)
3) Allies pack (Behemoth, Paddling Pool, Enhanced Vipers, Total Patrol)
4) Planets pack (Redspear/Spara's suite with SfEP)
5) Strangers World (difficult)
6) Elite Trader (easy)
7) Politics pack (Commies, Anarchies, Feudals, Dictators, Free Trade Zone, Ring Racer, Diplomancy, Superhub, Torus, Z-GrOovY Small System Stations)
Solar Systems Pack (FPO Lave, Lave Academy, FPO Zaonce, Tionisla OXPs - 4 TOGYs, TCA & Tionisla Reporter, Tianve, Riredi, Taranis etc)
9) Missions Pack (G1 Missions: Random Hits, Rescue Stations, Asteroid Storm, Long Way Around, Scourge of the Black Baron, Taranis, The Collector, Tionisla Reporter)
10) Crummy Combateer Collection (Paddling Pool, Start Advice, Start Choices, SniperLock, SniperLock Fix, Fast Target Selector, Combat Simulator, Lave Academy, Fuel Collector)
11) Masslock & Docking Issues Collection (needs a ponder...)
12) Oolite Trading collection (Risk-based Economy, Risky Business, BlOomberg Markets, Smugglers, Illegal Goods Tweak OXP, Market Observer, Market Inquirer, Commodity Markets OXP, In System Trader)

I've yet to take a good luck at Phkb's & Redspear's offerings and work them in

[arquebus]

Questions about how the Starter works re: "updatable."

The list of updatable OXPs is showing two OXPs per...OXP - the older version and the newer version. Invariably, I already have the newer version installed, if I have that OXP installed at all. So technically none of these are "updatable." What exactly is being tagged here to make this happen?

Additionally, Trophy Collector is showing up with versions 2.2.2 and 2.3.1. But I don't have either one installed! So it's not "updatable" in the way most people would use that word.

Finally, the pattern appears to be mostly consistent that the older version of the OXP appears above the newer one in the list, with one exception: OXPConfig shows 2.3.4 above 2.3.1.

[phkb]

The list of updatable OXPs is showing two OXPs per...OXP - the older version and the newer version. Invariably, I already have the newer version installed, if I have that OXP installed at all. So technically none of these are "updatable." What exactly is being tagged here to make this happen?

This should be resolved now.

@hiran, some more issues with OoliteStarter:
I reloaded the OXP list, but when it updated I couldn't get it to sort by Title correctly. I tried clicking on the header a couple of times, but it wouldn't fix it. The only fix was to exit the app and reload it. Before reloading, I also tried to search for OXP's but nothing would happen - I'd put my search phrase in (just a basic one, no regex), but nothing happened. The list stayed as it was. Again, a reload fixed this issue.

Oh, and I had to uninstall the old version to get the new one installed. Quite frustrating, really.

[hiran]

@hiran, some more issues with OoliteStarter:
I reloaded the OXP list, but when it updated I couldn't get it to sort by Title correctly. I tried clicking on the header a couple of times, but it wouldn't fix it. The only fix was to exit the app and reload it. Before reloading, I also tried to search for OXP's but nothing would happen - I'd put my search phrase in (just a basic one, no regex), but nothing happened. The list stayed as it was. Again, a reload fixed this issue.

I checked but cannot reproduce this behaviour - so I am not sure what to look for. Both sorting and filtering work for me - but then I am running the latest version (development) and am on Linux.
Could you provide the logfile from $HOME/.Oolite/Logs?

Oh, and I had to uninstall the old version to get the new one installed. Quite frustrating, really.

This is something beyond my control. I develop on Linux, test on Linux and then the tooling builds nice native installers for Apple, Linux and Windows.
I cannot test Apple or Windows so either I get feedback or have no clue how they behave.

The issue you found may have been spotted here though:
https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?p=290041#p290041

May I ask you to install some old stable version of OoliteStarter, then try to upgrade to a newer stable version? If that works, the issue may be the numbering scheme required on Windows.

[hiran]

Questions about how the Starter works re: "updatable."

The list of updatable OXPs is showing two OXPs per...OXP - the older version and the newer version. Invariably, I already have the newer version installed, if I have that OXP installed at all. So technically none of these are "updatable." What exactly is being tagged here to make this happen?

Additionally, Trophy Collector is showing up with versions 2.2.2 and 2.3.1. But I don't have either one installed! So it's not "updatable" in the way most people would use that word.

Finally, the pattern appears to be mostly consistent that the older version of the OXP appears above the newer one in the list, with one exception: OXPConfig shows 2.3.4 above 2.3.1.

There are two issues involved:
One came from the expansions list and from my point of view is not an issue at all. Why should not two versions of some expansion be available at the same time as long as we can tell one from the other?

The other one is based on my idea that I might want to downgrade similarly as I may want to upgrade. This may lead to confusion and be only necessary in my mind, but let me explain the behaviour:

OoliteStarter will check for online available expansions and those that are locally installed. Both of these lists get merged before they are displayed.
If several expansions carry the same identifier but different version numbers, they are added into a 'group' where potentially updates can happen. Since I wanted the ability to downgrade, all group entries are displayed. And apparently I never checked whether at least one of the group's items is actually installed.