Introduce Yourself.

[Cody]

Welcome aboard, Commander!

[Cholmondely]

Anyway, it’s great to be here and a part of this outstanding experience!

Welcome to the grizzled gang...

Enjoy!

[Redspear]

Welcome Muffster (and belatedly others).

Ask away as usually someone can help.
Meanwhile, more power to your engines!

[Cas Tell]

Hi folks,

I'm new to Oolite but it was not by coincidence that I started to make my first attempts to try it out and understand it. I played Elite for the first time when I got my first PC clone, so in the mid eighties I think. Back in the day I couldn't handle the unbelievably fast reaction of the game when I tried to control the Cobra with the cursor keys. So, although fascinated by the open world paradigm of the game I gave up playing it because I had no joystick (don't know whether these things were of real use those days) and couldn't come to terms with the keyboard alone.

I'm impressed of the modern variant of Elite, called Oolite, and first of all I thought: Man, just a clone, is it worthwile? But I was really impressed, first of all because it is so fast, as fast as the original! And second, all these expansion packs, wonderful! I like the most the radio voices, fantastic !

So, I wish you all a good time, Christmas is near, so there's also time for gaming a bit, right?

Cheers!

[Cholmondely]

Hi folks,

I'm new to Oolite but it was not by coincidence that I started to make my first attempts to try it out and understand it. I played Elite for the first time when I got my first PC clone, so in the mid eighties I think. Back in the day I couldn't handle the unbelievably fast reaction of the game when I tried to control the Cobra with the cursor keys. So, although fascinated by the open world paradigm of the game I gave up playing it because I had no joystick (don't know whether these things were of real use those days) and couldn't come to terms with the keyboard alone.

I'm impressed of the modern variant of Elite, called Oolite, and first of all I thought: Man, just a clone, is it worthwile? But I was really impressed, first of all because it is so fast, as fast as the original! And second, all these expansion packs, wonderful! I like the most the radio voices, fantastic !

So, I wish you all a good time, Christmas is near, so there's also time for gaming a bit, right?

Cheers!

Wilkommen, Bienvenue!!

Hoping you enjoy....

[Zorblax]

Greetings, everyone. Discovered Oolite when a friend recommended it back in the spring. Really enjoying myself! Big thanks to Braben and Bell for starting what seems to have been a juggernaut some 40 years ago, and to Aegidian for this reimagining. The gameplay is addictive - had to wipe it off my PC for a few months . Gorgeous graphics too. Sometimes I just pull up within 100m of a dodecahedron station and watch it for a few minutes.

[phkb]

Greetings, everyone.

Welcome aboard, commander!

Sometimes I just pull up within 100m of a dodecahedron station and watch it for a few minutes.

Yep, I've done that too!

[Cholmondely]

Greetings.

Salutations! Welcome to the friendliest bulletin board this side of Riedquat!

The vanilla game models were almost all created by Griff (the buoys are by Commander Cheyd). You might also find Griff's newest shipset (but unfinished as yet) of interest.

You might find the following wiki pages worth browsing:

Guide to Ambience OXPs
Oolite Stations

[Zorblax]

Thankyou both. And props to Griff then for their graphics work.

I've already installed nine OXPs. Another thing I love about Oolite, how customisable it is.

Quick q since I'm here: I have a trumble. I know how to get rid of it, but I thought on this playthrough I'm going to keep it as a pet until its progeny get too intrusive. So of course the blasted thing hasn't reproduced! I bought it as soon as I could, must have done more than 300 jumps since then, and it has not reproduced nor, to the best of my recollection, has it chowed down on any of my cargo. Am I doing something wrong?

[UK_Eliter]

Hmm. Any trumble experts - trumble-ologists? - around?

[Cholmondely]

Quick q since I'm here: I have a trumble. I know how to get rid of it, but I thought on this playthrough I'm going to keep it as a pet until its progeny get too intrusive. So of course the blasted thing hasn't reproduced! I bought it as soon as I could, must have done more than 300 jumps since then, and it has not reproduced nor, to the best of my recollection, has it chowed down on any of my cargo. Am I doing something wrong?

Depends on what commodities you carry.

Trumbles can't feed on minerals or computers which are not vat-grown disembodied organic brainlets, so there will be little breeding going on if that is what you have lurking in your hold...

[UK_Eliter]

Hello, Cholmondely - polymath and hence a fortiori trumble-ologist!

[Zorblax]

I usually have my hold full of food, as the cheapest pirate kibble. Only sometimes I shoot some people up and loot them instead.

I'll have a look at the saved game file in case any of it makes sense to me.

[Cholmondely]

I usually have my hold full of food, as the cheapest pirate kibble. Only sometimes I shoot some people up and loot them instead.

I'll have a look at the saved game file in case any of it makes sense to me.

A hold full of food should incite both a feeding and a fertility frenzy.

It must be that you are being blessed by the pervasive presence of The Pool of Pellucid Placidity which has undoubtedly imbued your trumble with a phenomenal phlegmatism, thus inhibiting its usual activities.

[Zorblax]

That would be annoying... if my trumble will never be very annoying.

So I had a look in the saved game file and near the end I get this:

<key>trumbles</key>
<array>
<integer>1</integer>
<integer>7406</integer>
<array>
<dict>
<key>digram</key>
<string>g </string>
<key>discomfort</key>
<real>0.1260112</real>
<key>growth_rate</key>
<real>2.574921e-007</real>
<key>hunger</key>
<real>0.4178703</real>
<key>movement</key>
<string>16.692017 -15.442871</string>
<key>position</key>
<string>-139.573287 206.306716</string>
<key>rotation</key>
<real>-13.54725</real>
<key>rotational_velocity</key>
<real>-1.646805</real>
<key>size</key>
<real>1.185684</real>
</dict>
<dict>
<key>digram</key>
<string>a&apos;</string>
<key>discomfort</key>
<real>0</real>
<key>growth_rate</key>
<real>0.003032349</real>
<key>hunger</key>
<real>0</real>
<key>movement</key>
<string>-17.271545 2.744324</string>
<key>position</key>
<string>-182.000000 -126.000000</string>
<key>rotation</key>
<real>-5.26062</real>
<key>rotational_velocity</key>
<real>2.704391</real>
<key>size</key>
<real>0.8261642</real>
</dict>


I have quoted the first two rows of what I presume is an array. Following these, but I didn't quote them, are another twenty-something rows. Is each of them a trumble? Then I should have 20-ish trumbles, but where are they?

I notice the first one has a tiny growth rate, ~1e-07, whereas the second (and all the others) have a much larger growth rate, ~0.003. Assuming this growth rate is the probability of spawning per jump, I guess that would explain why the first never spawns. But the others, which should spawn, don't even seem to exist! Also the first has non-zero hunger, the rest all have zero hunger.

Is this just a happy accident from a random number generator (ok, the will of Giles if you prefer)? Anyway Imma play around with those numbers a bit...

ETA: well, boo. Every time I try to change the first growth rate, the game resets it to zero.