oxp not working

[mungy]

Currently i have made 2 ships. one is working the other isn't. the one that works has an edited copy of a shipdata.plist from one of charlies ships. the one that doesn't is an edited version of my first one.

and how do you work out where to put the exhaust. its got me baffled right now.

i'm using wings3d in ubuntu for the model.

[Charlie]

More .oxp's great!

Exhausts:
In your shipdata.plist:
.
.
.
<key>exhaust</key>
<array>
<string>x y z width height length</string>
</array>
.
.
.
A seperate entry between <array> </array> for each plume.
x y z: are the position of the exhaust origin relative to the centre of the ship.
width hight length: dictate the shape of the exhaust plume.
( though the length never seems to make a lot of difference for me )
It's worth mentionig the origin of the exhaust moves a bit depending on thrust level.
( I've been in the habbit of putting the origin inside the ship a bit to counteract this as I don't like that behavior )

I hope this helps - let me know if you have more questions.

PS
Watch out with some of my .plists if you're in the 'learning phase' ( aren't we all? ) Some are written in quite an odd way to screw extra features out of Oolite.
Kestrel & Merlin probably have the most standard .plists ( apart form their exhausts! )
The rest have a few fun bits in them you may find useful.

[mungy]

something is broke and i can't work out what it is.

my first ship, made from all the abandoned "flying-bricks" laying around the Ooniverse works fine with the player part of your Cobra with the exhaust info removed.

my second ship all the config stuff is from the first ship. i have changed the name and the date filename in all the relevant files. i've found a missing </dict> in the shipdata. i've also added (hopefully) an exhaust.

when i start a new game with just the first ship, it turns up in my buy ship screen every time, but when i add the second ship, none of my models turn up. model 2 has been tried with and without exhausts.

it's going to be something really daft. my years of html, css and sloppy scripting have taught me this.

[Arexack_Heretic]

Ships are not always offered immediately at the shipyard, it may take several jumps to finally find it on sale.
Best way to test ships is not the shipyard, but the 'parade' of the start screen or the classical 'scripting a small encounter script'.

The first method is a quick way to see if your shipmodel (subentities and lights too) is working, you just need to place the name of your custom ship in the Demoships.plist .

The second method, is better for testing out the behaviour of the ship, lasers, exhausts, missiles etc. Some use it also to investigate their creations upclose from any angle, by temporarily replacing their AI by dumbAI.plist.



---
exhausts are also hardcoded to be directed to the rear (or -Z) of the shipentity.

Sometimes you might want to direct them outward at angles to the main body, but this is not possible.

---

In general, the best way to start out is to take the shipdata of a similar ship/entity to what you want to produce, then edit stuff.

When you want to add special behaviours or effects, look at how it is done in examples done by others.
-lights: look at police or orbs.
-turrets: look at behemoth or Armoured Transport.
-carrier: look at behemoth.
-other dockables: hermit, stations by OXPers.
-subentities: look at weeviloids, AT1.
-deathactions: Cloaked Asp.
etc, ofcourse there are many other examples of cool coding.


Don't forget to look in the elite-wiki at Alioth.net.

--
Have fun!


ps Some less fun stuff:
If you want your ships to be accepted by the community in general,
be carefull not to create unrealistically powerfull ships.
Balance things out: Great speed usually needs a big engine so less cargo space, Offensive equipment is most effective when custom fitted, making a craft powerfull but less versatile in its configuration and difficult to upgrade.
Most ships are contemporaries and the classic designs in the Ooniverse have lasted for centuries. The Cobra3 is supposed to be a revolutionary design triumph and although it is a multi-role ship it is still superior to many older ships.
You could include code to limit your powerfull Nu-design to a later game time, but this is usually a bit beyond the casual OXPer.

[Cholmondely]

Ships are not always offered immediately at the shipyard, it may take several jumps to finally find it on sale.
Best way to test ships is not the shipyard, but the 'parade' of the start screen or the classical 'scripting a small encounter script'.

The first method is a quick way to see if your shipmodel (subentities and lights too) is working, you just need to place the name of your custom ship in the Demoships.plist .

The second method, is better for testing out the behaviour of the ship, lasers, exhausts, missiles etc. Some use it also to investigate their creations upclose from any angle, by temporarily replacing their AI by dumbAI.plist.



---
exhausts are also hardcoded to be directed to the rear (or -Z) of the shipentity.

Sometimes you might want to direct them outward at angles to the main body, but this is not possible.

---

In general, the best way to start out is to take the shipdata of a similar ship/entity to what you want to produce, then edit stuff.

When you want to add special behaviours or effects, look at how it is done in examples done by others.
-lights: look at police or orbs.
-turrets: look at behemoth or Armoured Transport.
-carrier: look at behemoth.
-other dockables: hermit, stations by OXPers.
-subentities: look at weeviloids, AT1.
-deathactions: Cloaked Asp.
etc, ofcourse there are many other examples of cool coding.


Don't forget to look in the elite-wiki at Alioth.net.

--
Have fun!


ps Some less fun stuff:
If you want your ships to be accepted by the community in general,
be carefull not to create unrealistically powerfull ships.
Balance things out: Great speed usually needs a big engine so less cargo space, Offensive equipment is most effective when custom fitted, making a craft powerfull but less versatile in its configuration and difficult to upgrade.
Most ships are contemporaries and the classic designs in the Ooniverse have lasted for centuries. The Cobra3 is supposed to be a revolutionary design triumph and although it is a multi-role ship it is still superior to many older ships.
You could include code to limit your powerfull Nu-design to a later game time, but this is usually a bit beyond the casual OXPer.

Should any of this advice be included in the wiki (or linked to)?

And does any of it need changing?

[montana05]

Personally I like Gallery.OXP to view ships. You can rotate and zoom everything there, so light effects under different suns or "sloppy" pixels are easily tested. http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Gallery

[Cholmondely]

When you want to add special behaviours or effects, look at how it is done in examples done by others.
-lights: look at police or orbs.
-turrets: look at behemoth or Armoured Transport.
-carrier: look at behemoth.
-other dockables: hermit, stations by OXPers.
-subentities: look at weeviloids, AT1.
-death actions: Cloaked Asp.
etc, of course there are many other examples of cool coding.

Any ideas for updating this list?
(I presume that the cloaked asp is from the Vanilla game code)

I can think of:
- animation: butterflies & Stellar Serpents
- subentities: Z GrOovy HPC pack
- death actions: Sabre's Tribant (just reading the label on his box!)

[hiran]

When you want to add special behaviours or effects, look at how it is done in examples done by others.
-lights: look at police or orbs.
-turrets: look at behemoth or Armoured Transport.
-carrier: look at behemoth.
-other dockables: hermit, stations by OXPers.
-subentities: look at weeviloids, AT1.
-death actions: Cloaked Asp.
etc, of course there are many other examples of cool coding.

Any ideas for updating this list?
(I presume that the cloaked asp is from the Vanilla game code)

I can think of:
- animation: butterflies & Stellar Serpents
- subentities: Z GrOovy HPC pack
- death actions: Sabre's Tribant (just reading the label on his box!)

Animation is also contained in the Imperial Courier.