That's exactly what I had in mind. That way it's not essential to have both games in order to play one part of it. Oolite remains standalone.
I even have a name for the concept: Ooniverse!
It could work this way:
Player is playing Oolite. Docks at Tionisla. Game could automatically save at this point. Player exits Oolite.
Player starts up Ooniverse. Ooniverse reads Oolite's save game file and reads the player's essential information, especially the docked location, credit balance and what ship they are flying. It boots up with the player standing outside thier ship in a docking bay in a Tionisla station. Ooniverse reads the player's personal posessions and skills from its own save game file which is completely independent of the Oolite save. Player can wander around the station, charter a flight to wherever they want to go (planet, other system etc) and mill around the universe as much as they like.
Player can quit the game anytime they like. if they are not at the same location as thier ship then the next time they start up Ooniverse they will start at that location. If the player tries to board thier ship, Ooniverse saves automatically and prompts player that in order to do that they must exit Ooniverse and play Oolite.
So each game is totally independent - if a player wants to go to another system, then they either have to charter a flight with someone else or get hold of Oolite.
Yes, that 's a way to do it!
I was thinking more on a direct transition, and only being able to explore the station you're on (unless multiple ship owning becomes possible), but your way seems easier to 'merge'.
As for pure 'hack & slay' this wouldn't be the purpose; in fact I'd say that drawing a gun should make the cops around train their guns at the player, etc. There would be such OXP situations, such as failed negotiations with the underworld, Tharg carriers, etc. when this can be a major part, but the point wouldn't be to depopulate every station you visit...
You know those who, having been mugged and stabbed, fired, dog run over, house burned down, wife eloped with best friend, daughters becoming prostitutes and their countries invaded - still say that "all is well"?
I'm obviously not one of them.
As for pure 'hack & slay' this wouldn't be the purpose; in fact I'd say that drawing a gun should make the cops around train their guns at the player, etc. There would be such OXP situations, such as failed negotiations with the underworld, Tharg carriers, etc. when this can be a major part, but the point wouldn't be to depopulate every station you visit...
No, the "hack & slay" reference was an allusion to my own scripting "skills"
I would also think that something that automatically started up if installed was better, but the "two-games-sharing-the-same-save-game-solution" sounds great too.
That`s why I mentioned Oblivion (well, a three thousand years later sci-fi version, anyways ) - there you also usually talk, trade, dispute, and have a look at the other characters and only if there are problems get swords erm, guns drawn.
It would be great if an FPS engine could be incorporated right into Oolite, but I think we have to face the fact that it ain't gonna happen. Oolite's development team have enough to handle just writing Oolite! Adding another development into the mix would be too much to ask.
It COULD be written to automatically start up - I can think of a couple of ways it could be managed given that Oolite uses plists and plain text files for most of its information. Using the save game file is one option...
There are a few things out there that could be used. I'm not an ObjC user, more a Visual Studio user, unfortunately. With that in mind, two separate things come to mind. Truevision 3D is one option, but it has to be paid for if it's used to publish a game commercially. It can be used for free, but it has a watermark in the corner.
Another is the Visual Studio .NET 2008 Express Edition (which is free) and the Game Creators GDK for C++ (also free).
There are definitely a few graphics engines and physics engines out there. One is Irrlicht (http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/) which is totally free and might be just the ticket.
I remembered something: if the Flight/FPS transition is only possible by the saves, it'd make it impossible to visit anything other than the main stations.
You know those who, having been mugged and stabbed, fired, dog run over, house burned down, wife eloped with best friend, daughters becoming prostitutes and their countries invaded - still say that "all is well"?
I'm obviously not one of them.
You would have to use public transport to get to other places.
"Take the 14:30 bus, drop off at the Thargoid Mothership and retrieve the data core."
Might be a bit limiting on the OXPing...
Maybe a small flight engine could be incorporated for flight between planet and station...
So, instead of adding a FPS to Oolite, we'd make the FPS become Oolite?
You know those who, having been mugged and stabbed, fired, dog run over, house burned down, wife eloped with best friend, daughters becoming prostitutes and their countries invaded - still say that "all is well"?
I'm obviously not one of them.
i Dont think it would be to hard to make a station that you could walk around in. But for seeing other Charaters thats where the hard part is.
I see some troubles though..
1 Animation of models something Oolite has none of either by Frame By Frame style (old way) like Quake 1 and 2 Or skeleton way (more modern way). if added, Skeleton would be the way to go since it means you can just photoshop a new skin for a race to create Diversity, instead of having to go rendering all possible posistions in a 3d program...
2 interacting with the station world... Collision detection in Oolite is ATM based on Square Boxes simulated around the models.. Thats all fine for a Space flight.. But not so for a 3d FPS world, where you like to stand next to a wall or an object with out getting repelled by some invisible wall, which will be the case if we used Oolites Standard way for collision detection... A solution to this is to move collision detection to on polygon collision detection.. however this is very complex, and nobody(well i would not) likes to "borrow" other peoples collision code... even for a free project like this.
Even I could Write an OpenGL FPS in C++, that with a very simple Station model (no stairs, no other charaters),but maybe Elevators that would let you walk inside a station.. and use some Quick Cheats to simulate Collision detection and interaction with the world.. Interaction with the world means, say if you goto the "Equipment store" you would want to be able to buy something there...
For models, and a view of yourself, that is a hole other thing, i never did program anything in regard to Animation..
Finally i think that this is messing with the legacy of Oolite, press a key and you are there..
But a background Dockimage with maybe a few 3d ships would be nice, no doubt about that... could be done either Freespace style or Wingcommander style...
An FPS would be awesome but to be honest it seems as a project that is out of the scope of Oolite
I would be already very happy with a classic, randomized text adventures. Maybe with pictures. This board has great people who can make up fantastic stories (see the outworld tread) So why not research into the option to make up old-style text adventures. Maybe with a randomized level generator??
That's what I tried to say in the first post that I mentioned this in - Oolite is Oolite. I never mentioned that Oolite should be rolled into a bigger project. Putting a very basic flight model into an FPS is only to facilitate transports. It shouldn't be OXPable in the same way Oolite is. An Ooniverse OXP would probably expand the accessible areas of a station or planet or add a new race.
Anyone can put together a decent looking FPS engine these days. It's not a difficult concept to put together a half-decent character model either. Working from a basic model, a few different phenotypes could be created for different races in the same way as ship OXPs add ships and the same way that new textures can be used to make them look different.
Oolite will always be Oolite. Putting together a related FPS game isn't going to have any effect on Oolite itself. IF it happens...
Another idea: not an OXP, but a patch that, when enabled F4 while docked, minimizing Oolite and starting a parallel Irrlicht game session.
If it could retrive the required data (including the ship or station type and any outstanding OXP mission variables), each ship and station type could eventually have large explorable areas and scriptable objectives.
When returning to the ship, refresh the variables, close the Irrlicht session and resume the Oolite session.
Would this be doable?
You know those who, having been mugged and stabbed, fired, dog run over, house burned down, wife eloped with best friend, daughters becoming prostitutes and their countries invaded - still say that "all is well"?
I'm obviously not one of them.
