Caduceus

[Lestradae]

I'll also drop the top speed to 4.4 but one of the points of this ship was to go toe to toe with a monk gun ship and I can't do that at lesser speeds.

I wouldn't do that. Just my opinion. Who doesn't want to have such a mighty ship in their game doesn't have to - no one has to install this oxp, and that's it, methinks.

If you like it that way leave it as it is.

Cheers

L

[ClymAngus]

I'll also drop the top speed to 4.4 but one of the points of this ship was to go toe to toe with a monk gun ship and I can't do that at lesser speeds.

I wouldn't do that. Just my opinion. Who doesn't want to have such a mighty ship in their game doesn't have to - no one has to install this oxp, and that's it, methinks.

If you like it that way leave it as it is.

Cheers

L

Well I had a sleep on it and I thought I was being a bit of an ass about the whole thing. To be honest screet has a very good point, if a ship is too fast you can end up slamming it into things. I just need an edge and 4.4-4.5 would do it anything more is overkill. Anyway I'm going to upload this to my mac and get fixing, thank you all for your feedback and your help.

[Commander McLane]

Hi!

Just to be a little nit-picky:

...Details are sketchy (the documents are heavily censored) but the battle appears to have taken place on one of the outer spiral arms of galaxy 4.

That's quite unlikely, as it is established that the eight 'galaxies' are in fact only eight different parts of one and the same (our) galaxy.

[ClymAngus]

Hi!

Just to be a little nit-picky:

...Details are sketchy (the documents are heavily censored) but the battle appears to have taken place on one of the outer spiral arms of galaxy 4.

That's quite unlikely, as it is established that the eight 'galaxies' are in fact only eight different parts of one and the same (our) galaxy.

So 8 clusters would have been more appropriate then? Righty ho, as it's a fixy kind of day I'll add it to the list.

[Commander McLane]

So 8 clusters would have been more appropriate then? Righty ho, as it's a fixy kind of day I'll add it to the list.

Or you go the way Drew is going in his fiction, and just stay with 'charts'.

[Cmdr Wyvern]

Can I have a volunteer to boot this up on a pc when I've done?

Being on a mac I'm flying a bit blind here when it comes to error checking

Sure thing, fling it when ready.

Funny how it blew oolite up on the windows PC, but didn't adversely affect the Mac. Chalk it down to general windows crappiness, I suppose.

While there's fixing happening, I took one around for a test flight, and noted that the vertical fin on top barely clears the docking slit. Got a few loud bangs and not-so happy station management from that.
It also got me thinking... Docking slits are broad but not so tall. Perhaps losing the vertical fin in favor of a low profile X-wing arrangement + front canards would work.

Also, front laser shoots a hair too high, rear laser shoots too low.

Can I suggest top/bottom turrets in addition to the side turrets? Space is 3D after all.

Oh, if monks are really that big a PITA, then simply show 'em what the big red shiny button marked "E-BOMB" can do.

[ClymAngus]

Hm interesting. I thought I had a reasoable clearance. total hight 47, a boa is 60, so if you can park a boa you should be able to park a caddy. You do have to come in a little lower than you normally would do to adjust for the extra "top". I was trying to make something that could be used believably with Thargoid's planetfall.oxp as well as dock conventionally.

8 turrets? And people accuse me of over kill. Originally that was the plan to just stick with 2 (that's the reason for the ports at the base of the neck on the texture). Then I realised that other people (like your good self) had already done that. Being a fan of naval engagements (as I said earlier) I liked the idea of bringing oak ship tactics to oolite. Also with the clearances
for the belly and top fin. A top bottom turret system would find itself quite limited too.

As for laser targetting I take it that this would be a simple readjustment of the y coordinate? a + in the front and a - in the rear?

Bomb a monk? Yes, I could do that. But does anything really beat flying along side, matching move for move whilst your auto guns pound those smug sanctimonious money grubbers into tin foil? I don't know, but I intend to waste a few enjoyable evenings finding out.

Can I have a volunteer to boot this up on a pc when I've done?

Being on a mac I'm flying a bit blind here when it comes to error checking

Sure thing, fling it when ready.

Funny how it blew oolite up on the windows PC, but didn't adversely affect the Mac. Chalk it down to general windows crappiness, I suppose.

While there's fixing happening, I took one around for a test flight, and noted that the vertical fin on top barely clears the docking slit. Got a few loud bangs and not-so happy station management from that.
It also got me thinking... Docking slits are broad but not so tall. Perhaps losing the vertical fin in favor of a low profile X-wing arrangement + front canards would work.

Also, front laser shoots a hair too high, rear laser shoots too low.

Can I suggest top/bottom turrets in addition to the side turrets? Space is 3D after all.

Oh, if monks are really that big a PITA, then simply show 'em what the big red shiny button marked "E-BOMB" can do.

[Screet]

Can I have a volunteer to boot this up on a pc when I've done?

Being on a mac I'm flying a bit blind here when it comes to error checking

As I'm highly interested in flying that ship and I do have a windows pc, I'd be happy if I can help to make things better. If required, I can also boot up an oolite installation on a single core processor with XP64 instead of my QuadCore with Vista32 (I did order a 64bit system, but the vendors...). I do have some other bugs to sort out before, though, as my installation gives me much trouble since 1.72.2.

Concerning the speed: If you ask me, the previous setting wasn't too fast if you have other oxp ships in and the nerves to fly at that speed. You're right, though, that the newly selected setting does fit in better with original ships.

Concerning the Blackmonk gunships: I asked already elswhere...has anyone ever been shot at by one such ship? They do turn hostile to me, but they never fire at me...

BTW: I guess it's always difficult to get the crosshairs work good, and impossible to have them work perfectly. Flying the GriffBoa, I noticed that I sometimes have to target BELOW the mil laser crosshairs! Below! Quite often I need to have ships at the upper tip of the lower part of the crosshairs to hit...maybe the camera and laser do have very different height settings. I had similar problems with other ships, depending upon the model. Apparently, things worked best for the Merlin, but that ship is as tiny as a cargo canister, while the biggest offsets came with the Dredger Trader and GB. The problem gets reduced, the further the target is away and when close-up, firing when the enemy is in the crosshairs often results in the laser shooting through the enemy ship without hitting it.

Screet

[ClymAngus]

OK, thanks (in no small part to this forum) I've knocked most of the kinks out of this oxp (apart from the cross hair issue) and I'm going to have to spend some time shooting at shit to get that right so consider this a bit of a beta.

I'll upload as soon as I get home tonight (about 4 hours away).

File fixes 21-01-09
flightspeed adjusted from 5.1 to 4.4
Roles tweaked.
conditions code rechecked.
Text file back story adjusted.
Hud preference removed.
shader moved and effects layer rebuilt.
shipyard.plist issues resolved.

I don't think I've missed anything (apart from the gunnery issue) I'll see if I can fix that tonight.

[Cmdr Wyvern]

Hm interesting. I thought I had a reasoable clearance. total hight 47, a boa is 60, so if you can park a boa you should be able to park a caddy. You do have to come in a little lower than you normally would do to adjust for the extra "top". I was trying to make something that could be used believably with Thargoid's planetfall.oxp as well as dock conventionally.

The Boa's secret: it's longer than it is wide. It's long nose makes the break pattern before it's big fat butt hits the docking port walls. It vanishes before it can collide. Smaller, shorter ships can't pull that one off as easily, so in relation to the port's low overhead, vertical protrusions can get tricky. Heh, the venerable old Cobby barely makes it in that regard.
Let me shoot you a WIP shot of a model I've been fiddling with on and off for the past few months. I took a different approach to vertical fins with this one.



It's an old model, used to look a little like a Russian MIG crossbred with an Eurofighter. I've been slowly remaking it into a sorta lifting-body spaceplane. Check out the wingtip mounted verticals, it gives the thing a low vert profile.

8 turrets? And people accuse me of over kill. Originally that was the plan to just stick with 2 (that's the reason for the ports at the base of the neck on the texture). Then I realised that other people (like your good self) had already done that. Being a fan of naval engagements (as I said earlier) I liked the idea of bringing oak ship tactics to oolite. Also with the clearances
for the belly and top fin. A top bottom turret system would find itself quite limited too.

Well no, maybe not that many, and if you did mount 8 you can avoid overkill firepower by simply tuning the weapon_energy stat to a low number. weapon_energy of 15 matches pulse and beam lasers; 20-25 is the standard and matches mil lasers.
I wouldn't say mounting top/bottom turrets is all that limited, or useless. Before yaw control came along, all we had was roll and pitch, which top/bottom turrets work real well on. I'll lay odds that we have pilots who wouldn't touch yaw except for tweaking a manual docking approach. I made the Dragon M mount top/bottom turrets, and that thing is a very effective brute within turret range.

As for laser targetting I take it that this would be a simple readjustment of the y coordinate? a + in the front and a - in the rear?

The weapon_position plist key got borked somehow in recent versions of Oolite. Z-axis co-ord seems to work fine, but X and Y co-ords aren't working worth a hoot as near as I can tell. The best workaround I've found is to center the model in your modeller (Wings3D or whatever) as well as possible. The laser wants to shoot out centered along the ship's Z. Getting the gun camera views close to and slightly above the laser works, too.

Bomb a monk? Yes, I could do that. But does anything really beat flying along side, matching move for move whilst your auto guns pound those smug sanctimonious money grubbers into tin foil? I don't know, but I intend to waste a few enjoyable evenings finding out.

You only get one shot with an E-bomb, but it's a shot that'll instantly make them meet up with God. A hail of plasma fire may put the fear of God into them. Cascade bombs may also have satisfying results, especially if deployed while a bunch of the buggers are chasing you. (NPCs are generally too stupid to run from a cascade detonation.)

[ClymAngus]

OK update online.

I'm taking the ship out for another spin, I really thought I'd comprehensively tested the docking slit issue..... My programming may be a touch suspect (never trust an autodidact) but my spacial awareness is innate and so far first rate.





I see no problem here. It's closer than your average letter box ship, but then if your paying 1.2 mill for a ship then we assume your able to land it.

I'll see if I can address the laser problems high in the front and low in the rear eh? well a 0.2 to 0.5 degree rotation should fix that.

and maybe a normal map at some point.

[Commander McLane]

Hey, that's a Kestrel from Escape Velocity!

And with the correct shaders placement and a working shipyard.plist it gets even better!

I know, it's a matter of taste, but if I keep it in my AddOns the <key>has_military_jammer</key> will have to go. An item like this doesn't exist in the Ooniverse I'm living in. Other than that, the plists seem fine.

[ClymAngus]

Hey, that's a Kestrel from Escape Velocity!

Ah the kestrel, arguably one of the better looking ships in that game (they got better through out the series). Although there are some small similarities, the Caddy owes more to Blakes7 & Trek than EV. Still, who doesn't like delta wings eh?

In later versions the ship slapped on the front cover of EV nova (starbridge?) Now that would be a good ship to oo.

Ok you'd need to fritz the stats; 20 metres length and 40 tons of cargo space (!). (Personally I'd make it double or triple the size) but hey, the white paint job is to die for. I might ask ambrosia if they'd mind me doing a version for Oolite... Never know they might say yes, the worst they can say is no.

[Cmdr Wyvern]

The Fierce Lizard gives the fixed Caddy a solid four claws.
The controls are still a bit twitchy for my tastes - I'm learning to precision aim without precision mode, which is some trick for long-range sniping - but what works for me may not cut it for someone else, and vice versa.

I'll have to examine the shader code; I want to use shaders to generate a hot engine effect for the WIP Xarik spaceplane I'm tinkering with.

[Screet]

The Fierce Lizard gives the fixed Caddy a solid four claws.
The controls are still a bit twitchy for my tastes - I'm learning to precision aim without precision mode, which is some trick for long-range sniping - but what works for me may not cut it for someone else, and vice versa.

I temporarily changed the shipyard probability. I was too desperate...now I'm flying one. VERY NICE and smooth handling! I've yet to encounter any trouble aiming?!? Anyway, I was considering while flying a previous ship that a dynamic joystick setup could help: more precision around the center.

The turrets...I am astonished that they don't shoot the ship itself...and even more about their efficiency. Maybe they are too powerful? Taking out the Leviathan was so much easier than with the GriffBoa!

I could imagine reduced turret power for the original intended engine power

What's very nice is, that the ship can be hit much more easily than quite some I've been flying so far, which reduces the over-powering effect of the turrets. I still need to fly it through some bigger battles, though.

I just love that ship! I was a bit afraid concerning the warnings about docking, but I cannot see any problems, now that I've done a few manual dockings on rotating stations...fits very well.

I'll have to examine the shader code; I want to use shaders to generate a hot engine effect for the WIP Xarik spaceplane I'm tinkering with.

I recently had some problems with other objects (stations, ships, asteroids...) glowing according to my engines settings

Screet