Tionisla Orbital Graveyard

Selezen · Post by **Selezen** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 7:38 pm

I forgot to answer about the beacons.

I always envisioned the beacons as just that - beacons that demarcate the boundary of the yard. They could be assumed to have proximity detectors and may project a field around the yard that would sound off an alarm if an unauthorised object passed through it.

They could, in a pinch, be considered to be armed. If poss, why not arm them with beam lasers? Missiles would be too destructive, and might destroy a monument.

I think the beacons should be about 100m in diameter.

The defence and well-being of the yard would be the remit of the dodo station in the yard. Here is where the maintenance and defence crews would be based, piloting Kraits and A_H's Lancets (Lancets for the defence, obviously!).

Just for public info, I have set up a file share area on my site. I will be uploading files there for the time being, since there are so many issues with the Yahoo groups. I mention this cos I just uploaded my first p-list file. Not much changed, but there is a Dodec station in the group now. I docked at it about an hour ago!!

Now I just have to make it spin!

Arexack_Heretic · Post by **Arexack_Heretic** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 8:01 pm

meh....

How is the dodo different from normal dodo's (not extinct obviously, but you get my drift...)

What was the URL to your site again? Edit: never mind just read the pm.

If the dodo doesn't need to be exactly like the ingame ones, I can just upscale a standard dodecahedron to 1km and create a texture from that.
Then again, it Would be better if you made YOUR dodo available (or the surfaceUVmaps), so that we can create a custom skin, without the need for you to edit the plists again to import new dodo's.

Edit2: lasers on a stationary object are useless.
If we could maybe downgrade the effectiveness of a missile....Aeg?

Cmdr. Wombat · Post by **Cmdr. Wombat** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 8:20 pm

Arexack_Heretic wrote:
Edit2: lasers on a stationary object are useless.
If we could maybe downgrade the effectiveness of a missile....Aeg?

What about a Thargoid laser? You can change the beam color to make it less "alien".

By the way, you guys rock. I can't wait to see the TGY.

Selezen · Post by **Selezen** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 8:21 pm

Arexack_Heretic wrote:
meh....

How is the dodo different from normal dodo's (not extinct obviously, but you get my drift...)

It isn't - I'm using the dodo from the main game.

Arexack_Heretic wrote:
If the dodo doesn't need to be exactly like the ingame ones, I can just upscale a standard dodecahedron to 1km and create a texture from that.

The standard dodo shouldn't need to be upscaled. It should be a basic dod the same as the rest of the ones in the game. It shouldn't even really need to be retextured, but if you really feel the need, go ahead!

Arexack_Heretic wrote:
Then again, it Would be better if you made YOUR dodo available (or the surfaceUVmaps), so that we can create a custom skin, without the need for you to edit the plists again to import new dodo's.

Like I said, I'm just using the default dodo. I don't have a custom model or custom maps for it.

Arexack_Heretic wrote:
Edit2: lasers on a stationary object are useless.
If we could maybe downgrade the effectiveness of a missile....Aeg?

Damn. Missiles it is then.

Aegidian, how do I make this damn station spin?

Arexack_Heretic · Post by **Arexack_Heretic** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 8:28 pm

ok, maybe I asked to many things in one post.

Could you upload the standard textures then?
I'll just slightly modify them. (maybe)

About the spinning: isn't that a standard feature of the station ai? Just guessing.
(BTW: not doing any real work tonite, just checking pc now and then)

Selezen · Post by **Selezen** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 9:49 pm

Arexack_Heretic wrote:
Could you upload the standard textures then?
I'll just slightly modify them. (maybe)

Ah, sorry, I forgot that you don't have a running version. Hang on...

Right - after duly checking, there is a dat file for the dodec, but no actual textures for it. I've uploaded dodec.dat and new-dodo.dat.

Aeg, do you have a wings file and/or texture map for the dodo?

Arexack_Heretic wrote:
About the spinning: isn't that a standard feature of the station ai? Just guessing.
(BTW: not doing any real work tonite, just checking pc now and then)

I dunno. The dodec entry in shipdata.plist states it's stationAI.plist that controls it, but it should just be a standard action.

Hmm... Aeg, can you help with that one too? And is there any way to control what way the station faces?

I've done a load of work on the yard, and it's looking pretty now. I've uploaded some images to the shared zone:

http://www.hughesd.co.uk/elite/oolite/m ... reen01.jpg
- a view of the yard just after exiting the main Tionisla Station

http://www.hughesd.co.uk/elite/oolite/m ... reen02.jpg
- a view from above the graveyard.

http://www.hughesd.co.uk/elite/oolite/m ... reen03.jpg
- A view on approach to the yard from Tionisla station.

http://www.hughesd.co.uk/elite/oolite/m ... reen04.jpg
- from inside the station, looking back at Tionisla.

I've used the 'shuttle' role to populate the graveyard, so it's filled with Transporters, Orbit Shuttles and Worms. I did this because when using the monument model, the FPS went down to about 8fps. As you can see from the 4th screenshot, my FPS stayed up at about 60 for the entire duration of my trip through the yard using just ships.

The new planetinfo.plist is in the shared area. Feel free to peruse.

There are about 60 ships in there at the moment. I am gonna try and gradually up this number and see how it affects frame rates.

The trip through, with about 60 static ships just sitting there looking at me was pretty atmospheric, and the auto positioning that Giles mentioned has left a fair bit of room between the ships for a ship to fly. It should look damned great with monuments and rusty ships.

I may start work on modelling some monuments inbetween plist shuffling. I will need someone to run that python script on the .OBJ file once I've done though...sorry, but that part of the routine makes my ears bleed.

Enjoy, everyone!

Rxke · Post by **Rxke** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 9:59 pm

dodospin i can look after.
Still no luck uploading. And i used browsing

Texture for dodo = geneal texture, I think, what does the datfile say?

Oh, it's at the bottom: several 'metal' textures.

Rxke · Post by **Rxke** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 10:08 pm

in shipdat.plist, there's no entry for the new dodo. just copy the standard dodecahedron shipdata.plist from Giles' Oolite, and change the name to dodec. Quick hack but wuld probably work sufficient for now. Further AI tweakin when needed.

Selezen · Post by **Selezen** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 10:09 pm

I didn't realise that the dat files were just text!!

Dodo textures are:

left_metal.png
back_metal.png
front_metal.png
bottom_metal.png
right_metal.png
dark_metal.png

I'll zip em and upload em if you like.

Rxke, I have no idea why the thing isn't uploading. It's fine for me. It might be something to do with working from a mac. Try changing the direction of the slashes in the path (from slash to backslash or whatever)

Actually, that may be a point - if I remember rightly, Macs use forward slashes in filenames, don't they?

Rxke · Post by **Rxke** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 10:14 pm

forward slashes, jup. don't even have a backslash on my keyboard, honestly!

(\\\\ I do, ctrl-shift)

ok next try... Yesss! (weird)

Rxke · Post by **Rxke** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 10:17 pm

mkay, by now that graveyard.zip of mine is outdated, heehee...
Still, good thing to unpack it, put the different stuff up there, as a reference.

BTW: what happens if, say, i upload an already existing file? error, meguess...

so I upload stuff i changed in a map maybe or add a trailing 'R' on the filename it so you see it comes from me...

Rxke · Post by **Rxke** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 10:22 pm

Okay, I placed your files into my oxp, so normally we have identical oxp's.
(edit: not totally... I haphazardly changed textures in my OXP, and probably uploaded that borked one to you... in textures, remove the r fom Grraveyard_Dark, remove the Alumplat and ditch gravemonument one...
Oh, and in shipdata.plist shipyard_basic can be ditched too, for now.

Selezen · Post by **Selezen** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 10:48 pm

Cool...glad it's working.

I keep forgetting I'm the only heretic with a PC here!

OK, I'll leave the dodo to you. I'll get back onto the actual dynamics of the yard. It still needs to be bigger, I think.

I quite like it so far - it's visible from the main station and takes a bit of time to travel across. I might make it another couple of thousand meters across though. I might also add another two to four beacons on the z axis, so that the yard is surrounded in 3 dimensions by beacons.

aegidian · Post by **aegidian** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 10:57 pm

Selezen wrote:
Aegidian, how do I make this damn station spin?

One of the values in roles has to be station this tells the game to treat it as a station rather than as a ship.

Selezen · Post by **Selezen** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 11:29 pm

aegidian wrote:
One of the values in roles has to be station this tells the game to treat it as a station rather than as a ship.

I'm using the default Dodec from your main shipdata.plist file.

The entry in planetinfo.plist reads as follows:

Code: Select all

				"checkForShips: dodec", 											{
					conditions = ("shipsFound_number lessthan 2");
					do = ( "addShipsAt: dodec 1 psm 0 0 200500" );
				},