Trumble mission

morigen · Post by **morigen** » Sun Jul 03, 2005 3:03 pm

The trumble mission in Elite was a basic mission. Does this exist in Oolite?

Rxke · Post by **Rxke** » Sun Jul 03, 2005 3:08 pm

dang, i was going to write that one! Shhht!

(But probably Giles has it already half-written)

BTW: this could be posted in 'suggestions,' it's a good one.

aegidian · Post by **aegidian** » Sun Jul 03, 2005 3:08 pm

morigen wrote:
The trumble mission in Elite was a basic mission. Does this exist in Oolite?

Not as yet.

The missions so far have been a mix of BBC Elite style missions and others, the trumbles were introduced with the C64, we'll get to them in turn.

Trumble artwork and mission-flow ideas are (of course) warmly welcomed.

aegidian · Post by **aegidian** » Sun Jul 03, 2005 3:14 pm

Rxke wrote:
dang, i was going to write that one! Shhht!

(But probably Giles has it already half-written)

Nope, not yet.

Trumbles will probably have to be treated like equipment (EQ_TRUMBLE), and some code will be probably needed there to control their addition and numbers.

We also need a small addition to the HUD code to draw them, and an addition to the temperature control code to affect their removal.

mmmm

Now I've thought about it maybe I could have a go at it this week. Anyone remember how the mission flows?

[moving topic from Outworld to Suggestions]

Rxke · Post by **Rxke** » Sun Jul 03, 2005 3:34 pm

aegidian wrote:
Trumbles will probably have to be treated like equipment (EQ_TRUMBLE), and some code will be probably needed there to control their addition and numbers.

Disclaimer: never playd og. trumble mission, only watered-down version in SpaceTrader (PalmOS)

Well you implemented addcargo, and I thought one could 'simply' do it w/o EQ_TRUMBLE: in SpaceTrader they lived off narcotics and food, so whenever you buy food, count that, do some multiplication of trumbles, do addcargo 'minus' food or narcs... rince lather repeat...
Nice one was also the risk to run fines for having a contaminated ship, trade-in value plummeting etc...

calculating trumbles, show this when you dock, ("When you open up your holds, you're horrified to find #XXX dead rumbles, your narcs gone;" or "customs fines you #WWW cr. for finding #XYZ trumbles in your, otherwise empty foodcontainers," etc"
but it doesn't have to come up anywhere else (maybe your 'captainslog' ("your cargo is infested with #XXX trumbles)

Temp: hmmm... In spacedtrader a 'strange merchant ' finally agreed to buy them for a tidy sum... But that'd be cheating.

Rubinstein · Post by **Rubinstein** » Sun Jul 03, 2005 6:07 pm

aegidian wrote:
Anyone remember how the mission flows?

Code: Select all

At 6553.6cr, you are offered a Tribble / Trumble for sale. If you buy it
   it sits in your hold eating cargo and multiplying. If you get enough,
   you may see one crawling across the screen! They are useless and can
   be destroyed by flying close to the sun. If you escapsule, one comes
   with you to start the whole cycle again.

snipped from here:
http://www.nvg.ntnu.no/bbc/doc/games/EliteFAQ.htm
under 2.4) Missions/ 1) Tribble

This page also contains tons of useful history/information about Elite on several platforms.

But

"...you may see one crawling across the screen!"

Just one? I recall having them crowded my whole cockpit after a while (on C64).
Almost impossible to fly when you're blinded that way...

aegidian · Post by **aegidian** » Sun Jul 03, 2005 7:22 pm

Yeah, I know about those particular sites.

What I was more after was:

1. Is anyone aware of a particular set of circumstances that trigger being offered a Trumble in the first place?

2. Anyone had any experience of the amount/types of cargo they consume?

3. I know that you can sun-skim to burn them out, is there any other way people have experienced getting rid of them.

4. When accumulating/burning off trumbles - what sort of effects would you like to see?

5. Should I go with 3d modeled trumbles, simple flat drawings, fluffy balls or what?

Selezen · Post by **Selezen** » Sun Jul 03, 2005 8:45 pm

aegidian wrote:
1. Is anyone aware of a particular set of circumstances that trigger being offered a Trumble in the first place?

Rubinstein already said it:

At 6553.6cr, you are offered a Tribble / Trumble for sale.

aegidian wrote:
2. Anyone had any experience of the amount/types of cargo they consume?

They consume any foodstuff (Food, Liquor & Wines)

aegidian wrote:
3. I know that you can sun-skim to burn them out, is there any other way people have experienced getting rid of them.

The Amiga version of Elite had a cargo jettison option for geting rid of pirates. I never found out if it also had trumbles (I doubt it though)

aegidian wrote:
4. When accumulating/burning off trumbles - what sort of effects would you like to see?

When accumulating, they could start to appear at the bottom of the screen, and gradually increase after every docking, getting fatter? When burning them off, they could drop off the bottom of the screen, and wisps of smoke could wind thier way up the viewscreen...

aegidian wrote:
5. Should I go with 3d modeled trumbles, simple flat drawings, fluffy balls or what?

Muppet skin photos, images from the Star Trek episodes, a simple fluffy ball or a drawing that looks pretty 3-dimensional...no need to waste processing power, is there>

Some samples for you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:STTribbles.jpg
http://www.danhausertrek.com/AnimatedSeries/MTT.html
http://palmsource.palmgear.com/index.cf ... odid=44950

aegidian · Post by **aegidian** » Sun Jul 03, 2005 9:45 pm

Aha:

6. Apparently they squeaked - anyone got a sound sample?

Arexack_Heretic · Post by **Arexack_Heretic** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 12:09 am

1) it usually was the first mission offered at a certain amount of credit,
You accumulate 5000-6000 Creds and a guy offers to sell you a highly sought after lifeform You buy it (or not) and soon after, they multiply into a million filling your cargohold and eventually your viewscreen. Indeed ejecting from your ship takes one along and you start al over. I never found that lucrative market that bought them....nor the terrorist who wanted to use them to starve a planet.

6) I'm sure this was only in Startrek, I never heard them on my C=64.
They purr. prrr, prrr.

awww...how sweet. now cook 'em!

-I think IanBell stated that he would have reduced the multiplication of trumbles, in afterthought.
I tend to agree, they multiplied to maximum in several trims in my experience.

-It would be fun to grow a sort af Tamaguchi (r) relationship with a trumble on screen (representing up to 1 tonnes of cargo filled)

-Another way besides UV exposure could be imagined to get rid of excess trumbles. Like selling them to Thargoids or something. Maybe thargoids will demand you allow them to take all trumbles (save the single one offcourse!) instead of attacking you?

Selezen · Post by **Selezen** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 12:37 am

How about some stations offering an extermination service? You pay whatever for it, and there's a percentage chance that it will get all of them, otherwise the whole thing starts up again...

AFAIR, they multiplied exponentially for every h-space jump you made. 1 at Zaonce, 2 at Lave, 4 at Zaonce, 8 at Lave, 16 at Leesti...you get the idea.

stevesims · Post by **stevesims** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 9:12 am

Ah Trumbles. The most annoying mission-ette on C64 Elite. When a friend and I encountered them on his C64 we couldn't work out how to get rid of the blighters, only reading a month or so later in magazines what the solution was. They multiplied until they got really annoying, at which point we were so annoyed we went to an old save game and refused to buy them when we were next offered.

If memory serves there would be a maximum of 8 trumbles on screen at a time, but they would move around obscuring your view. The limit of 8 was down to the number of hardware sprites the C64 graphics system could support IIRC.

Also IIRC they didn't appear on screen for quite a while - multiplying in your cargo hold for a few hyperspace jumps first before they became a real problem.

Whilst you could indeed destroy them by flying close to the sun I believe you could also kill them by buying a big of radioactives. That is after all how the Tribbles got wiped out. I could be wrong though - it has been 20 years since I encountered them.

They would take up cargo space, and when they were killed they got converted to furs.

Murgh · Post by **Murgh** » Sun Jul 17, 2005 1:50 am

they sound they made the way I remember it, was like a pigeon's coo..

aegidian wrote:
5. Should I go with 3d modeled trumbles, simple flat drawings, fluffy balls or what?

they didn't look very furry.
if a simple animation cycle wouldn't be too heavy, just for the eyes and mouth variation, I'd vote 2D.
could Oolite draw something like this?

how far have you come along with them?

Rubinstein · Post by **Rubinstein** » Sun Jul 17, 2005 3:35 am

This would be

The old fashioned C-64 trumbles really don't fit anymore.
Thumbs up for these ones!

aegidian · Post by **aegidian** » Sun Jul 17, 2005 6:45 am

Murgh wrote:
could Oolite draw something like this?

They look GREAT!

If you have the image files for them, Oolite could draw them very easily, can you send them to me, please.

If there are separate component images (eyes mouth body in different animation poses) that'd be even better. Color I can handle by drawing a grayscale image with OpenGL (the same way I color the text), so grayscale images would be best.

FANTASTIC stuff.

As to progress - most everything is thought out, but yet to implement.

I did create a basic Trumble noise, which I'll modify with fmod during play for a variety of annoying 'prrooting' sounds:

http://oolite.aegidian.org/sounds/trumble.ogg

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