Some suggestions

[Problem]

After playing for a few days I have some suggestions for Oolite:

1. Darker planets. I know the planets are procedurally generated, but it should be possible to reduce the darkness and/or saturation of the colors a little bit. I got the impression that all of the Planets are very bright. There are lots white/pink or white/cyan planets that look really strange. Actually I haven't seen any planets that were gray, brown or dark blue so far. I don't know if this will change with the new procedural textures, but at the moment I think they are too bright.

2. Different animations for docking and witchspace. I've already seen this suggestion, but that tread was very old. It doesn't make sense to see those witchspace circles when you are docking - when I started from a station for the first time I was confused, as I thought I had accidently made a witchspace jump.

3. Alternative keyboard configuration for international players:

Unfortunately, the issue you encountered is a problem with one of the external code library used in program and as such is beyond the control of the Oolite team. As such, any non us-keyboard user has problems due to the way the library reads the keyboard.

It seems there are just a few keys that don't work on a non-us keyboard. After I changed them to letters, they work. So it might be good idea to have an otional keyboard configuration that just uses numbers, F-keys and letters?

[DaddyHoggy]

Hi Problem - I think "proper" procedural planets are on the to do list (in fact we did have procedural planets for a while but there were some serious killer issues with it) - I think being able to play with the sun settings will help in 1.73.

Installing Famous Planets and System Redux will certainly give you some additional eye candy to look at from a planetary point of view.

You're more than welcome to write a config file for yourself that uses only 'F'-keys and numerical keys - but as I think was clearly stated the issues are not with Oolite but with the libraries and I think rewriting these is a lot to ask of the devs!

I have always presumed that the docking/witching rings were a computer generated occurance over the viewer to stop the pilots being disorientated by the transition - nothing to do with the actual event that takes place - well, that's how I justify it to myself anyway!

[Problem]

You're more than welcome to write a config file for yourself that uses only 'F'-keys and numerical keys - but as I think was clearly stated the issues are not with Oolite but with the libraries and I think rewriting these is a lot to ask of the devs!

I didn't ask to rewrite any libraries. I just thought it would be easier for new players if there were alternative configurations to choose from if the standard config doesn't work. It might also be an idea to post configs for different keyboard layouts in the wiki.

Installing Famous Planets and System Redux will certainly give you some additional eye candy to look at from a planetary point of view.

Yes, and these are really good. But it would still be nice to improve the standard planets. Anyway, I like the idea of procedural textures, as this means that every planet looks different. Even the simple standard textures we have now would look good with different colors.

[Rustybolts]

You're more than welcome to write a config file for yourself that uses only 'F'-keys and numerical keys - but as I think was clearly stated the issues are not with Oolite but with the libraries and I think rewriting these is a lot to ask of the devs!

I didn't ask to rewrite any libraries. I just thought it would be easier for new players if there were alternative configurations to choose from if the standard config doesn't work. It might also be an idea to post configs for different keyboard layouts in the wiki.

Installing Famous Planets and System Redux will certainly give you some additional eye candy to look at from a planetary point of view.

Yes, and these are really good. But it would still be nice to improve the standard planets. Anyway, I like the idea of procedural textures, as this means that every planet looks different. Even the simple standard textures we have now would look good with different colors.

Actually i think we should have an in game redifine keyboard option. Not everyone likes to mess with config files.

[DaddyHoggy]

I didn't ask to rewrite any libraries. I just thought it would be easier for new players if there were alternative configurations to choose from if the standard config doesn't work. It might also be an idea to post configs for different keyboard layouts in the wiki.

Hope you didn't get the impression I was having a go - I think multiple international configs is a good idea they could even be offered as part of the localisation packages. (as well as going on the wiki - which is another good idea)

[zevans]

I'll have a go at updating the wiki - there's the German layout someone posted, I've got a BBC / retro keys one, I'll have a search on here for more, or any pointers here welcome!

I think an in-game keyboard editor is on the todo list long term...

On the latest trunk builds of 1.73 the planets are more or less as your wishlist describes them and I found a system on Friday that had a seriously dark blue world, very pretty!

[DaddyHoggy]

A lot of complaints about Oolite seem to relate to keyboard config and while lots of OXPs are now limited by an inability to define a key stroke in some ways this is sensible since OXPs could end up fighting over a limited number of available keys (further restricted it would seem for non-US keyboard users)

While it wouldn't be as fast as a single key press - would it be possible to implement (at some point post-MNSR) a single key stroke to bring up a menu. In this menu could then be stored additional functionality from OXPs that require/desire it and a simple scroll up/down + select methodology implemented. A new config/plist would be created so that the user could list these additional commands in an order of preference suitable to the way they played the game (i.e. often used additional commands at the top of the menu, useful but little used at/near the bottom).

Just a thought.

[Problem]

While it wouldn't be as fast as a single key press - would it be possible to implement (at some point post-MNSR) a single key stroke to bring up a menu. In this menu could then be stored additional functionality from OXPs that require/desire it and a simple scroll up/down + select methodology implemented. A new config/plist would be created so that the user could list these additional commands in an order of preference suitable to the way they played the game (i.e. often used additional commands at the top of the menu, useful but little used at/near the bottom).

That sounds like a good idea. There's only a limited number of keys, and a menu would not only help with the growing number of OXPs, but also prevent possible conflicts between OXPs and user defined keyboard controls.

On the latest trunk builds of 1.73 the planets are more or less as your wishlist describes them and I found a system on Friday that had a seriously dark blue world, very pretty!

That sounds great and would really add to the atmosphere of the game. Of course there are great planet textures in some OXPs, but you can't have an individual texture for every planet this way.

[Commander McLane]

After playing for a few days I have some suggestions for Oolite:

1. Darker planets. I know the planets are procedurally generated, but it should be possible to reduce the darkness and/or saturation of the colors a little bit. I got the impression that all of the Planets are very bright. There are lots white/pink or white/cyan planets that look really strange. Actually I haven't seen any planets that were gray, brown or dark blue so far. I don't know if this will change with the new procedural textures, but at the moment I think they are too bright.

You can control their brightness (or to be more precise the ambient lighting) via planetinfo.plist.

I understand you are using System_Redux.oxp, which sets the ambient light to a rather high level. If you open the OXP, find the planetinfo.plist file within its Config-folder, open it, and find the following part in it,

Code: Select all

    universal = {
        "ambient_level" = "1.25"; 
        "percent_cloud" = "0.0"; 
        "rotational_velocity" = "0.010"; 
        "sky_blur_alpha" = "0.25"; 
        "sky_blur_cluster_chance" = "0.10"; 
        "sky_blur_scale" = 25; 
    };

you can reset the value of "ambient_level" to anything you want. Lower values make it darker, higher values make it brighter. Note that System Redux actually increases the value from its default of 1. Myself I find that too bright too, so in my personal copy I reduced the value from 1.25 to 0.75.