Oolite Bulletins

Gimi wrote:

If I'm understanding this right, it would be more accurate to call this "Equipment Mode" rather than "Secondary Equipment".
<Goes off to change his key map again>

Depends what people use it for, but that's probably not too far off. On the Reference Sheet, I've just put both as "activate equipment" with a note to consult the equipment's own manual.

The way that space dust was being drawn was very inefficient - it was taking about 10ms a time on my computer, which doesn't leave much for the rest of the frame's calculations. Tonight's build should significantly improve on that, but will need testing on a range of systems (shader, non-shader, etc.) to make sure that it works properly.

Visual effects:
- scaleX, scaleY and scaleZ properties. Flashers do not get rescaled with the rest of the effect, but they are repositioned.
- subEntities array property and restoreSubEntities method (exactly like the ones on ships)

Misc:
- F8 F8 screen is now gone.
- sky_n_stars/blurs no longer has the cap on it in full detail mode

cim wrote:

Tonight's build should significantly improve on that, but will need testing on a range of systems (shader, non-shader, etc.) to make sure that it works properly.

Looks good here and seems to reduce CPU load.

XP Pro-x86 32Bit - Core2Duo 2GHz, 945PM, 2GB - Nvidia Go 7950 GTX, 512MB, 8.6.14.11.7948, OGL2.1.2 - DEP Win only.
Oolite: r5497 - Shaders Full - Reduced Mode Off - Windowed 1024x768 - Proced.Planets Off - ESpeak Off.

Will test in other modes as well.

This is what I use currently to build trunk... 2 questions...

Is OO_CHECK_GL_HEAVY=yes relevant and as per r5484 can I drop the OBJCFLAGS define?

Tricky wrote:

Is OO_CHECK_GL_HEAVY=yes relevant and as per r5484 can I drop the OBJCFLAGS define?

OO_CHECK_GL_HEAVY is implied by debug.

-DNEW_PLANETS=0 is now the default, so you can drop that. -D_NATIVE_OBJC_EXCEPTIONS may or may not be necessary depending on your compiler, libraries and OS.

New stuff:
cloud_alpha property for planetinfo.plist: there was a bug which caused clouds on textured planets to bunch into a giant "starfish". Fixing that made them spread properly across the planet ... which looked really strange with planet textures which already include clouds. Planet texture packs probably want to tone this down from the default of 1.0 (I'm using 0.2, which is enough to give a visible atmospheric edge, but not much more, but it really depends how many clouds your textures already have)

Some other bugs with planet atmosphere rotation have also been fixed, and the default range of planetary day lengths has been reduced (at both ends: 1.76 had "20 minutes" to "tide-locked", while trunk now has a general ~1-2 hours)

The "equipment" condition in condition scripts now adds a third "context" parameter to allowAwardEquipment. The need for this became pretty obvious as soon as I tried to do anything with the function... Values can be "npc", "newShip", "purchase" or "scripted".

The two pieces of core mission-related equipment now use a condition script rather than the TL:99 hack to determine when they can be bought at shipyards. Their equipment.plist tech levels have been reduced to their real values.

All core equipment which can be bought by the player now has a condition script attached. This script checks the script_info of the docked station for the key "oolite-barred-equipment", which if it exists should be an array of equipment keys. So if you want an OXP station that only sells missiles and lasers, and no fuel or other equipment, you can do it that way.

New laser texture in r5519

I like the shimmer on the new lasers.

cim wrote:

New laser texture in r5519

...and with that my excuse to restart from scratch has arrived and I switch to playing the nightly from now on... well, in a few hours from now... on.
I really believe the positive atmospheric impact these will have on the game will be huge.

cim wrote:

New laser texture in r5519

Yes!. I like the distrotion in the Beam. Some gr8 work there Cim !

The new laser effects are very impressive.

Excellent work.

The new lasers are way more intimidating than the old style when 6 guys are blasting after you and beams are overshooting you at all angles.
They look more dangerous, they feel more dangerous, really awesome work.

Some new engine flare textures. I'm not completely happy with them, but I think they're nicer than the old ones.


Additionally, the Z-size parameter of the exhaust object now does something: values between 0.5 and 2.0 change the length of the exhaust trail. Any value outside this range is forced to 1.0, which is the existing exhaust length.

cim wrote:

Some new engine flare textures. I'm not completely happy with them, but I think they're nicer than the old ones

certainly nicer. Possibly too dim for my taste. Is that like the dust shader ? what texture are you using?

EDIT: I should just look. 'oolite-exhaust-blur.png' - probably this would benefit from the same modulation magic you've done with the laser. Would you like some vic2d turbulence with that ?

submersible wrote:

EDIT: I should just look. 'oolite-exhaust-blur.png' - probably this would benefit from the same modulation magic you've done with the laser. Would you like some vic2d turbulence with that ?

The texture could definitely be improved. controls overall brightness and will probably also need adjusting.

The laser is a lot easier to get multiple layers on - there are three layers of beam, using two textures and two different flow rates. The exhaust I can't do the same trick of scaling and redrawing the model to do that because the exhausts are (for good reason!) positioned in world space rather than in ship space.

(Make the texture too opaque, and it becomes very obvious the exhaust has a well-defined edge: there may be some fancy vertex shader magic to be done on supporting computers, but I don't understand vertex shaders well enough)