Oolite Bulletins

Some more naming ideas I found.

I'm not too keen on using Frontier names. I prefer to pretend it never existed as far as Oolite is concerned!

Most of Frontier names are real-world names (Sol, Fomalhaut, Barnard's Star etc.).

As for the rest.

Also, we could split most original and/or Frontier names into a schemata somewhat similar to Frontier's, that is, having defined possibilities for first, second and third syllables. I know how to do it in Lua, but not in C, so what follows is pseudo-code.

Frontier names (quick job, some theming or blacklisting would be necessary to avoid "Bebebe" (which did happen in FFE)
Oolite names from Chart 1 (need code to randomly determine number of syllables in 2-4 range)

What might be better, if it's genuinely about player exploration, would be to give the systems code numbers, and let the player name them as the first discoverer. Trickier to do, though, but it would provide a tangible reward. Of course, any existing inhabited systems would still need their own names - again, though, these would only be generated when the player visits the system and makes contact.

Ultimately though I think if it's genuine exploration - i.e. not displaying any adjacent star systems until the player does the work, so that the galactic map is gradually revealed as the player progresses - then it would be better to design the galaxy manually. Obviously an algorithm would do most of the work, but selecting what special things should go where would probably need to be designed in.

I like the idea of number/letter assignments. This would be easier to produce! This would work well for uninhabited galaxies.

With regards to exploration, once a frame work was in place the whole exploration thing could/would be oxp/oxz-able. The whole point of this exercise is yo give full customibility to the user so that you can choose the size and type of the galaxy. So you could have either a populated galaxy or a uninhabited one. Having the ability to select whether to use random seeds or being able to define each galaxy and each system's seed.

Code numbers are already done in a few OXPs - [wiki]RegistrationID[/wiki], for example, and I think [wiki]Randomshipnames_OXP[/wiki] does it too.

> What might be better, if it's genuinely about player exploration, would be to give the systems code numbers, and let the player name them as the first discoverer.

Which then begs the idea of a central server which hosts seeds. You can download a seed and use it generate a galaxy-set identical to the one used by one or more other players. Any systems you name in that galaxy-set can be uploaded back to the server and shared with anyone else on the same seed, allowing you to name the systems and worlds in somebody else's ooniverse and vice versa. Technically it wouldn't be rocket science, just a few text files flying back and forth. Some kind of profanity filter might be desirable.

Oolite is not (and never will be) MMO, and that's not what this is: It's just a way of sharing a tiny part of your Ooniverse with others. Kind of like sharing roguelike bones files via a central repository: http://hearse.krollmark.com/

Potential Debris, that's an excellent idea! I play roguelikes a lot and I should have thought of bones-sharing

BTW, this idea doesn't need a central server. Seeds and names could be uploaded to maik's wiki and downloaded from them. They could be txt or plist, whatever, that you grab and the code would read them if they exist.

As I said before, I think that if this was going to be expanded into exploration then I would rather leave that open to an OXP/OXZ writer. The point of the exercise is to create a framework that allows the player to create new customisable galaxies that could be used for OXP/OXZs.

I was thinking of options along the lines of this:

Default Settings:

• Enable Extra Galaxies (yes/no) - Choose whether to enable an extra set of galaxies. If invalid option then default to no.
• No. of Extra Galaxies (1-8) - Choose the number of extra galaxies to be generated. If invalid option then default to 8.
• Default Size of Galaxies (0-?) - Choose default size of new galaxy set. Different numbers correspond to different options, like 512 systems double spacing, 1024 systems quadruple spacing. Sizes and options to be decided later after extensive testing. Invalid option would default to 256 systems with normal spacing.
• Default Galaxies Type (0-?) - Choose the default types for the new galaxies. This could be uninhabited, war zoned (constant Thargoid attacks), etc... Invalid option would default to same type as original 8 galaxies (normal).
• Default Naming Scheme(0-?) - Choose from different naming schemes. If uninhabited this might default to numerical naming scheme. This could allow different naming schemes, so you could also incorporate a Frontier style if you wished (like Zireael) or something a bit more original. Invalid option would default to normal naming scheme.
• First Galaxy Seed(6 integer values, 0-255) - Define the seed for the first new galaxy so that if you didn't want to specify each galaxy's seed you could just have one and then it 'roll' to the others (like in the original galaxies).

Individual Galaxy Settings:

• Size of Galaxy (0-?) - Same as above but only relevant for particular galaxy.
• Galaxy Type (0-?) - Same as above but only relevant for particular galaxy.
• Naming Scheme(0-?) - Same as above but only relevant for particular galaxy.
• Galaxy Seed (6 integer values, 0-255) - Define the seed for this particular galaxy.

Individual System Settings:

• System Seed (6 integer values, 0-255) - Define the seed for this particular system.
• System Type (0-?) - Choose whether the system should be a hive world, uninhabited, war zoned, etc...

This may even be going into too much depth as again some of this could be OXP/OXZ-able (war zones and hive worlds) but it's just an idea.

Glad you like it Ziraeal. I just wish I had some coding skills to do it myself.

On the subject of names:

"L'espoir de {name}",
"{name}'s Landing",
"{name}'s Descent",
"{name}'s Rebirth",
"{name}'s Renaissance"
"{name}'s New Beginning",
"{name}'s Revolution"
"{name}'s Fortune"
"{name}port" or "{name}sport"
"Port du {name}"
"Mount {name}"
"{name}'s Bones"
"{name}'s Rest"
"{name}'s Ambush"
"{name}'s Tomb"
"La Tombe de {name}'"
"{name}'s Repose"
"{name}'s Pit"
"{name}'s Remorse"
"{name}'s Grief"
"{name}'s Despair"
"{name}'s Widow"


You can see I've crudely translated a few of the suggestions into French. We have a pretty multicultural forum here, if we could get similar translations into Spanish, Dutch, Russian, Welsh and a dozen other languages we'd have a really nice long list.

The folly, grief, despair etc names, in combination with the bones file suggestion gave me another idea... If you die in the vicinity of/ by crashing into an unnamed rock / planet / star, the responsible spacerock gets automatically named [commander]'s grave or [commander]'s grief or something equally morbid...

The folly, grief, despair etc names, in combination with the bones file suggestion gave me another idea... If you die in the vicinity of/ by crashing into an unnamed rock / planet / star, the responsible spacerock gets automatically named [commander]'s grave or [commander]'s grief or something equally morbid...

That's a brilliant idea!

@ Pleb: I like that settings suggestion. Are you going to do a settings screen in code or just a plist?

Zireael wrote:

@ Pleb: I like that settings suggestion. Are you going to do a settings screen in code or just a plist?

Adding this to the planetinfo.plist file would be simple enough for now. This would allow the player to define the options Oolite would use to generate the new galaxies. Anything else could/would then be OXP/OXZ-able, people could release their own exploration-style missions to either randomly generated galaxies or predefined galaxies.

Anyway this is all hypothetical of course, but implementing most of this wouldn't be hard. Last night I rewrote the coding required to add the new galaxies and systems into Oolite. All I need to do now is play around with the settings to get the grids the right size. However I'm also interested in seeing if I can implement a scrolling long range chart, similar to the scrolling short range one we now have.

Potential Debris wrote:

The folly, grief, despair etc names, in combination with the bones file suggestion gave me another idea... If you die in the vicinity of/ by crashing into an unnamed rock / planet / star, the responsible spacerock gets automatically named [commander]'s grave or [commander]'s grief or something equally morbid...

I understand this makes sense in a multiplayer game, but how would this be useful in single-player? You die, the rock is named, and you remain dead and reload your last save file where you are still alive and the rock has not been named yet.

maik wrote:

Potential Debris wrote:

The folly, grief, despair etc names, in combination with the bones file suggestion gave me another idea... If you die in the vicinity of/ by crashing into an unnamed rock / planet / star, the responsible spacerock gets automatically named [commander]'s grave or [commander]'s grief or something equally morbid...

I understand this makes sense in a multiplayer game, but how would this be useful in single-player? You die, the rock is named, and you remain dead and reload your last save file where you are still alive and the rock has not been named yet.

Read a few posts back where I suggest a "bones file" types system, that lets players share system names. In this case, the game would upload the name to the bones server immediately after player death, where it could be shared with anyone using the same galaxy-set, (potentially including the re-loaded player himself, so he can see his own grave..? Spooky!)