Oolite Bulletins

Yes, they are the only original parts (along with the case). I fear they have 'retired'

Yes, as I thought - a monkey gets you almost a complete new build (as I presume your gfx card is fine).
Have a word with La Señora - tell her that I recommended it as the only way forward. <chortles>

Ha, yes, she's been wondering what to get me for my birthday...

When the swappable items all check out ok, that leaves the mobo as the most likely culprit.. had that a while back with one of my machines..

The only thing that sucks about mobo upgrades, is that you usually need a new CPU and RAM to go with it..

Yay! Up and running again, albeit with a slightly downgraded spec as cash is very tight having just been told my scheduled brakes overhaul on the car is likely to top £700 .
<Pointless stuff redacted>
So work can resume. I'll finish off the Clippers upgrade, then my attention is going to be turning towards the 'Classic' ship sets, and also on a project I've barely started for the HIMSN OXP.

With the re-release of Clippers a couple of days ago, my updating is done for now. The only conversion yet to do is Xeptatl's Sword, and as I've already mentioned this is a major project and will take some time. I will work on it bit by bit in between other projects as time permits for now.

The other projects include the much-publicised replacement for Smivs'Shipset. I've been thinking out loud here about this, so you probably have some idea what I'm considering. I want to keep the 'bright' look of the old shipset, but also want to bring it more back to the original textures as well. In a sense what I want to do is re-imagine the original Elite/Oolite ships as they might be if Oolite was new today, using all the 'materials' attributes that are now available.
Well, decisions have to be made, and this is essentially what I'll be doing. I will take Aegidian's original textures and use those as inspiration, adding the minimum necessary to make them look modern and as realistic as possible. I plan to retain the original colours and decals as much as I can (although the Cobra MkIII may not be Lilac!) and hopefully the 'Classic Gold' Shipset will be just that - The original models and texture designs, but up to today's 'Gold Standard'.
I also plan on retaining the engine and gun sub-ents from Smivs'Shipset, and also the feature where the ships 'shut down' to a derelict state when the pilot ejects. The navigation lights will also be carried over. However, as previously mentioned the battle damage feature will be retired.
There will also be a 'Classic Light' set for low-end computers, Pandora etc and small screen sizes. This will be a lightweight set, based on the 'Gold' textures but with more basic, small file-size textures.
Before I start, I am working on a couple of experimental prototypes to work out the best way of achieving this. Below are a couple of screenshots of the Adder prototype (click for full size). See what you think so far...

that adder looks really fab smivs, your texture style and design choices work really well on the low poly ships, post up more pics of the other ships as you work on them, they're great to see!

Thanks Griff
Once I'm past the 'working out the best way to do these' stage, I'll probably start a WIP thread for the new shipsets.

First post updated - progress and status changes.

While testing the Classic Ships in Trunk quite a few log errors showed regarding some of my other OXZs. These were mainly deprecations (old-style sub-entity definitions) and a few scripts not using "use strict", so I will spend the next day or two sorting those out, then if the Devs surprise us with an early release of version 1.81 at least they will be done and ready. I'll post on each expansion's thread as I re-release them and of course the manager will alert users to the new vesion as well.

Smivs wrote:

While testing <snip> in Trunk quite a few log errors showed regarding some of my other OXZs <snip> so I will spend the next day or two sorting those out....

Ha, ever the optimist, me Day or two indeed! Well, two weeks on and I'm still updating, although as you will have noticed the work is progressing. Re-building the TeaMaker (Cup of Tea OXZ) took a bit longer than anticipated, but it is much better for it (although I clearly still need to add cocoa/coffee options ), and as will also become clear soon, I got distracted and have been sucked back into the paintshop on and off as well.
So, just ExtraFuelTanks and yet another look at Clippers (TL99 hack to sort out) to go as far as v1.81 log errors go.
I have plenty of other jobs in my 'in-tray', but as they are not 1.80 or 1.81 related, I won't bore you with the details here.

Just a quick update - due to popular demand all the versions of Smivs'Shipset are now archived on my Oolite webpage. Previously only the HD Replace set was listed.

Huzzah!

Further to my post on the Staer9 non-shader thread, just an update as to my future OXZ activity.
Firstly, Xeptatl's Sword. spara has been brilliant - he's sorted out all the scripting and done loads of under-the-hood tweaks and improvements as well. For my part I want to produce a new model for the Monitor Stations, and maybe one for the Black Mamba gang. I also need to run through the mission to check and test everything - some plot changes mean that mission screens may need re-working for example.
This is obviously going to take some time, so I will probably work on it inbetween other projects which are much more straight-forward and quicker.
The 'other projects' is continuing to develop the Classic Ships suite. As mentioned elsewhere, the Old Ships are in my sights, but before then I am working on some of the early Aegidian ship OXPs. My plan is to slightly re-combine them into three OXZs, partly to avoid duplications as the Asp appears in two of the original OXPs and also to address the Cobra2 conundrum.
So there will be a 'Classic Aegidian X-ships' which will feature the Asp-X, the Sidewinder-X and the (original small) Cobra2-X as the Cobra Interceptor. The bigger Cobra 2 (the Paradox re-scale) will feature as the Cobra MkII along with the Mussarana in 'The Classic Aegidian Specials', where it will be specc'd between the MkI and MkIII. And finally there will be a 'Classic Aegidian SuperPythons' which will include the Python ET and the Python Class Cruiser.
Mind you, I've got to get myself back in the OXP workshop first...