Oolite Bulletins

spara wrote:

Is or will it be possible to show the model of the targeted ship as a visual effect?

I did it already but it was not trivial and there are some problems yet.

cim wrote:

spara wrote:

Is or will it be possible to show the model of the targeted ship as a visual effect?

Not yet. Well, you could do it yourself with a bunch of visual effects (or picture overlays through CabalCL) that look a bit like things the player might target, though that has obvious limitations.

Ok. I thought so.

Norby wrote:

I did it already but it was not trivial and there are some problems yet.

True. That's why I did not do it at the time. It most definitely should not need any shipdata editing.

cim wrote:

HUD and interface work continues with the Multi-function displays (MFDs).

I'm not a fan of "Game Over" appearing over on the right hand side of the screen. I don't think this should really be a HUD function.

JensAyton wrote:

I'm not a fan of "Game Over" appearing over on the right hand side of the screen. I don't think this should really be a HUD function.

Ah, yes, with that just using whatever the previous console message settings were. I'll reset that back to something more appropriate for that screen.

cim wrote:

HUDs can have multiple MFDs, positioned freely: the basic HUD has two, while "hud-small" has just one. OXPs set text in an MFD list, and then the player can cycle through the available options on the active MFD by pressing ';' and switch between MFDs if they have more than one by pressing ':'. OXPs can set a particular MFD to be visible: there is a polite way to do this which will pick the first unused MFD, which you should just about always use.

MFDs are a fixed size of 10 lines and 15 columns regardless of height and width. If you overrun a line, the MFD will try to compensate, but it's better to sort that out before sending the text to the MFD.

In my market observer oxp I create an overlay to the market screen with the message log to show various trading data. I would very much like to find another way of accomplishing it. Will these MDFs be available when docked and is that fixed size going to stay or will it be configurable?

spara wrote:

Will these MDFs be available when docked and is that fixed size going to stay or will it be configurable?

MFDs are not available when docked (the likely HUD positions would just get in the way). The fixed size is a deliberate feature to make it practical for OXPers to write MFD content without having to put in lots of ifs and elses based on what the current player HUD is (the MFD provider doesn't need to know anything about the HUD at all except perhaps "does it support MFDs" as things stand)

For interacting with the player while docked then in general that's what mission screens (perhaps started by an interface) are for. I'm not sure the way things are currently set up there is a good way to add arbitrary text to the market screen, especially not in a way that doesn't lead to OXP conflicts.

cim wrote:

spara wrote:

Will these MDFs be available when docked and is that fixed size going to stay or will it be configurable?

MFDs are not available when docked (the likely HUD positions would just get in the way). The fixed size is a deliberate feature to make it practical for OXPers to write MFD content without having to put in lots of ifs and elses based on what the current player HUD is (the MFD provider doesn't need to know anything about the HUD at all except perhaps "does it support MFDs" as things stand)

For interacting with the player while docked then in general that's what mission screens (perhaps started by an interface) are for. I'm not sure the way things are currently set up there is a good way to add arbitrary text to the market screen, especially not in a way that doesn't lead to OXP conflicts.

Ok. Makes sense. Thanks for answering.

As previously mentioned, the "tab" and "0" keys have now been reclaimed as generic "fast activation" keys for primable equipment. By default "0" is bound to the cloaking device as before, and for compatibility with older savegames "tab" starts out bound to the energy bomb (i.e., unless you have the OXP installed, nothing)

When docked, if your ship has any primable equipment installed, you get a new option on the interfaces screen which lets you set which equipment items "0" and "tab" (reconfigurable with keyconfig.plist, as usual) are bound to. Then, when you press those buttons in flight, it sends this.activated to that equipment, whether it's currently selected in the primable equipment cycle or not.

As a result of this the energy bomb has to be activated as primable equipment in 1.79 onwards: users of the energy bomb will need to download the 1.79-compatible Energy Bomb OXP, which also works just fine in 1.77.1. If you do, you won't notice any difference in controls: the energy bomb will go off on "tab" in 1.77.1, and it will keep doing so when we release the next version. You can also trigger it from primable equipment now. [1]

If you're not using the energy bomb, you can now use the "tab" key for something else.

Primable equipment can be marked as having a "defensive" or "offensive" purpose in equipment.plist (or neither, if it's not something you might want to use in a hurry). If you buy a piece of "defensive" primable equipment, and the "defensive" key ("0") is not yet bound to any installed equipment, it will automatically bind to that equipment (with a notification to the player and a hint to check the interfaces screen). Similarly for "offensive" equipment. Obviously the player might choose to set up the keys some other way having installed a few items.

[1] There's a slight oddity in 1.77.1 in that pressing "tab" to activate it will use the old internal Oolite code and pressing "n" to activate it will use the new primable equipment code. The two should have absolutely identical effects, however. In 1.79 both will use the new primable equipment code (and as a bonus feature from other bits of 1.79, there'll be a graphics update as well)

cim wrote:

When docked, if your ship has any primable equipment installed, you get a new option on the interfaces screen which lets you set which equipment items "0" and "tab" (reconfigurable with keyconfig.plist, as usual) are bound to. Then, when you press those buttons in flight, it sends this.activated to that equipment, whether it's currently selected in the primable equipment cycle or not.

Good... I like this.

Just so that I'm clear about this (I'm updating my key-maps).

[0] is now the default quick activation key for defensive primable equipment.
[tab] is now the default quick activation key for offensive primable equipment.

In addition we have [shift/n], [ctrl/shift/n] for selecting primable equipment and and [n] activating and/or changing mode of said equipment.

I like the solution with the [0] and the [tab] keys, but it's getting complicated.

Might be an idea to think about how all these fit together and give some guidance in the Oolite documentation, Reference Sheet and on the wiki before things take off inn different directions.

I like this too . . . Now really screw everyone up by making Witchdrive Injectors, and Escape Capsules primable equipment also

Celt wrote:

I like this too . . . Now really screw everyone up by making Witchdrive Injectors, and Escape Capsules primable equipment also

Escape capsules are already sort of primeable, because you have to hit the button twice in quick succession in order to make it fire. This was introduced as a security measure against accidentally hitting the ESC-key.

Commander McLane wrote:

Escape capsules are ..... because you have to hit the button twice in quick succession in order to make it fire.

Unless you use the [wiki]Hidden_Settings_in_Oolite[/wiki] and set the key "escape-pod-activation-immediate" to yes.

(On the mac key layout the risk of accidentally hitting the esc key is smaller because there is an unused key between the esc and the tab key)

Gimi wrote:

Just so that I'm clear about this (I'm updating my key-maps).

[0] is now the default quick activation key for defensive primable equipment.
[tab] is now the default quick activation key for offensive primable equipment.

Correct. (and in the core game there is exactly one of the former and none of the latter)

The Reference Sheet and other documentation will be updated, yes. The wiki has advice to OXPers on how to mark items as defensive or offensive.

I think it would make more sense if Oolite wouldn't duplicate 1-8, F1-F8 and NumPad. This would free lots of keys and by using user defined activation keys for GUIs and OXP equipment we would get a lot more options. I'm aware that Function keys and NumPad keys are not available on all keyboards, but if it can be set by users it's no problem.