Oolite Bulletins

o7 commanders!
Appreciate the thorough on-boarding message, Cholmondely.

I'm an Aussie born a decade after the original Elite, never played ED. Only found out about Elite and Oolite maybe 5~ years ago, big fan of retro gaming in general and got sucked into unraveling the game's myths and legends, and playing ArcElite (emulated).

I come bearing gifts!
Elite 2 (Unreleased - BBC Micro) Ship Sources
Nothing new to the vets I'm sure, but I thought uploading a YouTube video would make it a bit easier for everyone to see the original source (no pun intended) of these ships.

https://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Salamander_(classic)
A mystery ship, you say?
Thanks to the hard work of Commander Mark Moxon, we can finally identify this ship as the Rattler!

To hopefully put the age-old confusion over the identity of the Urutu to rest:

Moccasin (left) vs Urutu (right)
The green-and-yellow ship mentioned on Jades' site is labelled Constrictor in the source files, though it has distinct (albeit similar) model geometry to the 8-bit Constrictor and hasn't appeared to have any unique or noteworthy in-game behavior in my time playing so far. Would be great to get some insight from Clive Gringas on the subject.

The ship labelled 'Hawk' in the ArcElite source is associated with the Zartid mission, while Zurid Pino has a red-and-brown Cobra Mk III variant. At some point I'll upload YouTube videos of all 4 missions.

I'd like to edit or suggest some edits to the Complete Ship List wiki page, assuming this is the most up-to-date table on the subject?
-Racer from ArcElite is missing (has a datacard, was covered in old CSOL)
-Delta is from Elite 2, not Elite-A (probably just a clerical error)
-Elite-A's Bushmaster is a completely different lineage to ArcElite's - resolving this may provide an interesting lore opportunity? It's pretty impressive this is the only time a snake name was re-used to my knowledge
-Shuttle Mk II, and Dragon (!) from Elite-A missing, we can confirm these exist from Mark's BBC Elite source website
-Probably worth noting the Wolf Mk II debuted in the MSX port, I'd love confirmation on whether it's in the Atari ST port



Now, to brass tacks.
I have a deep love of game design, and a lot of thoughts on which directions I'd want to go in starting from the core Elite foundation, though I'm honestly not sure if Oolite is going to be the best way for me to fulfill those ideas... Oolite being as much a community as it is a game definitely has me intrigued though, and if I start tweaking expansions for my own play experience who knows what that might lead to down the line

My feature wish-list, purely based off the original game (and pipe dreams not withstanding), would be something like:
• Multiplayer
• Planetary landing
• Bulletin Board System/procedural missions
• Inter-ship communication
• Interstellar travel w/o hyperspace (just flying to the edge of the system)
• Factions/systems
• Mythic deep-space encounters (generation ships, black holes, etc...)
• Buying new ships

I'm interested more in ways to build on the procedural, infinite game loop as opposed to linear, one-time missions - though the former is surely what provides a foundation for the latter to thrive.

I'm curious, are there many options for someone who wants Oolite to look flat-shaded and low poly (but not wireframe)? As much as I love a beautiful, realistic universe, it makes the thought of building my own ships, graphics, etc... a lot more daunting. Feel like this might also help smooth over any anachronistic art-style differences from different authors.

o7 TheCiscoKid! Welcome to the boards!
Re: flat-shaded and low poly look for Oolite - Maybe the ArcElite oxp would suit?
 Griff_ArcElite

It won't affect extra oxp ships though, just the default ship set

Griff wrote: ↑Sun Jul 20, 2025 4:38 pm

o7 TheCiscoKid! Welcome to the boards!
Re: flat-shaded and low poly look for Oolite - Maybe the ArcElite oxp would suit?
 Griff_ArcElite

It won't affect extra oxp ships though, just the default ship set

Oh, excellent! I need to get to sleep soon, but I'll try this out tomorrow.
The included Elite-A and Elite 2 ships are also in this style?

I suppose even without OXPs this would leave space stations, asteroids, buoys, cargo, etc... unchanged?
Don't mean to sound ungrateful though! I'm happy to try and fill out this concept myself if you've got bigger fish to fry

Yep, the elite2 ships are in the same style and all the standard elite stations, rock hermits etc.

TheCiscoKid wrote: ↑Sun Jul 20, 2025 3:14 pm

o7 commanders!
Appreciate the thorough on-boarding message, Cholmondely.

I'm an Aussie born a decade after the original Elite, never played ED. Only found out about Elite and Oolite maybe 5~ years ago, big fan of retro gaming in general and got sucked into unraveling the game's myths and legends, and playing ArcElite (emulated).

I come bearing gifts!
Elite 2 (Unreleased - BBC Micro) Ship Sources
Nothing new to the vets I'm sure, but I thought uploading a YouTube video would make it a bit easier for everyone to see the original source (no pun intended) of these ships.

https://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Salamander_(classic)
A mystery ship, you say?
Thanks to the hard work of Commander Mark Moxon, we can finally identify this ship as the Rattler!

To hopefully put the age-old confusion over the identity of the Urutu to rest:

Moccasin (left) vs Urutu (right)
The green-and-yellow ship mentioned on Jades' site is labelled Constrictor in the source files, though it has distinct (albeit similar) model geometry to the 8-bit Constrictor and hasn't appeared to have any unique or noteworthy in-game behavior in my time playing so far. Would be great to get some insight from Clive Gringas on the subject.

The ship labelled 'Hawk' in the ArcElite source is associated with the Zartid mission, while Zurid Pino has a red-and-brown Cobra Mk III variant. At some point I'll upload YouTube videos of all 4 missions.

I'd like to edit or suggest some edits to the Complete Ship List wiki page, assuming this is the most up-to-date table on the subject?
-Racer from ArcElite is missing (has a datacard, was covered in old CSOL)
-Delta is from Elite 2, not Elite-A (probably just a clerical error)
-Elite-A's Bushmaster is a completely different lineage to ArcElite's - resolving this may provide an interesting lore opportunity? It's pretty impressive this is the only time a snake name was re-used to my knowledge
-Shuttle Mk II, and Dragon (!) from Elite-A missing, we can confirm these exist from Mark's BBC Elite source website
-Probably worth noting the Wolf Mk II debuted in the MSX port, I'd love confirmation on whether it's in the Atari ST port

Welcome!

I'd love to input the information above into the wiki, but being no expert on ships - or on Classic Elite - I'd get it all wrong!

TheCiscoKid wrote: ↑Sun Jul 20, 2025 3:14 pm

Now, to brass tacks.
I have a deep love of game design, and a lot of thoughts on which directions I'd want to go in starting from the core Elite foundation, though I'm honestly not sure if Oolite is going to be the best way for me to fulfill those ideas... Oolite being as much a community as it is a game definitely has me intrigued though, and if I start tweaking expansions for my own play experience who knows what that might lead to down the line

My feature wish-list, purely based off the original game (and pipe dreams not withstanding), would be something like:
• Multiplayer
• Planetary landing
• Bulletin Board System/procedural missions
• Inter-ship communication
• Interstellar travel w/o hyperspace (just flying to the edge of the system)
• Factions/systems
• Mythic deep-space encounters (generation ships, black holes, etc...)
• Buying new ships

• Multiplayer - Hiran's  Nexus
• Planetary landing -  Planetfall OXP &  Planetfall2 OXP -  Feudal States is the only OXP doing anything much with either
• Bulletin Board System/procedural missions -  GalCop Missions - 80 different varieties
• Inter-ship communication -  Broadcast Comms MFD
• Interstellar travel w/o hyperspace (just flying to the edge of the system)
• Factions/systems -  Factions OXP,  Diplomancy (provides a framework), and the Category:Systems OXPs
• Mythic deep-space encounters (generation ships, black holes, etc...) -  Generation Ships,  Black Hole (unfinished), Pulsar:  Tianve OXP,  Aliens,  Star-Jelly,  Giant Space Pizza,  Halloween Witch OXP,  Santa,  Baakili Far Trader
• Buying new ships - Vanilla game code (docked F3F3 screen)

TheCiscoKid wrote: ↑Sun Jul 20, 2025 3:14 pm

I'm interested more in ways to build on the procedural, infinite game loop as opposed to linear, one-time missions - though the former is surely what provides a foundation for the latter to thrive.

See  GalCop Missions again, and also  Random Hits

TheCiscoKid wrote: ↑Sun Jul 20, 2025 3:14 pm

I'm curious, are there many options for someone who wants Oolite to look flat-shaded and low poly (but not wireframe)? As much as I love a beautiful, realistic universe, it makes the thought of building my own ships, graphics, etc... a lot more daunting. Feel like this might also help smooth over any anachronistic art-style differences from different authors.

See Murgh's  Iron Ass OXP - no stations though, just ships. But there are lots of old low poly station OXPs floating around. See  Oolite Stations - and check for older versions on the various OXP wiki pages. Clicking the "History" tab on the page top can be a good way to do it.

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Sun Jul 20, 2025 5:32 pm

I'd love to input the information above into the wiki, but being no expert on ships - or on Classic Elite - I'd get it all wrong!

Totally happy to do this myself, but not sure how to create an account?

• Multiplayer - Hiran's  Nexus
• Planetary landing -  Planetfall OXP &  Planetfall2 OXP -  Feudal States is the only OXP doing anything much with either
• Factions/systems -  Factions OXP,  Diplomancy (provides a framework), and the Category:Systems OXPs
• Mythic deep-space encounters (generation ships, black holes, etc...) -  Generation Ships,  Black Hole (unfinished), Pulsar:  Tianve OXP,  Aliens,  Star-Jelly,  Giant Space Pizza,  Halloween Witch OXP,  Santa,  Baakili Far Trader

Let me see if I can wrap my head around this... so Planetfall and Feudal States are mid-update right now?
phkb is actively maintaining Commies and Dictators? And is possibly planning an Anarchies overhaul?
Factions and Galactic Navy are a lot older? Are these still recommended?
Rescue Stations/RRS seems interesting too, though perhaps not as core as the other systems mentioned?
Democratic and Confederate systems have no expansions at this point, essentially?

Corporate just has some affiliated OXPs?
Taxi Galactica seems interesting (it's unclear to me how this differs from/overlaps with YellOo Cabs and in-system taxi, though?)
And I like the idea on the wiki of tweaking HOopy Casinos/YAH to only appear in Corporate systems, not sure yet

Diplomancy seems rather interesting. I've seen some posts of yours about Ooniversal dynamism and managing battles, are these concepts interconnected?

I feel like a Black Hole could simply be a random hyperspace/galactic hyperspace warp that doesn't conserve fuel at first? Gravitational changes, etc... could come later. Not sure if there's a cleaner, modular gameplay purpose they could serve. I assume that wouldn't be too hard to cook up from the WIP.

Pizzas, witches and Santa are a bit too anomalous for me haha. I like the idea of aliens and baakili far trader, but feels like I should probably try to build out the Thargoids as a 9th core faction before getting into other aliens.

See Murgh's  Iron Ass OXP - no stations though, just ships. But there are lots of old low poly station OXPs floating around. See  Oolite Stations - and check for older versions on the various OXP wiki pages. Clicking the "History" tab on the page top can be a good way to do it.

Hadn't considered looking for older versions of OXPs, thanks for the tip!

TheCiscoKid wrote: ↑Sun Jul 20, 2025 3:14 pm

I'm curious, are there many options for someone who wants Oolite to look flat-shaded and low poly (but not wireframe)?

You're probably after smivs  "Classic Ooniverse Compilation". That pages leads to several low-poly packs which should suit, I think.

TheCiscoKid wrote: ↑Mon Jul 21, 2025 5:50 am

so Planetfall and Feudal States are mid-update right now?

PlanetFall is complete, from my point of view. Bugs notwithstanding.

TheCiscoKid wrote: ↑Mon Jul 21, 2025 5:50 am

phkb is actively maintaining Commies and Dictators? And is possibly planning an Anarchies overhaul?

When I find the time!

TheCiscoKid wrote: ↑Mon Jul 21, 2025 5:50 am

Factions and Galactic Navy are a lot older? Are these still recommended?

I believe they still both work successfully in the current version of Oolite

TheCiscoKid wrote: ↑Mon Jul 21, 2025 5:50 am

Taxi Galactica seems interesting (it's unclear to me how this differs from/overlaps with YellOo Cabs and in-system taxi, though?)

Taxi Galactica offers some additional passenger contracts. In-System Taxi has you beetling around the system picking up and dropping off passengers to various in-system locations.

TheCiscoKid wrote: ↑Mon Jul 21, 2025 5:50 am

Let me see if I can wrap my head around this... so Planetfall and Feudal States are mid-update right now?

As Phkb has pointed out, PlanetFall exits in two finished versions: Thargoid's PF & his PF2. As far as I know (because I know little of the more complex missions OXPs) only Feudal States does much with either. The Feudal States version on our Expansions Manager uses Thargoid's PF, DGill's version (now almost finished - I need to edit the descriptions file for the Feudal Tibecea oxp) uses PF2 (and possibly can use the older PF, but I doubt it).

TheCiscoKid wrote: ↑Mon Jul 21, 2025 5:50 am

phkb is actively maintaining Commies and Dictators? And is possibly planning an Anarchies overhaul?

Phkb seems to be maintaining all 1,100 oxps at the moment bar Wildeblood's & Redspear's. His memorial at TOGY will be ten times the size of everyone else's put together.... there are statues of him to be found in every cathedral of the Church of St Giles the Creator, et cetera, et cetera...

TheCiscoKid wrote: ↑Mon Jul 21, 2025 5:50 am

Factions and Galactic Navy are a lot older? Are these still recommended?
Rescue Stations/RRS seems interesting too, though perhaps not as core as the other systems mentioned?
Democratic and Confederate systems have no expansions at this point, essentially?
Corporate just has some affiliated OXPs?

I've never tried Factions. GN works just fine - but needs the markets updated. And if you are playing with Stranger's World, then the Sector Commands can end up in the middle of nowhere (at least for Switeck's update). GN is recommended - the docked experience (for Oolite) is brilliant!

Rescue stations provides more procedural missions.

No real expansions yet for Corporates, Multi-Govs, Confederacies or Democracies. Phkb was been mulling over a Corporates Expansion a month or so ago. These are the only political systems with a "proper flavour". We might need to create names - and decals - for a zillion corporates in order to make it work! I've previously suggested a cheap and relatively easy fix - just include elements of the properly flavoured OXPs for Multi-Govs, Confeds & Democracies, since their governments are presumably mixes of them.

There is also Redspear's developing Alien Systems. But that so far includes no new stations or ships (but do see Redspear's work on  Solos Alt Stations).

So what might one hope to see in the 9 Lobstoid systems of G1, for example? We do have the missionaries. And there is the  Xeikil which might be a possible lobstoid ship. And there might be others. The station should include underwater areas. The vanilla game code might allow us to engineer a "submarine visit" to the planet (there are discussions of this on this BB).

And we could also do with deciding a system for the  Oresrians - there are several contenders. We'd need to update their ship OXP and add in some suitable flavour (have you discovered the "flavoured" ships oxps yet?).

TheCiscoKid wrote: ↑Mon Jul 21, 2025 5:50 am

Taxi Galactica seems interesting (it's unclear to me how this differs from/overlaps with YellOo Cabs and in-system taxi, though?)
And I like the idea on the wiki of tweaking HOopy Casinos/YAH to only appear in Corporate systems, not sure yet

I've not played with the various Taxi/passenger OXPs. But my views on stations appearing are influenced by Disembodied's summary on Oolite.space:
The two thousand star systems of the Cooperative once enjoyed a golden age of peace and prosperity, and perhaps the wealthiest of them can still pretend to. The trade ships that once safely travelled between planets now have to be well armed and escorted to fend off pirate attacks, from small-time criminals desperate for their next meal, to powerful robber barons extracting tithes from everyone who passes through their space.

The Cooperative's police force, concentrated near a few influential planets, can no longer maintain order. The mercenaries they hire for a few credits a kill are too few, too unreliable to do so either. And in the darkness between the stars, an old enemy lurks, fearless, perhaps waiting for order to collapse entirely.

So, personally, I'm happy to see lots of stations in well-policed corporates and democracies, but am less happy to see them elsewhere unless they are well-defended (and where will the money for that come from in poorer states?). And I find the Constores incredible: who the dickens actually shops there? And is there really enough money involved to pay for their defence? I prefer to use them as alternate Main Orbital Stations (as originally intended).

TheCiscoKid wrote: ↑Mon Jul 21, 2025 5:50 am

Diplomancy seems rather interesting. I've seen some posts of yours about Ooniversal dynamism and managing battles, are these concepts interconnected?

Diplomancy is the key which unlocks a galaxy of possibilities. At the moment wars are not properly realised, but Diplomancy can provide a mechanism to handle the political spill-over. And yes, dynamism and handling battles should be connected, to my mind. Wildeblood was decent enough to create  Dynooverse a few months back, but it is not exactly what I'd envisaged, randomly changing anything and doing it once daily! But it does provides the code for someone else to come along and create something tying in with Diplomancy et cetera.

TheCiscoKid wrote: ↑Mon Jul 21, 2025 5:50 am

I feel like a Black Hole could simply be a random hyperspace/galactic hyperspace warp that doesn't conserve fuel at first? Gravitational changes, etc... could come later. Not sure if there's a cleaner, modular gameplay purpose they could serve. I assume that wouldn't be too hard to cook up from the WIP.

Pizzas, witches and Santa are a bit too anomalous for me haha. I like the idea of aliens and baakili far trader, but feels like I should probably try to build out the Thargoids as a 9th core faction before getting into other aliens.

I'm not sold on the anomalies either!

The spawning of Aliens etc. is presumably close to the main spacelanes, but can be tweaked to them much further out. The problem is that there seems to be no way of describing their location in-game unless they are the far side of the sun or some such. Telescope might help, waypoints might help, ... but how immersive would they be? Something massive, yes. But something of a regular size?

I play with Stranger's World, so when things are "further out", it can easily take half an hour of real time to actually get there. In reality it could take weeks, of course.

Montana05 was working an update of the Baakili Far Trader which looks very promising. He might be planning on finishing it off.

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Mon Jul 21, 2025 11:43 am

The Feudal States version on our Expansions Manager uses Thargoid's PF, DGill's version (now almost finished - I need to edit the descriptions file for the Feudal Tibecea oxp) uses PF2 (and possibly can use the older PF, but I doubt it).

Sounds like I should wait for DGill's Feudal, I just succeeded in my first planetary landing before - nerve-wracking but satisfying!
This game is incredible work by everyone involved, seems like an enormous amount of effort and upkeep but it's definitely appreciated

No real expansions yet for Corporates, Multi-Govs, Confederacies or Democracies. Phkb was been mulling over a Corporates Expansion a month or so ago. These are the only political systems with a "proper flavour". We might need to create names - and decals - for a zillion corporates in order to make it work! I've previously suggested a cheap and relatively easy fix - just include elements of the properly flavoured OXPs for Multi-Govs, Confeds & Democracies, since their governments are presumably mixes of them.

Hmm, would expanding corporates necessarily involve an overarching system, or just a handful of individual corporations that serve a strong niche and could only justifiably be found in these systems?

So what might one hope to see in the 9 Lobstoid systems of G1, for example? We do have the missionaries. And there is the  Xeikil which might be a possible lobstoid ship. And there might be others. The station should include underwater areas. The vanilla game code might allow us to engineer a "submarine visit" to the planet (there are discussions of this on this BB).

And we could also do with deciding a system for the  Oresrians - there are several contenders. We'd need to update their ship OXP and add in some suitable flavour (have you discovered the "flavoured" ships oxps yet?).

Any sort of lore derived from the goat soup, The Dark Wheel or ascended fanon is a bit of a blindspot for me at the moment lol, I'll need to really familiarize myself with the flavOour more before I can comment on that side of things!

So, personally, I'm happy to see lots of stations in well-policed corporates and democracies, but am less happy to see them elsewhere unless they are well-defended (and where will the money for that come from in poorer states?). And I find the Constores incredible: who the dickens actually shops there? And is there really enough money involved to pay for their defence? I prefer to use them as alternate Main Orbital Stations (as originally intended).

Yes, I think this rationale speaks to me as well. Still early on in my adventure so I haven't tried constore shopping yet, but I am wary of adding superfluous dockables.

Diplomancy is the key which unlocks a galaxy of possibilities. At the moment wars are not properly realised, but Diplomancy can provide a mechanism to handle the political spill-over. And yes, dynamism and handling battles should be connected, to my mind. Wildeblood was decent enough to create  Dynooverse a few months back, but it is not exactly what I'd envisaged, randomly changing anything and doing it once daily! But it does provides the code for someone else to come along and create something tying in with Diplomancy et cetera.

Definitely have thoughts on all this but I'll share them in your thread instead.

The spawning of Aliens etc. is presumably close to the main spacelanes, but can be tweaked to them much further out. The problem is that there seems to be no way of describing their location in-game unless they are the far side of the sun or some such. Telescope might help, waypoints might help, ... but how immersive would they be? Something massive, yes. But something of a regular size?

I play with Stranger's World, so when things are "further out", it can easily take half an hour of real time to actually get there. In reality it could take weeks, of course.

I'm still a bit shaky on how the space lanes and universe in Oolite even work exactly lol, I just installed Space Crowds before, and I assume I have a lot of space lanes if I'm playing with additional planets? Every ship is accounted for at all times, right? Are they moving about while I'm docked?

Montana05 was working an update of the Baakili Far Trader which looks very promising. He might be planning on finishing it off.

Another thing to anticipate!

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Mon Jul 21, 2025 11:43 am

The Feudal States version on our Expansions Manager uses Thargoid's PF

Actually, if will use PF2 if you have that installed.

phkb wrote: ↑Tue Jul 22, 2025 7:02 am

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Mon Jul 21, 2025 11:43 am

The Feudal States version on our Expansions Manager uses Thargoid's PF

Actually, if will use PF2 if you have that installed.

Oh sweet! I'll download it now and just update as appropriate then

I'm just embracing the default models and high resolution graphics now, there's a lot of nice OXPs easier to just go with this art direction, and it is very pretty
I liked that the ArcElite pack had all the Elite 2 and Elite-A ships though, I've seen a few of the ships uploaded as separate OXPs, and I can see they're covered in some older ship packs, but I'm a bit confused what the standard packs would be for these ships (if there is one?) Iron Ass seems potentially the closest fit, just curious what the options are