Oolite Bulletins

Hehe, sorry but I love being a tease
The Proof of Concept video was a bit of a fudge and the whole concept would need a lot of work to be made into something useable, if it's possible at all. I am looking at it when I get time, and it's moving in a good direction, so something might come of it yet.

Smivs wrote:

Hehe, sorry but I love being a tease
The Proof of Concept video was a bit of a fudge and the whole concept would need a lot of work to be made into something useable, if it's possible at all. I am looking at it when I get time, and it's moving in a good direction, so something might come of it yet.

I don't expect less
Just joking. .

AAARGH! Here I thought the St. J was impending!

I have to say it's fun to see that even though I've done bugger-all with my WIP for a few months, the spin-off effects go on.

Well done, Smivs! Last I recall, you had the modules separating, but hadn't yet gotten them to recombine..

(we need a 'salute' smiley)

Diziet Sma wrote:

... I've done bugger-all with my WIP for a few months, the spin-off effects go on...Last I recall, you had the modules separating, but hadn't yet gotten them to recombine.

I'm afraid I've also put your WIP on the back burner for now because as you will see from the thread title I have been looking at this concept from a player-ship point of view.
The good news is...that project is making good progress
</tease>

Any progress with this Smivs?

Yes, it's actually coming together very well. The ship is the Goliath Cruiser and at over 300m long is almost twice as long as an Anaconda. It consists of two parts, a mothership and shuttle section which attaches to a deck on top of the rear part of the mothership - you approach the mothership from above and behind and align the shuttle with the attachment deck. She has a total cargo capacity of 250TC, 60TC held on the shuttle and 190TC in the main hold of the mothership. She can be seen here.
The modelling and texturing is more or less finished, and the ship is fully functional - the shuttle section is attaching and detaching properly, and the mothership is acting autonomously when the ships are separated. Currently we are working on details such as handling situations like loss/destruction of the mothership, and replacing missiles etc used by the mothership when she is acting autonomously.
There is a fully functional NPC version as well which just needs a bit of code tidying up.
This OXP will need some of the features of v1.77 so will not be released until then (not that it's anywhere near release ready yet!).
This will not be a ship for the impatient, or those lacking in piloting skills. The attachment process requires a great deal of skill and practice, and is not a quick affair - the knack is getting the approach alignment just about perfect, then a very slow careful final approach is required for a successful attachment.
It is very different from any other player ship currently available, and adds a whole new dimension to the game. Almost by definition it is an Uber-ship, but we are very keen that it is not 'silly' in any way. It will be as powerful as a ship of this size should be, but will be sensible and balanced, and should 'fit in' with the general feel of the Ooniverse.

Very Very Very Nice! So docking the "Event Horizon" is coming soon

Smivs wrote:

This will not be a ship for the impatient, or those lacking in piloting skills. The attachment process requires a great deal of skill and practice, and is not a quick affair - the knack is getting the approach alignment just about perfect, then a very slow careful final approach is required for a successful attachment.

Perhaps a special Re-connection HUD is called for.. to guide Commanders into alignment..


I'm very much looking forward to flying this ship, when it becomes available.

Diziet Sma wrote:

Perhaps a special Re-connection HUD is called for.. to guide Commanders into alignment.

When you wish to re-attach, you have to contact the mothership (shift-n, n) and this causes the mothership to stop and await you. At this point some alignment lights illuminate and a run of sequential 'runway' lights start flashing on the attahment deck of the mothership. There is also a special external view called RendezView ( ) which helps to align the ships. You will find using RendezView with an external side view makes alignment relatively easy, and of course this also means you can watch the whole performance as it happens
I am considering using switching-HUDs, so that when flying the shuttle, a different HUD is used to that when flying the combined Cruiser.

Sounds very cool indeed!

New years resolution get me a capital ship on Oolite... I wonder who will help me achieve this?

Cpt wrote:

New years resolution get me a capital ship on Oolite... I wonder who will help me achieve this?

Same here...
A big battlestar from Galactica would be fine, and I would use a raptor to do the trade stuff, or a viper to do the local fight stuff

Kasero wrote:

A big battlestar from Galactica would be fine...

I wonder which of the following would you say yes or no to?
(a) Deathstar [Star Wars]
(b) Generation Ship (possibly illegal as would require re-engineering) [Oolite]
(c) Vogon Destructor Ship [Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy]
(d) Space Battle Cruiser [Buck Rogers]
(e) Alliance Space Station [Enemy Mine]
(f) Cargo Spacecraft Hunter-Gratzner [Pitch Black]
(g) Icarus (super sun skimmers) [Sunshine]
(h) Mother Ship [V] or [Independence Day]
(i) Battle Cruiser [Starship Troopers]
(j) Heighliners [Dune]
(k) (Your own Sim) City [Dark City]

I am sure others can think of more examples?

Kasero wrote:

Cpt wrote:

New years resolution get me a capital ship on Oolite... I wonder who will help me achieve this?

Same here...
A big battlestar from Galactica would be fine, and I would use a raptor to do the trade stuff, or a viper to do the local fight stuff

What about a Behemoth?

I've been thinking about the possibility of having a player-flyable Behemoth, and using the trunk change-ships feature to swap ships from the Behemoth to something else for docking and/or combat.

Don't think I have the skills to code such an OXP though.