Oolite Bulletins

Smivs wrote:

I don't know the details of what the Devs have in mind, I suspect that a simplified way of finding OXPs is being looked at.

I think we can earn better results if the developer team cooperate with the concept, I hope we will get some answers from them in this topic (please).

So, okay, our plans regarding ease of discovery and installation of OXPs. Some of these are at a far earlier stage than I prefer to have plans at before publicly discussing them - indeed, the later stages are more at the "planning to have a plan" step. But since I also don't want people unknowingly taking time doing work that might become obsolete, I'll say a little about them.

1. The thing we're currently working on, which should be in the 1.79 source fairly soon, is support for OXPs distributed as a single file (which will be a ZIP file with particular contents and name, so easy for OXPers to make with existing tools). So, if you want an add-on you go to the wiki page or the forum thread, you click on the link, you save the file you get into AddOns, and it's there the next time you start your game. No messing around unzipping files, saving the OXP folder into the wrong place or whatever, and much quicker if you want to install a few at once. That will be a big help on its own, I think.
2. The single file format will also include more metadata than there is at the moment, which will allow us to do more things both within Oolite - e.g. some basic automatic dependency and conflict resolution - and outside it - e.g. a central database of expansion packs updated from the standardised metadata the author already wrote (note: centralised metadata, not centralised download). Timescale on that... uncertain, at the moment. I'd hope to have at least some of this working well in time for the 1.80 release, but the only thing we strictly need is the metadata format nailed down - actually using that data might be a later release.
3. Now, the line of thought which some readers have probably already gone down is that if we have a centralised metadata store, and expansion packs that can be downloaded and installed as a single file with a guaranteed format, that then makes a full expansion manager as part of Oolite theoretically possible. "That would be a nice idea" and "better make sure the metadata includes things one of those might need" is the stage that's at - but it's something we'd like to do at some point, when/if we have time.

Hopefully that answers some questions people have: if you have more specific questions I may be able to answer some of them, or it may be a case of "we haven't got that far yet".

Similar to the other guys I'm also feeling uneasy about this. I don't think it'll work.

I'm having the same issues as mentioned before:

• I like to know the download numbers of my OXPs, which I can follow directly on box.com, but only if the OXPs are downloaded from there. I don't want to trace download numbers from multiple sources.
• As already pointed out, the licensing issue can (no, will!) get messy.
• Maintaining the collections and keeping them up to date will be a pain in the neck and—as already pointed out—close to a full time job. I'm not volunteering for it, and neither will most of us. We all have other things to do.
• I'm also doubtful with the categories you have created, and not happy at all with how my OXPs are sorted into them. Excuse the bluntness, but it looks like they have been sorted by someone who had no clue:
  • How does [wiki]NPC-shields OXP[/wiki] give an advantage to the player? Giving non player ships more strength is obviously the opposite of giving the player an advantage.
  • [wiki]Stationrotation OXP[/wiki] is at least questionable. While it does also help the player to some extent (although I thought we had established that the rotation speed is not the difficult thing about docking, but correctly lining up is), it's mainly for the ambience.
  • And in which way is [wiki]Status Quo Q-bomb OXP[/wiki] a helper for the player? Isn't it a classic example of a polish?
  • Also [wiki]Fireworks OXP[/wiki]. A helper?
  • [wiki]Wormhole restoration OXP[/wiki] may be a borderline case. It does help the player. But it also adds some powerful enemies and makes a sticky situation even stickier by removing the ability to jump out even if the player has enough fuel.
  • [wiki]Anarchies OXP[/wiki] is so many things in one OXP that it's difficult to categorize. But I definitely wouldn't see it as a mission OXP first and foremost.
  • How is [wiki]Flying_Dutchman_OXP[/wiki] a mission OXP? Where's the mission in it? I'd categorize it as ambience.
  • And how [wiki]Offender traders OXP[/wiki] a powerup according to the definition given on top of the page? It doesn't make anything stronger or more challenging, it just randomly hands out bounties.
  • Also, how is [wiki]Railgun OXP[/wiki] a powerup according to the definition of making things harder for the player? It gives them a unique new weapon to use against NPCs. Surely that fits the definition of a helper?
  • I'd also not call [wiki]Total patrol OXP[/wiki] a powerup. How does stretching out the police presence in a system give more challenges to the player or make any NPC more durable? Seems like another classic case of a polish.
  • [wiki]Generation Ships OXP[/wiki] among stations? There's no station anywhere near that OXP.
  • And somehow, [wiki]Asteroids3D OXP[/wiki] and [wiki]Killit OXP[/wiki] got missing in action. They don't seem to be in any of the collections. Ditto [wiki]Personalities OXP[/wiki], although this may be because it isn't in working order. On the other hand, [wiki]Cataclysm OXP[/wiki] isn't either, yet it's listed (correctly, at least) among the missions. Strange.
  To sum up: of my 22 OXPs, 11 are listed in the wrong category and three are missing completely. That's a terrible result. If this is in any way representative, I'd call the whole collection completely useless, and both Oolite and its players will be worse off because of it.

I'm sorry, but at this point I'd recommend scrapping the whole thing.

Smivs wrote:

Also, Dizzie and others including myself long ago started a project called 'OXP Central' which was intended to be a single source for all OXPs. That failed as well.

cim wrote:

e.g. a central database of expansion packs updated from the standardised metadata the author already wrote (note: centralised metadata, not centralised download).
...
if we have a centralised metadata store

Should it prove useful in this regard, I still own the oxpcentral.net domain name, and am willing to transfer ownership, at no cost, to Giles or whomever he designates.

Thank you cim for the informations, all of them was useful and inspired me to think on better solutions.

Commander McLane wrote:

I don't think it'll work.

In my eyes you and others don't think it yet only. No offense, but there are some classical words about inventions, like when in the ancient ages a man was enough brave to declare the Earth is not flat: firstly everyone laugh, second attack it (with full power), third accept it "as so natural". It seems if I or somebody make a solution then we done this cycle.

I accept your request for counting, to see it in one place is more tricky but is not impossible, maybe need some compromise (sorry for no more details, I will tell after I can test it).

The metadata system mentioned by cim can help to check or force licensing and I have some ideas to use it to earn low maintenance also, but need time to implement.

Thank you for the long list of issues in categories. Although I need your help the situation is not as bad as you see, most of the problems comes from misunderstanding or simple errors.

Your words based on the too short details in the top of OXP Collection page. My user page and the readme in the hosted space contained more description, now I added before the collection list also. One word category names are reminders only due to I do not want to use long sentences.

[wiki]NPC-shields OXP[/wiki] is the first exception under the Helper word. This category is the first which allow changes in game mechanic so planned to players with some but not so much experience, and "aimed to get more fun". I placed here due to no better place. A separated small-powerup package was not worth to make: will be too little and I try keep low the number of categories. Best place in Basic imho but I can imagine the outcry of strict players so I leaved it here.

[wiki]Stationrotation OXP[/wiki] and [wiki]Status Quo Q-bomb OXP[/wiki] is not Helper imho too, but see outcry.

[wiki]Fireworks OXP[/wiki] is should be in Lookout, thank you. I wish more authors help fix my errors.

[wiki]Wormhole restoration OXP[/wiki] can stay in Helper if an average pilot in an Ironed Cobra3 can survive, else PowerUp.

[wiki]Anarchies OXP[/wiki] is moved to the Station category, thank you. Was placed into Mission before Station founded to seaparate additions with short todos from long missions, should be moved but not so you fixed a bug.

[wiki]Flying_Dutchman_OXP[/wiki] is another short todo, moved to Lookout (estimated marginal outcry ignored ).

[wiki]Offender traders OXP[/wiki] make less peaceful galaxies. An example to examine the effect not alone only but when a player use the whole PowerUp package: a simple trader can be a strong enemy with so many bonuses. And an example which can fit into two categories but must be in one only: can be Helper due to can help make money for pirate players.

[wiki]Railgun OXP[/wiki] is one of the few powerup for the player due too powerful to fit into the Helper, saved for the later play.

[wiki]Total patrol OXP[/wiki] make more NPC (stong ones due to other OXPs in Powerup). A help for a clean player, an enemy for offender, but more ship means something "up" imgo. Alternatively can be Helper, Basic can generate outcry by pirate players.

[wiki]Generation Ships OXP[/wiki] is another bug, a moving dockable can be in Station but with markets only. Moved to Ship.

[wiki]Asteroids3D OXP[/wiki] I checked it (I checked all lines in OXP_list two times but surely left out something) and moved to my wilfully leftout folder for some reason, but this is a bug. Moved to Helper, see "fun" and really help spend time.

[wiki]Personalities OXP[/wiki] also in leftout due to the many errors what I can not able to fix yet. I spent a few hours to try it due to I liked the idea.

[wiki]Killit OXP[/wiki], oocheat and long range scanner left out due to I was not sure to include these at all. Fit into a theoretical debug tool category which is too small to create.

[wiki]Cataclysm OXP[/wiki] was broken but I was able to fix (see in PM).

Category system are in WIP state yet but I am sure we can fix the problems together.

Norby wrote:

Thank you for the long list of issues in categories. Although I need your help the situation is not as bad as you see, most of the problems comes from misunderstanding or simple errors.

Well, that's another point already made by others. If you had asked for the collaboration of the OXP authors beforehand—for instance asking them to help categorize their own OXPs—instead of making it a fait accompli, these misunderstandings and simple errors could have been avoided. And again, if the misattribution quota regarding my OXPs is in any way indicative for the whole project, then roughly half of all non-ship OXPs (those are more or less a clear case) are sorted wrongly. Which will cause widespread misinformation among Oolite players. Which I maintain is a bad thing. Personally, I don't like misinformation about my work to be spread, especially as I make it a point to well document it. Each OXP has an extensive Wiki page which gives an overview and detailed information about what it's doing. It's also already put into a category, which you mostly ignore.

Norby wrote:

Category system are in WIP state yet but I am sure we can fix the problems together.

Actually, that's another point, and it hasn't yet been raised by others: we already have a category system for OXPs in place. Why don't you use it? Why do you think that you have to push it aside and invent a new one from scratch? That shows a certain disregard for the collaborative work that has been put into the Wiki before your arrival. If you're not happy with the existing categories, if you see a need for re-arranging them, you could have said so and asked for input of others. This way you would at least have presumed that the people who have created the existing category system have spent some serious thoughts on doing it in a meaningful and concise way. But you didn't. So, you don't want to collaborate with them (us!) and perhaps improve the existing system, but instead you create your own without prior consultation and then expect our collaboration to brush out the bugs? Why should we want to collaborate with you, if you don't care for collaborating with us?

Of course you can create your own private OXP collection(s) according to your own private categorization. There are already other subjective OXP recommendations by other individuals on the Wiki. But this is where your list belongs: one individual's subjective, non-authorized, sometimes erroneous view on OXPs. It's not an in any way official (or even semi-official) list. And it should be clearly marked as such. So, here's my request: If it doesn't get clearly marked as your personal, individual, non-official project, I kindly ask you to remove all my OXPs from the collections. (You may keep Thargoid Carrier OXP and Generation Ship OXP, because at their core they're not mine, but the work of Selezen and Draco_Caeles, so they have also a right to decide where they want them included.)

Now for the remaining errors in categorization:

Norby wrote:

Your words based on the too short details in the top of OXP Collection page. My user page and the readme in the hosted space contained more description, now I added before the collection list also. One word category names are reminders only due to I do not want to use long sentences.

And I don't know what your categorization is based on. Is it the short descriptions in the [wiki]OXP List[/wiki]? My OXP pages and the included readMe's contain more description. It still seems you haven't read them, and haven't used and tested the OXPs. Wouldn't this be a minimum requirement for anyone who assumes the authority to create and distribute themed OXP collections: knowing what each OXP in their collection(s) does?

Norby wrote:

[wiki]NPC-shields OXP[/wiki] is the first exception under the Helper word. This category is the first which allow changes in game mechanic so planned to players with some but not so much experience, and "aimed to get more fun". I placed here due to no better place. A separated small-powerup package was not worth to make: will be too little and I try keep low the number of categories. Best place in Basic imho but I can imagine the outcry of strict players so I leaved it here.

You still haven't understood what the OXP does, have you? NPC Shields OXP does the exact same thing as CustomShields OXP, only less sophisticated. One can easily say that it has been replaced or superseded by CustomShields OXP. So how on Earth can the two OXPs be in different categories?

Norby wrote:

[wiki]Stationrotation OXP[/wiki] and [wiki]Status Quo Q-bomb OXP[/wiki] is not Helper imho too, but see outcry.

As outlined above, it should be clear from the very beginning that the whole list is nothing but your own, personal opinion. Thus there won't be no outcry.

Norby wrote:

[wiki]Offender traders OXP[/wiki] make less peaceful galaxies.

Again, why? The police may go after some of the offenders, but this doesn't have an effect on the player (apart from ambience), does it? It may give the player an incentive to be less peaceful, but that's totally their own choice. It doesn't make it more dangerous for them by one bit to traverse a system.

Norby wrote:

[wiki]Railgun OXP[/wiki] is one of the few powerup for the player due too powerful to fit into the Helper, saved for the later play.

Powerup seems a problematic category for me, if it contains powerups for the player and powerups for NPCs without distinguishing between them, especially if the player expects their own powerups to be in the helper category. But again, as long as the whole categorization is clearly marked as your own, personal opinion, there's no need to argue about it.

Norby wrote:

[wiki]Total patrol OXP[/wiki] make more NPC (stong ones due to other OXPs in Powerup). A help for a clean player, an enemy for offender, but more ship means something "up" imgo. Alternatively can be Helper, Basic can generate outcry by pirate players.

On the other hand, it spreads them over a much bigger area. Thus in many cases there will be less police ships on the main route between witchpoint and planet. Which is precisely what makes it so difficult to categorize as either "for" or "against" the player. For the outcry argument, see above.

Norby wrote:

[wiki]Generation Ships OXP[/wiki] is another bug, a moving dockable can be in Station but with markets only. Moved to Ship.

What is all this talk about dockables? It almost seems as if you were under the impression that Generation Ships are dockable. They are not. Or which "moving dockable" are you talking about?

Commander McLane wrote:

...we already have a category system for OXPs in place.

This was designed in tandem with the major overhaul of the OXP list of a couple of years ago, and the team working on it (along with input from the wider community) agonised over this for weeks. I know because I was one of them!
The stated goal was to work around as few catagories as possible (for simplicity) which would nonetheless give OXP seekers the best possible insight as to what the OXP did in general terms. I think we succeeded. My point is that this catagorisation was the result of a huge amount of work and effort by a lot of people, people who knew the OXPs extremely well and so were able to catagorise them accurately and meaningfully.
The result of this work in tandem with the List overhaul was the sortable table we have today - an alphabetical list of all current OXPs, that can be sorted by catagory to help people find what they want. It is accurate, well-thought-through and comprehensive. It is also accepted as such by the majority who understand that it is this way because of the hundreds (thousands?) of man-hours that went into it, by a team of people who set out to do the best possible job and broadly succeeded.
Honestly, we don't need another one. The one we have is in good working order, and having just the one 'official' sortable table avoids confusion.

You all are right, it is my personal recommendation list, so I now step back from the general level by declaring it to personal in the  wiki.

About collaboration: my pratice is to put down something to the table first which help to make comments, but in this case would have better to discuss it first, sorry.

You convinced me now about Offender traders and Total patrol (moved to Helper if count).

Moving dockable:  Baakili Far Trader is a ship but has market definition in commodities.plist.

This grouping is not want to be a competitor of the existing categories but try to add another searching conditions. Firstly the "harmless", "mostly harmless" and "competent" level by player experience, second is my ideas after I read the OXPs for new players topic.

For example I tried to suggest NPC Shields to novices and CustomShields to experienced players. This is the reason why these are in different recommendation packages but in the same official categories simultaneously.

Technically this is another metadata like the personal recommendation but try to consider the needs of players which is not an easy question. I am not surprised that my first try was not succesful, but was instructive. Thank you all for the valued remarks!

i just became aware of this effort.

Norby-
Please cease and desist all distribution of Deep Horizon-based OXP's. I'll have to review them individually (they don't all use the same license), but I know some you are distributing the license explicitly prohibits redistribution. All downloads of your collection to this point are violations of those licenses. Collections like this are exactly why I don't allow for redistribution.

Ask first. Permission IS better, because forgiveness isn't guaranteed.

Hello Cmd. Cheyd,

On the subject of permissions, may I please draw your attention to this:

https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=15683

It's a derivitive planet texture project that I'd like to put together for release, subject to permission from yourself and others.
I'd be more of a complier than an author in this case but never-the-less it seems to work well and may be of interest to some.

Should the various parties not like their work to be included then I would happily respect their wishes and look to develop this as yet unreleased project along different lines.

Thanks for helping to inspire the idea in the first place

Cmd. Cheyd wrote:

Please cease and desist all distribution of Deep Horizon-based OXP's.

The whole collection was removed two weeks ago, now this is a personal recommendation list only.

Cmd. Cheyd wrote:

I'll have to review them individually (they don't all use the same license), but I know some you are distributing the license explicitly prohibits redistribution.

I checked these:
Deep_Horizon_Advanced_Navigation_Computer.oxp
Deep_Horizon_Emergency_Witchspace_Initiator.oxp
Deep Horizons - Gas Giant Skimming.oxp
Deep Horizons - Systems.oxp

The most strict sentence what I found about hosting is "You will delete all copies of the OXP at any time on the request of the Author". I think this is explicit after your request only, but I am not so good in English nor in Licenses.

Cmd. Cheyd wrote:

Ask first. Permission IS better, because forgiveness isn't guaranteed.

Pithy thought, thank you.

Ohh, I am flattered my OXP made the cut.

cim wrote:

So, okay, our plans regarding ease of discovery and installation of OXPs. Some of these are at a far earlier stage than I prefer to have plans at before publicly discussing them - indeed, the later stages are more at the "planning to have a plan" step. But since I also don't want people unknowingly taking time doing work that might become obsolete, I'll say a little about them.

1. The thing we're currently working on, which should be in the 1.79 source fairly soon, is support for OXPs distributed as a single file (which will be a ZIP file with particular contents and name, so easy for OXPers to make with existing tools). So, if you want an add-on you go to the wiki page or the forum thread, you click on the link, you save the file you get into AddOns, and it's there the next time you start your game. No messing around unzipping files, saving the OXP folder into the wrong place or whatever, and much quicker if you want to install a few at once. That will be a big help on its own, I think.
2. The single file format will also include more metadata than there is at the moment, which will allow us to do more things both within Oolite - e.g. some basic automatic dependency and conflict resolution - and outside it - e.g. a central database of expansion packs updated from the standardised metadata the author already wrote (note: centralised metadata, not centralised download). Timescale on that... uncertain, at the moment. I'd hope to have at least some of this working well in time for the 1.80 release, but the only thing we strictly need is the metadata format nailed down - actually using that data might be a later release.
3. Now, the line of thought which some readers have probably already gone down is that if we have a centralised metadata store, and expansion packs that can be downloaded and installed as a single file with a guaranteed format, that then makes a full expansion manager as part of Oolite theoretically possible. "That would be a nice idea" and "better make sure the metadata includes things one of those might need" is the stage that's at - but it's something we'd like to do at some point, when/if we have time.

Hopefully that answers some questions people have: if you have more specific questions I may be able to answer some of them, or it may be a case of "we haven't got that far yet".

A centralized metadata pointing the new users to download links would be a great thing. In the meantime, I must hunt down Maik about the Wiki as I would like to put up a personal recommendations page.

An alternate idea I just had is bundling some small OXPs together with the game releases, maybe:
a) some of those mentioned in http://oolite.aegidian.org/bb/viewtopic ... 5&start=30
b) some small ones like IFF Police Scanner Upgrade, Bounty Scanner, Dock Assist Systems, Target Autolock, Trophy Collector

Zireael wrote:

An alternate idea I just had is bundling some small OXPs together with the game releases, maybe:
a) some of those mentioned in http://oolite.aegidian.org/bb/viewtopic ... 5&start=30
b) some small ones like IFF Police Scanner Upgrade, Bounty Scanner, Dock Assist Systems, Target Autolock, Trophy Collector

That's a stillborn child, and potentially a can of worms, because we'd never agree on which OXPs would deserve to be bundled with the game. (The debate gets re-ignited every once in a while, and never goes anywhere resembling a resolution.)

Just to be clear on this, there are no OXPs to be bundled with the core game at any time except for the Basic-debug.oxp, which we distribute purely for guaranteeing Debug Console functionality and for the benefit of the testers and OXP writers who use the Test Release versions of the game.