Oolite Bulletins

exactly the kind of thing I'm 'worried' about
Heck, there are already mission that involves talking at a bar (well, a grill, but it's still the same ballpark)

Rxke wrote:

ok, is there enough interest in something like this?

Well I for one would love to see this...

I always thought an old school txt adventure would be a great implementation of 'Corrolis' life. Although were obviously not talking about this here.

I see one big, huuge, all but insurmountable problem:

Let's say person X starts doing this, and asks for feedback

To quote Steve Jobs: "boom!"

A gazillion reactions, everybody with his/her/its own ideas how this would look like.
Result: mucho discussion, and end result pleasing to no-one. Person X being disillusioned by all the difficult to implement requests, and dissing when it doesn't work out, and all the other ones because it isnt 100% to their liking...

My (one of my) idea(s) was to kinda 'recycle' the planet descriptions: like Xlanet X is cursed by edible poets, then you'd have either the Cursed Bar, or The Edible poet as a name of the bar, and the bartender being either an 'edible poet' or a 'cursed bartender'.

Ok, so it wouldn't always make sense, but it'd fit in the og. Elite overall feel etc.
I like this idea, but I can already hear people foaming at the mouth when they read this

Feedback is good, but don't feel any preassure to please everyone. You're the one who's doing the work, and it's you who decide what goodies to include from the suggestions.

It's like our exhibition (I'm attending a cabinet making education); we have selected a group that's building it, and we aren't even allowed to enter the building until it's finished (unless the building group invites us).


I think your naming scheme is good.

Lucidor wrote:

we have selected a group that's building it, and we aren't even allowed to enter the building until it's finished (unless the building group invites us).

My first reaction to that was: shock: because I've seen things like that gone horribly, horribly wrong. But maybe it's a matter of safety? They simply cannot allow anyone to walk in at anytime when doing their stuff, so you have to ask beforehand.

That said, I attend college and our dept. is a disaster, because they forgot to build a lab(!) because someone had used old plans, gakh! And as in your case: it was all but impossible to visit the reconstruction-site, until it was waaay too late for fundamental corrections. Result: a plasterwalled lab, unheated, w/ grotty drainage, insufficient fumehoods (chemicals) etc etc... Oh and it took 6 months *during* lessons before it was eventually finished, because they had to reroute virtually every powerline, plumbing etc etc.

(offtopic rant, didn't realise it still bothers me, three yrs later)

on-topic: okay, I guess I'll give it a try (at least: I will look how hard it is)

And ... I want some ideas (heehee)

My idea(s):

1) Dull planer --> The Dull Bar (see earlier);

2) 1 in 10 (more? less?) RND 'chance' you'll get this when docking, otherwise it will bore you to tears after 3 jumps. I want opinions about this;

3)KISS: I'm not going to write a RPG engine, I wouldn't know how for starters, and I guess most people wouldn't like that.

4) What happens in a bar? Ideas? That *don't* clash w/ the game as-is.
Some possibilities:
-gambling;
-buying some stuff for (good/bad/unknown) price 'under the counter that would be drugs, liquer, gemstones, everything that you can carry;
-now and then a little more elaborate scenario, picking up a customer (micro-mission), amourous adventure;...
-getting drunk and losing your money/legal status(barfight), maybe even your pants (heh)

Any more ideas?

Rxke wrote:

Lucidor wrote:

we have selected a group that's building it, and we aren't even allowed to enter the building until it's finished (unless the building group invites us).

My first reaction to that was: shock: because I've seen things like that gone horribly, horribly wrong. But maybe it's a matter of safety? They simply cannot allow anyone to walk in at anytime when doing their stuff, so you have to ask beforehand.

No, it's just a matter of getting it done eventually. Previous years there has been endless arguments when people come and say "I don't want my stuff next to that" or "I don't want to be in the corner" etc. The ones who build decides how it's going to be, and that's final.



Re the OXP: The way I imagined it, the bar would be an option at the station, like the stock market or the ship yard. F4 for bar.


An addition to the naming: add a line to establish what kind of bar it is; "The Dull bar, a high class establishment".

Or even longer: "As you enter the Dull bar, a waiter directs you to a table by the window where planet $PLANET gently rolls by." <> "As you enter the Blender bar, you almost get knocked over by a stumbling victim of a fistfight."

Personally, if it were *really* implemented in-game, I would feel too daunted(?) to start trying to write it.
As an OXP, it doesn't matter if it is rough around the edges (aka buggy as hell) but really incorporating it would involve Giles' or someone else's l33t coding skills to change the game itself... And... then the addition should be as good as the rest of the game, and frankly, I don't think I can deliver such quality. My scriptingskills are rusty (couple of eternally unfinished scripts and reading the wilki and forums too much is no substitute to really sit down and write...

Rxke wrote:

Personally, if it were *really* implemented in-game, I would feel too daunted(?) to start trying to write it.
As an OXP, it doesn't matter if it is rough around the edges (aka buggy as hell) but really incorporating it would involve Giles' or someone else's l33t coding skills to change the game itself...

That would be the ultimate thing, but I'll take an OXP any day if the alternative is nothing. :^) I just didn't apprehend the scope of OXP's capabilities. (Thoght that such a thing maybe was possible with an OXP)

Rxke wrote:

Personally, if it were *really* implemented in-game, I would feel too daunted(?) to start trying to write it.
As an OXP, it doesn't matter if it is rough around the edges (aka buggy as hell) but really incorporating it would involve Giles' or someone else's l33t coding skills to change the game itself...

why daunted. couldn't you have fun with it?
aren't there ways to do it without l33t coding?

Lucidor wrote:

That would be the ultimate thing, but I'll take an OXP any day if the alternative is nothing. :^) I just didn't apprehend the scope of OXP's capabilities. (Thoght that such a thing maybe was possible with an OXP)

tell me if I'm wrong, but I think it's within current OSX capacity to make multiple choice, random weird conversatons, textadventure style, and probably gambling, but consequential bar-conversation leading to battle and treasure becomes another mission altogether.

I mean hardcoded F-keys, thaat would change the game engine itself.

re: missions: yeah, there's already enugh of that in the trader F8F8 section I guess

I find the carrier missions at F8F8 rather tedious. It would be nice if you could find some rather well-paying carrier jobs that didn't go to the other side of the galaxy.
In fact, that would be the reward for listening to the blatherings of fellow traders, which in itself will loose its charm after a while.

So I really hope the micro missions don't proove to be too hard to do.

Go on Rxke, GIT-R-DONE!!!!!

I just can't wait to debug for you for once...

Seriously, a simple bar scene/conversation generator wouldn't be too hard using current scripting tools. Murgh is right - it's all there already. I don't know how you would attach it to F4 though - I don't think that's currently possible.

Maybe it would be good if there was a generic screen in stations for OXP.
Any OXP can had any new entries in it :
By pressing F4 (if F4 is the key to that screen), you get a screen with a few choices given by the oxp. You can select any. Then it wil bring the screen you want.

For exemple, the screen could list the bar, (and eventually display a picture when it is selected), or a mission (or place with plenty of mission). If you wish, you can imagine this as a way to move around the base. (If you wish to implement a simple RPG like stuff, where the player can somehow get stucked, you can add to a "room" (well, a screen) the possibility to disable the F1, F2... keys. So the player HAS to move between theses rooms to leave the place.

Could be fun

I'm pretty buried in other stuff, right now, but I will do something more than just taking a look at the code tomorrow, if my shedule keeps up.

(ATM i can't make much sense how the generation of 'planet x is...by...' works, I want to make sure I understand that part, before going any further. the words are in [/] [trunk/] [Resources/] [Config/] [descriptions.plist] but I can't seem to find how/where it gets gererated in the code )