Oolite Bulletins

Speaking as someone who plays exclusively with the keyboard (unless for debugging purposes), the DOS feature is easily emulated by tap - lift finger - tap - lift finger. It's the method used by the original Elite well before the DOS version, and seems surprisingly effective even on multi-core computers!

Using a joystick, or a mouse (full screen, then shift-M) can also be used to rotate at a specific speed, but I personally don't find those alternatives as effective as the 4 cursor keys...

100% agreed!

I think Chrisfs might be onto something here. I see the logic for "easy" docking being the same as landing at a modern airport, versus landing the biplane on the farmer's field. (Or on the road next to the 7-11 like Cannonball Run. )

So what if the auto-rotation doohickey was only available on higher tech level worlds? That way going off-piste for the first time becomes interesting...

If the min tech level was conveniently one lower than Lave and other Jameson milkrun systems, then the first time you go somewhere a bit more interesting, you get to the station and you find "what? It's spinning? And the entry port is rectangular? and it's another thing to learn at "mostly harmless." "

Or, the price penalty might not be in the goods, but could be an outright docking fee.

I suppose thinking about it, the stations don't really need to rotate because we clearly already have some other kind of artificial gravity, otherwise the harness would slice right through the pilot every time you hit the slow button...

I find docking easy but that's because I learned when I was 12! When I started playing oolite again I was surprised the muscle memory came back to me, but only once I'd changed the keys back to BBC layout...

It also made me realise that there weren't many games around since then where you had such a tricky motor skill to learn, even Gran Turismo 4 was considerably more forgiving than a real car...

zevans wrote:

Or, the price penalty might not be in the goods, but could be an outright docking fee.

Elite Plus charged 50Cr to dock.

The challenge of docking manually is good practice.

zevans wrote:

If the min tech level was conveniently one lower than Lave and other Jameson milkrun systems, then the first time you go somewhere a bit more interesting, you get to the station and you find "what? It's spinning? And the entry port is rectangular? and it's another thing to learn at "mostly harmless."

I already had this thought with Lave Academy, but stepped back a level. So the entry port going from the big octagonal hole of LA to the rectangular and spinning one of a Coriolis is not from Harmless to Mostly Harmless, but from Trainee to Harmless.

Thargoid wrote:

I already had this thought with Lave Academy, but stepped back a level. So the entry port going from the big octagonal hole of LA to the rectangular and spinning one of a Coriolis is not from Harmless to Mostly Harmless, but from Trainee to Harmless.

Well said that ..errr.. man!

Also, that biplane analogy seems quite apt.

Which one would you go for: biplane / cessna pilot, able to spray crops, seed rainclouds, deliver urgent mail/medicine/whatever to inaccessible places, some spot of piracy or bounty hunting (ok, that doesn't fit) depending on how you feel on the day, or would you rather be a safe jumbo pilot, plodding along the same route, day after day after day after day, with the occasional very loud kid screaming in the isle to add variety?

To me, it's a no-brainer...

There's always room for a little smuggling in a light plane.

the fact remains- docking isn't difficult- especially with a joystick

you just have to think "sod it, if all the other guys can dock, then so can I". If docking was that hard, then elite would not have become the game it was/is.

My pompous, alternately serious and silly rant.


Having said that, I remember when first playing Elite in the '80s, that docking was the most frustrating thing, because, while trading and fighting though tough (especially fighting) seemed an integral part of the game, docking didn't seem so and yet it was necessary to dock in order to save the game. I had numerous frustrating incidents where I was just making a bit of headway, or defeated a pirate only to have it lost by failing to dock. Perhaps this says more about my coordination or the state of our University's computers (back in the '80s when the '286 was the new fast pc). Twenty years later, I seem to be doing much better at docking in OOlite than I ever did in Elite.
(and despite those memories, betrayed my manhood with girlish squeals of delight when I discovered OOlite's existence a few weeks ago., because it's that kind of game).

Given those memories, I think Fuel stations (which don't rotate but charge more than the main base), Lave Academy OXP and a Save Anywhere feature (if it exists), go a long way to making OOlite more accessible to beginners. without compromising it for more experience or skilled players.

Having recently installed Commies OXP, I noticed that Astromine penalty colonies do not rotate and so docking is easier. Depending on how you look at it, this is either a breakthrough that proves the superiority of Communist technology or is proof of a Commie plot to erode the skills of commanders everywhere.

Chrisfs wrote:

My pompous, alternately serious and silly rant.


Having said that, I remember when first playing Elite in the '80s, that docking was the most frustrating thing, because, while trading and fighting though tough (especially fighting) seemed an integral part of the game, docking didn't seem so and yet it was necessary to dock in order to save the game. I had numerous frustrating incidents where I was just making a bit of headway, or defeated a pirate only to have it lost by failing to dock. Perhaps this says more about my coordination or the state of our University's computers (back in the '80s when the '286 was the new fast pc). Twenty years later, I seem to be doing much better at docking in OOlite than I ever did in Elite.
(and despite those memories, betrayed my manhood with girlish squeals of delight when I discovered OOlite's existence a few weeks ago., because it's that kind of game).

Given those memories, I think Fuel stations (which don't rotate but charge more than the main base), Lave Academy OXP and a Save Anywhere feature (if it exists), go a long way to making OOlite more accessible to beginners. without compromising it for more experience or skilled players.

Having recently installed Commies OXP, I noticed that Astromine penalty colonies do not rotate and so docking is easier. Depending on how you look at it, this is either a breakthrough that proves the superiority of Communist technology or is proof of a Commie plot to erode the skills of commanders everywhere.

There is a Save Anywhere OXP - which cheats my hiding the fact that you are actually teleported to a main station where the game can be saved and then teleports you back when you reload.


http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Save_Anywhere

I don't know if it still works with the latest implementations of the code.

a Commie plot to erode the skills of commanders everywhere.

Yep.

DaddyHoggy wrote:

There is a Save Anywhere OXP ... I don't know if it still works with the latest implementations of the code.

No, it doesn't.

I tried to talk Frame into doing a new version of it (now that we have the new insta-dock-java command it would be easy) but I think I couldn't convince him

Perhaps someone else is up to the task? This would be such a cool functionality!



L