Oolite Bulletins

To keep the confusion low: what is seen in your screenshot are not flashers. The word flasher is already taken for something else in Oolite, namely for the bodiless, ghostly glow you see at witchpoint buoys, or in the docking bays of the vanilla stations, or on Vipers.

You cannot collide with those, which is why they are used as an entry guidance system for Buoy Repair Stations.

What we see on the screenshot is part of the shaders of the station. I don't know enough about the whole shader business to be able to identify them as glow-, or emission-, or whatever-map. But their basis is the station's texture. So maybe the game treats them as solid. As I said, I don't know anything about shaders.

Commander McLane wrote:

To keep the confusion low: what is seen in your screenshot are not flashers. The word flasher is already taken for something else in Oolite, namely for the bodiless, ghostly glow you see at witchpoint buoys, or in the docking bays of the vanilla stations, or on Vipers.

You cannot collide with those, which is why they are used as an entry guidance system for Buoy Repair Stations.

What we see on the screenshot is part of the shaders of the station. I don't know enough about the whole shader business to be able to identify them as glow-, or emission-, or whatever-map. But their basis is the station's texture. So maybe the game treats them as solid. As I said, I don't know anything about shaders.

I stand corrected... yes, lets not call em flashers, eeh but approach lights or an approach holo tunnel.

El Viejo wrote:

Thank you commander... if you like Kaxgar, try Coyote next.

I certainly will !

Thargoid wrote:

And if they're actual solid sub-entities of the station, it makes me wonder where the collision bounding box would end up for a tunnel layout like that?

Wouldn't it be the same as flying through the Lave Academy drones (which are also spawed) and turning them off before you flew through them, and then have them spawned again at the same place if the player ship is a certain distance away.

It doesnt matter if they disappear in any view (outside or inside) as you approach them. But the one after that (if there is one and the next obstacle is not the space station bay door) then it should still be visible.

Don't know if that answers your question though, as I might have misinterpreted it, and I am not much help on scripting mechanics either, since I might oversee details that you're accustomed with.

Thargoid wrote:

In LA, I was actually referring to the flasher path that leads to/from the drone, rather than the drone itself. I think you maybe misunderstood my reference. If you look on each of them (or at least certainly the earlier ones in the sequence) there is a trail of flashers perpendicular to the drone itself along the "ideal" path to follow.

In your case you have distinct buoys lining the edge of the path, rather than the ideal trail itself. So things will be a little different. It should still be do-able, but will need a slightly different approach as discussed by PM. Either the marker buoys maybe disappear for a period of time if the player ship is close to their position, or they move out of the way. My leaning is toward the former, as it's simpler.

Sounds good Thargoid. I can hardly wait to see it in action, but as I said take your time and hit me with it when you feel like it.

It is possible, don't ask me how to do it though.

How do I know?

Many moons ago there was a bug with rock hermits and when you docked, you ended up flying right through them and coming out the other side.

TGHC wrote:

It is possible, don't ask me how to do it though.

How do I know?

Many moons ago there was a bug with rock hermits and when you docked, you ended up flying right through them and coming out the other side.

Yes, but that was due to buggy collision detection, and not a normal expected behaviour. Oolite's collision detection is still far from perfect, so even now you may fly through other entities unharmed. The other day I spawned myself inside a Generation Ship, and then flew simply through its hull unharmed. But I could also have been destroyed in the process. There is no certainty when the bug will hit, and when it won't.

Thargoid wrote:

Had a quick play, and sadly the script associated with the sub-entities (the lights) isn't reacting to various of the events that it would need to.

So doing it this way may be an arcane amount of scripting all on the mother side (the station itself) or else things may need changing on trunk-side which won't happen at the moment due to the feature-freeze.

Will play some more when I get more time.

Damn ! And that looked so promising since it was IMHO pretty close to your Lave academy docking mission, but there are surely things I don't see for being a scripting-idiot. Anyway thanks Thargoid and dont break your head over it though. Nice effort thanks.

Must admit that for a moment when I saw your name as last poster, I thought you had it cracked. Would have been awesome though.

Thargoid wrote:

It won't look as good, but as a stop-gap I'd suggest using Oolite flashers (the ones I spoke about before). They have no physical presence, so you can't crash into them.

They'll do the job you were looking for, but of course won't looks as nice as shader ones. But you can set their phase etc and get some way to the effect you are looking for.

Yes theres a thought, let me have a go at that, and I'll see what it does ingame. Thanks Thargoid.