Oolite Bulletins

Astrobe wrote: ↑Sat Jan 21, 2017 11:28 am

Some OXPs are popular. My guess is that for instance BGS, Additional Planets (+extra stations), Random Hits, Anarchies, Commies, YAH have been installed by at least 50% of the players.

Back before the download manager, the most downloaded OXP on that list was almost certainly BGS - at less than 10% of the number of Oolite 1.80 downloads we could track (e.g. not counting ones installed via Linux distributions, or the various mirror sites outside our control).

The download manager certainly made OXPs more visible - some of mine tripled or so in downloads - but I'd be very surprised if any OXP, even the most popular, made it over 20%.

As regards adding OXPs to the core functionality, this has happened occasionally, but generally with fairly small self-contained OXPs and not necessarily by just inserting the OXP code. e.g. there used to be a few "tell me what the ASC is targeting" OXPs which were fairly popular and then were superseded by adding a new core HUD indicator to do just that. Considerations for doing so in future would probably include things like:
- is the OXP code and assets suitable for inclusion (licensing, quality, etc.)
- is the code itself extensible or possible to make extensible for future OXPs to modify (may require converting JS code into Obj-C code for the core engine)
- does it significantly increase the amount of in-game text for translations? (Is it even practically translatable?)
- is it written to the latest OXP best practice standards or would it need a significant rewrite?
- does it work well on non-shader computers or low-spec ones?
- would it cause incompatibilities for existing OXPs? (and what happens if someone already has the OXP installed?)

Astrobe wrote:

I never said that the dev team should make changes to the core game. Nor did I say they have to do the community's every bidding.

My suggestion was about including popular, working and proven OXPs in the Oolite distribution. That's all. It could actually just be a collection-type OXP if one wants to minimize the workload for the devs.

My apologies, Astrobe, I didn't mean to imply that you did. But anything distributed with the core game would very probably, by default, be seen as being part of the core game. As Smivs mentioned earlier, choosing certain OXPs to bundle in would create a two-tier system of a small number of "official", "recommended" OXPs, and a large number of "unofficial" (and, by extension, "not recommended") OXPs.

Bundling certain OXPs would also risk constraining the development of the core game: "If we change X, we break such-and-such.oxp, which is part of the core distribution". This might result in changes not being made in order to play nice with one of the "recommended" OXPs - or at the very least, new functionality not being implemented until a chosen OXP can be updated to accommodate it.

Disembodied wrote: ↑Fri Jan 27, 2017 10:01 am

As Smivs mentioned earlier, choosing certain OXPs to bundle in would create a two-tier system of a small number of "official", "recommended" OXPs, and a large number of "unofficial" (and, by extension, "not recommended") OXPs.

"Not recommended" as in "not a majority of players know about or use this", not as in "players think it is bad" - that's the way I see it and I think this is where we differ. Here, I'll agree with Stormrider who said that people should think by themselves too. I believe the player base is mature enough not to ignore 500 OXPs just because 10 of them have a special status.

Bundling certain OXPs would also risk constraining the development of the core game: "If we change X, we break such-and-such.oxp, which is part of the core distribution". This might result in changes not being made in order to play nice with one of the "recommended" OXPs - or at the very least, new functionality not being implemented until a chosen OXP can be updated to accommodate it.

Standard OXP or not, I think one would think twice before making a change that breaks a popular OXP. This feedback loop (core game depends on OXPs and OXPs depend on the core game) already exists.

Cim wrote:

The download manager certainly made OXPs more visible - some of mine tripled or so in downloads - but I'd be very surprised if any OXP, even the most popular, made it over 20%.

The poll will tell. But there's little point in running it if you devs don't agree with the whole idea.

Good luck getting any decent response from a poll. Even when the forum was lively, polls received little response.

IMHO Griff's very nice looking ships should not have been included to the core distribution. The reason being that the original bland and simple ships encouraged to mod the game. It was kind of an empty canvas that was inviting the player to try modding, since the textures were so easy to tweak. Griff's (still awesome looking) ships also set a standard for modding by making a core graphical standard.

With this I want to point that there are a lot of different opinions around and as my own opinion, I think that the core game should just be a framework that invites the player to mod and to enhance the game with mods by other people. As good as the game is or isn't, I think the strength of the game is in modding. I personally see the game as a programming toy which gives me a lot of enjoyment. I think it's quite futile to try to make the game more appealing by including OXPs.

Cody wrote: ↑Sat Jan 28, 2017 10:44 am

{Cody} Good luck getting any decent response from a poll. Even when the forum was lively, polls received little response.

spara wrote:

{Spara} I think it's quite futile to try to make the game more appealing by including OXPs

Stormrider wrote:

{Stormrider} I don't see Oolite downward spiraling anytime in the near future anyway, not with nearly 500 mods available in the manger and the awesome team currently maintaining it for us.

Cim wrote:

{Cim} On the other hand, I think {moving away from the original Elite} is probably necessary to make any significant progress on these problems - an Oolite II rather than an Oolite 2.0 which started with far more of a blank slate, because a lot of the current issues are inherited from the bits of the 1984 version it would feel most wrong to move away from for Oolite (or, at least, one would never get any consensus about how to move away from them).

{A_C, about dropping Windows XP support tho} There comes a time, however, when we need to move on. Technology is advancing and so is the game. New APIs become available and, while they offer new capabilities for doing things that were not considered possible before, they may or may not work acceptably (if at all) on old systems. Trying to remain compatible with what has been long obsoleted means that we may not be able to achieve what we are aiming for and we don't want that; we want to see the game progressing.

{From the HIMSN thread} So...uh... what ever happened with this? I refuse ro believe that 50 pages led to abandonment.

{Pleb's last message in August 2016} Wow, I'd actually forgotten all about Oolite until I got an email saying someone had replied to {an unrelated to HIMSN} thread! A blast from the past indeed...

"Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place"

You so didn't get my point. I'm not against progress. I just see the game in a very different light than you.

spara wrote: ↑Sat Jan 28, 2017 2:08 pm

You so didn't get my point. I'm not against progress. I just see the game in a very different light than you.

... That Oolite is a space game engine and that everyone can have their own game? I used to share that view.

Where does this consensus problem come from? It's not just personal preferences; because each player has a different game, they see different problems and even when they all see the same problem, one given solution might only work for some players, because... each player has a different game.

Just yesterday I started a new commander. First trip to Zaonce. What I see there is a Black Monastery, an RSS station, and a Salvage Gang all "stupidly" clamped together in the middle of the lane. I also see an extra planet in the distance and a moon. So I think "A new player might think this is a bit messy. They should have put the Monastery on orbit around the moon and the RSS station maybe midway to the second planet". If they submit the idea to the board, the answers will probably something like, "I'm not sure it is worth including checks for additional planets; furthermore extra moons are optional too, so it'll only work for a fraction of players and it would need a lot of tests" or "many people have Deep Space Pirates so they might get punished for leaving the lane".

People would then suggest more solutions and debate over it, but this idea - like many others - will just slowly sink because of the lack of consensus which in turn erodes incentive. Fortunately that precise example isn't a big deal after all, right? Then what about the bigger problems? Shall we be able to solve them someday, or shall we wait for a superhero to come and dictate a solution (because "you don't look a gift horse in the mouth") for better or worse?

I know nobody here is deliberately trying to block progress. But what I want you to realize is that your take on Oolite's modability does hurt it.

Astrobe wrote: ↑Sun Jan 29, 2017 10:33 am

spara wrote: ↑Sat Jan 28, 2017 2:08 pm

You so didn't get my point. I'm not against progress. I just see the game in a very different light than you.

... That Oolite is a space game engine and that everyone can have their own game? I used to share that view.

Nope. My extremely narrow view is that for me this is not a game to be played at all. It's a programming/modding tool. Sure you can play the game if you want to, but for me the beef is in modding.

Oolite can also be seen as an educational tool to encourage younglings to program and mod. Even those without programming skills can get creative with Oolite by drawing textures and such.

So, from this point of view, the focus should be in making modding as easy and inviting as possible, instead of trying to make the game as appealing as possible as a game.

[Oolite shuffles away, shoulders slumped] A toy? A tool? [Oolite sobs]

Cody wrote: ↑Sun Jan 29, 2017 12:33 pm

[Oolite shuffles away, shoulders slumped] A toy? A tool? [Oolite sobs]

It can be a good game too... but the modding aspect is the heart of Oolite. Modding keeps it alive. Just my humble opinion of course.

I suppose I sit in the middle ground of the discussion. I think the improved planet atmosphere graphics in v1.85 is great and hope the developers will continue to push the game experience forward. On the other hand, although I have very limited programming experience (20+ year BBC Basic) it's great to be able to mod oxps and game play to my liking e.g. adding additional missions to the original three of the Feudal States oxp:

Astrobe wrote: ↑Sun Jan 29, 2017 10:33 am

Just yesterday I started a new commander. First trip to Zaonce. What I see there is a Black Monastery, an RSS station, and a Salvage Gang all "stupidly" clamped together in the middle of the lane. I also see an extra planet in the distance and a moon. So I think "A new player might think this is a bit messy. They should have put the Monastery on orbit around the moon and the RSS station maybe midway to the second planet".

One of the reasons for the changes to the populator back in 1.80 was to make it easier for stations to be placed individually at consistent per-system positions without them being also always being placed at the same consistent per-system positions as each other or even the same position in every system they're in. I'm not sure any of those OXPs have been updated enough since then to take advantage of that, however.

The problem with placement is that most of the activity happens on WP-Planet lane. Both NPC and player activity. On the other hand the lane is quite short due the proportions of Oolite. Rather than taking them away from the main lane, maybe they ought to be a bit more rare? Just a thought.

spara wrote: ↑Sun Jan 29, 2017 6:52 pm

... maybe they ought to be a bit more rare?

Rarity is quite rare - plenty of OXP stuff could do with being rarer.