Oolite Bulletins

IIRC, you can use as much StarWars stuff as you like in 'Fan Fiction' as long as you don't try to make money out of it... Otherwise the various fan films etc. would've been in deep trouble ages ago...

Hm. Wrong...

6) "If I make up my own stories, but base them on another work, my new work belongs to me."
False. U.S. Copyright law is quite explicit that the making of what are called "derivative works" -- works based or derived from another copyrighted work -- is the exclusive province of the owner of the original work. This is true even though the making of these new works is a highly creative process. If you write a story using settings or characters from somebody else's work, you need that author's permission.

Yes, that means almost all "fan fiction" is arguably a copyright violation. If you want to publish a story about Jim Kirk and Mr. Spock, you need Paramount's permission, plain and simple. Now, as it turns out, many, but not all holders of popular copyrights turn a blind eye to "fan fiction" or even subtly encourage it because it helps them. Make no mistake, however, that it is entirely up to them whether to do that.

There is a major exception -- criticism and
parody. The fair use provision says that if you want to make fun of something like Star Trek, you don't need their permission to include Mr. Spock. This is not a loophole; you can't just take a non-parody and claim it is one on a technicality. The way "fair use" works is you get sued for copyright infringement, and you admit you did copy, but that your copying was a fair use. A subjective judgment on, among other things, your goals, is then made.

However, it's also worth noting that a court has never ruled on this issue, because fan fiction cases always get settled quickly when the defendant is a fan of limited means sued by a powerful publishing company. Some argue that completely non-commercial fan fiction might be declared a fair use if courts get to decide.

My objection is more aestetic anyhow.

Jokes about and references to scifi is intrinsic to elite,
however just copying the deathstar, just passes a certain threshold.
That's my opinion.

I just do not want any OXP's containing starwars or startrek in my ooniverse.
Fine if it's just SW/ST elements added.

I take your point Hertic. The OXP generally is (I hope) very faithful to the orginal elite in terms of plot. The various elite "nonsence" phrases such as "deadly goats" and "edible arts gratuates" turn up quite a lot and are doing things in the Ooniverse.

It was really just that given the size of the OXP (and being a Star Wars fan), I wanted to finish the OXP with an epic battle. The deathstar is the only "stolen" graphics in the OXP and you will only see it once. It also gives me the chance to build a completely unique System, with moons and this moon-sized station dominating it! A multi-planet system, with Tie Fighters & X-wings zipping around in battle just seemed a good end.

Only this one System is effected (and then only for the mission). The moons and planets will remain, but the Deathstar is banished from the Ooniverse once you destroy it!

Everything else is orginal, with a theam in desgin that mirrors classic elite.

Just make the death ray very cartoony.

Hope you'll still play it when it's done. Just hold your nose whilst doing Mission 13!

hm. I too think it would be a sad end to all your hard work.
I'd hate for a cool, elaborate mission to suddenly end up in StarWarsverse™ and be too put off to complete it.

maybe consider polling your audience to get a feel for what potentially strong feelings are out there on this subject?

Put a poll up. In defence of the starwars them (to 1 planet for 1 mission!).
A lot of desgines in technoligy have been inspired by Sci-fi in real life. As Oolite is set in the future, its population would have seen Star Wars. The franchise might even still be running by the year 3,000! So a dictator might say to his minions - "Thats the desgin I want." It will scare the pants off those troublesome "People's Popular Front" rabbel!

The basic design of the Death Star is not subject to copyright.

These days, however, that doesn’t really matter. If you attract attention and get a cease & desist, it’s the cost of defending yourself that is an issue. This is why entirely legal Asteroids and Tetris clones keep disappearing, for instance.

I shall now refrain from a lengthy rant, since I don’t particularly want to get political here.

indeed!

Unless you want to be included as a mark in the guild's hitlist, you'd better take that to the outworld forum.

LittleBear wrote:

It also gives me the chance to build a completely unique System, with moons and this moon-sized station dominating it! A multi-planet system, with Tie Fighters & X-wings zipping around in battle just seemed a good end.

Only this one System is effected (and then only for the mission). The moons and planets will remain, but the Deathstar is banished from the Ooniverse once you destroy it!

Very cool thing to do (appeals to everyone with a minor God-complex <G>).

Should there be a list on the wiki on what systems in what galaxies are already taken? Just a list of planets per galaxy that are affected and by which OXP. Must be careful to avoid spoilers, though..

I recall Lave and Diso having been OXPed, and there are several others, the names of which I do not recall. You wouldn't want too many mods appearing in the same system (you could end up having to fight several battles simultaneously either mixed up or in different places in the system), let alone several sets of extra planets and moons..

I mean, take any system you like, as long as isn't someone living there already..

Best wishes,
Oscar

good point: 2DO: add to wiki, systems OXP'd .

Ok I'm outvoted. I've discussed this with Ramon and can we go this way:-

If the Heretic is still up for it, could he do the Deathstar (big - perhaps twice the size of a normal station, but not as big as a moon)!

The cowardly dictator will escape before the station is destroyed and the final mission will be to hunt him down. His death will put a stop to the war and the planet will become a democary! (at least once I can figure out why my setspecificplanetinfo: code works fine for changing the planet's description, but refuses to to change the Govenment type!)

The dictator will be in a heavy Military Ship. He will appear at the battle against the death star. But for this appearance I will give him a "cowardAI", so he will hyperspace out if he suffers any damge whatsoever. (ie you cannot kill him in this mission).

The dictator's ship will have escorts. Ramon is doing the Dictator's ship and it's escorts (as we orginally planned). The escorts will also act as the Deathstar's defence ships and the Dictatorship's Navy.

The rebels will have Navy Cobra IIIs (a fully equiped Cobra III, but with its stats boosted a bit in a similar way to the way Giles boosted the Asp's stats to make the "Navy Asp").

The imperials will have the better ship, but the rebels will have the advantage in numbers.

The rebel ships will have an AI that causes them to attack any ship with the role of "imperial". The imperial ships will attack anything that has the role "non-imperial".

The script for the deathstar battle will use the "send all ships away" command before then adding the deathstar, loads of rebel ships and a fair number of imperial ships to the system. (ie in the deathstar battle the system will be deserted except for the player and the two waring factions).

I'll get on with the scripting next week.

If hertic can e-mail me. I'll e-mail him back the OXP, so he known the plot.

This will still have a "starwars" touch. But it will be a battle involing Oolite ships! (oh and the imperials with have green lasers)!

PS: As I've been going along I've been doing a Readme. This has a short readme for players. Then after a two page "Big Spoiler Warnings" sets out evreything the OXP does in coding terms. I sort of needed to do this to remind me of all the STAGES, ROLES etc I was using, but it should also serve to help other OXP builders avoid conflicts.

Dictator's Ship



Pretty Classic Elite, but with some wings!

Nice, I thought that looked classic.

My station would not go amiss as a fuel-refinery either...
I dubbed it the burger of death, Deathburg etc

it's built out of a lot of SE's.

I'm still thinking of a way to have it detonate after the energycore has been destroyed. which cannot be the main entity as it's supposed to be spinning. (and with all the subunits ...hell)

I could do something with death_ctionsand performScriptOnTarget...

Anyway, working on it.