Recovering "Lost" OXPs

[Cody]

Why employ a team of testers, when the stupid end-user is prepared to pay for the privilege, eh?

[montana05]

Alpha→Beta→RC (release candidate).

So this explains all the critiques I was reading some months ago about commercial gaming and down-loadable content. That the big companies no longer finish dotting the "i"s and crossing the "t"s - and produce stuff as finished as Frontier and FFE were back in the nineties, and then work on finishing it after they have sold it and players are playing it.

Microsoft, for example, is usually selling what I would call Beta, all the updates afterwards are slowly fixing most of the remaining bugs.

[Cholmondely]

Knotty's Astronaut now up on our wiki: http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Astronaut

Put on a space suit and jump out of the orbital station... see where you end up...

Oh! And there is also his WIP: Ship: Gigantophis v0.1 https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=19732 - a heavy trader

[Cholmondely]

Knotty's Astronaut now up on our wiki: http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Astronaut

Put on a space suit and jump out of the orbital station... see where you end up...

Hypothetical question: Would it be possible for someone with the knowledge to either incorporate PlanetFall (without the need for docking computers) or to install an override for PlanetFall's need for docking computers into this .oxp?

Knotty was complaining that PlanetFall's need for Docking Computers made his .oxp silly.

... And would it be hypothetically possible to add a parachute?

[hiran]

Knotty's Astronaut now up on our wiki: http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Astronaut

Put on a space suit and jump out of the orbital station... see where you end up...

Hypothetical question: Would it be possible for someone with the knowledge to either incorporate PlanetFall (without the need for docking computers) or to install an override for PlanetFall's need for docking computers into this .oxp?

Knotty was complaining that PlanetFall's need for Docking Computers made his .oxp silly.

... And would it be hypothetically possible to add a parachute?

I'd also see sense in an emergency beacon and to make this 'ship' scoopable...

[montana05]

I'd also see sense in an emergency beacon and to make this 'ship' scoopable...

The same suit is used similar to an emergency capsule in Montanas Resource Pack 01.

[Cholmondely]

The same suit is used similar to an emergency capsule in Montanas Resource Pack 01.

Are there any ideas for Montana's Resource Pack 02?

...and would it be 05's 02?

[montana05]

The same suit is used similar to an emergency capsule in Montanas Resource Pack 01.

Are there any ideas for Montana's Resource Pack 02?

...and would it be 05's 02?

Pack 02 will most likely not be your taste, it will contain weapons. Standardized turrets, for example.

[Cholmondely]

The same suit is used similar to an emergency capsule in Montanas Resource Pack 01.

Are there any ideas for Montana's Resource Pack 02?

...and would it be 05's 02?

Pack 02 will most likely not be your taste, it will contain weapons. Standardized turrets, for example.

Well, that's the great thing about Oolite, isn't it... Doesn't matter if it is to my taste or not - I'm not stuck with it! Unlike so many other things out there!

So what are you thinking of on the weapons front?

And turrets - can there ever be any control over these? From what I've read they tend to be utterly independent. It seems like a way of encouraging a second player to play in the same game.

[montana05]

So what are you thinking of on the weapons front?

And turrets - can there ever be any control over these? From what I've read they tend to be utterly independent. It seems like a way of encouraging a second player to play in the same game.

It is basically a copy & paste from GN XT again, I drafted there a simple system for turrets. Starting with high range and fire rate in combination with less energy and ending with low range, slow fire rate but much more destructive. The colors change from white up to purple, depending on firepower.

However, you are correct. Using them requires a different fighting style. While they're firing automatically on every hostile ship, the chances to hit others by accident are high.

[Cholmondely]

So what are you thinking of on the weapons front?

And turrets - can there ever be any control over these? From what I've read they tend to be utterly independent. It seems like a way of encouraging a second player to play in the same game.

It is basically a copy & paste from GN XT again, I drafted there a simple system for turrets. Starting with high range and fire rate in combination with less energy and ending with low range, slow fire rate but much more destructive. The colors change from white up to purple, depending on firepower.

However, you are correct. Using them requires a different fighting style. While they're firing automatically on every hostile ship, the chances to hit others by accident are high.

Which raises an interesting point.

Law.

What are the legal consequences? I think I'll transfer these thoughts to a new thread.

[hiran]

Do we still have a license discussion ongoing?

I just stumbled across a nice website that allows to choose a suitable license:
https://choosealicense.com

But it also explains the rules if no license is chosen:
https://choosealicense.com/no-permission/

[Cholmondely]

Do we still have a license discussion ongoing?

I just stumbled across a nice website that allows to choose a suitable license:
https://choosealicense.com

But it also explains the rules if no license is chosen:
https://choosealicense.com/no-permission/

Interesting. Thank you for this.

So if I post an unlicensed oxp on somewhere which implies a license (eg GitHub), then it has a license unless I specifically say that it does not.

So was Galactic Navy (my current licensing concern) ever on Oosat? Which might have implied a license due to posting it there?
Oosat 1 seems to have no trace: http://capnhack.com/hosting/oolite/Oolite/OoSat.html
Oosat 2 is now just the first page of 7 and is just a list of names: https://archive.is/1a74k
The wiki page links are of course to Box, and wading through the history pages there, the first link seems to have been in 2008, also to Box.

So your find seems not to help with the Galactic Navy licensing morass, sadly!

[montana05]

Do we still have a license discussion ongoing?

I just stumbled across a nice website that allows to choose a suitable license:

Thank you for that, specially the second page might could help Oolite, at least in the future.

Interesting. Thank you for this.

So if I post an unlicensed oxp on somewhere which implies a license (eg GitHub), then it has a license unless I specifically say that it does not.

So was Galactic Navy (my current licensing concern) ever on Oosat? Which might have implied a license due to posting it there?
Oosat 1 seems to have no trace: http://capnhack.com/hosting/oolite/Oolite/OoSat.html
Oosat 2 is now just the first page of 7 and is just a list of names: https://archive.is/1a74k
The wiki page links are of course to Box, and wading through the history pages there, the first link seems to have been in 2008, also to Box.

So your find seems not to help with the Galactic Navy licensing morass, sadly!

As much as I recall, GN was always on box. A solution for the future could be to add some terms for authors that as soon as an OXP is published on the board or the wiki a certain modus operandi will appear, published or not,

[Cholmondely]

A solution for the future could be to add some terms for authors that as soon as an OXP is published on the board or the wiki a certain modus operandi will appear, published or not,

Maybe. I'm concerned about publishing the Galactic Navy and adding some sort of updating override. I also want to track down the missing OXP's and add them to the mix. And I'd love to do something about some of the Brilliant but broken...

I find it interesting that Wildeblood and KillerWolf both had issues giving licenses to their works.

I accept the critique of the Galactic Navy which Cody, Smivs et al have put forwards, but it works. HIMSN doesn't.

I am also thinking about Stranger's comments in his Essay ("Google translated" from the Roolite site, press button at bottom right):

...Nowadays, procedurally generated space will surprise no one, but the situation has turned inside out. Three decades ago, a procedural generator was used to dynamically fill a memory space with content that was too small for manually created and customized game worlds. Now game universes created on the server side can already take up terabytes of memory. Filling such colossal amounts of memory with meaningful content manually is a hopeless task. The current procedural generation algorithms no longer just create unique configurations of solar systems in general terms. They are used to generate unique planets with their own relief, climate and unique biota. Amazing progress ... and mostly pointless. In the truest sense of the word. No Man's Sky. Space, in which a person, by and large, has nothing to do. I don’t mean to say that procedural generation is a waste of time. It creates the foundation of the world, freeing the demiurge from the unbearable volumes of monotonous technical work. But procedural generation only sets the stage for meaningful content. Plot, history, cultural layer, lore - call it what you want, without this there is no game. And it is precisely the persistent misunderstanding of this fact that is the reason for the fiasco of the Parallel Reality 002 project. Some kind of motivation is needed to stimulate the gamer to wander not just at random no matter where.

What was the motivation for the gamer in the canonical Elite besides a set of kills, bringing him closer to the coveted legendary rating? Well, at first, the gamer was simply not up to global reflections about the meaning of life, the Universe and everything else. Having grasped the basic rule "we take electronics in the industrial world, we sell in the agricultural world, we collect alcohol or furs, we fly to the industrial world, profit!" the gamer was busy looking for the best route with the optimal balance of profit and risk. Basically, this part of the game was learned quickly by trial and error. Having pumped the ship to an “iron ass”, the gamer set off on a free journey. Well, then, in the exciting anticipation of the missions that were legendary (very few people knew at least approximately how many there are in the game, what they would be, where and when they were given!), Whoever could fill the time as best he could. For example, why not cross the entire map diagonally from corner to corner before jumping to the next one? Or even cross all four corners. There is a goal, there is a choice of a route to it, each game session moves you towards its achievement. Of course, no discoveries were expected on the way of the gamer: no matter what system you take, in fact they were not much different. The only sun with a single planet, and even that was interesting only insofar as it was necessary to look for the only station of the system next to it. This did not prevent the gamers from filling this world with meaningful content on their own: people were looking for the legendary planet RAXXLA and even an analogue of the Earth, they discussed vague rumors about meetings with generation ships in deep space and wondered where the thargoid home nest was, and undertook ultra-long-distance expeditions, trying to check whether it is possible to get from one system to another through ordinary space, and not through a wormhole.

And what about Oolite? What can the explorer's game do? Oolite no longer needs the old procedural generator to create a game universe from a six-byte seed. Information about systems is stored in a huge planetinfo.plist, which can be supplemented and edited to the best of your ability. But in the default game, the first impression is the same as in the old Elite: the sun with a single planet and a single station. For a novice who has looked into Oolite from the outside, such asceticism is discouraging. The base game provides only a skeleton, which the gamer completes with loadable .oxp modules and customizes to his liking. The concept of a constructor world is designed for a gamer who loves and knows how to come up with tasks for himself. Not everyone is willing to understand and accept this approach. And if you look at this ecosystem as a whole, the game plus half a thousand add-ons, you get a potentially rich world. Each of the 2048 Ooniversum systems is no longer just a sun with a single planet and a single station, but a fully-fledged model of the solar system with planets, moons and stations, which now opens up an additional dimension to the gamer - interplanetary flights. The game engine technically allows these systems to be as spacious as you like, and the procedural generator is unique. The question is still how to fill this procedurally generated kaleidoscope of locations with interesting meaningful activity. The procedural generator by itself, as we noted above, cannot do this. Designing all these 2048 systems by hand, customizing them individually, saturating them with meaning and plot - well, you know, this is too ambitious not only for a lone amateur, but also for a team of game developers. But the good news is that you don't need to meticulously design all 2048 systems. Cosmic wonders do not have to come across at every step. Interesting hand-sculpted locations, separated by routine procedurally generated intermediate points - why not? Let's drop it offhand. 16 individually configured systems on the map, maybe even only 8 systems - this is already enough to stimulate long-distance flights within the sector. And it will be a completely meaningful game goal as opposed to the meaningless infinity of No Man's Sky, where it doesn't matter where one flies.

Let's face it, the potential of this open world is poorly realized. And here the claims are not against the developers of the game, but against the community of addon developers. At first, addon developers drew inspiration from the lore that grew out of Holdstock's Dark Wheel. In Ooniversum, in addition to the hermit asteroids, which are in the default game, there are deep space dredgers, generation ships, thargoid craft - all these legends of the old Elite have been brought to life. If anything, now, the legendary planet RAXXLA can be technically created - of course, linking its search with a non-trivial plot. There is a legendary space graveyard in the Tionisla system, there are three more systems with individual settings, and finally, there is a promising, but alas, abandoned project The Famous Planets. There are finally some epic missions like Trident Down. Alas, this is practically everything that now exists and almost all of this has become so outdated that it urgently needs at least a cosmetic update. Ooniversum is not attracted by the concept of world-exploration. The first meeting with the colossal ship of generations, of course, is impressive, but only just - I saw it, took a screenshot as a souvenir, unloaded it into the gallery and forgot. This meeting gives neither answers to old secrets, nor ties to new plots. The pulsar in the Tianve system, the orbital cemetery in the Tionisla system - the same issue. The first time one look's it is interesting, but nothing more. There are no storylines for these locations. Commander Vasig might remind us: well, since we are talking about Tionisla, the mission of Tionisla Reporter is connected with this system. Right. There are other missions that start when the gamer enters a certain system. But the fact is that in Tionisla herself there is absolutely nothing unique, anything unique which makes it possible to receive the mission only there - except that it is system number 124 in the First Sector. Now imagine that it is possible to get and pass a mission not just by being in the desired location, but by collecting and analyzing a bunch of information in order to catch a pattern and calculate this location. The default Ooniversum is an interesting world for a fighter or an athlete-traveler. To be registered visiting all the Famous Planets or even all 2048 systems is quite a goal for yourself. But the researcher in this world, by and large, has almost nothing to do. There are mysteries in the Ooniversum, but there is no mystery in it. What mystery can there be if Ooniversum is a densely populated world in which everyone knows about everyone? Gamers do not need to go on long expeditions to unexplored areas of the map to find high-tech worlds in which to upgrade or purchase a new ship. There are no unexplored areas of the map in Ooniversum - the entire map is revealed immediately. All high-tech systems of 13+ gaming level, all agricultural systems that need electronics, all anarchic pirate-infested systems - all this a gamer can discover right away without leaving Lave, and without any navigational database upgrades. I do not mean to say that Ooniversum is boring and does not provide food for the mind. Due to the stochastic behavior of the popularizer, even a routine trade trip in a well-known system can turn into a bright adventure, and, on occasion, an unplanned profit or loss, it’s as lucky. But skirmishes with pirates and raids of thargoids also become routine over time.

Could there be any terra incognita in this densely populated world? Why not? At the very least, there is a spacious solar system outside the well-trodden path of the entrance lighthouse - the planet, and in this spacious solar system you can place a lot of things, even while remaining within the canon. Ships and stations of aliens somewhere on the distant outskirts (other aliens, not thargoids), planets and moons, potentially suitable for industrial development and even for terraforming, and maybe even with their own xenobiology. There was a definite movement in this direction. Interesting planets and moons for the explorer, however, never appeared, but Smivs, with the help of other developers, was noted for his interesting packages Aliens and Star-jelly, in which there really are mysterious alien ships (possibly of organic nature) and huge organisms - inhabitants of open space ... Alas, the potential of these packages has not been developed. What's wrong with these packages? Yes, in principle, the same thing as with dredgers and with the generation ships: meeting with these seemingly unique creatures is in no way tied to certain locations that a gamer needs to calculate, find and explore. A meeting with them does not portend any secret, but remains a pure whim of roulette....