Oolite Bulletins

mandoman, for scale be sure to make it large enough for it's capability. The merlin is kinda uber for its size in that it is too capable for its small profile. Your sunbat should probably be at least the size of a gecko or mamba and similar stats. You might also come up with a good unique angle for it. Like maybe it hangs out in packs of 5 near the sun , has no missiles, 5t cargo capacity, scoops, 1 mount with a pulse laser and good pursuit/dogfight characteristics like 350 maxspeed, 35thrust and gecko like pitch/roll. Perhaps they are like the Caiman from ArcElite and have a leader. Maybe the leader has a hyperdrive and no cargo space or scoop, 2 ecm hardened missiles, beam laser, shield booster and his henchmen have no hyperdrive and when you get into tinkering with AI's maybe have them flee half the time if the leader is killed. Just some ideas for you. Come up with a role for it and how it is used and then from that come up with the appropriate stats. Have fun with this.

Mauiby de Fug wrote:

mandoman wrote:

Do you really think this could make a decent oxp for Oolite?

Yes indeed! As RyanHoots said above, its slim profile means it'll be hard to shoot at certain angles, so you'll probably have to out-maneuver it to get a clean shot. And they look pretty ominous too - I certainly wouldn't want to meet a whole pack of them. I can imagine them lurking out near the sun in packs, waiting to prey on sunskimmers where there are fewer GalCop ships about, and then returning to a base somewhere.

One question: which end is the front? I look at it and think that the front is the end without the "Sun Bat" label, but it occurs to me that you probably mean it to be the other end? I don't think it actually makes much difference, as it looks pretty good either way!

I personally don't like the "Sun Bat" being included in the texture - 'tis a good name, but in my opinion ships shouldn't need their type scrawled across them; they should be known by reputation. But that's a personal thing, so feel free to pay absolutely no attention to that!

So yes, a very good job!

Thanks a lot for the thumbs up, and yeah, that's kind of the role I was thinking for the pirates to use, but I also want it to be available as a killer bounty hunter ship, or even a Gal Cop. I'm presently wresting around with Python 2.6. It has been installed in the root system file, and I can't get to it very easily. I need to uninstall it from root, and get it into the local file system, and THEN I can hopefully follow the fantastic instructions I've been getting from Staer9 on how to prep it to become an oxp. I don't suppose that's the end of what needs to be done, but it's good to get a start. The front end of the Sun Bat is where the bluish canopy (that's what it's suppose to be, but I don't know how they are usually represented in Oolite oxps) is. At the tip, directly in front of that canopy, is the main laser, with support lasers on each wing tip. I think I finally got somewhat of a handle as to how big it is. It's somewhere between 35 to 40m. I haven't yet learned how to get exact measurements, but am reading the oxp building Wiki, and will hopefully have it nailed soon. I can dump the "Sun Bat" scrawl. It actually takes away from the stealth capabilities having it there. Thanks for the confirmation.

that's odd, i replied to this and there's nowt showing. i musta hit the preview button or something :-/

anyways, definitely o it as an OXP, as i think others have said now, the ship would probably work best as a fast, agile fighter/defense ship : keep the cargo space very very low or nonexistant and a sensible power rating (due to not much internal space for generators etc) - its speed and twin lasers (NPC only of course) would make up for that. Maybe missile capacity should be the same : all in my opinion of course.
I think the bat works better than an owl, given the ship's shape.

Killer Wolf wrote:

that's odd, i replied to this and there's nowt showing. i musta hit the preview button or something :-/

anyways, definitely o it as an OXP, as i think others have said now, the ship would probably work best as a fast, agile fighter/defense ship : keep the cargo space very very low or nonexistant and a sensible power rating (due to not much internal space for generators etc) - its speed and twin lasers (NPC only of course) would make up for that. Maybe missile capacity should be the same : all in my opinion of course.
I think the bat works better than an owl, given the ship's shape.

Clearly, I have a lot to consider. I never really thought in such depth for the thing, other than it would be small, fast, and nasty in a dogfight. Thanks for the ideas to both you, and CommonSenseOTB. I'm still struggling with the Obj2DatTex.py conversion. I have got to learn how to use that Terminal better. I've done a few things with it, but admit that my command knowledge is sparse. I'll keep plugging at it.

i always try to be as "real" as possible w/ my ships, probably to a nerdy level, lol. I'll paint on the landing gear hatches, entrance hatches etc and muzzles of any side/rear lasers instead of just skinning them and saying they have them. i just feel it makes the ship more authentic if i know it can park in a Coriolis cos it actually does have landing gear. But it also goes for the design. as mentioned on some threads, there's ships out there that are vastly overspecced for their size, like giving a Mamba-sized ship 40t of space, or something. i like to think things out reasonably - if a ship's fast, i needs big engines like the Werewolf. if it's an ass-kicker, it needs a lot of power, and that means generators would take up hull space so it couldn't have 30t of cargo space too. it's all about avoiding the uber-factor.

Killer Wolf wrote:

i always try to be as "real" as possible w/ my ships, probably to a nerdy level, lol. I'll paint on the landing gear hatches, entrance hatches etc and muzzles of any side/rear lasers instead of just skinning them and saying they have them. i just feel it makes the ship more authentic if i know it can park in a Coriolis cos it actually does have landing gear. But it also goes for the design. as mentioned on some threads, there's ships out there that are vastly overspecced for their size, like giving a Mamba-sized ship 40t of space, or something. i like to think things out reasonably - if a ship's fast, i needs big engines like the Werewolf. if it's an ass-kicker, it needs a lot of power, and that means generators would take up hull space so it couldn't have 30t of cargo space too. it's all about avoiding the uber-factor.

I was thinking in terms of 500 for max speed, but maybe that's too fast??? I would actually like to paint on a few of what you suggested, but using Blender makes that difficult. I would rather use Gimp, but haven't figured that out yet. Man, you are a fountain of ideas. Thanks.

personally i feel 500 is waaaaaay too fast. anything over 400 is uber : a couple of my ships touch that but they're exceptions to the rule, given their back stories. of course, it's your ship and up to you but if you're hoping for it to appeal to a lot of people you might want to edge away from the uber end of stats.

Killer Wolf wrote:

personally i feel 500 is waaaaaay too fast. anything over 400 is uber : a couple of my ships touch that but they're exceptions to the rule, given their back stories. of course, it's your ship and up to you but if you're hoping for it to appeal to a lot of people you might want to edge away from the uber end of stats.

I'll do that, then. I'm not totally certain why a higher speed ship is not good, though. I'll try to stay close to what the Oolite community considers acceptable, but I would think that in certain situations that the uber speed, and weapons are more than just handy. Fighting a fleet of Thargoids comes to mind. My Merlin goes 555 max speed, and the thing I use that speed for the most is to outrun missiles without leaving the arena of battle. I can dodge around at 555, keeping ahead of the missile, and still firing at the pirates, and Thargoids. I'm not trying to argue, I'm just saying why I like that capability. I used a Cobra Mk III for quite a while, and the thing that irritated me the most was how vulnerable I was to missiles, even with the hard won ECM. When I traded up for the Asp Mk II, I noticed immediately that the missiles didn't catch me as quickly as they did with the Cobra. In fact, I was able to dodge them long enough for the ECM to block them, sometimes. I was still too slow to keep completely away from them. Oh well, the Sun Bat doesn't need to go more than 400 to 450 max. Especially if that is what the majority of Ooliters want. It's cool just to make the oxp.

mandoman wrote:

Fighting a fleet of Thargoids comes to mind.

That's why it's considered (by some people, including me I should say) as uber – fighting a fleet of Thargoids should be incredibly difficult and dangerous, and making hard parts of the game easier is (in my opinion) an uber trait.

It's by no means clear what most Oolite players want ... the most forceful (and most convincing, in my opinion, which is no surprise because I'm frequently one of the people making them ) arguments on the board are, I think, generally for keeping ships within a reasonable distance of the core game ships. A Cobra III – a fully kitted out, iron-assed Cobra III – is by far the best all-round ship in the core game. There are faster and tougher ships, but they carry less cargo; there are ships which carry more cargo, but they're bigger, slower and less nimble. If you're making a ship which exceeds the Cobra III in one area, it really should be less good (often significantly less good) in another: an Asp is 0.5LM (14%) faster than a Cobra III, with one extra energy bank – but it has no cargo space at all.

Like KW says, though, it's your ship and your game and it's up to you! What's uber and what's not are purely personal judgements – and in any case, it's easy enough for people to boost or trim ship stats to match their own preferences anyway.

Disembodied wrote:

mandoman wrote:

Fighting a fleet of Thargoids comes to mind.

That's why it's considered (by some people, including me I should say) as uber – fighting a fleet of Thargoids should be incredibly difficult and dangerous, and making hard parts of the game easier is (in my opinion) an uber trait.

It's by no means clear what most Oolite players want ... the most forceful (and most convincing, in my opinion, which is no surprise because I'm frequently one of the people making them ) arguments on the board are, I think, generally for keeping ships within a reasonable distance of the core game ships. A Cobra III – a fully kitted out, iron-assed Cobra III – is by far the best all-round ship in the core game. There are faster and tougher ships, but they carry less cargo; there are ships which carry more cargo, but they're bigger, slower and less nimble. If you're making a ship which exceeds the Cobra III in one area, it really should be less good (often significantly less good) in another: an Asp is 0.5LM (14%) faster than a Cobra III, with one extra energy bank – but it has no cargo space at all.

Like KW says, though, it's your ship and your game and it's up to you! What's uber and what's not are purely personal judgements – and in any case, it's easy enough for people to boost or trim ship stats to match their own preferences anyway.

I'm going to take your very last words as an axiom. I will make my ships to fit in with Oolite general ship standards, and then if players want to change them for their own game play, it's up to them. I like that, and it keeps ship building to reasonable limits in general. Thank you for the logical reasoning.

I've decided that Oolite needs some better looking stations, and as I am unable to beet Griffs fancy new coriolis heres my attempt at the Dodo:



There is still some work to be done around the docking bay, but other than that it is almost finished

looks nice.
i'll have a couple to add myself when i get some scripty stuff off Thargoid. i really wish i had the time to start learning JS so i could do stuff myself and stop bothering others.

Staer9 wrote:

I've decided that Oolite needs some better looking stations, and as I am unable to beet Griffs fancy new coriolis heres my attempt at the Dodo:



There is still some work to be done around the docking bay, but other than that it is almost finished

Ooo looks nice, looks very military. Might be a nice way to show military stations from civvy ones.

Very nice Staer9. Keep up the good work.