Oolite Bulletins

I'm going to hedge my bets and say it might work. I think I understand the strategy Dragonfire is thinking of, and if I'm right it might work, but would be messy. It is very hard to know what he's thinking of though, since he's being, deliberately or not, very vague.

Oolite is written in Objective C .

Oxps can be written in ecmascript 5 (often called javascript), but have NO ACCESS to Objective C functions.
Oolite uses the Mozilla Spidermonkey library, the version that comes with Firefox 4.

Spidermonkey does not have any functions to read/write files, cookies etc.

Dragonfire :
ofcourse you can add new classes, but how do you get such a class to access things that are NOT exposed to JS ?

Imo without changing the Objective C code what you want can't be done.
If you go that route, you will effectively be forking Oolite .

Note : you're not the first person that looked into this.

Lone_Wolf wrote:

Oxps can be written in ecmascript 5 (often called javascript), but have NO ACCESS to Objective C functions.

Actually, this isn’t true when the debug console is active (which is one reason it won’t be available in the general release). However, I don’t think the subset that can be used directly can access the file system. I don’t think this ability is actually useful for OXPers any longer, so I’m going to disable it for 1.75.3.

It’s also possible to load ObjC code into Oolite under Mac OS X by replacing the debug OXP. This vulnerability has been fixed for 2.0.

I’d be interested in seeing someone make a serious attempt to get at the file system. Of course, if anyone publishes a way to do this, I will immediately nerf it.

Dragonfire wrote:

You can read and write files in any programming language. Limitations can always be circumvented given enough code. Even if the OXP itself can't read and write the file, it can be made to access another class.

And, again, I'm not using the shipyard itself. I'm borrowing some code.

Oolite isn't a programming language, it is a game. In this case: it is a game that is specifically designed to not allow file access, or direct use of its code via expansions. The expansions are allowed to modify and manipulate certain well-defined parameters, not the code base (and you'd be hard pressed to find any game that allows its users to modify its code base on the fly).

The bottom line is: what you have in mind is not doable in an expansion of Oolite (= OXP). You can do it by modifying Oolite's code base. In plain English: you'd have to create a new game which is based on Oolite, but distinct from Oolite. Oolite's license allows you to do that. But your new game will not be Oolite.

And just as a personal remark: personally I don't believe that a "personal station" is a good or desirable addition to Oolite. It just doesn't fit into the whole premise of the game, in which you are a rather insignificant small trader in a big Ooniverse. It also doesn't fit into the concept of the wide open sandbox, which is what Elite/Oolite is all about: you are meant to explore a big Ooniverse with multiple galaxies, not to stay home in one single system on a small rock (or station). The whole idea just doesn't make sense to me. Sorry, just the opinion of a veteran Elite pilot.

"It just doesn't fit into the whole premise of the game, in which you are a rather insignificant small trader in a big Ooniverse"

well, that's how you START....

Killer Wolf wrote:

"It just doesn't fit into the whole premise of the game, in which you are a rather insignificant small trader in a big Ooniverse"
well, that's how you START....

Well, of course we all strive to become more significant. But still, even if you have successfully finished some missions for the Navy I wouldn't advise you to look into the Total Perspective Vortex.

And even if you were the Master Of The Ooniverse (which you are not, as I maintain), there is still the second point: the game is about exploration, moving from one system to another, from one galaxy to another. So of what use is a personal whatever in system #145 of galaxy #4, if 99.95% of the time I am in other systems, which 87.5% of the time are also located in other galaxies? (Average numbers, given an even distribution of my exploratory activities.)

Killer Wolf wrote:

"It just doesn't fit into the whole premise of the game, in which you are a rather insignificant small trader in a big Ooniverse"

well, that's how you START....

Well, that's how YOU start.

How about a "Significant Other in Every Port" OXP, if people want to add a touch of home comfort here and there (without necessarily being tied down to any one system) ... there could be, ah, maintenance issues, of course: how long could you leave things between visits, and what might it cost you?

"the game is about exploration, moving from one system to another, from one galaxy to another"

not necessarily. it's all there if you want but apart from having to do so if you want to get the Constrictor or whatever, there's little reason if any to go from one galaxy to another - or indeed, one local system chart to another. if there's a good rich ind and poor ag close together there's not much more you need, except an anarchy inthe vicinity for your kill rate and a high(er) tech for buyring/repairing equipment. it's all well and good having 8 galaxies, but there's nothing that any does different to any of the others, in the stock game. which is why, elsewhere, i suggested the idea of increasing rewards and threats the further you went etc.

"Well, that's how YOU start"

Well that's how EVERYONE starts, unless they cheat

And to be fair, it would be completely possible to (I think) to live in one heavily asteroid filled system and play Oolite entirely as an asteroid miner - such a player may feel a little aggrieved that having bought an Anaconda and an ore processor that he couldn't reach the ultimate aspiration for a miner, to own his own (or indeed to become a) Rock Hermit (station).

I did try playing DaddyHoggy originally as per the Lazarus/Snake Charming character, and has an illicit unlocked Racing Team Mamba and went between the Main Station and the Constore in Diso. The problem is (although I haven't tried for a while) is that the commodities never refresh/change/replenish in system until you leave the system, so you can't trade between the stations for very long!

(I can't remember if you save and quit Oolite and restart the commodities are refreshed, but I don't think they are)

Don't forget, some of us have several Commanders having different lives within their own personal Ooniverses: My top Commander, Ruthungus (Elite) is a bounty hunter currently fling his trusty Dragon M on his second stint in Galaxy 4, whilst Commander HonestJohn lives the life of a scrupulously legal trader, plying a lumbering Griff Anaconda around Galaxy 1, Commander Jagger's B-Wing is evading Inno Soin in Galaxy 7, and I have a pirate in Galaxy 3, the evil Commander Jerkov in a Griff Boa. Which one I play depends on my mood and I play each as a different character. The Ooniverse is a big place!

DaddyHoggy wrote:

And to be fair, it would be completely possible to (I think) to live in one heavily asteroid filled system and play Oolite entirely as an asteroid miner - such a player may feel a little aggrieved that having bought an Anaconda and an ore processor that he couldn't reach the ultimate aspiration for a miner, to own his own (or indeed to become a) Rock Hermit (station).

I did try playing DaddyHoggy originally as per the Lazarus/Snake Charming character, and has an illicit unlocked Racing Team Mamba and went between the Main Station and the Constore in Diso. The problem is (although I haven't tried for a while) is that the commodities never refresh/change/replenish in system until you leave the system, so you can't trade between the stations for very long!

(I can't remember if you save and quit Oolite and restart the commodities are refreshed, but I don't think they are)

DH you have some good points here. It would be cool to be an asteroid miner if there were areas with vast asteroid fields or planets rings to be mined or even a whole system debris field. The Supernova system that is a built in mission could be a test bed for an asteroid system. It could be generated after the mission is completed and the Main Station would be a large dockable ship with a fleet of mining, supply, and defence ships and would be the defacto representation for GalCop in the system.

This might also be the place for players to have the opportunity to create thier own base from a rock hermit as well. When the purchasing/constructing of the rock hermit is complete the main station replacement could be removed allowing the rock hermit to be the main station so one could save at it. Then a clone of the ship/previous main station would reappear but now would be just an npc.

Might make a good oxp, eh?

Have you visited a system whose sun went nova lately? If not, then please try. You'll find out very quickly that it is certainly a bad test bed for anything.