Windows Build 05/01/06

[winston]

Does Oolite load all textures for the objects in a system when you hyperspace in?

DISCLAIMER: I haven't actually read this bit of the code.

I'm certain it reads the ship's textures the first time a ship becomes *visible* - i.e. when it's within range for you to actually see it, not at hyperspace entry time. On a slower machine (particularly laptops) it's quite obvious - the game jerks momentarily, since the game is single threaded, it's blocked while it goes to disk to get the textures (this is what causes the jerk). Generally this jerk doesn't occur with a machine with a fast hard drive and CPU because it can load and uncompress a texture fast enough as to not cause that particular frame to last much longer than normal. (I have toyed with the idea of modifying Oolite so the texture load/uncompress happens on a separate thread so as to not block the game's main thread. That would be an interesting can of worms).

As for putting 400 traders in a system, note that the AI is running for everything in the system even if you can't actually see it (although you will see far off explosions from pirate battles thanks to the new 'explosion flash'). So all of that WILL run even when you're not in visual range.

I'm almost certain that the current memory gobbling problems are (or possibly were as of 1.61) in the AI code.

[aegidian]

Whatever else, this is an outstanding piece of work Nic!

I just installed Oolite for the first time on my GF's knackered old PC and it worked straight out of the box. I'm amazingly impressed.

I think this installer could do with being on the oolite-pc berlios file list, would you care to upload it, or should I?

[Dunny]

Might as well add in my experiences, which unfortunately weren't quite so nice.

Running a 1.7ghz Celeron, GeForce FX5200, Onboard sound, latest detonator/directx etc.

Unpacked, installed, run from shortcut in start menu.

Firstly, the main command window just sits there - res switches to 1024x768, but no game appears. After approximately 2 minutes, background music can be heard. Task switching to "SDL App" brings the game to the fore. Lovely!

Looks nice.

Playing the game is smooth, but I tried to switch screen resolutions and firstly lost the game completely until I hit alt-tab and back in again, and secondly lost all text in the game.

Thirdly, upon quitting I have to ctrl-alt-del to end the processes. Quitting just ends up with a black console window taking up 100% CPU time

Other than that, it's quite nice!

D.

[dorian]

LOL.

[dorian]

Well I find the docking computers in this ver particularly amusing.
It strikes me that the ship approaches the space station with same tentativeness as a rabbit approaches a partucularly fearsome looking lettuce.

I've never had the patience or courage to actually let the thing dock before turning off D.C.s retreating, turning around ,selecting warp nine and hoping my reflexes can cope. yeehah! Does tend to dent my hull a bit.
Must try it with the injectors or better still in twitch mode.....hmmmm..

Anyway what is the pseudo code methodology thingy for docking
I wonder. Or is that something for much later on..

1. line up on spin axis
2. check correct side of station (I've seen that done)
3. line up ship longditudunal axis with spin axis.
4. Hit afterburners,warp 9, injectors etc.
5. Exercise finnesse and skill with roll controls.( ie. Pushing the joystick really hard and leaning the right way and maybe ducking a bit.)
6. hope.

At least thats my version. Items four to six may need to be revised with some kind of if, then, else statements

Keep it up, my brother wants to play. And he does not have a joystick and " Cant program my head to new keys coz I'm too old ". His words.

must go and study some boring air law :~(

dorian.

[dorian]

Is it possible to "turn off and garbage collect "ships if they are more than a certian distance away from you thus reducing the load on the A.I. engine? and possibly the texture handler.

Does the game die quicker at an Anarchy planet than at a Corporate state.
Someone said something about putting 400 ships in at the start. What happened with that ?

Can ships be spawned in the game world at any time other than when you hyperspace in? Is spawning flexible or concrete? surely you just call the spawn procedure and pipe it some numbers?

Is it just me or do ships only appear on a line between the sun and the planet ? Ideally you should bump into stuff whatever direction you jumpdrive. especially at anarchy planets. (Mwoahaaahaaahaa)

If you exit the space station and stop and do nothing, how long does it take for the game to start pausing and then locking up? does it change the time or is the problem independant . (anyone want to try that?)

what is causing the problem?
where is the problem? If we knew that there would be no problem.....

Does memory use go up at a constant rate or is there one point where use accellerates.

Does cpu time go up at a constant rate or is there a point.

what is my favourite colour?

how many fingers am I holding up?

does a tree fall if nobody sees it?

should I have another beer?

Whom collects the garbage round here?

These and other unponderables.
dor.

[dorian]

"Edible poets can handle a ship better than you!!"


What does that mean?
d.

[aegidian]

Is it possible to "turn off and garbage collect "ships if they are more than a certian distance away from you thus reducing the load on the A.I. engine? and possibly the texture handler.

Not really, ships don't take up much memory or resources until they get drawn.

Does the game die quicker at an Anarchy planet than at a Corporate state.
Someone said something about putting 400 ships in at the start. What happened with that ?

I believe the game slowed down somewhat.

Can ships be spawned in the game world at any time other than when you hyperspace in? Is spawning flexible or concrete? surely you just call the spawn procedure and pipe it some numbers?

Spawning happens whenever a ship appears insystem. Wait at the witchpoint beacon and new ships arrive insystem at frequent intervals.

Is it just me or do ships only appear on a line between the sun and the planet ? Ideally you should bump into stuff whatever direction you jumpdrive. especially at anarchy planets. (Mwoahaaahaaahaa)

Why would ships be there? Ships are found on the main routes through a system.

If you exit the space station and stop and do nothing, how long does it take for the game to start pausing and then locking up? does it change the time or is the problem independant . (anyone want to try that?)

It shouldn't happen, ships enter and leave the system at approximately the same rate.

what is causing the problem?
where is the problem? If we knew that there would be no problem.....

No problem.

Does memory use go up at a constant rate or is there one point where use accellerates.

It decellerates as the number of different ship varieties approaches the maximum possible. This will vary with the OXPs installed.

Does cpu time go up at a constant rate or is there a point.

CPU time will increase with the number of ships in a system.

should I have another beer?

Until you can no longer hold a glass without spilling. This is the quaffing hysteresis point where the beer intake is reduced to match the alcohol handling capacity of the imbibing entity.

"Edible poets can handle a ship better than you!!"

Not only that, but they taste better than you.

[Selezen]

Running a 1.7ghz Celeron, GeForce FX5200, Onboard sound, latest detonator/directx etc.

What version of Windoze are you running? Also, how much RAM have you got, and have you got any antivirus software running?

Playing the game is smooth, but I tried to switch screen resolutions and firstly lost the game completely until I hit alt-tab and back in again, and secondly lost all text in the game.

Yeah, that happens, and has always happened with the Win32 version.

Thirdly, upon quitting I have to ctrl-alt-del to end the processes. Quitting just ends up with a black console window taking up 100% CPU time

Hmm...sounds like the GNU process is locking itself, seeing as the black window is basically the ghosted GNUStep process. Couldn't tell you why though...

[milinks]

For the first timei have been ableto play oolite and sample the fantastic OXP's. i have to say that they are FANTASTIC, just want to take my hat off to all you guys, Selezen the graveyard is AWESOME!! Murgh, a fantastic collection of OXP's, Lave OXP really adds to the feel of the dark wheel. The only problem i have had is with Tori.OXP. During many head scratching times, i finally discovered that my openGL drivers had been corrupted and was wrecking my graphics card, so if anyone is having problems then it is certianly worth checking, OOLITE runs brilliantly on my 2GHZ P3 256MB laptop. Selezen, do you have any tips with regards understanding the plist for windows, i am looking through existing ones etc, but any directions would be nice, i keep checking eliteWIKI for pointers also.

[Murgh]

thx for that milinks.
hope you get the tori and your drivers up and running.

[Arexack_Heretic]

I've installed the latest release 2, have not tried to run it yet....
I will do so soon though.

@milinks:
Take a look at the AI-reference, it's in webpageformat in one of the Oolite subfolders.
It's getting a bit old and incomplete nowadays, but still very usefull to get to understand the basic mechanisms of scripting.

(or look in the root of my webspace, where I got a version with some notes added. chaotic mess I made of it though. )

You got the right idea though: look at the things that work and then mess it up some. And ask specific questions, or even PM giles. (He'll love me for that tip :p)

[Selezen]

Thanks, milinks! I can't take credit for the GY though - loads of the guys here have helped, most notably Arexack_Heretic, Rxke and Murgh, not to mention the battery of questions I keep launching at Giles!!

As far as plisting is concerned, the PC version now parses the XML versions of plists perfectly well, so use them when you can.

My usual method is to look through the existing plist files to find how to do most things. A good tip for a beginner is to look on Oosat for an OXP that looks like it might do something similar to what you want, then nick the code, modding as you go.

A couple of read throughs, especially on the ship only OXPs, should let you see pretty much everything you need to know to write a pack. Remember that the variables in the plist are usually arranged in alphabetical order (a fact I only noticed whilst writing the Seosu OXP).

If you get stuck, have a look through the forum - there are loads of question and answer sessions throughout the forum. If all else fails, Giles is usually kind enough to answer most questions, or someone will direct you to an existing answer!

[winston]

You know, that's a really pretty rendering of an Imperial Courier there in your avatar. How about making an OXP

[Selezen]

You know, that's a really pretty rendering of an Imperial Courier there in your avatar. How about making an OXP

Way ahead of you, Winston old man!

http://hughesd.co.uk/elite/oolite/misc/impcourier.zip

It should be on Oosat soon...waiting for Giles to clear it.

Thanks for the interest!