Oolite Bulletins

This is what the scanner targetting enhancement should've been all along.

In fact, while monkeying around with it for my own custom build, I slightly modified and grafted the code into the code for the STE. I didn't use the alpha trick, and used the cross instead of the pips - the cross is much more noticable in heated dogfights, and the text shows distance well enough.

Also, I renamed the STE to "ID and Track Targetting Module (ITTM)" and upped the price to 1000cr in equipment.plist.

The scanner targeting enhancement is conservative, because the original Elite targeting system is very conservative.

There is (I reasonably assume) a reason for og Elite ships only being able to target one ship at a time and to have to manually centre a target in the sights before the targeting system locks on.

The 'official' enhancements to Oolite's scanner and targeting are written with those restrictions in mind, and the shift up in technology that this would imply is one reason why I'm very dubious about including this particular change into the main branch.

The 'on-target' pip does fit those requirements though, so probably should be included in some form.

My assumption for the reason why the scanner targeting in original Elite is as it was had more to do with the limitations on the hardware than anything else. The reason why I think having (an expensive) naval targeting scanner is:

- unlike original Elite, in Oolite, targets are not very visible:

In original Elite, all targets were bright white and could be seen from miles off. However, now targets are much darker - especially when in a planet's shadow - and it can be particularly hard to see things like cargo canisters (which would have been white and easily visible in original Elite). It's not so much attacking ships either - these are usually quite visible from their exhaust plumes. It's more so the unpowered targets. I've given up cargo scooping once or twice simply because the scanner fully zoomed in isn't accurate enough to find an effectively invisible metal fragment.

- multi targeting is a 20th century technology, so it's reasonable to assume it'd exist in Elite's time.

- from my play testing so far, it doesn't make combat any easier - but it does give targets the level of visibility that they had in original Elite and takes the frustration out of cargo scooping.

- As an expensive technology, it does have its downsides - if you have a fully loaded ship (with things like the Shield Enhancement, Naval Energy Unit and now the Advanced Naval Targeting System) - if you're not careful in battle you can easily wind up with a 60,000 credit repair bill. So it encourages people to pick their battles carefully, which I think adds to the tactical play.

- You still have to centre up a target in the sights to lock it on. The behaviour of making a target the 'active target' has not changed.

Any fighter plane made since the 1970s has this sort of technology. It's pretty old hat.

These are the reasons I think it should appear in the trunk (and cost a goodly amount of money - it's a Cr.25K upgrade in the branch) - or if not as a standard part of the game, at least enabled by an OXP.

Of course, you're the boss so your decision is final - but if you still object to it being a standard part of the game, would it be OK to have it enabled by an OXP instead? (This requires the code changes to support, but the entry in the equipment plist will be left out, and a simple OXP would add this equipment entry)

On a side note, I just tested the branch and found that a viper that wasn’t responding to my shooting his buddies wasn’t showing up on the HUD either. It showed up as yellow on the scanner and happily let me blow it up. Très weird.

winston wrote:

M- multi targeting is a 20th century technology, so it's reasonable to assume it'd exist in Elite's time.

...

Any fighter plane made since the 1970s has this sort of technology. It's pretty old hat.

Oh I agree, Elite lacks a number of technologies that are available in our time. But that doesn't mean to me that it's reasonable to introduce them to the Oolite universe.

The point about visibility is well taken, and a product of the technology we're using in the game. Lighting and fine resolutions weren't part of og. Elite and they do cause this problem.

Unfortunately, of the two approaches taken to dealing with the problem (a higher ambient light level, and hands-off target highlighting) each have drawbacks (not 'realistic', and introducing a technology conspicuously absent in og. Elite).

winston wrote:

Of course, you're the boss so your decision is final - but if you still object to it being a standard part of the game, would it be OK to have it enabled by an OXP instead? (This requires the code changes to support, but the entry in the equipment plist will be left out, and a simple OXP would add this equipment entry)

My decision is rarely final I tend to want to think about these things over and over until I find something that satisfies me, and while I think ANTS is neat - the hands-off part of it just doesn't feel right to me. And, like laser-coolers, I don't think that making it more expensive will make me feel any better about it.

For that reason, and quite reluctantly, I'd prefer it if this wasn't part of the 'official' game - even as an OXP - until either I'm convinced by some rationalisation of the hands-off highlighting or some more satisfying solution is found.

And I hate having to say no.

Galactic Scientist Monthly wrote:

Highlighting of non-powered objects (such as space debris) on space vessels could be justified as a way to reduce accidents due to collision with undetected flotsam.

Debris is a hazard to navigation, and pains should be taken to ensure that space is <ahem> kept clean.

The 'Keep Your Galaxy Tidy' campaign of the 3110s was a constructive effort to ensure that needless casualties of orbitspace collisions would be kept to a minimum. It was started by the widow and daughter of Commander Daffydd Prose, who died when his Adder collided with a charred and blackened cargo container filled with core radioactives (very dense). It punctured the hull and depressurised the ship, killing Prose.

Since then, the awareness of the dangers of space debris has slowly risen, and it is this philosophy that led in part to the greater number of 'scavengers' in the spacelanes. Some are truly scavengers, but some ships, on closer observation, can be seen to be sporting the 'green planet' symbol of the campaign, showing them as doing their bit to safeguard the spacelanes.

As a result of the campaign, GASEC designers designed and tested a scanner modification designed to show items in space of greater than 0.2 tonnes constant mass that did not show an active energy signature. Early designs were unsuccessful, since some debris did hold an energy signature from solar activity or recent ship wake exposure, and GASEC put the project on hold. Recently, however, Williams Aerospace has been given the contract to again look at this technology and research possible solutions to the problem.

Giles?

aegidian wrote:

My decision is rarely final I tend to want to think about these things over and over until I find something that satisfies me, and while I think ANTS is neat - the hands-off part of it just doesn't feel right to me. And, like laser-coolers, I don't think that making it more expensive will make me feel any better about it.

It is quite different to laser coolers though - it doesn't really alter the difficulty in game play or balance in my playtesting experience (and the game looks *so much better* with a lower level of ambient light which necessitates this mod if you're ever going to scoop so much as one cargo container). We already have a precident set for having things which were not part of the original game - such as the target memory and indeed the Scanner Targeting Enhancement in the first place, ECM hardened missiles, Q bombs and fuel injectors. The witch fuel injectors have a particularly large impact on the game that original Elite didn't have (although I think it is a highly beneficial impact because it adds a great deal to the tactics of the game). Even things like the corridor are a significant departure from the way original Elite did it.

Maybe the issue should be revisited some time in the future if I can't convince you now

winston wrote:

aegidian wrote:

We already have a precident set for having things which were not part of the original game - such as the target memory and indeed the Scanner Targeting Enhancement in the first place, ECM hardened missiles, Q bombs and fuel injectors.

There was counter-ECM device in original Elite, iirc?

winston wrote:

Maybe the issue should be revisited some time in the future if I can't convince you now

Definitely the best approach.

And I agree, we've introduced tech that wasn't there, but unlike this I feel most of what was added 'fits' or is a natural extension of adding stuff like other player ships, contracts etc. I may change how I feel, given time.

Perhaps spotlights are the solution to the hard to find cargo problem...

Will they be powerful enough to light up debris to a visible degree at a reasonable distance? Will the falloff on the spot light be far enough out to make it work?

I still think that my Keep Your Galaxy Clean justification should be good enough to justify the 'boxing' of non-powered objects only. It's health and safety!!

DISCLAIMER: I haven't played the original Elite, and i don't know if this has been suggested yet but... i've played some elite version in which the cargo pods were very bright (the were brighter than stars) so...

What about blinking lights in the cargo pods?

As a way of "Highlighting of cargo pods could be justified as a way to reduce accidents due to collision with undetected flotsam."

4 little red blinkenlightens - add this in shipdata.plist inside the barrel key:
They have a 1km visibility range (so, not hugely helpful) and could go into an OXP too: The "visibility OXP for the contrast-impaired monitors"?

That way raising the ambient light of the ooniverse wouldn't be so needed.

EDIT: btw, now i'll need to ask for a refund of the ANTS system i equiped in my cobra... or maybe i could sell it to the black market? hmmm

Just a thought about the userfriendliness of this add-on: current (real-world) HUD tech projects stuff over the window without blotting out what is behind it. Wouldn't it be possible to have a 50% transparent targeting enhancement?

That way you know what en when to attack, and can still see whatever else is going on in your screen. if you are compensating for the advances in rendering technology, you might as well go all the way .

Hi.

did anything happen in the last while on this?

Can I buy this piece of Equipment if I install an OXP?

Cheers!
Timm