Oolite Bulletins

Houston, we have a problem. This OXP conflicts with another OXP -  Start Choices, particularly with Miner start choice. In this start choice you begin on Transporter fitted with mining laser and fuel scoops. Unfortunately, your OXP classifies Transporter as too small to be fitted with fuel scoops and removes them. Thinking of lore, I don't see why miners shouldn't be able to use small ships with no hyperspace capabilities but reasonable cargo space for their operations.

A mining transporter is part of the core ship set.

diagoras wrote:

Houston, we have a problem. This OXP conflicts with another OXP -  Start Choices, particularly with Miner start choice. In this start choice you begin on Transporter fitted with mining laser and fuel scoops. Unfortunately, your OXP classifies Transporter as too small to be fitted with fuel scoops and removes them. Thinking of lore, I don't see why miners shouldn't be able to use small ships with no hyperspace capabilities but reasonable cargo space for their operations.

NPC's can and indeed do - a mining transporter is part of the core ship set.

Welcome aboard, diagoras!

Indeed, welcome (and apologies for the double post - the Forum seems to be playing up a bit at the moment).

Thanks I have been giving Oolite a couple of tries already through previous years of its development, but this 1.82 feels really polished. I have plugged in about 150 OXPs, but still have seen only minor issues like that. Probably I'll stay here for a while this time.

Apologies to diagoras for missing his/her report (from 2015 )...

One of the reasons for the delay on this thing is how I see it relating to the rescaling experiment (which is how I like to play the game). Like many I suspect, I try to make the oxps that I would like and then make them available for those with similar tastes. However, as I'm often playing a different version of the game from most, that can sometimes require two versions of the same oxp (new lasers oxp occupies a similar position).

With that in mind, here are some of my current thoughts on this one:



Rather than the 3 versions of each category (tech, grade and size) there are now 5. So rather than (3x3x3=) 27 possible player ship types there are now (5x5x5=) 125. On the face of it, that is far two many but consider that for a small fighter (small, military) there are now 5 possible types rather than 3; hardly overwhelming when viewed from that perspective. The 'greyed out' size types are included for non-player ships only.

With regards to ship grade, a little explanation might be helpful.

• Service - industrial, maintenance ships, typically non-player e.g. mining vessels
  Transit - cargo and passenger ships e.g. traders
  Civilian - multi-purpose craft e.g. loners
  Military - combat specialised e.g. police ships
  Performance - speed merchants e.g. racing ships

The table below suggests a naming scheme for ships, partly based on elite/frontier convention and also on maritime vessels (I'm no expert on either so others might have better suggestions).
Note also how I'm using different shipsets to make each ship grade appear differently in game and the typical (but not exclusive) roles occupied by each one.



The challenge now is to tweak the above to work well with the standard game. Shipset choice in particular is a very personal thing and is not likely to be included in a release any time soon.
Attempts to sway my thinking are welcome

With regards to diagoras' report (much) earlier, that should be fixed for the next version.
Even the smallest ships will have access to cargo scoops.
I can't recall why I classed the transporter as small in the first place...

Thinking again of the shipsets I mentioned earlier, here is a combined shipyard of possibilities.



The Behemoth, Destroyer and Colony Ship have been added merely for a sense of scope, all of the other ships are contained in at least one of the following shipsets: Griffs originals; Griff's alternate versions; Dertien (ZZBBS); Re2dux; Neolite; Staer9 (designed to add to Griff's shipset). I believe that the only ship not included from any of these shipsets (besides the constrictor) is the Moth, and that's essentially an alternate version of the Gnat.

This table gives me two options in each category for the most playable size ranges. Tiny really is small with limited equipment options and Huge is too big to dock by manual means (note that the above is true after my personal rescaling of various ships) despite this, both size categories still have one option in each tech category. Of course there's a great deal of subjectivity in the above but there is some consistency in term of 'In Service' dates from the elite manual and game descriptions.

With regards to ship grade I've decided to allow much more freedom: if there's a model available for it then why not?

If anyone likes the basic idea but not the way a particular ship has been classified then that should be very easy to tweak once the next version is ready. Still got some more pondering to do first however...

Apologies for the image heavy post...

I remembered how much I loved the Deepspace textures. How about this for the look of the service ships: grimy enough?



The models are all rather plain but it is possible to rework them a little as I demonstrated here with the adder.




I love the heavy-duty look of Griff's models, perhaps they could make good transit ships:



Griff has made several alternate textures for his ships, so there's also some choice here.




Dertien's colourful shipset might be suitable for the civilian ships:



As might be expected for civilian vessels, they come in many different colours.




These images really don't do them justice but Simon B's Re2dux set has a beautifully functional look. I think they would make fine military ships:




For the performance ships there should probably be a sleek, streamlined look; I feel that the Simon B's Neolites capture this mode particularly well:



The Cobra Mk I and the Krait are not the finest examples of this shipset IMHO but they are included here for comparison.




There were also plenty of Neolite style designs by the prolific Simon. I've been unable to track down the fabulous Cobra design below but I love the idea of his Python ET as the 'performance' Python

Redspear wrote:

I've been unable to track down the fabulous Cobra design...

Thinking about it, all of the necessary data appears to be present in that image; can anyone recommend a good (preferably free) conversion tool to quickly transform 2D plans into a 3D model?

OK, I think I've got a plan to implement now that is both respectful of elite lore and flavorful in terms of ship variety.

(Be warned, spreadsheets ahead...)



That can look pretty complicated but for the most part it's quite simple:

• 3 ship traits - as discussed up thread
• 2 positive attributes and 1 negative for each increase in a trait
• Equipment that has either one or two trait value requirements,
  • equipment that also has a cargo space requirement,
    and equipment that has no requirements at all (lowest rank of each grade)

The various grades represent distinct 'remodels' or 'custom' versions of each ship.
Instead of buying a new ship it is possible to remodel the ship you already have (with no depreciation costs ).

The key to understanding what any given ship is now capable of is to know both of its fixed qualites (tech and size) and also the default grade that holds its standard game profile.



The above is hardly perfect but I think it captures the feel of the core ships rather well.
Each grade is calculated from the (somewhat cryptically abreviated) formula in the Size area of the first table.
The ships that are perhaps doing too well out of this at the moment are the Boa Cruiser and the Python Cruiser - I might need to refine the ruling for the bigger ships...

For my own amusement, I like to formalise the ship classes with particular names, so here's my latest update on that theme:



So possible ships include the Sidewinder Scout Ship, the Asp Explorers, the Eagle Long Range Fighters and the Ophidian Yacht but rather than being the only version of each ship they are now just one of five distinct models.

The naming scheme perhaps won't make it into the oxp but some of the other details might, such as where each model can be found for sale.
The distribution should seem fairly logical with one of the assumptions being that military grade craft are not commonly available in the more orderly systems.

To further explain the role distribution, the followimg table illustrates that it is not as restrictive as it might initially appear:



So whilst ship grade gives a clue to a ships business (as I think it should) such things are far from certain.
The grey lines are simply there to illustrate the variety of threat and appearance to the innocent trader.

- - - - - - - - - -

I've put quite a bit of thought into this and I think it makes ship choice more interesting.
In terms of game balance it's perhaps worth questioning just how well balanced the ships were in the first place - the Cobra Mk III (especially after its speed boost) and the Boa Class Cruiser are arguably 'super-ships' in the default game. With this system any 'super quality' in a ship should come at a cost beyond the initial purchase price.

If however, you just want to pilot your ship of choice, the one you like just how it is, then you'd probably be well advised to steer clear of this oxp. This mod will present choices and consequences; not the stuff of an easy ride or of right and wrong but perhaps, for some, the stuff of adventure...

...I may have oversold it a bit there

Now I just need a few (hopefully ) free hours at the keyboard and no unforseen problems (fingers crossed).

Took a little longer than expected which wasn't all bad as it facilitated a bit of a re-think.
Some of the above was wandering a little too far from a simple dependency based system...

Now available from the download manager:

Version 0.4

Expanded and simplified.

Two new categories for each of the three criteria:

• 1. Size (very small, small, medium, large and huge)
  2. Tech (archaic, low, standard, high and cutting edge)
  3. Grade (service, transit, civilian, military and performance)

Main changes:

• Each grade now has a piece of equipment that is unique to that grade (as large cargo bay was to service grade in previous versions).
• Removed multiple requirements for the same piece of equipment. Only one criteria now needs to be satisfied for any piece of equipment to be fitted.
• Non player ships can now be identified according to their ship grade e.g. "Adder (service)". Military grade vessels are likely to be tougher and performance grades are likely to be faster.

More explanation and images to come in future posts/wiki page.
Some of the elements are placeholder at present but I believe it's a big improvement over version 0.3

To better explain how things have been simplified:



Exclusive equipment is only available to the grade in question.

Note that the following elements are not yet implemented:

• Max Missiles
• Maintenance Costs

Both of the above are currently read only properties rather than read/write. There are ways around that but then this is still only v.0.4.

Thrust has not yet been fully adjusted for non-player ships (although that should be a simple matter).

The 'Engine Supercharger' grants a speed bonus of 0.05 LM. Before anyone gets too excited however, please note that some ships may be considered to already have such an item as part of their default profie e.g. the 0.35 LM player Cobra MkIII cannot be boosted to 0.4 LM as it is considered to have achieved 0.35 via the same means - i.e. it is a performance grade ship by default.

A revised version of the naming scheme I suggested earlier has not been imposed any further than the ship information screens as in the example below:

Noticed some downloads of version 0.2 recently... perhaps because that was the first link on the thread.

Updated the first page to include a download link to v0.4.
I recommend that version over 0.2.

Thanks.

Version 0.5

Fixed multiple issues with the Engine Supercharger.
Performance re-fits should now work as expected.

Available from the download manger and the first post.