SOTL Exploration v0.4 [WIP, 1.83 required]

[Cody]

This sounds absolutely awesome from what I have read in this thread so far, it's such a shame that it is not compatible the current version of Oolite.

You could install a trunk nightly (which would sit happily alongside your normal install) and try it.

[Duggan]

Thank you Cody I did just that...I find there are now Two completely new excellent looking games in the start new commander menu for when I don't want to play Oolite

[cbr]

The cargo transfer mentioned

There's an example of freighters with cargo transfer done by shuttles in my experimental Altmap OXP

Is it between the luna's and the renamed pythons?
One can see luna's tumbling and entering the main station and after a while they launch and speed back to their party?

[cim]

Is it between the luna's and the renamed pythons?
One can see luna's tumbling and entering the main station and after a while they launch and speed back to their party?

Yes. If you follow one (not too closely) when it launches you should see it go up to a freighter, attach to the top, wait there a while and then return to the station.

[ffutures]

I never did get around to trying this - is it still necessary to have the loader as well as the main thing?

[cim]

You need the loader to start new games. You could load an existing game without the loader OXP installed.

[ffutures]

Right, I'm an idiot. Also dying horribly every time I try a jump so far...

[Cody]

Right, I'm an idiot.

<grins mischievously> You might think that, I couldn't possibly comment! ~FU

[gsagostinho]

Is this OXP still available? The links in the first post seem to be broken.

[Cody]

Looks like cim hasn't moved them to his new storage.

Edit: link removed as links in first post fixed.

[gsagostinho]

Thanks a lot, Cody!!

[cim]

I moved them to the new storage fine ... just didn't update the links. Done now.

[Cholmondely]

Is there any way to set things up so that it can be active or inactive, and when it is running all other OXPs are disabled?

Your question has been answered, but for those curious about how this works:

Exploration.oxp is set to not load in the basic core scenario. You can install it and it will do absolutely nothing in the normal game: it won't even be read or show up in the Latest.log OXP list.

The Loader.oxp only contains a scenario file. So it is always running and loaded even in a normal game, but all it does is give you a new "start new game" option, so that's perfectly safe.

The scenario file itself has scenario definition attributes in it which tell Oolite that save games based on it can load the Exploration.oxp, and also tell it to suppress loading of a number of core game plists (so the core game ships, trade goods, and world scripts are overridden rather than added to as a conventional OXP would) - essentially it makes Exploration.oxp plus some but not all of the Oolite core files into a new base game.

I do mean to put a proper cockpit on at some point, once I'm sure all the HUD dials are in the right place.
(edited to remove Cody's issue)

If I understand this - and the other posts in this thread correctly, the only major change which Cim wished to do was add a HUD. Not needed to enjoy this scenario.

Is there any good reason not to add a scenarios category to the Expansions Manager and add these OXZ's to it?

Reference: http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/SOTL_Exploration

[Cody]

... add a scenarios category to the Expansions Manager and add these OXZ's to it

Sounds like an excellent idea!

[cim]

Ha, I planned way more than that I just never got round to it.

• The longer-term idea was that your home base would only have a limited amount of hyperspace fuel - large, but not infinite.
• You'd then need to locate and mine particular materials from asteroids which could be synthesised into fuel back at the home base.
• While doing that you'd also be picking up other raw materials, which would let your home build additional equipment
• First basic one would be a mining drone which attached to an asteroid and started doing (slow!) automated mining of it. Build a few of those and you can start to get minerals in a bit faster. You'd have to give up a lot of your storage space to drag it out there in the first place, of course.
• That would unlock additional deployable modules - a basic fuel storage depot, which would let you move fuel out from the base ship, and then run bigger expeditions from there - and then later a portable fuel refinery which would mean you didn't have to transport mined materials all the way back to base to get more fuel
• Probably then another sort of drone at some point which would pick up gas/liquid elements from planets for you, which would then extend the range of things your base could construct ... as well as resupply oxygen on the base ship, and other large-but-not-infinite consumables
• As well as modules for you, also goals to supply materials to repairs on the base ship
• Eventually, then a long-term goal to repair the base ship entirely (including its hyperdrive), and gradually move it across the chart to one of the habitable planets you found while exploring for the rest of this. (And then you've "won" but obviously you can keep exploring the rest of the map, with the benefit that you no longer need to keep dragging oxygen and water and minerals to your base)

No objection in principle to what there is being put in the manager, maybe someone else will finish it off / take it in another direction someday.

But ... one reason I didn't put it in the manager is that Exploration depends on Loader, so if you install Exploration, you get the Loader OXP too. Loader can't depend on Exploration, because if it did, Exploration won't load in the core scenario, and then Loader won't load because Exploration isn't there, and then you can't actually start the scenario game. But that means when you're installing from the manager, if you install Loader it can't then auto-install Exploration ... and then if you try to run Loader it'll probably go wrong with an entirely unhelpful error message

The manager ideally needs a new relationship type adding to handle that sort of "install-time but not run-time" dependency, but I never got round to that either.

You might be able to make this clear enough with descriptions.