star trek ships?

[Cody]

If you got a Star Trek planet/system in mind why not put it in interstellar space ? HIMSN had a concept for that.

If memory serves, HIMSN had a station in interstellar space. Tionisla Reporter has a planet in IS, as does Coyote's Run (alas, now broken) - Lago, it's called.

[Prester John]

Looking at what I see here, I assume I could :
1- use Planets and Stations already installed in the game (even these included in Expansion Packs)
2- use new planets and stations (files.dat) I would have created from scratch (files.obj and all that)

Right?

[Cody]

Right!

[Prester John]

Right!

*FAINTs* [THUDDD!]

[montana05]

Right!

*FAINTs* [THUDDD!]

Its not as bad bad as it sounds, there are plenty of stations to chose from, just copy all relevant files to your own OXZ and rename it. In case you plan to use an original Star Trek starbase prepare yourself for some work, assigning the docking bay could be tricky

[Prester John]

4/5 of my Old *.wrl Files were insuitable for conversion (VRML.1 !).
I have already converted the ones I have but they are few.
I can re-build some but I have to search the 'Net to find the others I need the most.
*GRUMF!*

I have succeeded to edit the JadeShadow.oxp in order to have my own 'prototype', so to speak.
Now, I understand the architecture of a starship.
The only thing I can't get a grasp on it is : the coordinates of the lasers and the turrets.
My guess is that they have to depend on the center of the ship. And their orientation and position are fixed this way.
Right?

Dockable Star Trek Stations.
Since we have the DockingComputers.oxz, I think I will declare them "dockable" and use the combitation keys [SHIFT+C] to enter them.
I know I will miss the part of "The Blue Danube" docking, but I have to simplify my job, until I have more knowledge of OOlite scripting.

( *PHIEW!* Have you seen my brain, somewhere?)

[montana05]

The only thing I can't get a grasp on it is : the coordinates of the lasers and the turrets.
My guess is that they have to depend on the center of the ship. And their orientation and position are fixed this way.
Right?

For turrets you should assign them to the hull, be careful there is currently no block to prevent them to hurt your own ship if wrongly assigned.

My personal experience with lasers is that an unequal number got 1 center laser while equal numbers should be assigned in close range. Norby had some great OXP's for that:

http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Separated_Lasers
http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Multiple_Lasers

[Prester John]

The only thing I can't get a grasp on it is : the coordinates of the lasers and the turrets.
My guess is that they have to depend on the center of the ship. And their orientation and position are fixed this way.
Right?

For turrets you should assign them to the hull, be careful there is currently no block to prevent them to hurt your own ship if wrongly assigned.

My personal experience with lasers is that an unequal number got 1 center laser while equal numbers should be assigned in close range. Norby had some great OXP's for that:

http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Separated_Lasers
http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Multiple_Lasers

*FACEHOOF!* Owwwwwwwwmybrain...

[Griff]

It can be very daunting getting your first ship in game but it really is a lot of fun once you getting it working, for placing lasers etc i found loading the object into wings3d and placing a vertex at the point where you want the laser/turret/subentity to be placed and making a note of the vertex co-ordinates worked really well for getting the settings for the shipdata.plist
If i can help getting your ship into game just let me know, once you have your first ship in game the others will be no problem

[Prester John]

It can be very daunting getting your first ship in game but it really is a lot of fun once you getting it working, for placing lasers etc i found loading the object into wings3d and placing a vertex at the point where you want the laser/turret/subentity to be placed and making a note of the vertex co-ordinates worked really well for getting the settings for the shipdata.plist
If i can help getting your ship into game just let me know, once you have your first ship in game the others will be no problem

For me, Understanting is more valuable than Knowing.
If I don't practise a Theory (knowing), I won't be able to repeat it (so, no understanding).
If you help me, I won't get it right, my brain won't have the [TILT!] impulsion that leads knowing to understanding.
Besides, you ALREADY have helped much, with all the informations you guys gave me. My brain is now capable of "understanding OOlite StarShips".
Having experienced this stage of knowledge, now, I am able to understand OOlite Stations, because of the similarities with StarShips.
This second stage of knowledge will undoubtly and inevitably leads me to understanding OOlites Star Systems.
And THIS, specially, will lead me to the achievement of my goal : Star Trek in OOlite.
Thanks!

[UK_Eliter]

I like the idea of Star Trek-lite, as we might call it. EDIT: trumbles off the starboard bow!

Also, my Interstellar Tweaks really should put a planet or station in interstellar space. That said, since the main script in that OXP is 3,500 lines long, perhaps that OXP is big enough already . . (though I have tried to optimise it).

FURTHER EDIT: 'the coordinates of the lasers and the turrets' - yes, that's a bugger. I never got my head around it. Instead, I cribbed stuff from other OXP's and asked the good people here to help me write my files . .

[montana05]

I like the idea of Star Trek-lite, as we might call it. EDIT: trumbles off the starboard bow!

Agreed to that, Star Trek got some great ships which would fit nicely to Oolite, lets say as visitors / designs from a neighbor space Federation.

FURTHER EDIT: 'the coordinates of the lasers and the turrets' - yes, that's a bugger. I never got my head around it. Instead, I cribbed stuff from other OXP's and asked the good people here to help me write my files . .

While waiting for the outcry from our experts I admit that sometimes I just use the Gallery.OXP to assign lasers or turrets to a ship. Obviously its quick and dirty but most of the times it works. Just use a flasher for your desired laser position and do some test runs while spawned your new ships to see how it looks in game.

[UK_Eliter]

I didn't know of the Gallery OXP. I will investigate!

[Prester John]

If only there was a Freeware Application/Program doing all the operations (applying laser spots on ship, converting ships to *.dat, helping for shipdata and shiplist) that would be so great.

That said, no need to tell you I have given up, right? 2 reasons:
- the difficulties I get to make that work (python, program python, remeshing old converted VRML/OBJ files, accessories, and so forth) are dissuasive.
- I will loose the taste to play Oolite, because I would know how everything works. I will loose the immersion in the game.

Bah

[UK_Eliter]

You might want to ask on the Linux subforum about freeware programs (for, even if you are not on Linux, those folks are likely to know of freeware stuff - some of which might work on other operating systems).

As to unweaving the rainbow, as it were: I haven't found that this diminishes my appreciation of the game (though I did find that I enjoyed coding for it more than playing it - but I might have moved onto the coding after my interest in playing had declined).