Oolite Bulletins

I thought it was "You can't live with 'em, can't shoot 'em."

Captain Hesperus wrote:

If you listen to my wife, men are genetically incapable of performing more than two tasks at once and one of those tasks is remembering to breathe.

If it is so, it could be considered attempted murder if she demands any form of response or attention from you while you are playing Oolite

@Roberto.

Off topic, but I just had a thought about the spawning a q-mine when the ship is on its last legs. We know you can't have spawn: in AI, but it does work in death_actions. What if you made the Shark out of destroyable sub-entires, but made the main ship's energy very low (adder strength say). A bit like a set of those russian dolls! So as the player blasts it he actually blasts away the first 3 subentries. When number 4 goes, the ship only has a small amount of energy standing between it and destruction. If entry 4 spwaned a q-mine then, the ship would launch a mine when on its last legs. In order to get the ship to then run away, have it do a scanforshipwithrole: EQ_MINE and when it finds it own mine, have it set state to FLEE. Bit of a workaround but should do it!

@LB - Interesting It is a hell of a workaround... but it might be the only answer. A very good idea - will look into it when the story's finished.

@Commander McLane - My position isn't quite that hard-line! I would never suggest that all OXPs have to be an expansion of The Dark Wheel - I believe I said that it's important (IMO) to have narrative in the game that's *in the spirit of* The Dark Wheel and other good Elite/Frontier fiction. By which I mean stories that are cool, fairly serious and maybe a little dark - just generally "Elite-y". (This doesn't mean I think *all* stories should be like this.)

And you're right - all OXPs are optional extras, so everyone can do what they like! But (although I might sound a bit contrarian atm), I'm actually an inclusive sort of chap - I want to be able to install everyone's OXPs, which is why I've been raising (perhaps clumsily) the issue of "general consistency".

I think the ideal OXP for me is one that adds new depth to the game - and maybe even takes it in a new direction - but also takes into account the basic Elite tone/framework. I'm not really expressing myself very well, but by tone I mean the mood of the game, which I take to be "cool, fairly serious, perhaps a little dark", and by framework I mean the key "facts" of the Elite universe (Selezen's timelines outlining many of the most important). This isn't to say, for example, I would automatically dislike a silly/humorous OXP - just one that isn't mindful of the fact that this isn't the prevailing mood of Elite (hence my reservations about "Oo" billboards).

It's a balancing act, and I think the vast majority of OXPs are great, and I'm undoubtedly overstating the case somewhat - I just thought that, with OXPs rapidly increasing in number and diversity (which is a good thing), someone ought to fly the flag for "Eliteness" For me, the more OXPs that slot (fairly) neatly into the Elite/Oolite world - and hence complement each other - the better.

Some may be a little suprised to hear I'm very much in the camp of:
Oolite=Elite=DarkWheel... and that spirit shouldn't be strayed from too far.
( Mind you we have a bit of fun occasionnally so why not 'them' )

To my mind .oxp's that add to the general plot & 'texture' of the Oolite universe are by far the most 'important' ones - if you could use such a strong term for what Oolite is...

Then why do I mostly do ships?
It seems to be what I'm best at. ( still bloody awful @ scripting despite my starting to get the hang of AI )
I've tried to go for more 'texture' with orb.oxp, but if anyone has looked inside that .oxp it's mostly done with smoke+mirrors. I would love to add more plot, but currently that is beyond me.

Rip-offs from other 'universes'?
We certainly don't want too many ( yes I'm responsibe for two ) because that suggests a lack of imagination on our part. Anything new ( if not silly ) adds to the variety. The people who 'live' in the Oolite universe will never have heard of these other places so it won't bother them.

Yes, my dead computer leaves me more time to write longer posts!

Thanks, all, for the reactions to my post!

So I would say to all you Ooliteers: Don't be afraid, Equilibrium.oxp is very much going to be in the spirit mentioned. And one of the reasons I chose the southwest corner of Galaxy 3 is that up to now there has been nothing going on there, so the chances to contradict any other stuff are fairly small. And OF COURSE I'm not going to set up a scenario in which GalCoop doesn't exist or anything else that's obviously impossibe in the Ooniverse as it is.

But I think there is a point as far as ships from other universes are concerned. I personally have not installed any ship from StarTrek or StarWars and wouldn't do so, because I feel these ships are indeed off the original idea of ELITE. And as also the discussions in relevant threads show it is quite difficult to fit them into the Ooniverse, e.g. balance their stats which come from universes with different physics to the original ELITE/Oolite ships.

I know the argument saying: "These ships do not really come from those universes, but as Oolite plays in a future time of our universe the works of art they are taken of would be known, so somebody would build ships inspired by StarTrek or StarWars." But I'm not really convinced by that.

So what do other people say? Are "foreign" ships in Oolite okay or are they too far from the original?

Personally, I think the choice is just that, a personal one. The flavor of Elite/Oolite is now completely up to each captain. No one is forced to install any OXP and yet we can get as "embellished" as we care to.

If I had even the smallest ability I would try my hand at maybe some ships ala the 1930's movie serials Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers (Just how to get that smoke trail streaming up ).

reills wrote:

If I had even the smallest ability I would try my hand at maybe some ships ala the 1930's movie serials Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers (Just how to get that smoke trail streaming up ).

Plasma cannon w/ a high rate of fire, different coloured plasma and directed @ 45-60 degrees above the lateral axis?

Captain Hesperus
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there fun....but dont have too many.

Actually Giles was working on 'particle effects' in the exhausts... they would cause a space-time wake behind ships.

Don't know how much if any was finished and passed on to the young prince of the code and our acting supreme commander.

Maybe the decay mechanism can be combined with a small movement/acceleration +y in the SWP coordinate system?

Arexack_Heretic wrote:

Actually Giles was working on 'particle effects' in the exhausts... they would cause a space-time wake behind ships.

Might be kind of cool. Get too close to the rear of another ship and start losing control in their wake!

Captain Hesperus