Oolite Bulletins

Thank you.

About galaxy jump:
1/ Now, a noobish question, maybe not so noobish.
Isn't it possible to get device transporting to N-1 or N+1 galaxy ? I am presently in Galaxy 4 and I finally just installed Famous Planet. I want to go make a small tour back to G2 and G1.
2/ I dream of an effect before jumping or in front of a wormhole: something which will be warping, deforming the surrounding space, a bit like hot air or rather like the "Anomalies" in Stalker. Is it possible to do this ? (actually, if this is possible, it means that a lot of interesting shaders are existing)

1/: Nope. Due to the nature of the stable wormholes connecting the eight galaxies intergalactic travel is one-way only. And the tour forward from G4 to G1 is not that much longer.

2/: I think nope as well. But as you mentioned shaders, I know next to zilch about them, so I am probably not competent to give an answer.

You can only go forward one galaxy at a time, I'm afraid, so you will need to go through galaxies 5,6, 7 and 8 to get back to G1. A regular gal-drive and four GalDrivePods will get you there almost instantly, although the total cost of the trip will be 35 000Cr.

Following a discussion with Commander McLane, I feel I should emphasise the risk of people getting stranded in the 'unreachable' systems (that GalDrivePod OXP allows you to travel to) if they jump there without a GalDrivePod. This has always been known and a note to this effect was included in the readme. However, in the short term, I have made the warning much stronger in the readme and have given a stronger warning more visibility on the WIKI page and Smivsonline.
If you have this OXP installed, you really should take a GalDrivePod with you EVERY time you perform a Galactic Jump.
A new version is already in development, and this will remove this danger, as well as including extra features and missions for all the 'unreachable' systems.

Well, having just finished Assassins, I though it was time to try out some of the innovative jumping tech that's been sprouting up over the last month. My first attempt at seeing how fast I can do the 8 is as follows:

2085963.02.53.58 Start - Immediately before launch (Aenbi - G7)
2085963.03.04.25 Artelaan - G8
2085963.03.04.50 Eninre - G1
2085963.03.05.12 Lerela - G2
2085963.03.05.32 Lacete - G3
2085963.03.05.51 Enlaus - G4
2085963.03.06.13 Zaeredre - G5
2085963.03.06.33 Esgelage - G6
2085963.03.06.53 Arberi - G7
2085963.03.08.12 End - Immediately afer docking (Arberi - G7)

The time stamps are those on the screenshots I took. I didn't start the challenge at Lave (wrong galaxy), but I though I'd set a bench-line for myself. Unfortunately, I didn't quite end up in the right system at the end of it, due to the effects of galaxy jumping. I did it in a cloaked Caddy (top speed 460) with use of injectors whilst mass locked, and headed to the planet away from the spacelanes. I also manually docked (with injectors). That aside, I make that a time of 14 minutes and 14 seconds! Now considering that Aenbi and Arberi are 6.8 light years apart, I make that substantially quicker than the 46.2 hours it would ordinarily take to get there!

One thing I noticed: the pod uses the same icon as the Q-bomb. Somewhat confusing at first, and could definitely be so in the heat of battle. 'Tis possible to make custom icons in the descriptions.plist, if you wished.

@ Smivs - Would it be possible to script it so that at Otneised you cannot make the GH unless you have a spare galpod to get you back out again?

I ws talking to McLane earlier today (or rather he talked to me) about improving the scripting as there is the potential to get stuck if you're not careful. There will be a new, improved version of GalDrivePod in the near future, which I hope will also give you things to do in all the 'unreachable' systems.
For now, though, just make sure you have one whenever you GalJump. Also I'm trying to get my head round the descriptions.plist to give these a unique icon.

Good to hear, Boff.

'The descriptions.plist can be confusing, and I don't think that it's well documented anywhere that it can be used to make unique icons for missiles. I think I worked that out by looking at various other oxps, probably some of Thargoid's Aquatics missions (or whichever it is that gives the missiles) or "Missiles and Bombs". For example, in my Wormhole Drone WIP I use:
This gives a diamond with the upper right quadrant cut out for the first one, and a diamond with the bottom right cut out for the second. Each pair of integers correspond to (x, y) coordinates for each vertex of the icon, in an anticlockwise order. At least, that is what I derived from other oxps; what the full capability of this is I do not know.

Hopefully that made some sort of sense (I be somewhat inebriated at the moment). If not, I'll try and give a clearer explanation tomorrow morning...

Ignorance. I don't know what the numbers mean. Are they points on a grid, or xyz axes or what?

Mauiby de Fug wrote:

'The descriptions.plist can be confusing, and I don't think that it's well documented anywhere that it can be used to make unique icons for missiles.

Well, it’s described in the Progress thread somewhere. :-/

Smivs wrote:

Ignorance. I don't know what the numbers mean. Are they points on a grid, or xyz axes or what?

They’re sequences of x, y pairs. (0, 0) is the centre of the icon. The scale is in arbitrary units; the default icons fit in a 4×6 rectangle. Take a look at the built-in descriptions.plist, about halfway down (“oolite-default-missile-icon” etc). You don’t have to use integer coordinates, but remember to test in a small window.

One other thing: you can use multiple contours by using an array of arrays. (As of 1.75, this applies to beacon icons too.)

I have always defined my icons clockwise. Probably it doesn't matter. Documentation can be found in the Progress thread, I think. I can't find it on the Wiki, though.

They be points on a grid. Taking the first one:

Point A x coord <integer>-2</integer>
Point A y coord <integer>0</integer>
Point B x coord <integer>0</integer>
Point B y coord <integer>-2</integer>
Point C x coord <integer>2</integer>
Point C y coord <integer>0</integer>
Point D x coord <integer>0</integer>
Point D y coord <integer>0</integer>
Point E x coord <integer>0</integer>
Point E y coord <integer>2</integer>

Edit: ninja'd by Ahruman and McLane. I didn't know it was in the progress thread (unsurprisingly, I haven't gone through all 51 pages!). I'd only checked the Wiki. It doesn't surprise me that it the points can be specified in any order - I just followed the ones I found.

Thanks guys, I understand!

The new GalDrivePod icon, symbolic of moving up a Galaxy.



(Now someone's going to tell me something else uses this )