Oolite Bulletins

Murgh wrote:

because the shipdata is in ASCII(yes?), I wouldn't know what to do except change it all to XML and then see what terminal tells me..

Was thinking about this - Giles mentioned a while ago that there were some problems with compatability if numbers like <*R3> or <*I0> were used - they're hex formatted numbers, I think, and some versions of Oolite didn't like them a while ago.

It's the listing for the oldadder that's causing it - it has the hex formatted numbers in. I'll change them to normal numbers and see...Thanks.

EDIT @ 13:03: I've uploaded a new shipdata.plist to my site (see sig) - click on the Oolite Developments, Tionisla Graveyard link and download it from there.

EDIT @ 13:05: I just noticed I'm Elite on my post count now!!

Wow, seems there have been some activity while I was otherwise entertained...

Didn't recieve any notification emails from the forum, so thought it was still sleeping.

todo:
-What Krait variant are you thinking about?
-Sizes: I intentionally made monuments 500m-1km in diameter because of what is stated in TDW. For gameplay reasons I have no objection to resizing the models.

question,
has anyone got the debris ring working yet?

Rxke wrote:

Come to think of it, is the going to offender status when shooting certain stuff hardcoded or is it scriptable?.... I'm afraid it's hardcoded.... Ideally would be a setup that, when you even scratch a tomb, your legal status goes to fugitive immediately... But how... You could give it the role of a beacon, with modded AI...

You can change a player's status in a script and presumably in the AI for a monument, although I haven't played with AI's at all so I'm really guessing.
Where
0 = Clean
1..63 = Offender
64+ = Fugitive

If you can't get the monument AI to do it, at the very least you can use the death_actions flag in the shipdata.plist for each monument:
That will make a player a fugitive if they destroy a monument.

If you give the patrol craft the role of GalCop they should then go for the new fugitive.

Arexack_Heretic wrote:

-What Krait variant are you thinking about?

Never mind - I just realised it's a skin for the base oolite model. I'll create a plist entry for it.

Arexack_Heretic wrote:

-Sizes: I intentionally made monuments 500m-1km in diameter because of what is stated in TDW. For gameplay reasons I have no objection to resizing the models.

The blurb says that monuments are "rarely less than 1000 feet across". Given that the Oolite engine works in meters, the big monuments should be about 300m across (maybe a little more). For aesthetics and playability, i thought we had agreed that the multiple models would be smaller, but the custom monuments would be larger sizes. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that we should maybe keep the sizes down a bit for the standard models.

Arexack_Heretic wrote:

has anyone got the debris ring working yet?

Not that I am aware of. Not really tried it myself since the new PC oolite came out, as I will have to read and familiarise myself with the new methods for plisting...

Selezen wrote:

That would be cool if you could do that, Dylan. Thanks!
Does this mean I have to be nice to Break on EBBS now?

It's done, check your PM.

Be nice to Break? Surely you jest

Selezen wrote:

Can't download it - can't find the file.

incredible. the server must have been down just then. should be possible to open it in browser or d/l (as a txt, one must manually remove the suffix). just flustered as it was a bit of a pain to convert the file.

Rxke wrote:

the 4fps, do you get that from the start, of only when going through the yard?
If this is from the start, the objects are really too close toghether, chocking the collision-detection engine... That'd be bad news..

it is noticeable from the start, but 4fps doesn't begin until I'm next to it. feels related to the 1000 lights

lights (responsibly distributed) will be cool, but since these ones are all on the same syncrate, it's weird and unbelievable. I'm sure we'll find a nice solution.

until the fig8 waypoint plotting becomes "available", it would be easy just to slap up a working patrolAI that just idles until there's trouble.

so is A_H "back"?

Yay, A_H is alive!

re: the scripting: if this deaththing works then it should be possible to do that with attack(ed) mode too. (borrow the beacon parts where you also put out the distress signal) I didn't know there was a setLegalStatus, cool, problem solved! just slap it to the ai of tombs, and see the guards close in on you...


re: the large filesizes... I'd say maybe ATM do not care too much about it and finish it, but then go through a round of 'optimization,' to look for skins fit for pruning (ie recycle them for several objects) and maybe resizing... it is too big as it is now, if you compare it with oolite itself...

More work done. I've redone the shipdata.plist file and added the Krait patrol ship and Lancet interceptors (both versions), plus removed a great many of the flashers (now only 2 per ship instead of . I've also redone the planetinfo.plist file to add both the new ships near the Station.

Donwload them from here: http://www.hughesd.co.uk/elite/content/ ... onisla.asp

Also on that page are a couple of screenshots to show off some of the new niceness.

Regarding the size issues, there were three separate texture files that were exactly the same image. I have removed two of the duplicates and changed the .dat files involved to look at the same file. That should save about 1Mb in file size. Also, two of the texures in question were not of the appropriate dimensions, so I have retained the 512x512 files and removed the two 500x480 ones. I've enlarged the Adder's texture for the time being, and will include it in the next zip file. For the time being, I have included it on the page linked above...download it and give it a try.

The patrol ship AIs are just what Murgh says - empty files that do bugger all. The ships just sit there looking mean, even when you forget what the decelerate key is and smack into them.

Edit: Thanks, Winston. I shall have a look over the weekend - I have tried at work, and can't get SSH to connect.

Your work probably has egress filtering. You can configure PuTTY to use your work's web proxy to (usually) give you SSH access. If not you can fall back to FTP, but SSH is a lot better.

Ok, there's a new download site for the wonder that is Tionisla's Orbital GY. To save losing the link in a multitude of posts, the link is now in my sig.

Muchos gracias to El Winston for providing some valuable real estate on Alioth.

Sorry for replying to myself again.

There's a new version of the graveyard now available for download at the link in my signature - thanks again to Dylan for providing the space on Alioth.

- a couple of patrol Kraits and a couple of Arnoud's Lancets are dotted around the station
- the station is now further beneath the yard
- the beacons are now the correct scaled model (300m across instead of 1Km)
- the yard is now twice the diameter it was before - this should cut down the collisions and improve frame rates
- I've removed most of the flashers - now only one flasher per large monument is included - it makes a nice glittery effect
- I've changed the horizontal plane of the yard so that the models are all aligned on the x axis. The beacons are therefore the right way up in relation to the rest of the yard.

This should now be considered the latest version. I'm going to remove the version from my site, and will work on creating an rsync version on Alioth too.

note that all objects currently have fairly boring AIs. If you shoot at the monuments they will scream for help, but the Krait and Lancet pilots are all on lunch break. The Dodo is dockable.

Question: can I change the legend that comes up for the Dodo on the commader's summary page? It currently says "Tionisla: Dodecahedron Station". Can I make it say "Tionisla: Orbital Graveyard"?

EDIT @ 01:12: The Rsync version is uploading now. By the time anyone reads this (seeing as I think I'm on my own here) it should be done. I'll share how to use it as soon as I get my head round it myself!

Wow, well, all you guys, you have done a fabulous job on this project - I loaded up the .oxp and had a fly through the graveyard.

I took a whole series of shots around the graveyard, and I'm considering being really geeky and keeping one or two for desktops!!

Seriously, you get some great views of the yard against the planet, especially if one of the big Gou'ald-like markers are present - they only lose their quality when you get really close, when the texture gets a little 'soft'.

I am really looking forward to it being 'fully inter-reactive'.

Nice one!

Selezen wrote:

Question: can I change the legend that comes up for the Dodo on the commader's summary page? It currently says "Tionisla: Dodecahedron Station". Can I make it say "Tionisla: Orbital Graveyard"?

If you're using a unique station in the shipdata.plist then just change to

@Stargazer: Thanks! Glad you are enjoying it. So it's true what the Dark Wheel says - it does look best silhouetted against the planet.

@Giles: No, I was using the default Dodo. I'll try using a custom one, but that's gonna mean rehashing the old 'how do I make it spin' discussion...

I'll try searching through the topics to see how to spin a station. I know it's there somewhere, as long as the Oolite version is 1.52+ IIRC?

EDIT @14:26: Got it. I remembered that it's to do with the defined roles. rotating-station does the job nicely, thanks very much!! The GY now has a custom station, which I believe was a much requested thing a couple of months ago. Custom skins will no doubt be forthcoming. Thanks, Giles!

God, I love this job.

Does anyone mind that I am using this topic as an unofficial work diary?

Actually, after reading winston's exploits blowing things up, is there any way to protect the GY from energy bombs? And maybe Q-bombs?

I promise I won't implement it until the final release...wouldn't want to spoil the fun!