Oolite Bulletins

Nice ships coming out lately

Man, those are a couple of awesome ships, guys. Nice work. Solo, I think I already said it once, but you have a real talent for texturing. I should get some tips from you.

Here are some screen shots of the ship I am presently working on. I call it the Andricothere. It's a play off of the prehistoric animal, indricothere.

It'll be a while before it's ready for any kind of oxp release, but I do intend it to be a player ship.

Captain Beatnik wrote:

The stats are derived from a cobra MK III and a Boa 2 cruiser. I took the mean value of the stats of the cobra and the boa2 as stats for the coluber. Unfortunately I found entry in the shipdata.plist that enables half missiles . So i gave the coluber 5 missiles (like the boa2) and reduced the cargo space as compensation.

Man, don't reduce the payload for missiles. Missiles are attached to the exterior of the ship on racks, so there is no need to reduce interior space for them. You have gone in to some beautiful detail, Captain Beatnick. Really nice job.

that's a nice looking thing. those radar dishes might cripple the frame rate for people on a lower spec machine tho. dunno if it should be a player ship, you'd have to make it pretty small to fit a docking slot, given its tall profile. i think this would be better as a big military thing, perhaps those dishes are long range Thargoid sensors, or it's a CCC ship for big battles in witchspace?

mandoman wrote:

Missiles are attached to the exterior of the ship on racks, so there is no need to reduce interior space for them.

Says who?
In my Ooniverse all the ships have internal pylons...this protects the ordnance when say sunskimming and also allows the internal cargo-handling equipment to move salvaged (scooped) items onto a free pylon where necessary. Plus the 'torpedo tubes' look so cool!

Smivs wrote:

Says who?
In my Ooniverse all the ships have internal pylons...this protects the ordnance when say sunskimming and also allows the internal cargo-handling equipment to move salvaged (scooped) items onto a free pylon where necessary. Plus the 'torpedo tubes' look so cool!

Says the mind that fills in the blanks. All down to perception. As long as I can't see them mounted externally, they are fitted internally. So all, but Griff's Cobra with external missiles, have internally fitted missiles in my Ooniverse. I have even thought about giving Griff's Cobra with external missiles 8 pylons, but don't know how.

Gimi wrote:

Smivs wrote:

Says who?
In my Ooniverse all the ships have internal pylons...this protects the ordnance when say sunskimming and also allows the internal cargo-handling equipment to move salvaged (scooped) items onto a free pylon where necessary. Plus the 'torpedo tubes' look so cool!

Says the mind that fills in the blanks. All down to perception. As long as I can't see them mounted externally, they are fitted internally. So all, but Griff's Cobra with external missiles, have internally fitted missiles in my Ooniverse. I have even thought about giving Griff's Cobra with external missiles 8 pylons, but don't know how.

I'd like to imagine that Griff's (and Thargoids?) external missile CobraIII had eight missiles - standard four internally, new four externally (with a few TC less of cargo space to reflect new strengthening mount points and fire control system) - but that's just my Ooniverse...

DaddyHoggy wrote:

I'd like to imagine that Griff's (and Thargoids?) external missile CobraIII had eight missiles - standard four internally, new four externally (with a few TC less of cargo space to reflect new strengthening mount points and fire control system) - but that's just my Ooniverse...

My point exactly. Incompatible with cargo bay extension would be my approach.

Killer Wolf wrote:

that's a nice looking thing. those radar dishes might cripple the frame rate for people on a lower spec machine tho. dunno if it should be a player ship, you'd have to make it pretty small to fit a docking slot, given its tall profile. i think this would be better as a big military thing, perhaps those dishes are long range Thargoid sensors, or it's a CCC ship for big battles in witchspace?

Could make all the dishes subents - if you make them frangible too - they'd not be drawn at a distance (better FPS) and they could be blown off (more fun for the player!)

could have them rotating too if you stick some quat info in.

Smivs wrote:

mandoman wrote:

Missiles are attached to the exterior of the ship on racks, so there is no need to reduce interior space for them.

Says who?
In my Ooniverse all the ships have internal pylons...this protects the ordnance when say sunskimming and also allows the internal cargo-handling equipment to move salvaged (scooped) items onto a free pylon where necessary. Plus the 'torpedo tubes' look so cool!

Oh. I just assumed that was the case, since it seems that they are specified in shipdata.plist at a point outside of the ship. I have seen warnings in Latest.log that missiles on certain ships are originating inside the ship, which could cause them to detonate there, damaging the ship. What's that all about, then?

That's the missile_launch_position, the position on the ship where they emerge. The problem you're thinking of was to do with Thargoid Warships, where they were launching fom underneath the back and the warship was hitting them if it pitched up at the time of launch.

Killer Wolf wrote:

that's a nice looking thing. those radar dishes might cripple the frame rate for people on a lower spec machine tho. dunno if it should be a player ship, you'd have to make it pretty small to fit a docking slot, given its tall profile. i think this would be better as a big military thing, perhaps those dishes are long range Thargoid sensors, or it's a CCC ship for big battles in witchspace?

It's not meant to dock at a station. I was hoping to make it a ship/station, as it has it's own docking port for smaller ships, kind of like a huge cargo ship that does trading within it's own docking area. Also, it would carry a small fleet of fighters for extra protection. I really hadn't thought about the sensor array as anything but a sensor array, at the moment. I'll have to think about your comments, and ideas about them, though, as having them move, and be frangible are definite possibilities. It also has ball turrets, and those tubes at the front could be anything from lasers, to missile tubes, to another type of sensor array. I haven't thought that far ahead, yet. Have to admit that I don't really think it will get off of the "modeling Board", and into the game, since I can't write script worth squat. Seems to be a major road block for me right now, and as I already have two other ships that are tangled up in scripting problems, this could just be another exercise in fun modeling.

well you said you intended it to be a player ship, so be aware that if it doesn't dock it'll need the "save anywhere" OXP to be of any use to anyone. also, if you can't dock you totally eliminate the trading aspect, which may or may not be a selling point - better people than me can verify, but i don't think there's any way to have a player ship as a trading post. you could dock/trade w/ an NPC version of the ship of course, if you were flying another type of craft, but i'm pretty sure other craft can't dock w/ you as a player and trade w/ you.

scripting's my killer too i've got a couple of stations completed but i want to do some unique scripty stuff for them that i'm pretty sure is doomed to failure given my past java exploits, lol. i'll get the King Cobra off the landing pad first though.

Killer Wolf wrote:

if you can't dock you totally eliminate the trading aspect

It just occurred to me, but how about a piece of primable equipment that made the player's ship into a static NPC and ejected the player into say, a Worm shuttle with the ship's cargo capacity and value but no hyperdrive and all equipment disabled (just an avatar). The "what if the player took the shuttle through a wormhole" would have to be addressed, but I think it's feasible.