Oolite Bulletins

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Course correction applied, albedo is within acceptable limits, normality will be resumed in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

Kaks wrote:

The colours for the hyperspace jump tunnel can now be changed using the new hyperspace_tunnel_color_1 and hyperspace_tunnel_color_2 keys inside planetinfo.plist

If neither key is present, the hyperspace tunnel will look identical to the docking one.

At the moment, trunk's hyperspace tunnel colours are off-white/blue, (as opposed to pink/blue) - to do that, only one colour redefinition is needed:

Code: Select all

	hyperspace_tunnel_color_1 = (1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0.7);		// R, G, B, A values 0.0 to 1.0

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Psst - Kaks! Umm... Expose it thru Javascript??

We can't as yet change interstellar settings via javascript (that feature isn't planned for 1.74 either - it might be possible after 1.74, but I don't really know much about that), since the tunnel effect is called when you're already jumping through hyperspace, infoForSystem won't help.

If you want to have different hyperspace tunnel colours for different jumps, the only option is via planetinfo.plist:

http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Planet ... r_settings

Or you can just change the global colour setting.

Actually it would be even nicer if the station launch sequence has boxes instead of circles to simulate you fly out of the station. Don't know if that's possible though. I'm happy with the recent changes.

pagroove wrote:

Actually it would be even nicer if the station launch sequence has boxes instead of circles to simulate you fly out of the station. Don't know if that's possible though. I'm happy with the recent changes.

Try renaming the thargon-redux.dat model to ring.dat and see how you like that effect. I find it pretty damn neat. Only problem is that the same model is used for hyperspace.

pagroove wrote:

Actually it would be even nicer if the station launch sequence has boxes instead of circles to simulate you fly out of the station. Don't know if that's possible though. I'm happy with the recent changes.

I agree. IIRC, the MS-DOS version of Elite had boxes when docking to the station.

SubV wrote:

the MS-DOS version of Elite had boxes when docking to the station.

Elite Plus certainly has boxes when docking/launching.

Missile/mine icon changes:

• Icons can now consist of multiple contours, specified as an array of arrays of numbers.
• When contours overlap, a hole is formed.
• Concave contours are now properly supported. (Previously, some concave contours worked and some didn’t; which, if any, worked was technically up to the OpenGL implementation.)
• Proper polygon outlines are generated for highlighting the selected missile/mine, instead of just drawing a scaled-up version of the polygon behind
• Self-intersecting polygons are not supported. They “work”, but their corners are distorted. Fixing this in all cases is an intractable problem (fancy-pants software like Illustrator doesn’t always manage it), and arbitrary polygons can now be achieved using multiple contours, so I don’t intend to try to fix this.

We have good news for those who enjoy changing the scanner lollipop colors. In 1.74, it will be possible to change any ship's lollipop color by script or shipdata.plist. To do that, you will need to use either:
- Any of the two or both keys in shipdata.plist: scanner_display_color1 scanner_display_color2 or
- The scannerDisplayColor1 and/or scannerDisplayColor2 from JavaScript. The syntax can be
scannerDisplayColor1="blueColor"; or scannerDisplayColor1=[r, g, b,a];

How it works: You just assign one or both lollipop colors to the ship of your choice. If any of the two colors is assigned, then the lollipop will have that color. If you assign both colors, then the lollipop will flash using those. To restore everything back to default behaviour, you just assign the null value to scannerDisplayColor1 and/or scannerDisplayColor2. Easy as that.

Ooh, this means that some naughty ships will be able to cloak themself under the guise of police or other vessels. The possibilities get really interesting then.

pmw57 wrote:

Ooh, this means that some naughty ships will be able to cloak themself under the guise of police or other vessels. The possibilities get really interesting then.

You're a very evil man... Come to think of it, pirates with fake police transponders, and countermeasures could suddenly start to appear... The thing is, those graphic changes would only fool the player, all NPC would still know who's who. With some creative scripting though, the possibilities are still extremely interesting...

Kaks wrote:

You're a very evil man... Come to think of it, pirates with fake police transponders, and countermeasures could suddenly start to appear... The thing is, those graphic changes would only fool the player, all NPC would still know who's who. With some creative scripting though, the possibilities are still extremely interesting...

Those boy racers could well become even more annoying. Pretending to be an asteroid and then zooming up as if they were a thargoid warship

Hardhead missile with black lollipop.
Quite possibly the last thing you'll ever not see...

You can actually create some interesting effects by setting the scannerDisplayColor1 to something and scannerDisplayColor2 to 'nothing' (0,0,0,0 or black lollipop). This creates a true flashing effect, where the lollipop appears and disappears. Good for making things immediately noticeable on the scanner. Looking forward to what you guys can come up with.