Oolite Bulletins

Hehe. Why spend time tidying-up nonesense when a quick c&p is all you need
As for seeing the nose, well you're probably right in one sense, but having said that I don't think that's necessarily true. As the nose slopes down away from the view position it probably shouldn't be visible, or at least not too obvious. And of course we're not looking out a cockpit window are we...what we see is a view-screen image.
For what it's worth the Anaconda is far worse here...even on a widescreen monitor the whole bottom of the screen is full of Anaconda!

Smivs wrote:

I have no idea why the readme won't open...it's fine here. I used to present readmes as .txt documents, but following comments that some people were having trouble with .txt I migrated to .rtf as it is a more universal format

On my Windows 7 machine, readme.rtf opens fine when specifying WordPad as the program. If I open it with Word 2007, I get this:



...which then opens fine when I specify the encoding as UTF-8.

On the Mac, it doesn't open at all.

I have opened it in Word 2007 as UTF-8, resaved it as an RTF document and uploaded it here. It is 36K now (instead of the original 4K), but Word no longer complains when opening. I cannot try it on the Mac until I get home...

Note: I have scanned the file using virustotal.com and it is clean - but don't take my word for it

*Edit: corrected original file size*

Smivs wrote:

Let me know how you get on.

Sorry, is this directed at me? My Boa Clipper was sorted using your previous recommendation (your last but one post on page 2 of this thread) namely... This gives a clear front view on my machine. The only problem with raising the view 5m in this fashion is that it does introduce a bit of laser sight parallax -- not a problem when shooting at enemy vessels, but when I shoot at small objects close up, such as cargo pods & rock splinters (it's a long story) I find I do need to compensate a bit. I may try experimenting with moving the view forward instead of up.

As for the Boa or Boa CC, I have no plans to fly either vessel, so view problems are of no immediate concern. I only test flew them to answer your question...

Smivs wrote:

Has anybody who has this problem tried a standard Boa CC? Can you see parts of the ship?

BTW, my MacBook Pro also refuses to open readme.rtf. If I rename it readme.txt, however, it opens fine in TextEdit.

I've discovered that the port laser sight on the Boa Clipper has considerable parallax. Whilst this probably wouldn't be a problem in combat, when mining, one needs to aim considerably off-centre when blasting boulders into splinters.

The following screenshots will hopefully demonstrate the problem. Below is a port view with the mining laser's sight directly on the cargo pod I'm using in lieu of a boulder. If I pressed the trigger at this point, I would miss.



In the pic below, I'm aiming to the left of and slightly above the pod. NumericHUDv3 along with Scanner Targeting Enhancement gives me target reticle sensitive functionality, and as you can see, the reticle has turned red, indicating that I'm on-target. If I pressed the trigger, I would score a hit.



Checking the Clippers' shipdata.plist, I found the following lines for 'boaclipper-player':-
I changed the values on a trial & error basis, and the following seemed to do the trick.
The sight's aim is now true, with zero parallax. Should one wish to use the starboard laser for mining, you would presumably need to make a similar change.

As before these positions are all carried over from the core Boa CC. The side laser positions are pretty bad on many of the core ships...I seem to remember helping out somebody with an Anaconda a while ago.
The views are actually OK most of the time...the problem comes when you are targeting small objects very close to the ship, like your cargo pod.
As this issue keeps cropping up, I'll try to have a look at these views and positions when I get a bit of time.

Hey Smivs, I'm trying different stuff lately, and due to your post in my thread, decided to test fly your "Boa Clipper" .


They must of had some overstock at Arexe, or something, cause I got one with with scoops, and a pile of other stuff already installed.

Flys nice, very similar to the Boa 2 Class Cruiser, maneuvers the same (to me anyways), but definitely has more top end speed.
Maybe better torque too, cause feels like I can get her into top gear faster (?).

I like the dashboard (HUD), not too different compared to the one in the normal game. I think that if you made the name of the ship (under the IFF) somewhat smaller on the vertical, and elongated it on the horizontal, it would be slicker than already is - but that's my own taste.

Firing the lasers (both forward and aft, I didn't bother putting any side ones on) the laser shot goes through the ship picture, but that must be some kind of graphical thing. It does not affect combat. By the way, these are beam lasers (1,000 credit) kind.

The forward view screen (F1) shows the hood and red nose hub. I tried without the HUD on ( P + o ), but it remains. So the angle and/or placement of the camera must be further back than what was in that Boa 2. The rear view screen (F2) shows part of the trunk, so likely the same thing causing that.

Besides that, I've tried some combat, sun skimming, scooping, firing missiles (regular and hardened), etc. All work good.

If there is anything you want me to try (cause I don't know what is impossible), I have saved a game file with it. I can throw on some mining lasers, or pulse and run tests, or whatever else.

Thanks for the feedback, which is always useful and appreciated.
The Boa Clipper used to be a stand-alone OXP, and in fact was my first OXP so it has a lot to answer for
The main changes from the Boa CC is the slight increase in top speed and the reduced cargo capacity - all other specs wre unchanged so it will fly much the same as the Cruiser. However as a fast, long-range transporter they do come with fuel scoops and heat shielding as standard. The current version also has the external auxiliary fuel tanks which were not part of the original spec.
You're not the first person to mention views and laser positions. These were also just carried over from the Boa CC although I seem to remember moving the forward view a bit on one update to allow for the gun sub-entity (to keep it out of the view).
I think monitor sizes and aspect ratios can have an influence here and these thing are more noticeable on 4:3 monitors than widescreen.
It's probably something I should get around to sorting out really. I'll give you a shout if I need a test-pilot

I don't know what aspect ratios or the "4:3" thing means.
I'll usually play in full screen mode, though, if that has anything to do with it.

Any who, I see that I forgot to take this oxp out of my add-ons folder, because a 'Python Clipper' was the mothership for one of my recent escort missions.
I could just barely keep up with her, let alone get ahead.
(lol)
The destination was an anarchy system (of course) so a number of bandit encounters was to be had.
She always got into the fray before I could, and out of the 10 kills that ensued - she got 6 of them.

A 4:3 aspect ratio means old style square-ish monitor screens( & older tv sets), as opposed to the now more common widescreen type.

So called, because the height of the screen was always 3/4 of the width, no matter the actual size.

I've just uploaded v1.3.2. of Clippers OXP
This fixes the requires.plist issue recently reported here, and a HUD anomaly I detected a couple of days ago. Thanks to cim for helping me to sort that out.
I have also now updated this OXP for v1.77 and the requires.plist reflects this. No big changes, just a rationalisation of NPC weapons and 'accuracy'.

Clippers v1.3.3 OXZ is now available via the Expansions Manager.
This version has been fully updated for Oolite v1.80. See the wiki for full details of the latest version.

Version 1.3.4 is now available via the Expansions Manager.

Changelog:-

This update changes the licence from CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 to CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
The custom HUDs are now fully Oolite v1.80 compliant, and are a variant of the current SmartHud.
Normal and specular mapping has been added to improve the graphics on shadery computers. The Python's emission map has also been improved.
Python exhausts adjusted to look better.
'Python-Clipper-Alternative' NPC is more likely to be a courier or pirate, and has only one escort ship. The standard Python Clipper still has two escorts, and will most commonly appear in the Trader role.
'Cinematic view' added to Boa Clipper external views.

New Version (ready for Oolite v1.82).
Clippers v1.4 is a ground-up rebuild and prepares this expansion for the release of Oolite v1.82.
There are several improvements and a couple of changes over the previous version to balance it and keep it in line with current standards and some of my other expansions.
The Clippers share all the same features as my other ship OXPs such as flashing navigation strobes and the ships systematically shutting down when derelict.
Clippers v1.4 is available via the in-game Expansions Manager, or the Wiki.

Changelog:-
1) New textures. Started from scratch these are now up to the standards of my other recent ship OXPs. They are fully light_ normal_ and specular_mapped, and have new designs.
2) The scripting has been re-written for v1.82. There are now just two scripts, and these are fully standards compliant ready for v1.82.
3) The .plists and internal naming structure have been overhauled and refined.
4) The ships have been added to the Ship Library.
5) The chance of ships appearing in-game as NPCs, and in the shipyard has been reduced as they should be quite rare.
6) The external fuel tanks have been retained, but they now mirror the 'Auxiliary' tank from ExtraFuelTanks OXZ - they have a 3LY capacity and the main tank needs to be empty before they can be used. Existing Clipper pilots will see an information screen on start-up after installing explaining the changes, and the savefile will be purged of old variables and updated so the transition should be seemless.

Hi,

I'm seeing errors loading this new version on Mac Oolite (both 1.80 and a recent nightly of 1.82):
The fix looks to be as follows: i.e., to add semicolons at the end of the dictionary entries.

Welcome aboard, csperkins. Apologies for the delay in approving your first two posts - they must have got lost in the works.