Oolite Bulletins

Gimi wrote:

Ahh.

I read quickly through the posts, and thought you had already updated it. (Will read more carefully next time, and before I start making a nuisance off myself.

Thank you.

I should be the one apologising! This hasn't been the smoothest of releases. I was just keen to avoid too many broken versions being out there which is why I suspended the downloads.
I'm testing the 'fixed' version at the moment (it's looking pretty good, too) so would expect to have a definitive working version available for download later today - depending on how much RL interferes.
Thanks for your patience.

Quick question if anyone can help...I want the Bounty Hunters to be a bit tougher than the pirate versions, so would like to give them naval energy units and the pirates extra energy units, but I can't find anything on this in the Wiki, and I've been told that " has_naval_energy_unit = yes;" doesn't work. How is this done?

EDIT
I think I might have found the answer in this comment by Commander McLane in another thread...

This is because (player ships can) have Extra or Naval Energy Units. These are normally not available for NPCs, which are always stuck with recharge rates of between 3.5 and 5 (normal range). However, for a player ship the Extra Energy Unit will multiply this by 1.8, and the Naval Energy Unit even by 2.6, according to the code.

By the way: In vanilla Oolite this gives a huge advantage to the player. He can easily have about double the energy recharge of his NPC counterparts. Plus he has shields. The only thing NPCs can do is increase their max energy through shield boosters and shield enhancers (which also raises the energy recharge, but only by factor 1.5).

I'll try this out and let you know how I get on.

Smivs wrote:

Quick question if anyone can help...I want the Bounty Hunters to be a bit tougher than the pirate versions, so would like to give them naval energy units and the pirates extra energy units, but I can't find anything on this in the Wiki, and I've been told that " has_naval_energy_unit = yes;" doesn't work. How is this done?

EDIT
I think I might have found the answer in this comment by Commander McLane in another thread...

This is because (player ships can) have Extra or Naval Energy Units. These are normally not available for NPCs, which are always stuck with recharge rates of between 3.5 and 5 (normal range). However, for a player ship the Extra Energy Unit will multiply this by 1.8, and the Naval Energy Unit even by 2.6, according to the code.

By the way: In vanilla Oolite this gives a huge advantage to the player. He can easily have about double the energy recharge of his NPC counterparts. Plus he has shields. The only thing NPCs can do is increase their max energy through shield boosters and shield enhancers (which also raises the energy recharge, but only by factor 1.5).

I'll try this out and let you know how I get on.

since all the energy units do is increase the recharge rate, all you have to do is increase the base recharge rate of the ship. it's not like it matters what equipment an npc ship actually has since all you have to do is change the stats.

OK, let's try again
Version 3.1 is now available for download, from my website or box.net.
If all goes according to plan, the Pirates should have the equivalent of an Extra Energy unit with Military shields, and the Bounty Hunters will be tougher with the equivalent of a Naval Energy Unit and Military shields. In practice slightly less as I want to make sure a good player ship is better.
I've kept the speed 'down' at 4.5LM and the energy banks are still at Five with a v. good recharge rate, so this should be quite 'Uber' but without being over-the-top outrageous.
Price remains at 1,250,000 Credits and cargo remains at 5 Tons.
Thanks to everyone (especially Zieman) for the help and advice, and for being patient and understanding.
Let's hope this one is OK. Fingers crossed.

Glad to help.

And sorry to be a pain in the butt, BUT there's still one typo in shipdata.plist:
it reads:

has_shield_boosters = yes;

when it shoud read:

has_shield_booster = yes;

Zieman wrote:

And sorry to be a pain in the butt, BUT there's still one typo in shipdata.plist:
it reads:

has_shield_boosters = yes;

when it shoud read:

has_shield_booster = yes;

Thanks Zieman, I thought I'd got all those. Sorted and re-uploaded.

Edit:-
15/6/2010:- Version 3.1.1 is now available for download. This replaces all previous versions, which may have some errors. If you've downloaded an earlier version I suggest you update to this version to enjoy Contractor at its best.

Oolite has what amounts to a spell checker for shipdata.plist, called the OXP verifier. It can currently only be invoked from the command line.

On Windows or Linux: On Mac OS X:

Ahruman wrote:

Oolite has what amounts to a spell checker for shipdata.plist, called the OXP verifier.

If only I'd known Seriously, this is going to be really useful. Thanks.

Just to let you all know, I've just released v3.1.2 of Contractor. This new version adds lighting affects to the Contractor and reduces further the chance of one appearing in shipyards.
Edit:- July 11th 2010 Re-uploaded file with improved emission map.

Nice!

Do the lights use shaders or emission/illumination maps?

DaddyHoggy wrote:

Nice!

Do the lights use shaders or emission/illumination maps?

Thanks
It's an emission map, with a little shininess and specular coded in the shipdata.plist materials section. As it's a 'stealth' ship, I didn't think hull spotlighting was appropriate.
These lighting effects are one of the advantages of v 1.74...non-shader computers (like mine) can now do things like this.

Edit:- a better picture...

Smivs wrote:

DaddyHoggy wrote:

Nice!

Do the lights use shaders or emission/illumination maps?

Thanks
It's an emission map, with a little shininess and specular coded in the shipdata.plist materials section.
This is one of the advantages of v 1.74...non-shader computers (like mine) can now do things like this.

Cool, I'll be downloading that then - although I've got a shader capable card I don't understand the "magic" of how it works, but I get the maps! You shall provide some inspiration!

Ha! Nice timing - I only just discovered this ship - and as I get to the end of the thread, further discover that mere hours ago it's been visually enhanced!

Very nice ship!