Oolite Bulletins

Meanwhile, back in the ready-room, the test pilots are drinking Riedquatian ale…

‘Well… what do you think, guys?’
‘Hell… it’s tough out there, alright… I only just limped back, last in again.’
‘Yeah… you just love buying the beer, don’t you? But you’re right… it’s serious out there.’
‘That’s for sure, but I think I can handle it… just. The repair bills though… massive!’
‘Ain’t they just… it’s just as well that Boff’s footing the bill.’
‘Amen to that… I’ve spent nearly a hundred grand already… that’s a lot of spondulix.’
‘Heh, yeah… anyway, salut! guys… here’s to the next sortie.’
‘Aye… salut!’

Ahruman wrote:

It is a zip file, but with the wrong MIME type (text/html). Smart browsers, given text/html and apparently binary content, try to guess the correct extension and in this case land at exe (possibly because of the .aspx in the URL, but that wouldn’t be very smart).

In any case, renaming it to foo.zip should work.

That's interesting. The backend code specifically provides the MIME type as "application/x-msdownload". Anyways, I've changed it: One of you try it and see if it resolves the issue?

Cmd. Cheyd wrote:

That's interesting. The backend code specifically provides the MIME type as "application/x-msdownload".

Well, that explains the exe thing, then. Don’t know why curl was seeing text/html.

application/octet-stream does work.

In the ready-room, the pilots are drinking black coffee… their faces are grim, weary…

‘Do you think he’ll make it back?’
‘Doubt it… he’s long overdue.’
‘Yeah… another good pilot eats vacuum… hey-ho!’
‘That’s the job… we’ll miss him buying the beer, though.’
‘You got no heart, Cap… but you’re right.’

Suddenly, the klaxon begins to wail…

Just a thought, I seem to recall that in one episode in Assassins there were about 200 ships waiting for you on arrival at the witchpoint.

Down in the Labs, moronic apprentice boffin Smivs, now promoted to full Mad Scientist, admired his latest creation. It was mischievous, evil even, the deranged product of a warped mind. And it was almost ready to unleash!
"He, He" he cackled as he rubbed his hands together in malicious glee, "this will sort out the Men from the Boys......"

The door of the ready-room opens, and a heavily sunburnt pilot enters…

‘Ho… you made it back, then. We’d given you up for lost.’
‘Sure had… I even bought the beer… for the first time.’
‘Where the heck did you get that sunburn… been lazing on the beaches of Bizalein, have you?’
‘Hell, guys… nice to see you too. Damn sun went nova, didn’t it… I nearly fried!’
‘Now that sounds like a good tale… do enlighten us.’
‘Get the beers in first, mate… then tell all.’

My own skin peeled off repeatedly when that happened to me!

TG 2 Release

Smivs is pleased to announce the release of ToughGuys 2.
This version builds on the original, and affects the level of equipment fitted to NPC ships. There are now three levels of 'nastiness'. It can be used in two ways.

1) As an experienced Commander, you might feel that the 'enemy' are getting too easy to deal with, so you can use this OXP to re-balance the game, giving you tougher adversaries more suited to your combat skills.
The first level (ToughGuys:Anarchy) would be suitable for this. The enemy will have a range of weapons upgrades and extra equipment, giving you a wide variety of abilities to deal with. Some enemies will still be quite weak while others will be noticably stronger than in standard Oolite. While making life much harder, an experienced Commander shouldn't find themselves overwhelmed. Only ships with the role 'Pirate' are effected, so Police ships and Traders will remain un-changed. An Ace Commander might consider installing level 2 as the default. Level three is not suitable for regular use, except by the Bravest of the Brave.

2) Using your imagination and degree of immersion in the game this OXP will also allow you to witness and participate in a descent into total lawlessness across the Ooniverse where Pirates and Criminals are in the ascendancy and GalCop forces are overwhelmed. There are no specific missions and it's entirely up to you and your imagination to flesh-out the scenarios, but this OXP will give you the environment you need to do this.
The fall towards Armageddon occurs in three phases, and you can work through this as you see fit, quickly if you want to, or perhaps over many weeks or even months. When you think it's time for things to get worse remove the current level from your AddOns folder and install the next level. Of course if you want the situation to improve, you can re-install a lesser level at any time.

A possible story-line might look like this-
ToughGuys:Anarchy
Law and Order is collapsing across the Eight Galaxies. Criminals and Pirate Gangs are growing stronger and more bold, and the threat to innocent citizens is causing great concern. The spacelanes are becoming very dangerous places, but you should still be safe in an Iron-Ass ship with a good Commander at the helm.
ToughGuys:Apocalypse
As time passes, the situation becomes critical. Civilian and Merchant shipping is becoming ever more heavily armed to deal with the criminal insurgency. With the Navy fully occupied dealing with the Thargoid threat GalCop forces are out-gunned and struggling to contain the menace. The Pirate marauders continue to re-arm and strengthen, adding bigger stronger ships to their fleets, while the civilian population cowers. Open warfare is commonplace throughout the spacelanes.
ToughGuys:Armageddon
Out-gunned and out-numbered, GalCop forces can no longer maintain Law and Order, and the Pirate Alliances become the dominant force in the Ooniverse, their heavily-armed ships destroying all in their path. Anarchy rules the spaceways and no ship is left to pass in peace.
In a last-ditch attempt to restore Order, GalCop takes the expensive step of up-grading the weaponry on it's vast fleets of Vipers, and learning that the Navy is about to take delivery of several hundred of their much-delayed new super-fighter the Constrictor, GalCop controversially requisitions these and adds them to their Police Fleet.
In a bid to gain total supremacy, the Pirate Alliance forces begin to blockade the industrial worlds across the Eight Galaxies in a bid to cripple trade and force GalCop into capitulating. Even with their new-found fire-power, the GalCop forces struggle to make any impact.
And yet against all the odds, a few brave souls, known only as 'The Commanders' still fight back. These pilots are the finest warriors the Ooniverse has, and they will not concede defeat. They continue the fight to rid the spacelanes of danger in the full knowledge that the odds are against them, their cause is hopeless, and their death lies but a Jump away.

Three editions are available:
The standard edition is suitable for basic Oolite, (where no other OXPs are installed), and should work in conjunction with most other OXPs although you may find some interesting cross-OXP 'features'.
Please report any incompatibilities via the ToughGuys2 thread on the Bulletin Board.
It has been coded for and tested as working with the individual download versions of Griff's Ships, and should work with any other replacement ship set using the default ship names.
There are also two special editions. One is optimised for Griff's all-in-one ship set. The other is optimised for Smivs'Shipset, and includes unique textures for the GalCop Constrictor and the Boa and Boa 2 Pirates (see picture).

Downloads are available from Smivsonline, or via the Wiki page

Licence/Author/Credits:

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.
The OXP was developed by Smivs.
Special thanks go to El Viejo for many hours of testing and much invaluable feedback, and Another_Commander for his help with the Blockade Script. Thanks also go to Fatleaf and Gogz69 for testing and feedback.

In the ready-room, the klaxon wails…

‘Okay commanders, this is the big one… full squadron scramble!’
‘You got it, cap… per ardua ad astra.’
‘Ooh, listen to him… gone all posh, have we?’
‘Yeah, he’ll be reciting Virgil next… facilis descensus averni.’
‘By the way… have you noticed how Boff’s started cackling quietly to himself lately?’
‘Yep… bit ominous that… still, we can handle it. Let’s hit the ’lanes!’

Meanwhile, down in the Labs, newly promoted Mad Scientist Boff hears the distant klaxon.
"Poor sods, they don't know what they're letting themselves in for. What have I done?".

Out in the Ooniverse, Hell's shadow grows longer, a darkness descends, and all seems lost. The hopes of every living thing lies with that small band of fearless warriors, the Commanders.

Will give this a shot!

Perhaps some other space pilots (perhaps not as geriatric as the "Commanders", but with greying hair all the same) might lend some lasers to the fight!

Smivs wrote:

TG 2 Release
...
The first level (ToughGuys:Anarchy) would be suitable for this.

Come to think of it, it's possible to make ships only appear in anarchy systems. (Though you mean anarchy in a different way -- everywhere!) In its shipdata.plist file:
conditions = ("systemGovernment_number equal 0");

My Switeck mod OXP is much like ToughGuys -- many NPC ships have more equipment than they normally did in plain Oolite. I'll be comparing them to ToughGuys to see if they rate at least as tough as your lowest difficulty level.

Switeck wrote:

Smivs wrote:

TG 2 Release
...
The first level (ToughGuys:Anarchy) would be suitable for this.

Come to think of it, it's possible to make ships only appear in anarchy systems. (Though you mean anarchy in a different way -- everywhere!) In its shipdata.plist file:
conditions = ("systemGovernment_number equal 0");

That's right, Anarchy as in the first step on the road to Armageddon. I got a bit clever with the names (he says, smugly ) as they are in alphabetical order (An...comes before Ap...which comes before Ar...) which means they appear in the correct order in the download package. Incidently it should also mean they over-ride each other in the correct order if all are placed in the AddOns folder together.

Switeck wrote:

My Switeck mod OXP is much like ToughGuys -- many NPC ships have more equipment than they normally did in plain Oolite. I'll be comparing them to ToughGuys to see if they rate at least as tough as your lowest difficulty level.

That will be an interesting comparison. As I understand it, your mod also affects shipyards and markets. TG2 is less fussy...it just adds lots of fun bad, badder and baddiest 'baddies'

curtsibling wrote:

perhaps not as geriatric as the "Commanders"

<grins wickedly>... 'geriatric' commanders, is it? Check six, young’un!