Oolite Bulletins

Posted: **Wed Mar 03, 2010 11:54 pm**

Also seen in cargo pods and alloys, which have no thrust of their own, and continue on their inherited velocity forever, while the target inspector shows them having a speed of 0.

Posted: **Wed Mar 03, 2010 11:57 pm**

Commander McLane wrote:
…while the target inspector shows them having a speed of 0.

Nöt any möre, as Inspector Clouseau would say.

Posted: **Thu Mar 11, 2010 11:11 am**

HUD is now switchable on-the-fly by scripts. The new JS ~~method~~ property to do this is
~~player.ship.switchHudTo("myFunkyHud.plist");~~

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player.ship.hud = "myFunkyHud.plist";

Edit: Post-SVN3062, the switchHudTo method has been replaced with the read/write JS property player.ship.hud.

Posted: **Thu Mar 11, 2010 12:47 pm**

ooooh...what's the triggers? could we switch to a damaged HUD, if some equipment was damaged, eg? or swap to a trading HUD when docked?

Posted: **Thu Mar 11, 2010 1:01 pm**

Killer Wolf wrote:
ooooh...what's the triggers? could we switch to a damaged HUD, if some equipment was damaged, eg? or swap to a trading HUD when docked?

Any of the JavaScript event handlers can be used to switch the HUD and yes, both of your suggestions will be possible.

Posted: **Thu Mar 11, 2010 1:24 pm**

Looking forward to bruised and cracked HUDs. Excellent way how to measure ship damage.

Posted: **Thu Mar 11, 2010 3:36 pm**

another_commander wrote:
Killer Wolf wrote:
ooooh...what's the triggers? could we switch to a damaged HUD, if some equipment was damaged, eg? or swap to a trading HUD when docked?
Any of the JavaScript event handlers can be used to switch the HUD and yes, both of your suggestions will be possible.

Oh, now that's cool!

How quickly could HUDs be switched and how often? I'm just thinking of the possibility of using HUD switching to create the effect of say flickering power supplies and lighting (For example Deepspace's excellent 3D projection looking scanner).

Posted: **Thu Mar 11, 2010 4:17 pm**

DaddyHoggy wrote:
How quickly could HUDs be switched and how often? I'm just thinking of the possibility of using HUD switching to create the effect of say flickering power supplies and lighting (For example Deepspace's excellent 3D projection looking scanner).

I'm afraid the timers don't run that fast. The minimum timer interval is hardcoded to 0.25 seconds, which means you can at maximum switch hud four times in a second. Not fast enough to create the illusion of movement, unfortunately.

Posted: **Thu Mar 11, 2010 4:46 pm**

even without flickering, simply losing the hud from view entirely for a second or two should give the feeling of being in a fight and taking damage to systems / losing power?

edit; but I guess that's more 'switching off the hud' rather than 'switching the hud'.... Hm

Posted: **Thu Mar 11, 2010 4:56 pm**

lfnfan wrote:
even without flickering, simply losing the hud from view entirely for a second or two should give the feeling of being in a fight and taking damage to systems / losing power?

edit; but I guess that's more 'switching off the hud' rather than 'switching the hud'.... Hm

Which is fine, because we can do that with JavaScript too:

Code: Select all

player.ship.hudHidden = true/false;

Posted: **Thu Mar 11, 2010 5:24 pm**

coo-el

random brief on/off's when power gets below a certain level, more prolonged off's when it's nearly time to reach for the exit (or the GHD (not the hair straighteners)).

I'd buy that .oxp

maybe even lose any pre-set targets in the multi-targeting computer... although that's making life a little harder at precisely the wrong time

One for the sci-fi trivia thread: Who made use of an 'artificial injury generator' in a well-known 1970s/80s sci-fi series?

Posted: **Thu Mar 11, 2010 8:51 pm**

You don't need much flicker, all you'd need is 3 hud images, a standard one for good condition, a really faded out one, and a middle faded one. Switch from the main to the middle when power is low, and occasionally switch to the really faded one when power is very low (could be randomised).
Ok, so each flicker lasts no more than 1/4 second, but it's enough to count.

Plus you could have a standard hud, and a red-alert hud.

Posted: **Thu Mar 11, 2010 10:10 pm**

I have made a small video using a modified Oolite binary that allows timer intervals as short as 0.03125 seconds. What is shown therein is the two HUDs of the main game (standard and small) switching between each other as soon as cloak has been activated. It gives a pretty good impression of a malfunctioning hud, I think. However, I am not sure what side effects these very short timers might have with the rest of the game and if we could possibly make the minimum intervals this short or not - I have not noticed any issues, but haven't checked thoroughly. But I think this gives a pretty good idea of what the switching effect could look like.

Posted: **Thu Mar 11, 2010 10:37 pm**

whoa, I think that's a bit too quick a flicker!

Posted: **Tue Mar 23, 2010 5:55 pm**

New autopilot features: The autopilot code has been decoupled from the docking computers control one and scripts have been granted access to it. What this means, is that scripts now can start up autopilot to specified stations and they can also stop it. Scripts are responsible for checking for the existence of docking computers when calling the autopilot, if so required. What this, in turn, means is that autopilot can be engaged and disengaged by scripts even if the player does not have the Docking Computers installed. The two methods for this are player.ship.engageAutopilotToStation, which takes as parameter the station we are telling the autopilot to dock us with and player.ship.disengageAutopilot, without parameters. Example of usage:

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player.ship.engageAutopilotToStation(system.mainStation);

player.ship.disengageAutopilot();

If no valid station entity is specified for docking with (e.g. trying to script-dock with a police Viper), an error will be reported in the log.

Additionally, the playerStartedAutoPilot event handler now takes as argument the station we are trying to dock to:

Code: Select all

this.playerStartedAutoPilot = function(stationToDockTo)
{
	log("playerStartedAutoPilot", "Player has initiated autopilot sequence to " + stationToDockTo);
}

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