Oolite Bulletins

Griff_RockHermit_Test
http://www.box.net/shared/a4zfyd1tui (50Kb)


I'm a bit stumped for ideas for the rock hermit for the shipset, i've come up with this model but i'm not sure if its polygon count is a touch on the high side - 2566 polygons in total! It's the pipework inside the tunnel that's ramping up the polygons, the tunnel object itself is 2058 polygons, the rock is 402, and the dock is 106.

I thought i'd test out the OXP for feasibility before going to all the trouble of UV'ing it and sorting out textures.
OXP contains a script.js in it's config folder that spawns a rock hermit outside the station when you launch, it's fully dockable and everything, i've tested it with a Cobra III, Anaconda, and the MK 1 & 2 Boas, but i suppose bigger ships might have problems.

It looks eerie in it’s present form.

I like the docking tunnel, and the inner slot is nice.
No problems docking a Cobra III.

Griff wrote:

it's fully dockable and everything, i've tested it with a Cobra III, Anaconda, and the MK 1 & 2 Boas, but i suppose bigger ships might have problems.

I think the cobra already has problems. The current rock has a port size of 138 x 138. And the cobra III is 130 meter wide. The cobra III is the widest of Oolites own ships and just fits.

But your port is 115.200 x 64.241. That is to small for a cobra III

Eric Walch wrote:

And the cobra III is 130 meter wide.

Is that size from the reference sheet? I think Ahruman said a while ago (page 35 of this thread) that a lot of the dimensions in the RS are incorrect. As I said, I just docked my Cobra III with no problems.

oh no, i thought i'd scaled the dock properly, i just checked now and you're right it is too small - i need to scale up the object to 167% to get the dock to the proper size, which ends up with the hermit rock being about the size of the coriolis It's odd though, i'm not having any problems docking ships, and the dock object for the built in hermit is also smaller than the standard bay, is Oolite performing any special case stuff behind the scenes for rock hermits?

You'll have to dock your Cobra diagonally. A quick bit of Pythagorus tells me the diagonal of your docking bay is around 132, just big enough if you are super-careful lining up with the diagonal

El Viejo wrote:

Eric Walch wrote:

And the cobra III is 130 meter wide.

Is that size from the reference sheet? I think Ahruman said a while ago (page 35 of this thread) that a lot of the dimensions in the RS are incorrect. As I said, I just docked my Cobra III with no problems.

No I retrieved the data from the .mod file for the cobra itself. And it is correct that you won't notice the problem on manual docking. But I intend to add a physical dimension check for the docking computer for 1.75. In that case any ship that is to big will not get docking instructions. (Manual docking and quick docking will still be possible though). That would prevent all buggy written oversized ships docking at, or launching from stations.

As far as I see there are almost no ships that don't fit in normal or hermit docks. But it would if we introduce a dock with a below average dimension.

Griff wrote:

i need to scale up the object to 167% to get the dock to the proper size, which ends up with the hermit rock being about the size of the coriolis It's odd though, i'm not having any problems docking ships, and the dock object for the built in hermit is also smaller than the standard bay, is Oolite performing any special case stuff behind the scenes for rock hermits?

You could internally add a big dock, and add the current smaller docking slit in front. The code will not check the slit, but the overall size of the dock subentity. Docking has special collision detection. Even when you fully close the entrance, as in the buoyRepair stations, a ship will still fly through. (This feels as a bug to me though)

i tried on my skank machine and although i thought i'd got a screengrab i appear not to >:-| anways, i docked safe but it appeared my D'back's wingtips were sliding through the sidewalls.

BTW, i'd say your hermit SHOULD be at LEAST as big as a Cori : who's going to go to all that bother to hollow out a titchy little pebble and fit all that construction on it? Like the Hackers and Salvage gang, i think these should be gargantuan asteroids, rare and deep in space.

edit : oh aye ~ it's a fkn gorgeous model!!!

Eric Walch wrote:

No I retrieved the data from the .mod file for the cobra itself. And it is correct that you won't notice the problem on manual docking. But I intend to add a physical dimension check for the docking computer for 1.75. In that case any ship that is to big will not get docking instructions. (Manual docking and quick docking will still be possible though). That would prevent all buggy written oversized ships docking at, or launching from stations.

As far as I see there are almost no ships that don't fit in normal or hermit docks. But it would if we introduce a dock with a below average dimension.

Ah... thanks Eric, I 'think' I understand.

Agree with KW about the size of Rock Hermits.

Killer Wolf wrote:

BTW, i'd say your hermit SHOULD be at LEAST as big as a Cori : who's going to go to all that bother to hollow out a titchy little pebble and fit all that construction on it? Like the Hackers and Salvage gang, i think these should be gargantuan asteroids, rare and deep in space.

edit : oh aye ~ it's a fkn gorgeous model!!!

I'd favour increasing the size of the Rock Hermit, too, and maybe even giving it a bit of a spin for some internal gravity (which might help certain people to identify them as Rock Hermits, before they start blasting them – naming no names ). And I second KW's appreciation of the model!

Thanks everyone for testing out the hermit, i've rescaled it so that the dock is roughly the same size as the standard oolite dock object (i did it by eye so the griff_hermit dock is slightly bigger i think).
bigger hermit test: http://www.box.net/shared/kz52gsxx3k
It would be great to have some slight rotation on the object, is it possible to set custom rotation speeds for stations, or do they all have to spin at the same rate as the main station in the system?

Griff wrote:

, is it possible to set custom rotation speeds for stations, or do they all have to spin at the same rate as the main station in the system?

Should be a scripting request. As far as I can see there is no fundamental reason that all stations in a given system must have the same rotation speed. But currently the stations only look for a rotation speed in planetInfo.plist.

Griff, there's an attribute called "rotational velocity" which you can use (if you're happy w/ quaternions!) to spin your rock. i used them on the Nuit.
the stations themselves use an "rotating" attribute which i deduce sets teh standard spin rate.

by the way, hexagon docking sequence rings, that's cool!

nuts, is it?

i didn't realise there were subent specific attributes. or maybe i forgot, i'm getting old

well, what about creating the hermit as a tiny cube out of sight behind the dock, and have the rock etc as rotational-velocitying subents, would that be doable?