Oolite Bulletins

Shipbuilder wrote:

I have much to think about regarding this OXP and at this stage have not made any definite decisions on how exactly it will work so very much appreciate all the feedback.

There's always ways around these things ... I think a lot depends on what you want to OXP to do. If it's to provide some background traffic, and add a bit more life and bustle to some systems, then you'll want a different range of behaviours to an OXP which might provide missions and/or trading and transport opportunities for the player.

As regards Q-explosions, maybe the ship could have different modes? If it's scooping fuel, then the quirium is "active" or somesuch and if the ship blows up then you get a Q-bomb effect. But once it's full, the quirium is safe. So a ship in flight - full or empty - wouldn't produce a Blue Sphere of Death: but if you see one sunskimming, you should keep well clear!

Disembodied wrote:

Yeah, but you can't (under normal circumstances) shoot a main system station and make it explode

Which raises an interesting point: you can't (under normal circumstances) shoot a Q-mine and make it detonate. Explode, yes...

cim wrote:

Which raises an interesting point: you can't (under normal circumstances) shoot a Q-mine and make it detonate. Explode, yes...

<nods> Isn't that the same as a RL nuclear bomb/warhead? You can blow one apart, but without the correct detonation sequence, there is no thermo-nuclear event. <wonders if he's got that right>

Yes, as far as I know that is correct. I had something like this in mind when I suggested (somewhere above) that the Q-bomb has a special detonator.

Smivs wrote:

You could make the 'tanks' sub-entities then by 'like_ship'-ing you could have variants with different numbers of tanks.

The problem of different subentities and one single main body would be, that the main body only rotates correct for one setup. For all other setups, the centre would be to far in front or back. So every number of tanks needs it own mainbody with customised centre point. (no like_shipping )

Eric Walch wrote:

The problem of different subentities and one single main body would be, that the main body only rotates correct for one setup. For all other setups, the centre would be to far in front or back.

Well, nobody said it had to handle well!

Like Ranthe I have also reread the relevant part of Status Quo, and believe that if pressurisation was the key to isolating the quirium C64 isotope then the Q bomb would have been discovered long before Tyler, Feynman.
A number of unexplained Q bomb type explosions would have occured in normal combat or docking accidents, investigation of which would have shown this effect. Remember there is a lot of pressure built up in a normal explosion such as a ship being destroyed.
I would suggest that only if the C64 isotope is present in sufficient quantity, such as in the experiment to improve the injectors would a chain reaction occur. As this is not the case in natural quirium I believe the carriage of bulk fuel in normal pressurised containers should not pose a significant risk of a Q bomb type explosion.

I think for the first tanker oxp that I produce I will develop it along the lines of a ship which will travel to a nearby star, collect fuel and then return to resupply the station.

That way I can make use of the script Thargoid refers to on the first page of this thread. However I do intend to produce separate models for the ship with one, two and three fuel tanks as suggested by cim.

I think also that the ship will be a NPC ship to provide the game with some additional background ambiance (I can't see that a ship designed to travel repeatedly between station and star would provide sufficient interest for a player).

However I still have time to change my mind whilst I am playing around with models and textures

Thanks very much for the offer of help Thargoid.

I'll be in touch regarding the tanker OXP once it has been adequately progressed.

Much appreciated.

Following recent discussions I have put together the 1, 2 and 3 tank versions of this ship.

wow! They look really good .