Oolite Bulletins

@Amen link in your post doesn't seem to work

@Cmdr. Maegil:

Please don't take offence with my comment, this is NOT an attack.

Very obviously no offense meant and none taken

Is your ego ready yet?

Brace for impact ...

OK, here it goes:

Are you trying to make it unusable even by machines with 2Gb RAM? Why don't you do something like YAH and split them into smaller packages.

Erm ... no, no worries

A very short introduction to my idea ... and don`t nail me to that as a promise, I don`t know yet if its actually doable and if I`ll do the work ...

I am playing with the thought of creating eight different versions of ships that are actually variants of the existing ships.

A decomissioned, rusty version that is worse off than the original, but costs less and is easier available. But less of them appear than the original.

Three "MkII" versions of original ships, that have more cargo capacity, more speed or more shielding/energy than the original, and cost roughly double that, more difficult to find also. Less of them should appear than the original.

(If a ship already has a MkX designation, it gets added. A cargo-extended Cobra MkIII for example would be a "Cobra MkIV `H`" - the `H` stands for "Hauler" - and cost double than the original Cobra MkIII etc.)

Three "MkIII" versions of original ships, that have the bonuses of two MkII versions combined, cost roughly four times the original, and are rather rare. Very few of them should appear.

One "Super" version of each ship, that combines all three bonuses, costs eight times the original, is hardly ever possible to find, either in the player or the NPC version.

That way, nine times as many ships should appear without needing more models or textures and without needing much more processor capacity!

So, instead of about 190 player and 500 NPC ships there should be about 1700 player and 3500 NPC ships - 5200 ships and still working with today`s processors

Panic circuits disengaged?

Discuss

L

Oh, PS @Stromboli:

I'd be willing to contribute models to a project, though I'd need to get some inspiration first. These low poly jobs are easy!

I would be very interested in that offer! PM me if you like ...

You're really trying to make me DL RS and spend a day or two indulging in hack&slash with a planer blade on the code until it fits my computer, aren't you?

Cmdr. Maegil wrote:

You're really trying to make me DL RS and spend a day or two indulging in hack&slash with a planer blade on the code until it fits my computer, aren't you?

Yes

... by the way, why don`t you just upgrade your computer ... the specs that RS demands are buyable for a few hundred euro I think ... just saying



L

I'm not sure that upgrading all the ship specs to give even more choice is a good idea really. The majority of OXP contributions have tended to be ships, and several missions add a lot of additional ships too. There's more than enough already, what I would like to see is better eye candy, more of griffs type of ships, which are phenominally good.

The stations and planet textures are also superb now, so my vote would go to improving the appearance of existing ships rather than a bigger range of the same stuff.

Lestradae wrote:

... by the way, why don`t you just upgrade your computer

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$



If you really want to know, I'm dead broke and just barely managing. I half reverted to hunter-gatherer, and my present largest expenditure is on a pack of cigarettes every two days.
Basically I'm stranded on the Caribbean with an unseaworthy boat and impeded from getting a proper job. I occasionally get a few days of work on someone elses' boats, scraping and sanding, redoing fiberglass and gel coating, applying antifouling paint, checking and replacing mast rigging and lights, electricity or even plumbing, but not earning even nearly enough money to cover for what I used to think a minimum living standard required, much less to buy an engine and a new main sail.

I can only log in because my boat has solar panels and there's an (overloaded) free wifi provider on one of the marinas nearby.

In short, I've been screwed for over an year now.

(In the case you found my post too candid, please mind the sig.)

Hi Cmdr. Maegil!

Oh Sh..! Damn! That sucks. I understand ...

Marooned in the Caribbean with Oolite onboard doesn`t sound too bad on the surface ... but not knowing how to get out of there again does. Actually, I did want to know ... oh dear.

I don`t know from where you are originally, but wouldn`t it be a possibility to go back there (europe, us??) and earn some cash there until it all works out again, and then come back? Just a thought, I`m sure you`ve already thought of that ...

Concerning your sig, I sincerely hope that`s not life experiences you are describing?

I any case, wish you all good things, that you find a solution out of your situation!

Concerning RS & the too slow problem: If the biggest problem are the textures, Svengali tipped me that the textures could all be mass-converted to 8-bit by many graphics programs, then they would take up (he says) about one quarter of the memory they do now - the quality would perhaps sink and the ships look a bit more cartoony, but if the texture mass is a problem that should speed things up significantly ...

Good luck man,

L

@Cmdr. Maegil, hope you're RL situation improves real soon.

@Lestradae, System Redux only uses 8 bit textures without losing too much detail.

8-bit paletted textures are converted to 32-bit RGBA in memory. Essentially no graphics cards support paletted textures natively (because it would require twice as many memory reads per fragment). 8-bit greyscale textures are supported, however.

Lestradae wrote:

Oh Sh..! Damn! That sucks. I understand ...

Marooned in the Caribbean with Oolite onboard doesn`t sound too bad on the surface ... but not knowing how to get out of there again does. Actually, I did want to know ... oh dear.

CaptKev wrote:

@Cmdr. Maegil, hope you're RL situation improves real soon.

Thanks for the support, guys!

Now, it could be worse: I could be marooned on a 'civilized' country, where every bit of land and fruit tree are someone's 'propriety' and I would have been already deported anyway; besides, the climate is much sweeter than, say, Norway!

Lestradae wrote:

I don`t know from where you are originally, but wouldn`t it be a possibility to go back there (europe, us??) and earn some cash there until it all works out again, and then come back? Just a thought, I`m sure you`ve already thought of that ...

Concerning your sig, I sincerely hope that`s not life experiences you are describing?

Do you know what an expatriate is? I'm such a one, son of two others from different countries... I can't really say I have a country except for the paperwork; or rather, I have several, of none of which I can fully identify myself and who don't recognize me anyway.
The sig represents not only a sociopathic attitude, but also a joke on part of my ancestry - and I'm not married!

As for returning to ******: in my present situation that would entail asking the embassy for an emergency repatriation on which my passport would be recalled for quite a long time - and it wouldn't really improve my situation in either short or medium terms, even cancelling the few advantages of being where I am.
Besides, if I did so, I'd probably lose the boat.

All in all, I hope that with the cruisers coming in for the hurricane season I may get enough for even an used main sail that fits my mast; with that I may go to Africa for some coastal trading. Once I can afford the engine I'll start on a planned Brazil-Africa route which hopefully will bring me back to my feet.

Again, thanks for the concern!

TGHC wrote:

@Amen link in your post doesn't seem to work

Which post? Also, are you using a wifi link and a non stoppable download?

Hi Cmdr. Maegil!

Now, it could be worse: I could be marooned on a 'civilized' country, where every bit of land and fruit tree are someone's 'propriety' and I would have been already deported anyway;

Yeah ... there`s more than something to what you are saying sadly

Do you know what an expatriate is?

Oh yes, I`ve known a few in my "civilised" country ... not that my country being "civilised" helped a lot, just like you said.

All in all, I hope that with the cruisers coming in for the hurricane season I may get enough for even an used main sail that fits my mast; with that I may go to Africa for some coastal trading. Once I can afford the engine I'll start on a planned Brazil-Africa route which hopefully will bring me back to my feet.

Sounds very cool, I hope it works out!

Again, thanks for the concern!

You`re more than welcome

L

Cmdr. Maegil wrote:

All in all, I hope that with the cruisers coming in for the hurricane season I may get enough for even an used main sail that fits my mast; with that I may go to Africa for some coastal trading. Once I can afford the engine I'll start on a planned Brazil-Africa route which hopefully will bring me back to my feet.

So… why exactly do you feel the need to play Oolite? :-)

Ahruman wrote:

So… why exactly do you feel the need to play Oolite?

I grew up with Elite, man!

I trust many on this boards remember the "Your Sinclair" magazine? In it there was a section about what 10 games would you like to have if you were on a deserted island, and month after month "Elite" remained on the list while others were continuously supplanted by the loads of new (and great) games that were released monthly; if I had a decent computer and a free choice, my HD would probably be used as model by their editors.


In short, I just accidentally ended up living my childhood fantasy...

Ouch! Sorry for your RL troubles Commander.