Oolite Bulletins

V4.0 is now available.
In keeping with my recent spate of updates, this new version now has an on-board model for stability.
It also has improved graphics, with a slight re-style of the ship to fit more comfortably with the 'Smivs' Ooniverse and a new emission map for improved lighting effects.
The NPC bounty hunter behaviour has also been much improved thanks to a new AI and ship-script, both kindly supplied by Commander McLane.
Downloads are available from Smivsonline or via the Wiki.

Nice one Smivs - you have been busy over Christmas haven't you?!

Now here's a funny thing, earlier today Maresnest raised a question about the spec of the Contractor, namely the Pitch. It seems that somehow for the recent versions (4.0 and 4.1) it has increased from 1.75 to 2.0. I have no idea how this happened, and it is not desperately important so I'm not going to issue a bugfix for it. If you do find your Contractor a bit twitchy, just change the figure in the shipdata.plist. This applies to player, bounty-hunter and pirate variants.

Change to

19/01/2012:- Contractor Mk II is now available. This is a re-release with a substantially different ship.

The Mk II has a new darker and more organic 'skin', and the model has been augmented with a gun and engine nacelles. It now has only two TC cargo but adds two missile pylons, and also has a unique HUD. The ZZ1's 'twitchy' handling has been tamed, making the Contractor even more pleasurable to fly.



You can find more pictures, with full details of the ship, it's specification and history on the Wiki page , or here on my website. Both pages also include a Download link.

Normal mapped too? Well done you!

DaddyHoggy wrote:

Normal mapped too? Well done you!

Ha, no it's not I'm afraid...I have still to get my head round normal maps and shaders etc.
It makes the most of the 'Materials' attributes now available, but only uses a diffuse_map (albeit a very clever and sophisticated one) and emission_map.
The model is still the default Constrictor model although I have used sub-entities for the nacelles and gun, and it is these which give the more detailed and '3D' look to the ship.
It does look pretty awesome in game, though and I am very happy with it.

Smivs wrote:

I have still to get my head round normal maps and shaders etc.
It makes the most of the 'Materials' attributes now available

You’re contradicting yourself here. You don’t need shaders for normal maps, and making the most of standard materials would mean using normal maps.

Ahruman wrote:

Smivs wrote:

I have still to get my head round normal maps and shaders etc.
It makes the most of the 'Materials' attributes now available

You’re contradicting yourself here. You don’t need shaders for normal maps, and making the most of standard materials would mean using normal maps.

There, you see, I told you I still need to start understanding this stuff!

Following UK_Elter's post here, I have issued an 'optimised' Textures folder for Contractor Mk II.
There is nothing wrong with the original files, except they are larger than they need to be.
Anyone wanting the 'optimised' textures can get them (Zipped Textures folder) here.

v1.1 of Contractor Mk II is now available. This is a minor update to bring the script in to line with current conventions, and also corrects a fault in the AI.
The AI fault was causing the Bounty Hunter version to ignore Pirates so users are advised to upgrade to the current version to enjoy Contractor at its best. Player and Pirate versions are un-affected.

24th January, 2013
v1.2 is now available. This has improved graphics (normal and specular maps added) and is now optimised for Oolite v1.77 with detail tweaks to the weapons and 'accuracy' of NPC variants.

Smivs wrote:

24th January, 2013
v1.2 is now available. This has improved graphics (normal and specular maps added) and is now optimised for Oolite v1.77 with detail tweaks to the weapons and 'accuracy' of NPC variants.

Hi Smivs, I noticed that when I download the latest version from your side, the zip file contains a directory that is still called "contractorMkII_v1.1.oxp". Shouldn't it be "contractorMkII_v1.2.oxp"?

Ah, I don't know what happened there - brain-fade perhaps. Sorry.
Correct version now uploaded. If anybody has downloaded Contractor since 24th January, apologies but you may have the wrong/previous version and should re-download.
Thanks for the report GGShinobi

You're welcome!

v1.4 OXZ is now available.
This version is now fully converted for Oolite v1.80. The roles and AIs have been updated, and a new NPC role added. Previously the Hunter variant had a unique script and AI kindly written for this OXP some time ago by Commander McLane. This has been retained as the Bountyhunter Lonewolf - a solitary hunter with a real desire to kill. There is now also a Hunter Heavy variant using the default Oolite AI/script. The Pirate variant now uses the Pirate Heavy Fighter code.
I have also updated the graphics a bit. The big blue 'Sensor' thing has gone, and with some careful tweaking I have managed to reduce the graphics files by 0.5MB so it is a bit smaller as well.
MFD functionality has been added to the custom HUD.
All seems well, but testing has been limited (as these only rarely appear in game) so please report any problems. The player ship is fine and a quick test of spawning a Lonewolf Hunter and a Pirate together provided me with hours of entertainment suggesting everything is working as intended.