Oolite Bulletins

Posted: **Thu Mar 10, 2022 6:48 pm**

another_commander wrote: ↑Thu Mar 10, 2022 6:36 pm

Old Murgh wrote: ↑Thu Mar 10, 2022 6:30 pm
Damn, what kind of PC setup do I need to see pics like that?
Your Mac should be just fine, Murgh. I've shot those on an old Intel Pentium 4415U @ 2.30GHz Windows laptop with 4GB RAM and an Intel gfx chip.

If you say so I won't throw it away just yet. I thought I had every available planet texture available in the box but my planetscapes don't look as fine as that. Maybe I need to try removing some.

Posted: **Thu Mar 10, 2022 6:53 pm**

The Neptunian is from Povray Planets (unless another_commander's Grand Tour has got to Neptune).
I think the Mars shots are from his

Tionisla is Mars OXP.

Posted: **Thu Mar 10, 2022 7:16 pm**

Cody wrote: ↑Thu Mar 10, 2022 6:53 pm
The Neptunian is from Povray Planets (unless another_commander's Grand Tour has got to Neptune).
I think the Mars shots are from his Tionisla is Mars OXP.

The Neptunian is not Povray

. Not released in an OXP yet, though.

Mars is indeed from Tionisla is Mars 8k, but only after plenty of fooling around with atmosphere density and color settings. Here is one more pic where I am going wild with the fiddling:

As for other planetscapes, this one is now the home screen on my mobile:

Posted: **Thu Mar 10, 2022 7:24 pm**

Cody wrote: ↑Thu Mar 10, 2022 6:53 pm
The Neptunian is from Povray Planets (unless another_commander's Grand Tour has got to Neptune).
I think the Mars shots are from his Tionisla is Mars OXP.

another_commander wrote: ↑Thu Mar 10, 2022 7:16 pm
The Neptunian is not Povray . Not released in an OXP yet, though.

I don't have Povray. I'll try it, but I must say, having tried a number of combinations of the Stranger's world planet sets, and the Additional Planets set, don't amount to any difference from having none of them. Is there an "on"-button I've missed?
[edit:]
Povray planets work. They're lovely.

Posted: **Thu Mar 10, 2022 7:40 pm**

another_commander wrote: ↑Thu Mar 10, 2022 7:16 pm
The Neptunian is not Povray :-). Not released in an OXP yet, though.

<chortles> I wondered - the ring was perhaps the giveaway. For comparison, this is a Povray Neptunian:

Posted: **Thu Mar 10, 2022 7:48 pm**

Old Murgh wrote: ↑Thu Mar 10, 2022 7:24 pm

Povray planets work. They're lovely.

There are sure some really beautiful ones.

Posted: **Fri Mar 11, 2022 10:33 am**

Povray Planets and Additional Planets share a similar high definition heritage. Aside from the base set for Additional Planets SR there are 10 texture packs sitting in my ManagedAddOns folder which makes for some nice variety. All of these texture packs should be in the Expansion Manager or on the Wiki. Look for ones that contain the SR (System Redux) designation. The compliments to these are the Stations for Extra Planets OXZs and the Super Hubs for Extra Planets OXZs (two each - one base and one extra) which do as their names imply. They put Stations in orbit around these extra planets to give you a reason to visit them. The purist may not like this as it does give you more trading opportunities in a single system. Either trading between these additional stations or just making it easier to fill your cargo hold in a single system as opposed to filling it in several jumps across several systems. That would, of course, be dependent on the size of your cargo hold.

With all of the above in place a single system in my Ooniverse can have between 2 and 6 planets. Why only 6 you may ask? Because that is the single page size limit imposed by the Market Inquirer M.F.D. if you include the Main Station and a sun based Kiota Station (8 lines available to display station prices in the M.F.D.). That would make for a possible maximum of 8 Stations in a single system which is more than enough for any one trader even if they are piloting something huge. Do not even get me started on the possibilities once you add Planetfall into this mix. Did the Moon options get mentioned? Yes, Additional Planets can add multiple Moons to these planets making Planetfall even more robust.

There is one additional TWEAK that would be recommended to the Additional Planets suite. As the original was coded Stations will not appear above Gas Giants. This leads to missing out on some truly amazing textures for these worlds as there is little reason to visit them unless you also have the Gas Giant skimming OXZ installed, which is not in use here. So the code was changed to allow for stations to appear above Gas Giants. If Interested let me know and the TWEAK will be posted. It is an easy change to a single line of code.

Posted: **Fri Mar 11, 2022 11:11 am**

I should add in that Additional Planets is focused on playability & aesthetics rather than realism. The planets are specially placed to look good (which they indeed do)! The lack of realism eventually percolated through from my sub-conscious, hence my defection to Stranger's World (despite its hurling SLAPU's from the solar corona into the outer darknesses).

How super to have such a wealth of choices!

Posted: **Sat Mar 12, 2022 8:26 pm**

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Fri Mar 11, 2022 11:11 am
I should add in that Additional Planets is focused on playability & aesthetics rather than realism. The planets are specially placed to look good (which they indeed do)!

FWIW, I think the way to get the best of, or at least a compromise between, both (aesthetics and realism) is to have all the additional planets be gas giants, saving the other textures for moons.

Then:

You can increase the distance without losing the visibility
Believable looking moons with all those rocky textures
You can keep the quirky textures for either
- atmospheric moons orbiting gas giants
- rare, distant non gas-giant planets (for oddities)

Combine with the rescaling experiment and I think that's about as consistently realistic in terms of scale as oolite has ever managed.

Posted: **Thu Mar 17, 2022 10:13 pm**

The

Hamadryad flies again! Oddly, I can't see that anyone has done a "cover version" after its release in 2004 (newships.oxp). I think it was made in Meshwork for Mac and came with 4 tiny little stamp-like 256px textures. Movingly adorable. About time it got dusted off.

Posted: **Wed Mar 30, 2022 7:58 pm**

Posted: **Wed Mar 30, 2022 8:00 pm**

These are from before the third compression

Posted: **Wed Mar 30, 2022 8:29 pm**

cbr wrote: ↑Wed Mar 30, 2022 8:00 pm
These are from before the third compression

The top ones are fun. But the psychedelic thargoids are gorgeous.

Posted: **Wed Mar 30, 2022 10:13 pm**

Nite Owl wrote: ↑Fri Mar 11, 2022 10:33 am
Povray Planets and Additional Planets share a similar high definition heritage. Aside from the base set for Additional Planets SR there are 10 texture packs sitting in my ManagedAddOns folder which makes for some nice variety. All of these texture packs should be in the Expansion Manager or on the Wiki. Look for ones that contain the SR (System Redux) designation. The compliments to these are the Stations for Extra Planets OXZs and the Super Hubs for Extra Planets OXZs (two each - one base and one extra) which do as their names imply. They put Stations in orbit around these extra planets to give you a reason to visit them. The purist may not like this as it does give you more trading opportunities in a single system. Either trading between these additional stations or just making it easier to fill your cargo hold in a single system as opposed to filling it in several jumps across several systems. That would, of course, be dependent on the size of your cargo hold.

With all of the above in place a single system in my Ooniverse can have between 2 and 6 planets. Why only 6 you may ask? Because that is the single page size limit imposed by the Market Inquirer M.F.D. if you include the Main Station and a sun based Kiota Station (8 lines available to display station prices in the M.F.D.). That would make for a possible maximum of 8 Stations in a single system which is more than enough for any one trader even if they are piloting something huge. Do not even get me started on the possibilities once you add Planetfall into this mix. Did the Moon options get mentioned? Yes, Additional Planets can add multiple Moons to these planets making Planetfall even more robust.

There is one additional TWEAK that would be recommended to the Additional Planets suite. As the original was coded Stations will not appear above Gas Giants. This leads to missing out on some truly amazing textures for these worlds as there is little reason to visit them unless you also have the Gas Giant skimming OXZ installed, which is not in use here. So the code was changed to allow for stations to appear above Gas Giants. If Interested let me know and the TWEAK will be posted. It is an easy change to a single line of code.

Do you need any help with this?

Posted: **Fri Apr 01, 2022 12:41 am**

Thank you kindly for the offer Cholmondely but all of this is working perfectly in my Ooniverse. If memory serves my post was in response to the smallish discussion about Povray Planets. Added my post to that discussion to highlight a few of the amazing options that can add to one's experience with Povray Planets.

Here is the code TWEAK to allow Stations for Extra Planets to appear above Gas Giants so that there is a more compelling reason to view their wonderful textures.

Code: Select all

//add station to planets with atmosphere and gas giants (gas giants is my TWEAK)
		if (worldScripts["stations_for_extra_planets"]) 
		//TWEAK -  was if (worldScripts["stations_for_extra_planets"] && !giant) - done so that gas giants might have a reason to be visited

The OXZ being TWEAKED here is oolite.oxp.spara.additional_planets_sr_base.oxz version 0.8. The file is script.js in the config folder. Line number 225 according to Notepad++. Enjoy.

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