Planetfall OXP

[Thargoid]

New idea

What if you can buy a 'landing gear addaption' from within the shipyard at the cost of cargo room. I that case engineers make some gears, add shielding and brakes. Available at level 10 higher?

Downside. More equipment

I think it would also make things 1.72 only (as it'd need the new requires_cargo_space key probably to take up the cargo room.

But yes, I was avoiding adding any more equipment without good reason, or I'll get moaned at again

[JensAyton]

Wouldn't isGasGiant be a better name for it? I presume you're referring to the hasOwnProperty command within BountyScanner as the method of adding it in.

It would.

However, note that setting “generic-sounding” properties on objects is risky, because Oolite might add a read-only property with the same name in future. A way to avoid that is:

Code: Select all

try
{
    myPlanet.isGasGiant = true;
}
catch (error)
{
    // Either ignore error or turn of your scripts and clean up,
    // depending on what the ramifications of a failure would be.
}

[Frame]

I´d like you to include a feature check of property...

namely

Code: Select all

planet.gasgiant

Ofcourse you cannot set down on gasgaints, and there will be some in the Solar System OXP

If you are unsure of how todo this, look into the bounty scanner that checks if the ship has an old bounty....

Wouldn't isGasGiant be a better name for it? I presume you're referring to the hasOwnProperty command within BountyScanner as the method of adding it in.

I'm more than happy to add it in though. How far advanced are you with Solar System.OXP? I'm not going to be doing anything with PlanetFall until at least New Year, so we can perhaps look at it then.

By new year i hope to have a proof of concept OXP running. I´ll have write alot of new stuff as it will involve some new handling to avoid the precision problem... and i will run into things that will need a solution...

[pagroove]

Just did a quick test on 1.09 Beta- Nice-

Some more (stupid ) ideas running through my head.

Random Inter-system taxi missions

If a commander has a cabin. Random passengers can ask passage from the surface to the station. Offered via a mission screen?

Random transport missions

Altrabin Moon wants to have documents delivered to the main station.
The station wants ...tons of to be shipped to Altrabin Prime. Payment on delivery 26 credits



GRID system for planets

Begin Grid is the Spaceport
On the other Grid no shipyard etc are created.
You leave the ship so you have to pay shore leave tax once.

Random possibility of thieves that will take your ship. Maybe introduce an insurance.

In the following example there are 8 possible locations

On landing ask the player to visit the Northern hemisphere (1) of Southern hemisphere (2)

A and B are on the West side
C and D on the East side

Each area gets a random name.
In the area's random bonuses, attributes, hazards, npc's or missions are created


1
2
ABCD

Also Commie planets should have Commie places.

Such as 'Leader Square'. Party HQ, Workers colony

[Thargoid]

Some more (stupid ) ideas running through my head.

Random Inter-system taxi missions

If a commander has a cabin. Random passengers can ask passage from the surface to the station. Offered via a mission screen?

Random transport missions

Altrabin Moon wants to have documents delivered to the main station.
The station wants ...tons of to be shipped to Altrabin Prime. Payment on delivery 26 credits

Those kind of things I'd already thought of, and am planning to do. Not as part of Planetfall itself, but as a little "extra" OXP as an example of how PF can be used as a "foundation OXP" for other ones to create mission locations etc.

I'm not going to add missions directly into PF, they're better as expansion packs. But a small "demo example" mission OXP is on the to-do list already

Similar for the other idea, but I'm not a fan of stolen ships, or any "random game-ending events" that the player can do little about. Also dividing up the planet won't easily work, especially if clever people like you come along and re-texture the thing

But the commies example is perfectly do-able via the expansion stub I already coded in, or something like that could be added in to vary things by system economy (as already happens a little with anarchies). I was just trying not to make things too complex too early in testing.

[pagroove]

Well it's already nice to enjoy some different locations.

[Thargoid]

Oh and I've now got a little add-on OXP which adds Hoopy Casino's to the mix if you've that OXP installed too. I've got one or two others that may also work, once all are tested and original writers contacted I'll issue it.

Is anyone looking after Hoopy Casino these days?

[Arexack_Heretic]

It was by Murgh with help from Aegidian for the hoopy code.
so, no, nobody is currently looking after it.

[Frame]

just to let you know... system.planets[n].hasAtmosphere is for planets only... moons used by addMoon("name") does not get an atmosphere

[Thargoid]

OK, there's now a beta package with selected people for testing again. Subject to any negative reports, should be available generally sometime in January.

This is slightly improved code (it should hopefully reduce the issue with the PCC and other larger craft), plus linking OXPs to allow Black Monks, Hoopy Casino & Random Hits to all offer their mission screens when planet-side. Also the intra-system taxi mission is completed, as a demo of how surface locations can be used within missions.

Still to do (in version 1.2, not due any-time soon) will be compatibility with Frame's Solar System OXP (once he has done his first test release) and also the consideration of specific locations visibly appearing on the planets/moons and you landing at them rather than the current random location. Still not 100% sure of that one, but will try and see I guess.

[Lestradae]

This is slightly improved code (it should hopefully reduce the issue with the PCC and other larger craft), plus linking OXPs to allow Black Monks, Hoopy Casino & Random Hits to all offer their mission screens when planet-side. Also the intra-system taxi mission is completed, as a demo of how surface locations can be used within missions.

By the way, what about matt's navy?

Military stations that offer the same as matt's navy stations if that oxp is also installed would be good imho.

Cheers & merry X-mas (again )

L

[Thargoid]

The add-on OXPs are just that, so that one (and any others) can be done, tested and put in at any time if they work properly. I just did the three mentioned as I had them to hand and thought of them.

The link OXPs are small but distinct ones from the main OXP. The main one is designed to be expandable that way. I'll have a look at that one and see if it's work-able (it depends how the scripting etc is triggered).

[ZygoUgo]

Hey there folks, I have a suggestion for landing if people still want to have models of the place you're visiting and a landing pad to land on..
The OXP places three very large invisible docking bays around the planet surface, these appear on your HUD as 'approach windows'. If you attempt to land outside these legal areas you are deemed dangerous to other traffic and shot down.
Your HUD leads you to an invisible beacon to give you your approach direction and the center of the docking bay is highlighted.
Once you enter (is it possible to replace the transition animation/witchspace tunnel?) you are jumped to the model of the city/areas landing pad/strip, so effectively nothing is visible from space other than additions to the HUD.
It would be the equivolent of a witchspace jump to a model in the middle of nowhere. A certain space out side of the landing pad you cannot go or you will be immediately shot down (due to the nature of additional air traffic entering from space, any form of deviation is not possible without crossing paths with other airborne traffic, hence the immediate termination), this means that models only have to be as big as what is visible from that point of veiw and adds some tension and danger to planet fall too.
Possible?

[Thargoid]

The problem I have with the models and specific places to land isn't so much a technical one. It's more one of visual styling and making it look right scale-wise.

I can add entities just above the planet surface and have docking to them if you approach them closely (rather than the docking bay idea), but the issue is especially if the planet is re-textured, you can easily get models sat above what is supposed to be the ocean, or going across planetary features that are on the texture (and so having a seemingly huge location if the scaling of the texture differs). Plus given the planets are in real terms very small, getting things the correct scale will be difficult.

Plus as has been mentioned previously the planets rotate, so to be fully visually correct the entities would also have to orbit around the centre of the planet/moon to stay visually in the same place. All of it would I guess be technically possible (although the last bit quite difficult), and as I said I'm not sure worth the effort compared to the current random method.

Plus the question is when to make the models appear. There would need to be something to aim at (a beacon of some sort probably), but the model itself wouldn't be visible from too high up. But then it would suddenly appear from nowhere at that point and replace the beacon, which can look odd (again especially when it happens in the wrong place visually on the planet texture).

Also it's a delicate balance as to how high up to put the model of the location. Too low and it will crash into the planet and self-destruct (or indeed if it's spawned inside the planet this can make the game crash iirc), but too high and the player could fly beside or even below it, and get a view "underneath" it which looks very strange. And all this of course does not preclude the problems of ships firing at the locations, and things that may be needed to get around that (fast recharge rates, use of anti-scanner devices etc) or react to it (suitable AI etc).

For your specific question, no I don't think it is possible to replace the tunnel animation. Jumping to a model in the middle of nowhere is simple enough (it isn't a witchspace jump per-se, just a change of player location). I really don't like the idea of ships getting shot down though, as I said before such game-ending scenarios are something I like to avoid.

[ZygoUgo]

Gleetings!
Part of the reason of my suggestion is that I don't really like the idea of out of scale models on the actual planet surface (even if they could be faded in), it just seems it's going to end up a bit wonky no matter what, not saying that you clever chaps won't find a way round it though, I just can't see it myself.
Maybe then it could be that each planet only has one civillian space port and the whole surface remains the entry point to that?
Is it possible to jump to another location by other kinds of trigger, such as the altitude from the planet surface (as opposed to altitude above the sun?).
Instead of being shot down then perhaps a bad landing could be ejected and fined?