Oolite Bulletins

LittleBear wrote: ↑Mon Jul 26, 2021 2:42 pm

@ Cholmondely

Beg: Any chance of incorporating miles & cavezzi as units of measurement? (1 cavezzo = 6 piedi = 2.08641 French metres)

Miles and Cavezzi implemented as user selectable units. You can chose from Kilometers, Miles, Cavezzi, OU and Torans.

Have I got the conversion right for Cavezzi? Set at 1 game meter = 2.08641 Cevezzi.

Magnificent, Sir! I will instruct them to treble your salary with immediate effect! And I will investigate to see if cousin Digby can manage a more suitable award of esteem.

And if I can possibly assist your gallant galactic enterprise in any other way...

Just a thought.

The obvious access to your magnum opus is through the F7F7 key command, which I read elsewhere on this board might have been suggested for details about the Solar System generally (maybe a nice map of the solar system, that sort of thing).

Can you just do this by yourself - or would it need intervention from our Admiralty for Oolite v.1.92?

I do notice that a handful of other OXPs have managed to access their goodies through new F-key combinations.

For example with Stranger's PlanetLand:
After landing on surface port you may call pictures (just for fun!):
F3 followed by F7 Port view
F4 followed by F7 Port terminal view
F5 followed by F7 Planet/moon landscape
F8 followed by F7 City/station view
To view system data screen call F7 screen from within the F6 screen as usual.

Okti has some OXPs which do this too (new significance for the F-keys while docked): his Galaxy Info was accessed by F6F6F5 (or by priming), and ditto with his Long Range Scanner (jolly useful for flying from Lave to Tianve in "one hop").

Okti's OXPs are here: https://app.boxcn.net/s/bpl582x1hu, you need to contact Stranger directly for his PlanetLand.

Hmm. It’s a bit difficult to show how it fits together with screen shots, but at present the Almanac is accessible from the F4 screen. So it’s a one button press to bring it up. I’m not totally sure that it would be possible (without code changes to Oolite itself) to add it to the F7 screen, but whichever function screen you access it from F4 or F7 it’s still a quick access to bring up your local almanac.

As every OXP which adds planets moons or station only does so when you enter a system I don’t think it would be possible for the game to show the planet, moons or stations in a system the player is not currently in. Only the system you are actually in exists, so I don’t think there is a way to tell Oolite what planets / moons would be added by OXPs at a system other than the one you are in. This can be done with star names and the F7 screen shows the name (and class) of a star you target on the F7 screen in the form “Lave orbits the Class F Star Nemus Lapillus”.

I’m a bit in two minds as to whether (even if possible) the OXP should reveal the names of systems you haven’t visited, as part of the fun of it is the exploration factor. Due to the procedural generation, even as the writer I do not know what the names of the objects in a system will be until I actually go there.

Do you have a download link for Stranger’s planet land? Random Station names assignes names to PlanetFall landing sites, so it would be as simple as just adding one OR command to name Stranger’s landing sites as well, but I’d need to know the role he is using for his landing sites. It is certainly possible to add pictures. Thargoid’s Planet Fall does this when you land at one of his dumps. That would really be more a case of updating Planet Fall than somthing another OXP should do to Thargoid's OXP. It would be simple to do as you’d just need some pictures for each of the 20 types of landing sites Thargoid adds.

I am more or less finished writing the OXP. But still on my To Do list are to add the multi-page code for the planets and moons page (I know how to do it as its done for the Stations page, but I’ve got to find the time to write the code for the planet pages as well) and roll off the names for the OXP usable naming keys. I also need to add the code to reward commanders who report misspelt or duplicated names. At the risk of a small spoiler, if you have GNN News installed then over the course of time you will see 15 Almanac related articles appear in your News Feed. One refers to a 1,000 Credit reward to commands reporting bugs. This genuine (but you'd have to wait for V2 to actually get your cash). As the code to add the News Braodcasts is done, it is very simple to add more as this is just typing the text into the descriptions file. If you post a bug, then as long as you also post you commander's name (exactly as it appears in your Save File) and (if you like) a the text for a news article relating to your report, then for V2 you will recieve a personal message and 1,000 Credits (only you will see this). All players of the gamee will see your news article however.

Although I could tweak Planet Fall to add more pictures, I've been keen to avoid changing other OXPs (apart from adding a name) as I'd like this to be a 'background OXP' in the same way as Random Ship Names. It's designed to be an install and forget OXP in the sense that it will name planets and stations in the same way as Random Ship Names, but plays nicely with all other OXPS as the author of another OXP can chose with one command in their shipdata file whether Random Station Names ignores their creation and adds no name, adds a name from a style chosen by the author or uses a list of custom names specified in their OXP. I'm bit reluctant therefore to change anyone else's work as the idea is that Random Station Names is a background resource which other writers can use or not as they choose.

I saw you’d kindly started a page for the OXP. If you don’t mind I’ll start adding some documentation to the page over the next month or so. My Wiki
Fu is a bit rusty though so I might need a bit of help with adding tables and picture links.

1) Your OXP is so integral to the game logic that F7F7 is the logical way to access it

(just as F3F3, F5F5, F6F6 & F8F8 are logical ways to access those pages once you know what F3-8 do).

It also makes sense that this would only work for the system which you are in, so if F7 is set to a different system, F7F7 need not show that different system too.

This would also mean that your Almanac is accessible in-flight (as it should be).

I can see a strong argument that Phkb's Galactic Registry should similarly replace the Long Range F6F6 Chart now that the Short Range Chart is zoomable

2) You need to contact Stranger himself for his PlanetLand download details. It clashes with the XenonUI screens and may clash with whatever GUI enhancers you are running too.

3) Delighted to help you in any way I can... and the wiki page is yours. I will edit mercilessly for typos and to add a well-deserved encomium or two...

For realease I'll make it available in flight, but only if you have an ASC. If you are a brand new Jameson, then for free the station you are docked with will share the information it is receieving from its own ASC (which seems the least GalCop can do really before sending you out into the big black for the first time). The OXP does not change gameplay as it will only ever show you the data an ASC would have given you (plus the planets and moons visable to your Mark I Eyeball) but with the distance you are currently from all the objects in the solar system as well. Apart from being able to tell how near or far everything is and naming eveything, it does not give you any additional tactical data. Although you can access the Almanac whilst docked for free, without an ASC you won't get the beacons from the planets, moons and stations in flight as in the vanilla game. To view the Almanac in flight it makes sense that you would need the data from your own ASC. Spara does this with his in-system distances OXP, so I can borrow his code to do the same thing. It should only be a couple of extra lines as all the code for the almanac is in a this.almanac function, which I can just set to run when you select it in flight as well as when selected from teh F4 screen. Distances are calaculated in real time, so the Almanac always shows the distances as they are for you, so takes account of the fact that many OXPs move objects around. For V1 it'll have to be on the F4 screen, but if code is added to Oolite to allow it to go on the F7 screen, then I'll happily move it to the F7 screen for V2.

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Tue Aug 03, 2021 6:51 pm

This would also mean that your Almanac is accessible in-flight (as it should be).

LittleBear wrote:

For realease I'll make it available in flight

Doing so would put lots of messages into your log file, like this: (Edit to add: these messages would appear in developer builds, and if someone has turned on the "enforce-oxp-standards" option in the GNUStepDefaults file, the screen might not work at all)

Yes, you can do it, but it is not recommended.

I'd forgoten that as I only change the display name, changes made by my OXP are read and implemented by other OXPs. You can therefore (without me having to do anything!) already access the Almanc in flight as an MFD with Spara's Market Enquirer OXP. Random Station names adds the name of the star planet moon or station under your ASC display. Spara's OXP reads the names and classes I have added and displays all the information the Almanac contains in a nice transparent green box at the top of your screen. As you cycle through your ASC, the information for every object in the system (including its name, classification and current distance from you) is shown in the MFD box. Thats really a much nicer way of accessing the Almanc whilst in flight than using a mission screen. Both in terms of code compatability and gameplay. You wouldn't want to get a planet in the face whilst purursing the Almanac in flight.

This is also true of OXPs such as In-System taxi. If you have planetfall installed, then In-System taxi may send you to drop off or pick up a fare from one of the OXP planets in the system. If you don't have Random Station Names installed, then its mission offer will ask you to pick up a fare from Lave II. If you have Random Statiion names installed then it will ask you to pick up a fare from Imperious II. Random Station Names (should) be compatable with all OXPs as when OXPs refer to somewhere, whether its a planet or station they are calling the display name.


The space station Kiota Solar: Hunting the Unicorn selected on the ASC.


The OXP planet Sipora II selected on the ASC.



Display names being read by In System Taxi

If I can just ask... what is the background in these screen shots? Is it an .oxp? It seems not be either XenonUI or BGS...

The Box in the foreground is from BSG.

Howerver, I am also playing with HD Backgrounds and HD Backgrounds Image Pack A installed (both on the Manager).

The Background Images Pack adds these rather nice transparent images to your display, but plays nicely with BSG and other Sets, so you get different backdrops to your screens, like this:-

The Screen Shots make the image look darker than it is in game, as you can see a lot more detail to the backdrops for shipyards, station docking bays and such like.







The image below is used for the F5 and the F4 screens. When you have BGS installed as well you get the Box on the F4 screen from BGS with the Background image from Background Images behind it. Looks rather nice!

LittleBear wrote: ↑Thu Aug 12, 2021 6:50 pm

The Box in the foreground is from BSG.

Howerver, I am also playing with HD Backgrounds and HD Backgrounds Image Pack A installed (both on the Manager).

The Background Images Pack adds these rather nice transparent images to your display, but plays nices with BSG and other Sets, so you get different backdrops to your screens

The image below is used for the F5 and the F4 screens. When you have BGS installed as well you get the Box on the F4 screen from BGS with the Background image from Background Images behind it. Looks rather nice!

Thank you! I've seen the HDBG when I tried out Docking Fees and again with the Imperial Star Destroyer (you get super messages with HDBG backdrops telling you that your fleet of Tie-fighters are patrolling the space around your destroyer, and not to worry!) - which must be dear old Norby having been involved with both and deciding to unleash a sense of humour...

I don't recall the other backgrounds. I must have disabled them with OXP config or some such.

Again, thank you for the Cavezzi! I am so looking forwards to this one....

Bit of Destruction testing now I've finished the looping and multi-paging code.

By setting the maximum number of planets and moons in System Redux to 100,000 per system, I was able to get it to add 120 planets and moons to the system. All the extra planets in turn caused Extra Stations for Extra Planets to generate a very large number of extra stations. Names remain persitanant however many you spawn. I'm not really expecting anyone to add hundreds of planets and stations to one system, but its a pretty good test that the code is doing what I want it to...

LittleBear wrote: ↑Sat Aug 21, 2021 12:25 pm

I'm not really expecting anyone to add hundreds of planets and stations to one system

<grins> Some nutter will try it. And screw Cavezzi, I'll stick to OU! Awesome stuff, LB

Cody wrote: ↑Sat Aug 21, 2021 12:55 pm

LittleBear wrote: ↑Sat Aug 21, 2021 12:25 pm

I'm not really expecting anyone to add hundreds of planets and stations to one system

<grins> Some nutter will try it. And screw Cavezzi, I'll stick to OU! Awesome stuff, LB

It sounds like fun, at least for a lough. While obviously not serious for the game 100's of planets with extra stations (some of them scoopable) sounds like an experiment.

More serious, I agree with Cody, great work LB.

Bit Stuck on the right syntax to add a visual effect to the ASC.

The code i've got works in the sense all the planets and moons are added to the ASC in the right position and in the right order, but the visual effect of a planet symbol I'm trying to add doesn't produce any errors, but isn't adding the graphic. It not a major issue, but the OXP moons and planets are appearing with the standard rombus image.

The Wiki gives the syntax as:

function addVisualEffect(effectKey : String, position: vectorExpression) : VisualEffect

I'm using:-
All the planets and moons are there but missing the effect:-

Not too fussed about the rhombus.

But the names! ... the names ...! Superb... Thank You!