Oolite Bulletins

You knew this was coming as soon as Griff posted his new OXP ship. The Sidewinder is in da house:

Hhhmm... amazing detail! I think he's overdue for a service - there seems to be a nasty hydraulics leak...

Fantastic!

Twin worlds ... perfect for an assassination, methinks ...



The nebulae are that good-looking - sometimes spend some time just at them ...



Hammerhead from Aquatics 2.01 ...



Navy Constitution patrol from OSE WiP, Famous Planets 2.0 planet, station from one of the station oxps (have all of them in, don't know which one )



Juggernaut from OSE WiP in front of a Famous Planets 2.0 world ...



Also visible on all pics: My pet trumble & DeepSpace's excellent hud (which is also in OSE WiP)

Great screens Lestradae.

Here is the new Aurora Class from P.A. Groove & Griff
4,3 km long.

Griff's version of the Thargoid warship. Before anything else, I have to say that Griff surpassed himself this time. This ship is just too good for screenshots. You need to see this in motion to appreciate the effects that this thing posesses. Truly alien.

OK, that's it.

I'm for replacing the basic shipset of Oolite core with Griff's designs.

I guess I'm not the only one by far.

Simply awesome.

The only problem with that is that Oolite needs to be able to run on lower spec computers.

That said, the new Thargoid Warship looks simply fantastic.

By the way, where is the bounty scanner OXP? It's not on the OXP Wiki page.

I disagree, L. I think that the basic textures should be the standard Oolite package, but have an optional 'Hi-Res' Oolite package with shaderified ships, etc.

It's the entry level option that tends to draw people in, vanilla Oolite, with it's simple polygonal ships and simple scripting, which hooks them and drags them into the deeper levels. If you present all the bells and whistles as the basic package, then some poor folks' computers will give up the ghost and be running at an FPS of 8 or so (if they even manage that), which might result in them thinking "oh, it's buggered up", delete it and never look back. You might consider a revision in the basic Oolite ReadMe file mentioning the shaderified spangly new Oolite, but I think until you can say that every potential new player will be able to run the new updates satisfactorily, the basic Oolite should remain as is.

My 0.02 Cr.

Captain Hesperus

The specs problem is a relevant point, Captain Hesperus, but I can also imagine people new to Oolite having a look at untextured planets and polygonal non-mapped ships only and as a consequence delete it and never look back - without ever finding out how it could have looked like.

Perhaps different packs of standard graphics could be put into the core download? Similar to how there already is a strict mode, and a no shaders, partial shaders and full shaders mode?

While I completely agree that one of the biggest strengths of Oolite is its being rather plain at its strict core and then customisable by any player to their own taste via oxps, I wouldn't underestimate the awesome graphics factor either, which has become more and more important to players with the advent of computers who can run them.

Well, those would be my 0.2Cr then

L

Ditto the Cap'n's thoughts.

Perhaps, if Griff does the whole basic set (as Simon has), then there could be a check box in the options list (standard (basic), neolite, Griff (full shaders)) in the same way people currently pick none, simple or full for shaders.

I suggest this because, if both Simon_B's and Griff's ships are included in the main install then it gives them credibility and says to those basic PC users - "yes you can play the game much like the original game looked, but look what else is available if you really want it"

DaddyHoggy wrote:

Perhaps, if Griff does the whole basic set (as Simon has), then there could be a check box in the options list (standard (basic), neolite, Griff (full shaders)) in the same way people currently pick none, simple or full for shaders.

Now that sounds (to me) the best idea anyways. I would then even add-in the option to mix all three ship sets - the original, neolite & Griff. Best of all worlds.

Lestradae wrote:

DaddyHoggy wrote:

Perhaps, if Griff does the whole basic set (as Simon has), then there could be a check box in the options list (standard (basic), neolite, Griff (full shaders)) in the same way people currently pick none, simple or full for shaders.

Now that sounds (to me) the best idea anyways. I would then even add-in the option to mix all three ship sets - the original, neolite & Griff. Best of all worlds.

They weren't meant to be exclusive - i.e. if you ticked neolite, you got standard ships plus neolite ships, if you ticked Griff's ships as well then you got all three - full mix and match option - although I suspect that will require some work for the system populator to check what checks have been checked ( ) before it makes its selections for the level of eye candy available.