Oolite Bulletins

Stop Press... that last cobbie-rapier was too fat in the top, and the tail. The central body was too narrow. The whole grey thing: really not it's style.

@Wolfwood: How about this:

Cobra mk III "Rapier"


And a render...


The original model is ultra-thin, has a small cockpit right up front, big triangular whatsits around a fancy tail section, and an abstract bird motif picked out in green.

The above is, of course, what was really intended... wasn't it?

Whoa! I'm... stunned! It's like you took my design and saw what it would look like in "real life"! You really have "an eye" for this stuff!

I was a bit iffy about the mock-up on the previous page, but this one simply blows me away!

(sorry for all the exclamation marks, but I'm just that impressed!)

Simon B - between you, Griff, Deepspace and Ramon the ship styling in Oolite has moved on to breathtaking new levels.

(apologies to all other ship designers - I hope you know what I mean - anything which adds to Oolite is brill in my book - but these guys are just... lost for words... )

Simon B wrote:

These rare ones tend to be popular - note that you missed out Behemoth Spacewar, and isn't there a thargoid-returns sort of thing(?) - other rare oxps are lovecats and black monks.

Just to clear thinks. The only dependency is the one Galactive navy has with behemoth. Thorgon treat is autonomous but if you have it is makes the 2 previously mentioned opxs more enjoyable.

Behemoth Spacewar does not contain any models only scripts that create battle encounters in normal space

As for the thargoid-returns sort of thing (?) I assume you mentioned the second wave (made by thargoid). As far as I know there is not a dependency on that.

lovecats and black monks?? I never heard of a conflict between those 2 oxps

Simon B wrote:

Looking through the list - does military fiasco belong here? Rattlecutter is in there. I see it depends on Murgh's X-Ships... which I think is on my request list... do I hear six oxps?

The military fiasco oxp contains a carrier nemed Leviathan and as far as i know there are no dependencies with Murgh's X-Ships as long as somebody has the latest version of both oxps

Simon B wrote:

Following Ark, I'd have to do a complete replacement for each of these oxps to get all the vipers ... and anarchies is quite major.

You should first contact Commander McLane and give him the renagate viper model in order to put it into anarchies oxp. There is no need to create all the models of anarchies. Moreover that way you will see his intentions.

I did want to say that in the open but what the heck!!!!! please do not create a second monstrosity like the realistic shipyards. Your creations do not deserve that

Hope it helps

The cobra rapier cames with seperate tail and cargo sections, and is frangible. The idea is that you can shoot the carge hold out and scoop the cargo.

The neolite version has six models... which makes that plan a little tricky.
The engines between them clock up about 700 triangles - in 1.73 I can just combine all the loose models to one and keep the frangible, but at 1.72 I am restricted to 800 triangles per model.

Now - I can keep the models frangible, combining and live with the fact that shooting out the engines leaves exhausts with no source.

Can we script engines destroyed = dead stop? (If I combine the engines, they get taken out together...)

I can also fiddle the engine plist to make them hard to destroy I guess.
Combine the wings/carapace with the main section, leaving the two holds apart for 9TC each.

OR I can de-frangiblise the whole thing and just live without being able to blast this thing to bits. (The player ship would be like this anyway.)


The C Rapier comes in the Wolfwoods varients oxp, which also has the asp mk1 and asp explorer - also ships I have done. I can transfer those over too. With Wolfies permission I could start on the others, but I suspect some people would like to see the behemoth thing resolved.

For that matter, the others look to be good candidates for the do-it-yourself conversion. What do you say wolf man? I'm only moving the other three ships over to get them out of concepts oxp and because I suspect you'll want to get your mits on it fast?

I'd still like to see a consensus on the last set of questions and observations - you know, not to hurry anyone or anything...

@Ark: I have not found pics of the sidewinder security for YAH - now I could download the oxp, convert and import the model, and so get a look. But a shortcut will allow me to mod the existing model, and send it to you and you can add it where you like. I doubt there is much to be gained duplicating YAH just for this. It can go in a yah-neolite-patch.oxp, thus loading right after yah, and replacing the classic entry.

I could do that for other oxps - but where there are lots of ships it is sort of mean to make people download all those textures twice :)

Given Ahruman's post in the progress thread - to get 1.73 out there could well still be a poly limit in 1.73...

Ark wrote:

Simon B wrote:

These rare ones tend to be popular - note that you missed out Behemoth Spacewar, and isn't there a thargoid-returns sort of thing(?) - other rare oxps are lovecats and black monks.

Just to clear thinks. The only dependency is the one Galactive navy has with behemoth. Thorgon treat is autonomous but if you have it is makes the 2 previously mentioned opxs more enjoyable.

Ah fine - thargorn has only four models and it's an easy add.

Behemoth Spacewar does not contain any models only scripts that create battle encounters in normal space

And none of these scripts refer to behemoths by role, or name, say? Technically it shouldn't matter... however, I've been told of odd combinations of subents and misplaced turrets. Not so much this one... still, since you say "no problemo", I can concentrate on navy and behemoth.

lovecats and black monks?? I never heard of a conflict between those 2 oxps

I have recieved pm about observed issues between neolite and those two exps.

Simon B wrote:

Looking through the list - does military fiasco belong here? Rattlecutter is in there. I see it depends on Murgh's X-Ships... which I think is on my request list... do I hear six oxps?

The military fiasco oxp contains a carrier nemed Leviathan and as far as i know there are no dependencies with Murgh's X-Ships as long as somebody has the latest version of both oxps[/quote]It's listed as a dependency in the wiki.

I should be able to kill most issues with unique entry names - particularly I have to watch subentities... I cannot call anything "ball-turret" for eg.

Hope it helps

Well - it helps prioritize. This way, if there is a problem I can blame you ;)

And as under discussion in some other threads, it would be nice if it could still look pretty on a netbook, which it does at the moment - so as the polygon count goes up your audience might start going down!

The long term answer as someone suggested elsewhere is to have some agreed eyecandy levels, so you could downmix models to "standard" as well as having the "max eyecandy" level. Bit like nQuake.

Very much like this new Rapier. I flew one for a long time before upgrading to an Imperial Courier. Tempted to go back! Has a really nice bird-like feel to it, with the Cockpit as the head and the engines as the legs!

Simon B wrote:

The cobra rapier cames with seperate tail and cargo sections, and is frangible. The idea is that you can shoot the carge hold out and scoop the cargo.

The frangible external cargo hold was just something I played around with when I made the Rapier, so I don't consider it an integral part of the ship as such. So, do away with it and concentrate on the beautiful model!

I no longer have the time or skills to keep up with the pace of the development here in the Oolite community, so it would be ok with me if you want to take the remaining ships in Wolfwood's pack and redesign them. I think the Rapier was the only original concept/design in that pack in any case, all the others came from some earlier Elite version or were very close approximations of them.

For the rapier - the engines together are 792 triangles. The rest all together make 566. 1358 total. But that is counting panels with material = hole. That includes a lot from the engine - so I should probably just cut it down.

This gives me two natural parts anyway - an easy model if Wolf is happy with the change to his design. Otherwise I seperate off the two cargo bays.

This ship is about the same weight as three of the more regular ships, you won't want too many of these oxps about. That said - it is the shaders that really affect performance.

I switch them off in my Aspire 4315 - smooth running. With shaders, I get pauses on jumps and explosions and across stars. My desktop with shaders on full has trouble with system-redux, and can be a bit hesitant when the number of oxps is greater than, say, 23.

The rapier has three textures shared between six objects. This will probably mean three effectsmaps and three normal maps. 9 textures altogether.

However, I may cheat by sharing one effects map and using existing maps for the rest. That would mean a fairly uniform specular, and no normal mapped bumps added.

Simon B wrote:

@Ark: I have not found pics of the sidewinder security for YAH - now I could download the oxp, convert and import the model, and so get a look. But a shortcut will allow me to mod the existing model, and send it to you and you can add it where you like. I doubt there is much to be gained duplicating YAH just for this. It can go in a yah-neolite-patch.oxp, thus loading right after yah, and replacing the classic entry.

They're pretty dull and simple - Pangloss started the style (not how I wanted to do it, but was happy to follow along in the end for speed, but then again in defence of Pangloss he was just copying the style of the HOopy defenders)

You can find them here (the ones I did):





The rest are in here somewhere:


https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.ph ... &start=120

https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.ph ... c&start=90

Hmmm, I think I may have missed one - let me know if I have and I'll try and find it.

@Ark - can you quickly recap which station belongs to which set - I've completely lost the plot - only 3hrs sleep last night.

DaddyHoggy wrote:

@Ark - can you quickly recap which station belongs to which set - I've completely lost the plot - only 3hrs sleep last night.

With pleasure

Set A has the Pi-42 constore and here is the skin for its defender



Set B has the Tescoo Oxpress constore and here is the skin for its defender



Set C has the Mall-Wart constore and here is the skin for its defender



Set D has the Star constore and here is the skin for its defender



Set E has the Sainsboory’s constore and here is the skin for its defender



In set F there is not a unique constore just a variation of the Star constore so the defender in the same with set D

And finally for the under construction set G we have ready (well almost ready since we still do not have the roof billboard) the oodles constore with the following sidewinder defender



The color of the defender has to be the same with the color of the station and the company’s logo is very crucial to be in a very clear position.

The model is the same with the standard one so from my point of view the creation of a Yah noolite is purely a matter of retexturing the neolite sidewinder (SimonB you may do not know that but, although this yah upgrade initially was my idea and I did all the changes in the code, I am incapable of even make a simple copy and paste in Photoshop. So I was and still am completely depended to the artists of the yah tread for all the textures, ads, adrings ect in every set

Simon B wrote:

Ark wrote:

I never heard of a conflict between those 2 oxps

I have recieved pm about observed issues between neolite and those two exps.

Strange!!!! can you provide me more details via a PM

Simon B wrote:

Simon B wrote:

Looking through the list - does military fiasco belong here? Rattlecutter is in there. I see it depends on Murgh's X-Ships... which I think is on my request list... do I hear six oxps?

Ark wrote:

The military fiasco oxp contains a carrier nemed Leviathan and as far as i know there are no dependencies with Murgh's X-Ships as long as somebody has the latest version of both oxps

It's listed as a dependency in the wiki.

Not realy true. An older version of Murgh's X-Ships also had some ships (like the ruttlecuter) that Murgh later used them in the military fiasco.
Murgh delete those ships from the later version of Murgh's X-Ships in order to avoid conflicts with military fiasco. What wiki says It is a warning for players not to use the old version available only from oosat1 if they also have military fiasco (like the warning in the readme of the neolite companion)

@SimonB:Please try to slow down your pace. I cannot follow you (hence i can not help you) if you run at that speed. I am an old man you know really!!!

Moreover it is imperative to say if you intent to release a neolite behemoth (only) oxp that will completely replace the original one in cooperation with Eric. I can not believe that if you make an improved model for the behemoth and ask Eric’s help Eric will say no. He helped me and others numerous times in the past.

I believe that the problem is that you do not clarify what your intentions are. Are you going to release a neolite megaships pack inside witch you are going to have that improved behemoth model and moreover that oxp is going to overwrite the data of the original behemoth?. Because if those are you intentions I understand Eric’s reluctance

This what you had in mind?