Oolite Bulletins

OK - bear with me for a while.

I've only just managed to get Oolite back up and running properly since dumping Windows and going whole hog for Ubuntu (and that was a while ago). Having re-established Oolite and played it again for a week or so, I'm ...

a) ... pretty pleased with the whole thing as I'm at last able to run the fully shaded and otherwise tuned-up kit and caboodle. It's an entirely pleasant experience.

b) ... pretty unpleased because I've remembered why I haven't particularly missed Oolite - I've done it several times over and I'm getting bored. Don't get me wrong - Oolite is a tour de force which will never again leave my machine. But it does get "same-ish".

I've been bored with other games and ended up dowloading total conversions which at least keep me amused until I've done those a few times over. But it occurs to me that Oolite will never need a total conversion because it has that has that facility built-in in the form of OXPs (I hope).

Most OXPs are pretty short and sharp - they provide a new widget or a new service - and that's fine as it adds to the overall experience. Some OXPs introduce missions, and at least one of the missions is a cross-galaxy one. They're fine too. But I'm wondering - why is there not a storyline OXP (or a lot of them, really) which runs throughout all of the galaxies?

Is there a technical reason for this? Would such an OXP be so overwhelmingly big as to be impractical? If so, what are the limits on OXPs? You can probably see where I'm going with this.

So, in a nutshell, can I write a plot with a degree of complexity which could be realised as an eight-galaxy mission giving, say, 48 hours of gameplay? I can't at this point see any reason why not but, being a natural worrier, I wondered why (if it really is feasible) it hasn't already been done.

As this is the friendliest board this side of Riedquat, please put me down gently if there's something glaringly obvious I've overlooked. But retirement is also boring me, and I'm looking for something to get my teeth into (oh OK - that's just an excuse).

Hi MKG,

(welcome back)

I think it's a good idea.

It also sounds like the ideal collaborative project and an absolute nightmare to manage...

I think you could gauge interest (might require a change of title "Help constructing 8-chart encompassing OXP required" or some such - I thought, from the title, you meant Large as in "memory size" not scope) and then if enough support/interest is raised - write up your detailed plot. Keep this to yourself - break it down into various manageable chunks and offer up to the community broken down into (for example): Ships, AI, background descriptions, support text, imagery, stations, equipment...

Then the OXPers with expertise in particular and/or overlapping areas could do various bits in sequence while you pull it all together into the massive OXP you want to see created and want to play.

Good luck...

Yeah, it's basically because doing something that big takes up so much time that people don't have time to make it themselves, rather than an actual limit. There's one upcoming WIP here which looks like it might be on the same scale as you're talking about, and as in DaddyHoggy's suggestion to you, it's being done as a collaborative project.

MKG wrote:

So, in a nutshell, can I write a plot with a degree of complexity which could be realised as an eight-galaxy mission giving, say, 48 hours of gameplay? I can't at this point see any reason why not but, being a natural worrier, I wondered why (if it really is feasible) it hasn't already been done.

As this is the friendliest board this side of Riedquat, please put me down gently if there's something glaringly obvious I've overlooked. But retirement is also boring me, and I'm looking for something to get my teeth into (oh OK - that's just an excuse).

It's certainly possible, I would think. The only big issue I can think of would be possible collisions with other OXPs (e.g. you want to turn system A into a pirate's nest, and another OXP has it full of cops and the Navy, say). That's a perennial problem though and not one restricted to any one OXP. There's also the issue of other missions – built-in and OXP – wanting to start, too ... but if you structured your super-mission as something that comes and goes in stages, rather than as something that has to be pursued to the exclusion of everything else from beginning to end, that should be OK.

Thanks all for confirming that it is possible (how have I missed that thread?). And yes - an OXP clash is a problem I hadn't considered - but I think it may be possible to construct a storyline which is transparent to any other OXP (fatal words, no doubt). OK - lots of food for thought. My initial reaction is that it should be possible to have a notional storyline which would not be affected at all by whatever else is loaded - but we'll see.

Just as a first probe, can any of you see why witchspace shouldn't be utilised as the main arena for any action?

MKG wrote:

Just as a first probe, can any of you see why witchspace shouldn't be utilised as the main arena for any action?

There's no sun, so lighting issues have been reported. There's no SYSTEM main station (even if you spawn a Cori or Dodec or Iso) so you can't save your game...

I think writing big missions needs tools and mechanisms and was the main reason why I've started the Cabal_Common_Library. Developing this lib and a few internal used APIs is the first step for a rewrite of Localhero - Disembodied is currently working on the story for it, so I can finish the other tools I have in mind and do some more preparations in Vector for it.

MKG wrote:

Just as a first probe, can any of you see why witchspace shouldn't be utilised as the main arena for any action?

Interstellar space is pretty crowded, a lot of OXPs are doing something there. So before a mission can do something there it needs thinking about what other OXPs are adding what kind of entities there. For Localhero we are planning to use a cleaning mechanism to get some room, because moving the location of action further and further out is no option. This mechanism will become part of Cabal_Common when it's done and tested.

To deal with the possible clashes between missions the mechanism takes a few things into account, e.g. ships with a script_info key ("missionShip" = "true";) or with a property this.missionShip will be excluded from cleaning. Additionally it sets a missionVariable (CCL_OXPStrength) for strong ships to prevent spawning by the populator if these entities are supporting it. Scripts can register settings for specific systems and interstellar space (when coming from a specified system).

MKG wrote:

Most OXPs are pretty short and sharp - they provide a new widget or a new service - and that's fine as it adds to the overall experience. Some OXPs introduce missions, and at least one of the missions is a cross-galaxy one. They're fine too. But I'm wondering - why is there not a storyline OXP (or a lot of them, really) which runs throughout all of the galaxies?

Is there a technical reason for this? Would such an OXP be so overwhelmingly big as to be impractical? If so, what are the limits on OXPs? You can probably see where I'm going with this.

So, in a nutshell, can I write a plot with a degree of complexity which could be realised as an eight-galaxy mission giving, say, 48 hours of gameplay? I can't at this point see any reason why not but, being a natural worrier, I wondered why (if it really is feasible) it hasn't already been done.

MKG, I have only one piece of advice. Just do it! Go with your idea and see where it leads you. Just because it hasn't been done does not mean that it can't be done. Just takes the will and imagination. You can be a leader and show us your vision of how it should be done. Everyone on this board will help you out with what they are particularily good at and existing mission oxp's are a good source of reference for how to arrange/use/syntax the script you will need. And lots of spare time doesn't hurt either.

MKG wrote:

b) ... pretty unpleased because I've remembered why I haven't particularly missed Oolite - I've done it several times over and I'm getting bored. Don't get me wrong - Oolite is a tour de force which will never again leave my machine. But it does get "same-ish".

New missions breaks this rule I think, and if you get into OXP authoring you will not be bored at all.

If I may lend my two-cents to this discussion, I find it ironic that this discussion has come up - my concept for the "Dark Sky Horizon" mission (that was originally intended to go with my DSE.oxp, the one with my Wyvern series of ships), was going to be an eight-galaxy "slow burn" (as Leafy called it).

Perhaps that concept could be used as fodder for something along the lines of what MKG was thinking? At this point, I just planned on having the player taking out Black Wyverns and gathering intelligence to find the illegal Black Wyvern manufacturing hideouts (hidden in rock hermits) around the galaxy. After eliminating all the illegal rock hermits in any galaxy, you must move onto the next galaxy, and so on. At the end, of course, would be the "big boss" battle.

Anyway, if anyone knows how that idea could be stretched to make it "bigger", so to speak, maybe that could serve as the foundation for a massive mission?

As for me, I won't be building this for a while. After completing an ALPHA of DragonDrop by Friday, its back to real work for me. But if anyone wants to collab w/ me and use this idea, I'm open to ideas and help.