Oolite Bulletins

Found this over lunch. Looks interesting at the very least.

Cheers,

Drew.

dammit. i thought the title inferred some kinda bikini/wet T-shirt competition or something

Killer Wolf wrote:

dammit. i thought the title inferred some kinda bikini/wet T-shirt competition or something

Ha ha! Same here. Must be the way our minds work...

The article moans about the lack of good dogfighting space combat games , but you have to be a registered member to post a comment.
Anyone registered with Ars?

Steve wrote:

Killer Wolf wrote:

dammit. i thought the title inferred some kinda bikini/wet T-shirt competition or something

Ha ha! Same here. Must be the way our minds work...

<Holds hand up too>

Cheers,

Drew.

A little competition for Elite IV. The battle of the space games is about to begin.

Smivs wrote:

The article moans about the lack of good dogfighting space combat games :roll: , but you have to be a registered member to post a comment.

And what would you say? Oolite is not mainstream, and is not a focussed combat game. It is a game where you’re a “trader banking credits hauling goods from point A to B, that just happens to be in space”. It doesn’t involve detailed micromanagement of all of a ship’s systems, but overall, Oolite is pretty much exactly the kind of game they’re trying not to make.

Wing Commander is available on the Vega Strike platform and at least in some open source/multi-platform ways for different parts of the many iterations, more if you're Windows-enabled. See my open-source post for links, cba.

I'm still waiting for the first space fighter sim set in WH40K, or a Rogue-Trader-ish conversion of Oolite. Ship models, our galaxy modeled and a few tweaks later...

j/k - that'd be tons of work.

As far as their complaints about micro-managing, sure - the people making mad cash in Hollywood by putting together focus groups to tweak their space opera releases for public consumption have it right - people want to feel like they're a hero in a movie, that they're strong, skilled and capable. Also keep in mind that today's internet/gaming consumer is relentlessly coddled and catered to and fickle as all hell, e.g. just look at how carefully a new player is guided along in WoW.

Here's to hoping that designing things like Oolite becomes exponentially easier with better tools for making it happen - the era of the mega-budget gaming companies having free reign might be about to close as the consumer is empowered to easily tweak existing work.

Ahruman wrote:

... but overall, Oolite is pretty much exactly the kind of game they’re trying not to make.

The master of words once again.

It sounds pretty much like Starlancer. I bought it 4-5 years ago, good game, dog fight, solar system etc...

So let's start at the beginning. Why did space combat games fall away from the mainstream? Magaha said the games lost touch with what gamers want to play."I want to be Luke Skywalker flying an X-Wing and taking down the Death Star, not a guy micromanaging an array of sensors and flight controls.

This player wants to play X-Wing and X-Wing Alliance, maybe even TIE Fighter and X-Wing vs TIE Fighter (I have all those but XvT). He certainly doesn't want I-War, BattleCruiser 3000 AD, Starfleet Command and I've Found Her, and he would very least use long stick to poke at Freespace and Starshatter.

I want to be Apollo from BSG, annihilating enemy ships and winning massive battles, not a Ferengi trader banking credits hauling goods from point A to B, that just happens to be in space," he explained.

This player doesn't want Elite, Oolite, X serie and the likes. He wants something like Wing Commander serie (excluding Armada and Privateer).

Me? I have very least tried many kinds of space sims, including almost all the mentioned. I have played Wing Commander 2 many times over, TIE Fighter almost as much, I couldn't get through I-War demo becouse lack of instructions and (PDF) manual of the BattleCruiser 3000 AD is bit too heavy...

But I can understand meaning of the article. I have blasted TIEs like skeets, just tried surviving in one, done trading and bounty hunting in Elite (PC version) and the likes and bashed my head against keyboard with difficulties of newtonian physics that are in Frontier and I've Found Her. But what is important with these games, and ALL games, is having fun. And I've had fun with most of the games I have played. And those I don't have fun with, I don't play (though I could try first and try breaking something with my head while doing so...)

[edit]
I couldn't understand much of the static filled speech, except this: "...radical cult, Children of Dawn..." Is that some kind of connection to Dawnies of Ground Control?

The PS2 port of Star Wars Battlefront II had a fun, un-realistic space-fight mode. The rest of the game was a typical one-eyed blind fart jump & shoot turkey.

Switching between Oolite & pioneer is a hoot, though. Newtonian space combat is brain warping. Good thing it skips the realism of trying to use dumb projectiles in space.