Oolite Bulletins

Hi folks!

This .oxp adds some ships designed and produced by the Coluber Works and Shipyards Ltd. to the ooniverse. The company is located in the Riredi system in galaxy one. "Coluber" is a genus of fast moving, nonvenomous snakes commonly known as racers. Racers are not harmful ... ... as long as you leave them alone! But if you goad them, they become VERY aggressive. The nature of the ships Coluber Ltd. produces is similar.

Currently the racer-productline includes four ships: The Blue Racer, the Red Racer, the Yellowbelly Racer and the newest ship in the line: the Black Racer.



The Coluber CBR-70333 Blue Racer is a medium size cargo ship, a further development of the good old Python. After the industrial property rights for the Python had finally expired in 2807, Coluber Ltd. decided to use this tried and tested workhorse as basis for its first own ship design.

CBR-70333 Blue Racer stats:

Size (metres, WxHxL) 100 x 40 x 125
Cargo capacity: 70 TC
Cargo bay extension: yes (15 TC)
Maximum speed: 0.333 LM
Manoeuvrability:
Roll: 2.25
Pitch: 1.0
Yaw: 0.8
Thrust: 36
Energy banks: 6
Energy recharge rate Medium: (3.66)
Gun mounts: Fore, Aft
Missile slots: 5
Shield boosters available: Yes
Military shields available: Yes
Hyperspace capable: Yes
Available to player: Yes
Base price: 375000 Cr


The Coluber CRR-5375 Red Racer is a fast, heavy long range fighter. It´s primary field of application is to act as escort for cargo ships that want to visit political unstable systems. The Red Racer is something between an Asp MK 2 and a Cobra MK 3. Faster than a Cobra, but slower than an Asp, more cargo capacity than an Asp, but less than a cobra. This ship has VERY good dogfight abilities and can be equipped with strong shields. Thus is quite popular with pirates and bountyhunters alike.

CRR-5375 Red Racer stats:

Size (metres, WxHxL) 80 x 20 x 55
Cargo capacity 5 TC
Cargo bay extension yes (3 TC)
Maximum speed 0.375 LM
Manoeuvrability:
Roll: 2.75
Pitch: 1.3
Yaw: 1.1
Thrust 46
Energy banks 5
Energy recharge rate: Good (4.0)
Gun mounts: Fore, Aft
Missile slots: 3
Shield boosters available: Yes
Military shields available: Yes
Hyperspace capable: Yes
Available to player: Yes
Base price 325000 Cr


The Coluber CYR-30350 Yellowbelly Racer is a armored multi purpose ship, a good choice for a lonewolf trader. It has less cargo capacity than a cobra 3 and only two gunmounts, but more energy.

CYR-30350 Yellowbelly Racer stats:

Size (metres, WxHxL) 96 x 24 x 88
Cargo capacity: 30 TC
Cargo bay extension: no
Maximum speed: 0.350 LM
Manoeuvrability
Roll: 2.5
Pitch: 1.0
Yaw: 1.0
Thrust: 40
Energy banks: 6
Energy recharge rate: Good (4.0)
Gun mounts: Fore, Aft
Missile slots: 4
Shield boosters available: Yes
Military shields available: Yes
Hyperspace capable: Yes
Available to player: Yes
Base price 350000 Cr


The Coluber CBL-50369 Black Racer is is a mid-sized transporter optimized for solo blockade-runner missions. It has a big supply of energy and missiles and is equipped with the newest gimmick developed by the white coats in the Coluber labs: A permanent eccentric action attitude control system.
What does that mean in practice? In short, that means that the mass projectors of the attitude control system generate a virtual mass centre that is located OUTSIDE the ships hull! This has the effect, that the target-tracking systems of most enemy ships have extreme difficulties to keep track of a Black Racer slowly spinning around the virtual mass centre. This will significantly reduce the number of hits a Black racer takes when attacked by a bunch of pirates.
Unfortunately the new attitude control system also produces some negative side effects:
One is, that it has the price of some maneuverability. Although much smaller, a Black Racer behaves much like a Python in flight so it is definitely not suitable for close range dogfighting tactics. (On the other hand, it is VERY suitable for sniping at maximum weapon range.) Another is, that it is VERY difficult do dock a Black racer manually. It is STRONGLY (in fact VERY STRONGLY) recommended that you practice the docking maneuver in the fligth simulator BEFORE you get in a situation where your docking computer is out of service. Another remarkable features of the Black racer is a new type-II superconductor main bus to the hyperdrive that reduces the hypermotor spin time to 10 seconds. This is very useful if the shields are down and you want to jump out of a critical situation. Last but not least I have to bring up that the Black Racer does not really need additional heat shields as it has a hull built with heat insulating materials.
A Black Racer is one of the ships you will either love or hate to fly. There is nothing in between.

CBL-50369 Black Racer stats:

Size (metres, WxHxL) 80 x 18 x 124
Cargo capacity: 50 TC
Cargo bay extension: no
Maximum speed: 0.369 LM
Manoeuvrability
Roll: 2.0
Pitch: 0.8
Yaw: 0.8
Thrust: 45
Energy banks: 7
Energy recharge rate: Good (4.0)
Gun mounts: Fore, Aft, Port, Starboard
Missile slots: 7
Shield boosters available: Yes
Military shields available: Yes
Hyperspace capable: Yes
Available to player: Yes
Base price 400000 Cr

Each Racer has it´s own HUD:



If you want to use the HUD, edit the shipdata.plist and delete the two slashes in front of the line "hud = cb68_(name of the hud)_hud.plist. Or just put the stand-alone-version of the HUD you want to use into your addons folder. (See folder Huds in the .zip-archive).

For those who want to customize a coluber racer I have added the GIMP and WINGS3D sourcefiles. (See folder Coluber_racer_sources in the .zip-archive).

I have also added a save-file for each racer for those who just want to take a quick testflight. (See folder Save in the .zip-archive).

All racers are based on a very simple model (e.g. Blue Racer 20 polygons, 30 edges and 12 nodes; Red Racer 16 polygons, 24 edges and 10 nodes), so the .oxp works fine even on older machines like my own ageing imac.

For the textures I took much inspiration from smivs excellent shipset. If you use smivs shipset (as I do) the Coluber ships should perfectly fit to your ooniverse.

Testpilots can download the Coluber ships .OXP from here:

Current version:
Version 1.1.0: https://app.box.com/s/sn3mircmuvtyse4gld4z

Old versions:
Version 0.6.0: http://www.box.com/s/m68mbc9vlc31h8hyive5
Version 0.5.1: http://www.box.com/s/8ozor8ipae2653o5q1np

IMPORTANT NOTE: I have changed the name of the models in the current version because now there is more than one Coluber ship! If you use the old Coluber as player ship and upgrade to the current version of this OXP, your gamesaves will work no longer. A workaround could be to buy a coreship, save, upgrade the OXP, then buy a new Coluber ship. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Comments and reports about your experiences with the ships are always welcome.

If you find any bugs, please report them.

Version history:
1.1.0 Tweaked some stats; minor changes to the models and textures; added the Black Racer.
0.6.0. Changed ships names and the backgroundstory; added the Red Racer; minor changes at the textures.
0.5.1. Bugfix in the shipyard.plist. Bug caused problems on windows systems. Thanks to JD for reporting the Bug and fixing it.
0.5.0. First release

Best regards

C.B.

I like it! Good job Captain Beatnik.

"The model is very simple"

simple, but elegant. lovely model, and very in keeping w/ the style of the original core ships.

Yes, I like that a lot. It's very much in keeping with the 'look' of the default ships, and looks like a good alternative to the Python - smaller hold but with better specs overall.

Looks like a good ship to upgrade to from a stock Cobra. Downloading.

What a beauty. New yet close to the original Elite/Oolite styling. Totally believable in my Ooniverse!

JazHaz wrote:

Looks like a good ship to upgrade to from a stock Cobra. Downloading.

Price is higher than a Python though?

JazHaz wrote:

JazHaz wrote:

Looks like a good ship to upgrade to from a stock Cobra. Downloading.

Price is higher than a Python though?

Fair enough, it's a more of a multi-purpose ship...faster, more energy banks and missiles and with more options (like military shield enhancers) compared to the Python, but less hold space which is reasonable considering the size.
It's a bit like the step up from Boa to Boa Class Cruser (except for the hold bit).

Nice looking ship Captain Beatnik.

Many thanks for your kind comments!

@JazHaz: I think the price has to be significantly higher than the price of a python because it has more of a multi-purpose ship as smivs already said. The advantage the python has compared the coluber is one additional energy bank, a bigger cargo hold, and of course the price! That way the good old python stays attractive, especially for pure traders.

It was my aim to build a ship that fits into the line of the default ships. The coluber fits into the niche between the cobra mk 3 and the boa2 class cruiser. In fact the stats of the coluber are equivalent to the average value of the stats of a cobra3 and a boa2. Because 4.5 missle pylons are not possible, I gave the coluber 5 pylons and reduced the cargo hold as a compensation.

The price of the coluber is the average value of the price of a cobra3 and a boa2 plus the price of the standard equipment the coluber has.

There's a slight problem with the shipyard.plist file: It just appears to be missing an enclosing pair of braces:

Hello JD,

thanks for reporting the problem.

Unfortunately I can not reproduce it. On my system (imac with osx 10.6.8 everything works fine with the original shipdata.plist and when I set the pair of braces as you suggested I get an error message in the log. What system do you use running Oolite?

Has anyone encountered the same problem as JD and/or an Idea what could be wrong?

Hi Captain Beatnik.

I'm using Windows 7 here.

Note that it's the shipyard.plist, not shipdata.plist that gave me the error.

Hi JD,

I guess some day I ought to go to school and learn to read .

O.K., I can see now the problem with the shipyard.plist. Fixed and uploaded an updated version that should resolve the issue on windows systems.

Many thanks for testing an bug reporting!

Best regards

C.B.

No probs. I encountered my first Coluber about an hour ago, docking just before I did. It's a nice looking ship.