Oolite Bulletins

Posted: **Sat Dec 10, 2005 3:23 pm**

Let me start this post by saying that you have done a GREAT job of recreating the game Elite! I have been a big fan of the game for close to 20 years and have waited in anticipation of some one remaking the game. (I originally played in on the Commodore 64 (and I am in the US))

I have been kicking around an idea for some time. Elite has one of the biggest playing fields ever. 200 stars per galaxy 10 galaxies (If memory serves me correctly) How about expanding on that playing field.

I will say that I am not a programmer but have had classes on programing so I do understand some of it.

How about using a fractal calculation to generate the galaxy on the fly. You will need to store a single number (Entry point) to recreate the galaxy at load time. This could also be used to generate a galactic map to allow you to choose the galaxy you wish to jump to.

This could be expanded on to allow for different star types, inhabited vs uninhabited solar systems, spacial anomalies, debri fields, etc.

Posted: **Sat Dec 10, 2005 4:46 pm**

You'd have to find a way to cater for existing missions, then... Now, every planet has a number, and some missions rely on the numbers *and* relative placements of planets (rondabout mission, for instance...)

Posted: **Sat Dec 10, 2005 5:18 pm**

Dr. Substrate wrote:
How about using a fractal calculation to generate the galaxy on the fly. You will need to store a single number (Entry point) to recreate the galaxy at load time. This could also be used to generate a galactic map to allow you to choose the galaxy you wish to jump to.

This is pretty much what Elite and Oolite do. The original Elite had nowhere near enough storage for 2000 star systems with descriptions, and the time it would take to build it by hand would be a huge task (compare Escape Velocity: Nova, for instance, with a few hundred painfully hand-crafted systems).

Posted: **Sun Dec 11, 2005 12:47 am**

ELite and Oolite use the Fibonacci sequence to generate the planet names and related variables, using pretty much no memory whatsoever.

It's not inconceivable that the code could be altered to allow more than 8 sectors (galaxies) with more than 256 planets in each one. The trick would be to make them playable and interesting. That's where the modders come in, I suppose.

Posted: **Sun Dec 11, 2005 4:16 am**

Selezen wrote:
ELite and Oolite use the Fibonacci sequence to generate the planet names and related variables, using pretty much no memory whatsoever.

It's not inconceivable that the code could be altered to allow more than 8 sectors (galaxies) with more than 256 planets in each one. The trick would be to make them playable and interesting. That's where the modders come in, I suppose.

This I have a little insite into. I have writen several perl scripts that auto generate corporate newsletters. No human envolvment needed, and every one is unique. :D

It is a matter of databasing (Flat file, XML, CVS, etc) the needed data, then selecting the data for the galaxy based on a number generated by the fractal or Fibonacci sequence.

To keep it simple lets look at a 3 option sequence

Actions (%a)
1:Transport item/person to location
2:Locate and distroy a ship
3:Defend an outpost

Items/persons (%i)
1:Secret weapon
2:New Technology
3:Dr. Megabrain

Ships (%s)
1:Cobra
2:Asp
3:Viper

Attacking Party (%ap)
1:Pirates
2:Rebels
3:Opreseve Government

You can then use the above to select at random (With some restrictions) the mission. Saving the avaliable missions in the save file at the generation of the galaxy. Thus each galaxy would get a unique set of missions. Provided we came up with 100 options in each catagory we could easly hit the 1,000,000 permutations point with more game play than anyone would ever play.

Posted: **Sun Dec 11, 2005 11:56 pm**

The original Elite used a pseudo-random fibonacci style number generator to create the data for each galaxy from an initial seed-value. I would venture that OOlite has a very similar (reverse engineered) version of the Bell/Braben algorhythm as, as far as I can remember, the galaxies in OOlite are identical to the ones in Elite.

One thing to bear in mind though is that a lot of seed-values might create unsuitable galaxies with groups of systems you can't get to (outside of the 7LY range), too few or too many systems, unfortunately named systems etc. (Bell and Braben took quite a while choosing the right galaxy seeds but still managed to miss one planet called 'arse' apparently).

Posted: **Mon Dec 12, 2005 1:54 am**

Anyone other than me remember "Captain Blood"?

I always loved two things from that game. One was the language system which, to me, was the most "authentic" communication with alien solution in any gomputer game. The other was the Galaxy map, which was simply a spiral nebula. Every dot on it was really a system. Of course the vast majority of them were empty of planets, but yeah, the idea of this HUGE galaxy with millions of systems was rather neat.

Now you have got me thinking about how to implement it... Of course I can't imagine it being particularly "backwards compatible". Oh well. I might just scribble some code ideas down anyway.

Posted: **Mon Dec 12, 2005 2:15 am**

gus3 wrote:
One thing to bear in mind though is that a lot of seed-values might create unsuitable galaxies with groups of systems you can't get to (outside of the 7LY range), too few or too many systems, unfortunately named systems etc. (Bell and Braben took quite a while choosing the right galaxy seeds but still managed to miss one planet called 'arse' apparently).

There are several small groups of inaccessible worlds, and a few single ones, in the Elite/Oolite universe. There’s at least one where there’s nowhere to get a Galactic Hyperthingy…

Posted: **Mon Dec 12, 2005 7:26 am**

CheshireNoir wrote:
Anyone other than me remember "Captain Blood"?

Yeah, I played that game on my ST lots, but the degenerative disease part of the game was irritating, forcing you to avoid exploring for exploration's sake and folow the story rail.

A free-roaming Captain Blood would have been magnificent.

Posted: **Mon Jan 16, 2006 1:34 pm**

aegidian wrote:
A free-roaming Captain Blood would have been magnificent.

Hem ... Oolite 2.0 ?

I have a problem with the galaxies :

1) They are not galaxies. Yes, I know ... But really, the name is not "immersive", and the display is not "immersive" too. The stars distribution does not say "you are in a galaxy".
2) It's always confusing cause of the different mission to came in and out from "galaxies".

I would really prefer a galactic map, with sectors, and 2 (3) types of hypedrives :

Shot range (7 LY)
Long range (Sector)
(emergency)

Posted: **Mon Jan 16, 2006 2:04 pm**

Dude, do want to play Elite or do you want to play a different game?

The galaxies have always been called galaxies. It's part of what makes Elite what it is. We all KNOW they aren't really galaxies, but that's what they get called!

If it makes you feel better, use the justification I came up with:

Selezen's guide to Galactic History wrote:
In the early days of hyperspace, experiments with higher yield quirium emitters resulted in some ships disappearing. When these ships eventually reappeared some years later, they reported that they had exited hyperspace in a completely different galaxy where nothing was familiar and no constellations could be identified. They had been required to repair the burned out drive unit on repeated occasions in order to make a further 7 jumps to return to known space.

The high-yield drive was manufactured as a one-shot intergalactic hyperdrive and the new galaxies were explored.

Over time, astronomical studies and the detection of radio waves revealled that these new galaxies were in fact distant areas of the same galaxy that humanity called home, separated by an average of about 600LY and forming a rough circle in the western spiral arm of the Milky Way. Although the truth had been revealled, it had become second nature to refer to these areas as 'galaxies', and the moniker stuck, as did the designation of the 'inter-galactic hyperdrive' unit.

I like this snippet (which I use a lot) because it also explains the wormhole things in Frontier. Hyperspace wormholes are common in the FEU, it would seem.

Also, I have used the wormhole theory in explaining why the IGH is no more. Basically, between Elite/Oolite and Frontier, the wormhole connecting Galaxy 1 with Galaxy 2 has collapsed. In the timeline on my website I have said that the wormhole was collapsed deliberately by the departing non-human races in order to prevent thier persecution and extermination by hostile Imperial and Federal forces.

Posted: **Mon Jan 16, 2006 2:36 pm**

Selezen wrote:
Dude, do want to play Elite or do you want to play a different game?

I want to play Oolite ...

Posted: **Mon Jan 16, 2006 2:56 pm**

By the way, Oolite doesn't have an Arse in its list of planets.

Posted: **Mon Jan 16, 2006 3:53 pm**

Why not?

I think it's fun to boast that one has been to the Arse of the galaxy and back.

Posted: **Mon Jan 16, 2006 4:13 pm**

winston wrote:
By the way, Oolite doesn't have an Arse in its list of planets.

When Bell and Braben where setting up the galaxies they decided they had better check the 256 system names in the galaxy where the player would be arrive, in case any of the four-letter words were actually four-letter words. "One of the first galaxies we tried had a system called Arse. We couldn't use the whole galaxy. We just threw it away!"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story ... 07,00.html

Oolite Bulletins

An infinite number of Galaxies and other ideas

An infinite number of Galaxies and other ideas

Re: An infinite number of Galaxies and other ideas