Oolite Bulletins

Well, here is the balloon. I'm only releasing this because some seemed to have an interest. I won't say what others thought of it. What ever, it looks ridiculous, BUT.....it really IS a trading cargo hauler. No kidding. If you look at the sides of the silly thing, you will notice two huge cargo doors for massive amounts of material to be transferred in and out of it's cargo bay, which is most of the middle bulk of the ship. I gave it a max cargo capability of 900 tons, but I bet it could be a lot more. It also has exterior mounted anti-gravity units (the glowing white beachballs), so this ship can be taken into a planet's atmosphere for trading, hovering several feet off the ground while it is loaded, and unloaded. It has a max speed of 250, max energy of 500, and the energy recharge rate is 3.0. A battleship it is not, but it is capable of handling military lasers on the front, and back, and has a missile tube, carrying a max missile payload of 10 missiles of your choice. This blob goes for a whopping 500,000 samolies. Here is the download link, and some pics.

I have broken the two sizes of Blimpy into different oxps, but basically the same ship. The first, was the first, and is BigBlimpy. Link below.

https://www.box.com/s/30242f58f66526c3220a

The second, and smaller version, is called SmallBlimpy (it took me a while to come up with that one ). Link below.

https://www.box.com/s/72d21d9e8b24f61e1021

They are both dockable. In fact, the bigger one is fairly easy to dock manually, if you use the Space Station Buoy to help you aim up straight before sailing in. Docking computers are still better, and advised for newer players.

By the way, I was serious when I suggested you put a fake logo on the ship. I think the logo looked good, it should just not be an exact copy of a RealLife™ logo.

For instance, the Blimpy could be used by the Oo-Haul company and its competitors. Or it could give advertising space to anything in YAH. Perhaps one of the YAH-wizards could post a couple of already existing fitting adds?

Given that many Oolite companies have "oo" instead of "o", how about making a slight change of direction and going for something like

Disembodied wrote:

Given that many Oolite companies have "oo" instead of "o", how about making a slight change of direction and going for something like

Good start. Perhaps, given the rough shape and purpose of the ship, it could be 'jar' instead of 'yar'?

Commander McLane wrote:

Good start. Perhaps, given the rough shape and purpose of the ship, it could be 'jar' instead of 'yar'?

Trickier, because I don't have Goodyear's (probably proprietary) font – but never say never! I've found a similar one which, with a bit of tweaking, might do the job:

Woot! Installing the God Jar (as in the genie in the lamp) blimp right now...

Update:Installed, flown it and been killed lots in combat too. All seems OK. And I see it can be fitted with a Twin Plasma Cannon - cool! Thank you for the Blimpy.

One query: in BlimpyV2.1.oxp\Config\shipdata.plist there is a line: but I can find no reference to 'snapper' or a snapper.png anywhere else.

Sorry about the "snapper.png" thing. It's corrected, and an updated version link is in place.

How do I make it so the "YAH" option would work? Dosn't that have to have some particular script for users to make their own?

Disembodied wrote:

Commander McLane wrote:

Good start. Perhaps, given the rough shape and purpose of the ship, it could be 'jar' instead of 'yar'?

Trickier, because I don't have Goodyear's (probably proprietary) font – but never say never! I've found a similar one which, with a bit of tweaking, might do the job:

It just looks like it needs an ümlaut: GÖD JAHR or some such.

Also, should be hugely slower and should randomly burst into flames.

Is it impossible to dock this huge balloon with anything, or am I misjudging its dimensions?

BuggyBY wrote:

Is it impossible to dock this huge balloon with anything, or am I misjudging its dimensions?

It WILL dock with a space station. However, one should let the Docking Computers do the job, unless you are incredibly sure of your own capabilities. My experience, which isn't much I realise, is that if it will launch from the station, it will dock as well. It's a tight fit.

Buggy BY, I went back to the game and actually docked it manually. For some reason, Leesti High wouldn't give me docking clearance, so my docking computer was useless. I did it, but it scared the crap out of me. I went back to my Blimpy files and reproduced a smaller version, which is what the above link will get you now. If, for some reason, someone still wants the larger version, I could put it back up on Box. I found the thing wasn't nearly as scary to dock at the smaller size. If anyone has the bigger size version, let me know if you docked it okay. I'm curious to find what others have to say about the silly monster.

Looks great! Has a nice retro sci-fi feel to it! I'm not sure if it's a deliberate part of the design but it looks like there are some disconnected polygon groups on the sides of the hull causing a small gap in the model - I don't know anything about working in Blender so i can't tell how difficult that would be to fix, but there may be some sort of vertex 'merge' or 'weld' command that you might be able to run to cure this

mandoman wrote:

I went back to my Blimpy files and reproduced a smaller version

mandoman wrote:

If, for some reason, someone still wants the larger version, I could put it back up on Box.

I just edited mine to be a Bump.

mandoman wrote:

I'm curious to find what others have to say about the silly monster.

My Ooniverse now has both big Bumps and little Blimpys.

Griff wrote:

Looks great! Has a nice retro sci-fi feel to it! I'm not sure if it's a deliberate part of the design but it looks like there are some disconnected polygon groups on the sides of the hull causing a small gap in the model - I don't know anything about working in Blender so i can't tell how difficult that would be to fix, but there may be some sort of vertex 'merge' or 'weld' command that you might be able to run to cure this

Griff, are you talking about the port side? I shaped, and put a whole different cube into each side of the ship to look like cargo doors. That bump was because I had to pull that section out a bit more, as it would disappear if left alone, which meant it would mess up the sign. It occurs to me now that maybe I should have used the "extrude area" function, and pushed the blimpy surface in a little so it wouldn't interfere with the doors. I have learned to use extra cubes for that purpose, as the paint job tends to go all jagged on the edges when I just extrude an area to look like a door. I'll go back and try.