Oolite Bulletins

Hi!

After a long, long time without Oolite, I decided to return to it. I upgraded to the latest version (1.76.1) from my old 1.73, upgraded all OXPs which were reported by the engine as incompatible or gave me exceptions in the log file, and now only one tiny detail remains unsolved: I can't fly my SuperCobra, because the front view is completely messed up. The other views are fine, and if I start a new game, Cobra MkIII works fine even in the front view, but SuperCobra, no go. This is what it looks like just after I leave a station:

Front
Back

Now, it used to be even worse with SuperCobra 1.41 - I used to get bad view from all windows, not just the front one. With 1.42, only the front view is garbled.

I tried removing all other OXPs except SuperCobra and it didn't change a thing. I tried to remove only the SuperCobra and the view turned OK. So the solution seems to be to get rid of the SuperCobra, but:

1) I grew rather fond of it, and
2) even though I have enough cash for a new ship, there are none for sale at the system I am in.

Is there anything I can try before going back to version 1.73? Thanks.

Going back to 1.73 would be silly, and shouldn't actually change anything.

What you're seeing is part of the hull of your ship, which obviously obscures part of your front view. The solution is simple: move your front view position either further up or further forward by increasing either the y or the z component of the view_position_forward entry in your shipdata. You can experiment by incrementing in small steps (I'd suggest 5m), and I'd suggest you increase the z-coordinate. Don't forget to press SHIFT when starting Oolite again after making a change.

Cool - it works! I increased the Z coordinate a lot and got a good view! I'll now keep halving the interval until I find out the exact value. Thanks a lot!

pepak wrote:

Cool - it works! I increased the Z coordinate a lot and got a good view! I'll now keep halving the interval until I find out the exact value. Thanks a lot!

Increasing is actually a bad solution because of the parallax you might create with the laser. Decreasing the y or z value should also work. With all Oolite ships, when you create a viewpoint outside the ship, you actually see parts of the ships outside. But, when placing the viewpoint inside the ship, you will look through all textures and have a clear view. So, this is not a bug, but a design choice. Although I hate seeing part of the hull, some others like it.

Edit: I looked in my version (1.4.2, the same you are using I assume) of the ship and it has no visible front at all. I wonder why you see it.

1.4.2 here.

I increased the Z coordinate from 16.25 to 21.75 and it works OK.

Hi,
I have a similar problem, but can't figure out how to open the shipdata file, as my pc doesn't recognise the file type. Any ideas what I need to do to get past this?
many thanks

Hi Steveo, welcome to the friendliest forum this side of Riedquat! Any text editor should be able to open the shipdata file. Don't use Wordpad, though, as it can (I believe) have odd effects. Best to make a copy of things anyway, before editing them. Notepad++ is free and works fine.

Disembodied wrote:

Don't use Wordpad, though, as it can (I believe) have odd effects.

Nope. Wordpad is absolutely fine. Notepad is the evil one.

Hi, thanks for the welcome! yes wordpad is much more decipherable. I'm still having trouble locating the imperial courier in this file (the ship that is giving me the trouble, as I can't see out of the forward view). I can see all the other traditional ships but not this one I have added. Am I looking in the wrong place?
thanks again.

You should look inside the OXP, of course.

Thus: AddOns/impcourier2.oxp/Config/shipdata.plist

Inside the file you're looking for impcourier-player.

The shipdata.plist for the Imperial Courier should be inside the Config folder, inside the Impcourier2.oxp. To change the forward view, adjust the numbers in the
A caveat: as has been pointed out above, I don't really know what I'm talking about ... even less so than usual when it comes to guddling around with a PC. Make a copy of the OXP and change that. When you restart the game, hold down the SHIFT key to flush the cache and ensure it loads up your amended version of the OXP.

Edit: ninja'd!

Cheers! that's done the trick. Now let's see what this baby can do.