Oolite Bulletins

Hi all,
My current WIP includes a planetinfo.plist in which I am adapting the descriptions of around a dozen planets. This is common practice - Galactic Navy does this to mention the Sec-Com stations and Assassins Guild also adds to several planet descriptions and I'm sure there are others.
The point is, there does not seem to be a list anywhere of the planets whose descriptions have been modified by OXP, and therefore there is a real risk that unwittingly two OXPs might overwrite the description of the same planet at some point, meaning only one will take effect.
I therefore propose that a wiki page is started listing all the planets that have had their descriptions changed by OXP authors. That way we can check if a planet we wish to use has already been used by a previous OXP, or if it is still 'available'.
I am happy to make such a wiki page, but need the necessary information, so if any author who has used planetinfo to change a description or anybody who is aware of any of the existing instances could post the information here I'll make a start on the wiki page.
The information I will need is the Galaxy number and the planet number and name. The names of the OXPs are probably not so important but worth mentioning anyway.
So, for example lets take the GN Sec-Com station at Riareror in G7. The required information would be

Riareror 6 214

Just to get the ball rolling, these are the planets I am using.

Sori 0 66
Zaleriza 0 238
Isatre 0 152
Sosole 1 192
Atistiso 2 57
Usgeat 3 134
Zausmaor 3 189
Raleor 4 50
Biteen 5 193
Ertius 6 151
Xeraso 6 159
Esaqube 6 205
Usmaedin 7 13
Xetila 7 168

Edited to replace Sori with Zaleriza (see posts below).

Title edited to reflect expansion of the List

Smivs wrote:

Galactic Navy does this to mention the Sec-Com stations and Assassins Guild also adds to several planet descriptions and I'm sure there are others.

PAG's Famous Planets comes to mind - there's a long list in there.

What about systems that perhaps might not be around in the future? I don't want to go into it too much, but perhaps if there were a few systems in Galaxy 8 that were suddenly 'destroyed', should they be added to this list?

El Viejo wrote:

Smivs wrote:

Galactic Navy does this to mention the Sec-Com stations and Assassins Guild also adds to several planet descriptions and I'm sure there are others.

PAG's Famous Planets comes to mind - there's a long list in there.

And we have clashes already. I'd think the planet/moon business should start moving to a API (e.g. Cmd.Cheyds DH-Systems) to avoid this. I'm not sure what kind of possibilities DH-Systems provides (merging, replacing, etc...), but without a mechanism to sync the different OXPs it will stay this way.

Sori, 0 66, is also known as Ascension and is also one of the destinations I have included GalDrive Programmer.

Well, here is evidence already why this proposed list is such a good idea!

Wildeblood wrote:

Sori, 0 66, is also known as Ascension and is also one of the destinations I have included GalDrive Programmer.

@ Wildeblood, (excuse the pun) I'm sorry, but Sori is Sori! This is plain to see in the wiki planet list for G1. There is no such planet as Ascension in Oolite...it was a bad idea that died the death it should have done, so much so that all reference to it is likely to be removed from Famous Planets as well, as is mentioned here. Please don't take offence - by all means link to Sori in your OXP, but use its proper name.
Edited to add:- Re-reading this it seems I'm 'suggesting' you do something to your OXP to accomodate mine. That's not the case...I don't have to use the planet Sori, so I may well 'adopt' another planet to avoid any clashes.

Back on-topic, as I said I'm quite happy to make up a wiki page to avoid possible clashes which is why I asked for the necessary information to be posted here. What I'm not going to do is spend hours I don't have downloading OXPs and pouring over their planetinfo.plists, and perusing the wiki to glean information.
This proposed list is in everybody's interests (particularly OXP authors), so just to repeat myself, if you want to make sure future OXPs don't over-write your planetinfo, please post the Planet name, and galaxy and planet number here.

https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?f= ... 4&start=35 indicates that pagroove intends to do descriptions for all planets in g0 (G1).

I guess I should take the updated script/planetinfo.plist for FP offline now, as it it superfluous and will cause only confusion. Will ask pagroove.

Edit: Done. The updated version is offline now.

Looking through my downloaded OXPs:
Asteroid Storm: Leesti = 0 55
Coyote's Run: Biceri = 4 58
Ionics: Cevera = 1 198, Zaria = 1 251, Ramaza = 1 26, Bebege = 1 32, Dimadi = 1 36, Soorte = 1 42, Ersoonve = 1 50, Legeara = 1 55
Lave: Lave = 0 7
Lovecats: Teance = 3 149
Rescue Stations: Lezaer = 2 5, Ceanbibi = 2 76
Taranis: Lerelace = 0 141
Tianve: Tianve = 0 246
Trident Down*: Raceedat = 3 135, Leenor = 3 187, Dicebe = 3 197, Lavebe = 3 2, Leisera = 3 247, Lequetor = 3 34, Bianti = 3 65,

* = by modifying the system info with Javascript, rather than by shipping a planetinfo file, but there's still scope for clashes.

Galactic Navy and Famous Planets both have pretty large lists, and the nature of Famous Planets is that future versions might have more, of course.

Rescue Stations and Feudal States will both append to the existing planetinfo by modifying the save game, to note RRS Group Galactic HQs and Feudal Royalty respectively, which can make a mess of things if you then install a new OXP later.

I did put together this proof of concept for a way of handling clashes between OXPs better. If there's interest in it - specifically, if people actually want to use it to manage planetinfo between their own OXPs - then I can continue working on it.

Thanks for those cim.

Does anybody have any thoughts on how the wiki page should work? I'm viewing it as a quick-check sort of page, where an author can go to check if the planet he wants to use has already been 'taken'. So I was thinking just a list or table, something like that. Arranged by Galaxy, and probably best with the planets listed alphabetically by name. How does that sound?

Smivs wrote:

I'm sorry, but Sori is Sori! This is plain to see in the wiki planet list for G1. There is no such planet as Ascension in Oolite...

In all fairness, the same is of course also true for Ribiara. The wiki planet list for G3 contains no Aqualina.

Personally, I find some consistency in the basic layout of the game important, and for me this includes that some basics of the galactic map should be the same for all players, regardless of their OXPs. The system names are for me clearly among these basics. Ionics.oxp changes the techlevels (and I think economies as well) of some systems drastically, which I found borderline since I played it first. I almost decided against playing it because of these drastic changes. But changing a system name clearly crosses the border for me.

I like the Aquatics ships very much, they are an integral part of my Ooniverse, but because of this "Aqualina" stuff I will forever continue to use version 1.04 of this OXP, which is the last version before the OXP went a step too far (in my opinion).

I have modified the discription of the Planet Riredi in Galaxy one in an ambience-OXP I´m working on (WIP, 1% done):

Riredi, 0 210" =

description = "This world is very fabled for the Rirediian mountain slug. This epic creatures are isles of flourishing life on the otherwise deserted planet and each of them forms a complete ecosystem. Dealing with radioactives is strictly prohibited on this world because radiation is very harmful to the slugs. Riredi is orbited by a dodecahedron-station and a sodalite-station that houses the Coluber Works and Shipyards and the HQ of Riredisec inc..";

Smivs - I think this is a great idea and should certainly help reduce duplication of work in the future.

Looking to the future it would be great to try to pool together all the great textured planets but this may be easier said than done.

I have seen many fantastic looking planets via posted screenshots and oxps but to be honest I am not too sure which combination of oxps provide which planets or which screenshots are currently WIP only.

Reading back, a couple of points/comments caught my eye.

Pleb wrote:

What about systems that perhaps might not be around in the future? I don't want to go into it too much, but perhaps if there were a few systems in Galaxy 8 that were suddenly 'destroyed', should they be added to this list?

That depends on the circumstances really...for example if their destruction precedes the players' visit to them and this is going to be enshrined in planetinfo.plist then 'Yes'. Obviously I'd suggest you refer to the list (when it exists) to make sure you're not destroying planets other people have used

Svengali wrote:

https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?f= ... 4&start=35 indicates that pagroove intends to do descriptions for all planets in g0 (G1).

It does indeed state that. I think to do this would be regretable, as it would effectively deny other authors the option of changing any of the descriptions for G1 planets to accommodate their own OXP projects. Famous Planets should do any 'famous' planets...that's what it does, but leave the rest of them alone so the rest of us can use them if we need to, please.