Oolite Bulletins

Back in the day - the mid 80's to be precise - I played Elite, arguably the greatest game of that genre for 8 bit computers. Once upon a time something strange happened. I had just exited witchspace, ready to engage the jump engines, when nothing happened. I checked my status and it revealed condition yellow. What? There is nothing here but me! Now I won't go on because the tale is recorded on this OXP's wiki page. What I had encountered was the fabled stealth ship, the Cougar.

There came a time I happened to be docked at the Bell & Braben Seedy Space Bar. I was watching the mud wrestling tournament and enjoying a particularly good Teaatisian vicious brew, when a dark hooded figure approached me from behind. He introduced himself as envoy for an organization called, "Saints Preserve Us".

"The time has come", he whispered.
Time for what, I asked?
"Time for the Swords of Justice to shine again." I turned to face him but there was no one there.

[wiki]Cougar ST OXP[/wiki]

Box Download Link

Ah, the cat is out the bag!
Very nice Solo

Watch-out, there's a Cougar about!

Not exactly ideal for someone in my line of business, but it's a mean fighter and will stay in my AddOns folder. Well done, Solo!

Does the cloaking device mission feature Asps or Cougars? If its the Asps, can the mission be changed to use this OXP ship instead?

Er... bit of a spoiler there, JH.

El Viejo wrote:

Er... bit of a spoiler there, JH.

Yes, but how do I ask that question without it being a spoiler?

Well... a quick look in the core models folder would've answered the first part, and you could use Rot13, at least.

El Viejo wrote:

Well... a quick look in the core models folder would've answered the first part …

… and the second part as well. An in-built mission cannot use an OXP ship. You can't make the original missions dependent on the installation of some OXP. That should be obvious.

Commander McLane wrote:

You can't make the original missions dependent on the installation of some OXP

But an OXP, if installed, can change the behaviour of the original missions (and many do, a little)

cim wrote:

Commander McLane wrote:

You can't make the original missions dependent on the installation of some OXP

But an OXP, if installed, can change the behaviour of the original missions (and many do, a little)

True, but that has always to be done in the OXP, not in Oolite. It is of course possible to create an OXP which replaces the NPC ship model used for the third in-built mission with a Cougar model, which would indeed change the mission. However, it would make this change only for those people who install that OXP. But as the mission is supposed to come as a surprise for the player, how would they even know about it in advance, and know that there is an alternative ship to the built-in ship (which they have never seen before the mission happens)? The potential market for that OXP would therefore tend to be limited, mainly to people who have already finished the mission and are willing to hack their save-files in order to do it again with another opponent.

Or the Cougar would have to become part of the in-built ship set, which is not mine to decide, but which I would find a little odd.

I'm pretty sure that some Elite versions used the Cougar for that mission. IIRC the Atari ST/Amiga version does.

I believe the Cougar was in the BBC Master version of Elite too... but I don't think it was involved in that mission.

Apologies to CaptSolo for the thread derailment!

El Viejo wrote:

Apologies to CaptSolo for the thread derailment!

Not so much a derailment as arriving at the wrong platform

Apology not necessary. I find this kind of discussion stimulating.

When I was doing the preliminary work for this OXP, I referred to Ian Bell's Elite pages for more information and found this:

SIGNS OF DANGER
If you cannot make an interspace quick jump J towards the planet, there is a ship in the vicinity. It could be dangerous.