Oolite Bulletins

Hi all,

What is the best way to find what OXPs were updated?


BTW, this is my very 1st message here but I am old Elite player (and old flight simmer with experience in almost every mayor flight sim in past 15+ years including ALPHA/BETA and development work)!

I started on my uncle's Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K in early 1980's... then I got my Commodore 64 and played for hours and hours and hours... after that I got Atari ST 512 (expanded to 1024) and still played Elite... ahhh... those were the days... it was my favorite game ever...


Leo "Apollo11"

Hi Apollo11, welcome to the forum! The best place for information on OXPs is the [wiki]OXP List[/wiki]. The 2 right-hand columns show when each OXP was last updated, and whether or not they are compatible with 1.76.1.

Hi Apollo11, Welcome!

The [wiki]OXP List[/wiki] can be sorted. Click twice on the little triangles above the date (next to the word "Updated"), and then you will see the most recent updates at the top.

Hi Apollo11, and welcome.
As the others said, the OXP table is the most comprehensive guide. It's also worth checking here as well, because updates are usually mentioned in the Expansion Pack forum, so keep an eye on the New Posts there, particularly for the OXPs you use.

Hi all,

Thanks guys!

So... just sort the OXP list and check manually for updates... no problem!


BTW, since I learned about "Oolite" 10+ days ago (I really wish I knew of it before ) I have been playing with it (time permitting of course) and I have several OXPs in use...


Leo "Apollo11"

G'day, Leo Apollo11, and welcome aboard!

Apollo11 wrote:

I learned about "Oolite" 10+ days ago

10+ days ago, eh? Let me guess, you learned about Oolite via the Elite: Dangerous Kickstarter, perhaps?

Thargoid wrote:

Although it does rely on authors remembering to update it...

In that case there will most likely be some mention about the new version here on the Bulletin Board.

Many OXPs contain a link on their wiki page to the relevant discussion thread.

Hi all,

Diziet Sma wrote:

G'day, Leo Apollo11, and welcome aboard!

Apollo11 wrote:

I learned about "Oolite" 10+ days ago

10+ days ago, eh? Let me guess, you learned about Oolite via the Elite: Dangerous Kickstarter, perhaps?

No... I learned about it from a on-line friend at one other forum I frequently visit (Matrix Games - strategic / tactical games)...

I had no idea about existence of "Elite: Dangerous" at all until I visited this forum!


Leo "Apollo11"

"View unread posts" has become my favorite feature of this site. THAT is the best way to find out, in my experience.

Some games have mod updaters, that automatically search for updates or even new mods and can also install them.

No idea (as usual) on how difficult it would be to implement that for oxps, but if a game like for example ES V: Skyrim can have "Nexus", why can't Oolite?

Lestradae wrote:

No idea (as usual) on how difficult it would be to implement that for oxps

I think there are basically three requirements for it:
1) A standard packaging format for OXPs. There are at least two common vague formats, and several rarer ones. With a widely-adopted update tool, you could probably encourage convergence to one more tightly-specified format eventually, but in the meantime?
2) A data source. If the OXP list got rewritten to use Semantic Mediawiki's powers, this would probably be the easiest way of doing this, and furthermore be useful in its own right even without the updating tool ... that's still a substantial task, though.
3) A cross-platform update management tool. No-one's yet volunteered to write one, but that's perhaps because of the lack of a data source for it to use. This is not straightforward even with a data source, of course.

The idea has been kicked around several times.. at one point I even began creating a site to try and track OXP updates and notify users. (project collapsed due to long bout of illness) The biggest difficulty is that the OXP authors are a very individualistic crowd (not that I think that's a bad thing) who wish to retain widely varying degrees of control over their work and how/where it's hosted. A single potential point of failure is also (quite correctly) regarded as a Bad Thing.

It would be very cool if an automated oxp searcher/installer/updater could be done. One that told us when a new oxp was available, that downloaded and installed it on mouse click, and also told us when an update was available.

Wildly individual control over oxps would not have to be restricted to achieve that - just ask everyone nicely to put a reference into a databank in addition to download source, wiki entry etc.

This would actually accomplish what I once tried to realise with the Oolite Extended bundle, but without that one's problems concerning error-proneness, unwieldiness for updates and reduced control for oxp authors.

The idea removes my desire to realise a V2.0 of OE, but an oxp searcher/installer/updater is entirely beyond my abilities. Really hope some script wiz will find themselves up to the task one not too-far day.