Oolite Bulletins

First of all, this isn't going to be for everyone. Not everyone is going to agree that it is acceptable (or should even be possible/plausible) to be able to fly a Thargoid Warship. However, for those who are up for some fun, this might be of some interest...

So this is a flyable Thargoid Warship. It has the same stats as a standard Thargoid Warship, so expect massive energy banks, 5 missile slots and no cargo space. It doesn't have Thargoid Lasers, but you could add Thargoid technology to it (from other OXPs) to make it more like a real Thargoid ship. There is a penalty for flying the Thargoid ship though - you will always, from the moment you buy this ship, have a legal status of fugitive which cannot be changed. Even if you jump to a new galaxy. This will ensure that police and navy ships will always try and shoot you down.

There are some bugs, namely the view positions. They are okay but they could use some tweaking. It also comes in two editions: the Standard Edition, which allows the player to fly the standard Thargoid Warship from the core game, and the Griff Edition, which allows the player to fly different Griff models of the Thargoid Warship. I've set the price fairly high, around 950,000 credits upwards for the ship. Also the ship is nearly always available, which again is more for testing purposes. When I've managed to sort out the viewing positions a bit better and maybe think of some more punishments for flying this uber-ironass I will make this ship fairly impossible to buy...

Let it be said that full credit goes to Griff for his excellent Thargoid Warship models. To use the Griff Edition you will need Griff's shipset 1.2.25.

Standard Edition Download

Griff Edition Download

Diziet Sma wrote:

Eat bison, discos!

Oi, that's my line!

Funny coloured accent you got there

Thargoid wrote:

Diziet Sma wrote:

Eat bison, discos!

Funny coloured accent you got there

My pronunciation is pretty 'orrible, too..

Quick question, does anyone know how to fix the view positions? Admitedly I 'borrowed' the viewing positions from other ships and tweaked them slightly to make it look mildly acceptable but I would prefer being able to see better when piloting these ships. I understand that the coordinates are relative to the model but I don't understand exactly what that means...

Pleb wrote:

Quick question, does anyone know how to fix the view positions? Admitedly I 'borrowed' the viewing positions from other ships and tweaked them slightly to make it look mildly acceptable but I would prefer being able to see better when piloting these ships. I understand that the coordinates are relative to the model but I don't understand exactly what that means...

It's described in the Wiki but not easily to be found. For the basic vector explanations you should look at the Wiki reference ship page (vectorForward etc.).

Devs correct me if I'm wrong (Still a newbie to this

Ah I thought this was more to do with the coordinates of the model of the ship, like when specifying where to put sub-entities on a model you have to use the coordinates of the model (like in Wings 3D). What I'm confused is as to where should I be roughly aiming to have them in relation to the model(s)?

Pleb wrote:

Ah I thought this was more to do with the coordinates of the model of the ship, like when specifying where to put sub-entities on a model you have to use the coordinates of the model (like in Wings 3D). What I'm confused is as to where should I be roughly aiming to have them in relation to the model(s)?

Both internal and external view positions - I'm not sure which you're wondering about - are relative to the ship's model coordinates. Generally you want to put the internal views at an appropriate point on or near the outer surface of the ship, in the appropriate direction from the centre. (And, traditionally, at least a few metres above the weapon position on the same side) The view direction is then fixed, so you don't need to worry about quaternions for these.

External views you need to back off a bit more with, get a couple of hundred metres off the hull, and then you need to adjust the quaternion so it points at the ship. If you're doing a standard 8-way view (and with a Thargoid warship, why not) just copy the views from another ship and scale the position vectors up to the right distance. If you want a different camera, you'll need to position it yourself, and then calculate the quaternion.

Start from a point behind the ship with the directions set to zero so it's looking forward, and make small changes to get a feel for the values. I've also tried putting a flasher in the same location so I know where the viewpoint is from the other views.

Knotty wrote:

I've also tried putting a flasher in the same location so I know where the viewpoint is from the other views.

I second this method.. it was a big help in trying to locate a scoop-camera on my Falcon.

cim wrote:

Pleb wrote:

Ah I thought this was more to do with the coordinates of the model of the ship, like when specifying where to put sub-entities on a model you have to use the coordinates of the model (like in Wings 3D). What I'm confused is as to where should I be roughly aiming to have them in relation to the model(s)?

Both internal and external view positions - I'm not sure which you're wondering about - are relative to the ship's model coordinates. Generally you want to put the internal views at an appropriate point on or near the outer surface of the ship, in the appropriate direction from the centre. (And, traditionally, at least a few metres above the weapon position on the same side) The view direction is then fixed, so you don't need to worry about quaternions for these.

External views you need to back off a bit more with, get a couple of hundred metres off the hull, and then you need to adjust the quaternion so it points at the ship. If you're doing a standard 8-way view (and with a Thargoid warship, why not) just copy the views from another ship and scale the position vectors up to the right distance. If you want a different camera, you'll need to position it yourself, and then calculate the quaternion.

Okay this compeltely answered my question, thanks cim! I will have a stab at fixing these viewpoints tonight and will update the files when I'm satisfied.

I've also been thinking of ways to make the Thargoid Warship extremely difficult to obtain, other than making the chance of buying it really slim. In Frontier you could only pilot the Thargoid Warship if you hacked your savegame file with a Hex Editor (CHEATING!). I know in FFE you were awarded the ship after a specific mission, but rather than tying this into a mission perhaps it would be better to only offer it to those who have reached ELITE or Deadly rankings? Or is the 'you'll forever be a fugitive' penalty enough for owning this ship?

Pleb wrote:

... I know in FFE you were awarded the ship after a specific mission, but rather than tying this into a mission perhaps it would be better to only offer it to those who have reached ELITE or Deadly rankings?

I suggest a mission to acquire this ship - which you get after your first victory after you became ELITE.

But after that, I would leave the fugitive rating away - you would have earned it.

My 0.2 Cr.

Lestradae wrote:

I suggest a mission to acquire this ship - which you get after your first victory after you became ELITE.

But after that, I would leave the fugitive rating away - you would have earned it.

My 0.2 Cr.

I was trying not to make it mission dependable but I suppose that would work better. It would of course have to be an exceptionally hard mission, available only to ELITE pilots and involve taking on an insane amount of Thargoids...or something equally challenging!

I haven't had a chance to play around with the viewing ports but once I have I will have a think about what kind of mission the ship could be dependant on...

Pleb wrote:

... I will have a think about what kind of mission the ship could be dependant on...

A system taken over by thargoids and the player is the last ditch attempt of a single ship slipping in and destroying their thargoidified main station, bringing them down single-handedly in the process?