Oolite Bulletins

Version 1.01
Removed the AI-Message logging. D'oh! And added the fruit bat ship into the download for your convenience.
Here is the new link:
Freighttrain 1.01
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Finally!



MASSTrans GLC just recently transformed itself from a local player around the Iron Stars in Gal 1 into a multigalactical cooperation by satifying a rising demand for in-system transportation of cheap mass products, something free traders alone couldn't (and wouldn't, for food, textiles and minerals aren't where the fast money is) attend to.
With it's investments into various ship builders and on low tech agricultural worlds the cooperation started to dominate the trade at the low end of the cargo spectrum. The corner stone of it's success are the freight trains, huge massive ships build for slow, but steady, transit through a given system and giving the people the things they need for survival, even on far off stations. Loading and Unloading is done by a special, cheap, robot brain controlled ship, called MASSTrans C-Bot, that MASSTrans has stationed in all mayor stations in a given system, sometimes even on Rock Hermits... these c-bots are known to be badly mantained and sometimes even collide with the trains they try to unload.

As of now, MASSTrans don't risk their trains in anarchies or feudal states, and it's train are protected anywhere else by the MT SEC Flying Foxes. Read more about them here.
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Ok, here it is. There are a few things to consider:
First, this OXP works best if you have a lot of OXP stations in system. The AI of the freighttrain has a 1 in 10 chance build in to fly to the systems main station, with only a few oxp stations it would probably make sense to change the following line in the freighttrain_AIs.plist: into "rollD: 8","5" or even less.

Second: If you don't like the fruit bat , you should probably change the first entry of the shipdata. plist into another ship, so that you have good pilots. Because...

Third: The freighttrain is a big box of candies for a dedicated pirate attack if it is not protected by it's escorts. If you try to raid the freighttrain, keep at least capable escorts or this isn't a challenge. On the other hand, it mostly transports food, textiles and minerals... wich aren't the most profitable things to go after as a pirate... nevertheless, even with good escorts a greater number of pirates can break some of the containers to spill their goddies. If you consider that wrong and cheating you could downsize the number of spilled goods still further in shipdata.plist (I did so a few times while testing already...). Look for this line in each of the three subentities called container1, container2, and container3, respectively, and adjust it: Fourth: It is a bit taxing on older machines, I think, due to it's computing in a framecallback... just try if it works...

Oh, and I forgot to change the variables and functions into something less ordinary. I didn't notice any problems, but I wanted to get this out and will probably change this in a further release.

Download Freighttrain1.00.oxp here!

Download the FruitBat1.01.oxp to go along with it.

This sounds like a great piece of work Rorschachhamster.

I'll look forward to downloading it.

Congratulations on the release of a ship OXP incorporating something a little different.

The Freighttrain has the honor of being my 100th OXP Looks incredible and runs fine!

added this, and they look amazing in game!

One suggestion, to your shipdata.plist entry for the fruitbat in the freighttrain OXP:
I would also add the line is_external_dependency = yes; to that entry. As the fruitbat is in a seperate OXP, if it's not installed you get a log error. By adding the external dependency line in it will suppress those if it's not installed.

That said I'm now off to download it [/color]

Thargoid wrote:

One suggestion, to your shipdata.plist entry for the fruitbat in the freighttrain OXP:

Code: Select all

 "fruitbat_masstrans_perfect" =
 {
 like_ship = "fruitbat_masstrans";
 "script_info" =         {"randomshipnames" = "hunter";};
 roles ="fruitbat_masstrans_perfect";
 accuracy = 9.5;
 };

I would also add the line is_external_dependency = yes; to that entry. As the fruitbat is in a seperate OXP, if it's not installed you get a log error. By adding the external dependency line in it will suppress those if it's not installed.

That said I'm now off to download it [/color]

Ok, added that and writing a requires.plist as well...
Will wait a little if there is more than that... and there will be, I'm pretty sure.

Does the fruitbat appear as a separate ship or only with the freighttrain?

I'd like it only as the latter.

JazHaz wrote:

Does the fruitbat appear as a separate ship or only with the freighttrain?

I'd like it only as the latter.

It's a separate ship.

Maybe the Fruitbat and Freighttrain OXPs could be merged, then made the Fruitbats optional via OXPConfig?

Of the (Griff) core ships only, which ship should replace the Fruitbat for towing the train?

JazHaz wrote:

Of the (Griff) core ships only, which ship should replace the Fruitbat for towing the train?

It's not a core ship, but Griff's Elite Bug would seem ideally suited.

If one has Constores, perhaps the freight train could have the Constore Security ships as escorts. (Since you typically never see those things anyway...) Think about how often you see big delivery trucks for major stores... this could be like delivering goods to the Constore station or to theoretical planetside stores owned by the same company.

Obviously there'd be a tiny bit of scripting to make sure all the escorts are from the same constore company. Shouldn't be too difficult to set up a randomizer or, if there's a constore in the system, make sure it uses the appropriate company's escorts.

Yeah, I'm back. My old PC was too slow and began crashing after installing too many OXPs. Now I've inherited my mother-in-law's "old" laptop which has plenty more power and memory (but crappier graphics renderer, though I've managed to solve a nasty z-bias problem in most instances), so I can play Oolite again. Yay!

Keeper wrote:

Yeah, I'm back. My old PC was too slow and began crashing after installing too many OXPs. Now I've inherited my mother-in-law's "old" laptop which has plenty more power and memory (but crappier graphics renderer, though I've managed to solve a nasty z-bias problem in most instances), so I can play Oolite again. Yay!

Assuming the laptop is running some flavour of Windows, you might be able to improve the graphics with the help of this thread:
https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=7444

In my installation, I went ahead with my idea that these trains are delivering goods for the big convenience store companies already established by the YAH OXP's constores. While I couldn't figure out how to make it choose the same store brand that's already in the system (assuming one is in the system), I figure these brands have plenty of stores planetside so you'd still see their delivery vehicles once in a while even if they don't have a station in the system.

Thus I have set it up that it will spawn as one of the seven different brands (in my installation, I replaced one of the two Star constores with a GalaxyMart -- parody of the Japanese chain FamilyMart), i.e. all its escorts will be the constore defender Sidewinders for that particular brand.

While I was at it, I set it up to have differently coloured locomotives at the front, so they're not always that pinkish purple. Initially, I broke up the textures and used shaders to generate a random colour, but the lighting on the locomotive never looked good, so I just made four different textures. Two brands use the original pinkish purple, two use blue, two use red, and one uses green.

The temptation now is to put the store logos on some of the trailer containers... I'll try to resist going that far.

If Rorschachhamster doesn't mind, I can put up the changed/new files I made, for those who'd like the same setup (of course you must have all the constores installed to get the constore escorts).

Thermonuklear wrote:

JazHaz wrote:

Does the fruitbat appear as a separate ship or only with the freighttrain?

I'd like it only as the latter.

It's a separate ship.

Maybe the Fruitbat and Freighttrain OXPs could be merged, then made the Fruitbats optional via OXPConfig?

I second this opinion, and I'd be even more strict: I'd omit the "optional via OXPConfig" -part.

Why would anyone want to change the train tow ship?
It looks like the Fruitbat was designed for the job and thus I see no reason to replace it .

Rorschachhamster, you should have released this OXP with the Fruitbat already inserted in it - after seeing those screenshots any other ship in front of the train feels just wrong . Changing the ship even then would still be trivial, if someone did want to change it.

Keeper wrote:

In my installation, I went ahead with my idea that these trains are delivering goods for the big convenience store companies already established by the YAH OXP's constores. While I couldn't figure out how to make it choose the same store brand that's already in the system (assuming one is in the system),

The usual way would be to determine the store's brand from its unique role (assuming YAH provides those) or name, and then add the corresponding unique freighttrain.