Oolite Bulletins

See in the wiki: [wiki]Detectors[/wiki] and download it.

This equipment help to "know your enemies and know yourself" in real-time during dogfight.

Features:
* on-HUD summarized value of your energy, shield, capacitor and armour,
* similar value from your target with unaccuracy to make surprises,
* more data in the displayName of the target,
* can turn to percentage values during fly including  NumericHUDv3.1 energy and shield displays,
* a bit smarter enemies can use Escape pod in time and shoot a missile before eject,
* more in the wiki: [wiki]Detectors[/wiki]).

Numbers next to a target, representing it's remaining life energy?

No, thank you. Too arcadey. Not my taste.

(Sorry for this being the first reply in the thread, and I don't have anything against you personally. I just think that Oolite isn't the kind of game that would display "life bars" or any equivalent thereof above NPC's heads.)

Commander McLane wrote:

Numbers next to a target, representing it's remaining life energy?

No, thank you. Too arcadey. Not my taste.

<Raises eyebrows>

It might not be to your taste, but the nature of Oolite OXPs means that YOU don't have to install it. There's bound to be someone out there that will like it and install it.

Commander McLane wrote:

I don't have anything against you personally.

No problemo.

I think you can use this OXP without buying the equipment itself.

In this case you will not see anything from the target but get:
- your energy+shield+armour numeric value with yellow or red border if low,
- an "aft hit" indicator,
- a Service Level, IronHide (and other in the near future) armour display tool,
- enemies can use Escape pod in time and shoot a missile before eject.

In addition please do not underestimate the unaccuracy of the detectors, it can show any number from 0 to 3 times more than the real value in different situations, so it is far from an arcade bar.

Let me explain where I'm coming from:

The numbers belong to Oolite's internal workings. They're part of what's "under the hood" of the game. But they don't exist in-Ooniverse (just like there's no number that could be displayed next to your car, which would indicate after how much more scratches it will explode). All we have in the Oolite world is [wiki]Energy banks[/wiki]. Those are already displayed on my HUD. And they can't be scanned for other ships.

Thus, I don't want to see any numbers in the game. It's un-Oolitey.

If I'm desperate to see (for instance for debugging reasons) how much energy I have (or a target has), I open an inspector window (Mac-only debugging feature).

The only exception is bounties, because at the end of the day you get them as an amount of credits, and it's reasonable to assume that this amount is known in advance.

Thank you for the invitation to test another one of your OXPs. I have downloaded this equipment and will play with it over the next day.

Commander McLane wrote:

Let me explain where I'm coming from:

Thank you for the details! As JazHaz said there are different group of players and we are not in one group in this question, but thanks to you I started to understand the opposite viewpoint.

Based on your words the best if all ships including player ship can be blown at any time if the last energy bank is not full to make more reality. I guess it will be never in the core game due to historical reasons, but I like this idea so I can put it into this OXP if you want.


I think you want to know from your target what can be know in real only. But within this border it is a good idea to know as more as possible imho. You must decide to fight or flee before and during battle from something and the more thing is better until it is not counted as cheating.

So please go ahead and help to make some acceptable rules. Here is my ideas:

1. A surely detectable thing is that your last laser fire hit or miss the target - a fixed scope on the weapon can visually detect it. So I plan to make a flash on the surrounding box when hit. It is a big help to indicate you not waste your valuable laser temp, especially with far targets. The red targe box is not enough, I see often to not reduced the target energy when was red due to maybe moved a bit or not enough accurate to forecast, but this "after event" detector can flag it exactly. In real I surely want to buy or make something similar to my ship.

2. An intelligence system can make a guess to the maximal strength of the enemy without read the internal numbers, but need more work to make the rules. Can based on the standard ship types and equipments but must go futrher to do something real.

3. The current strength can be tracked from the maximum if reduced by the expected value of the detected hits and increased with a guessed recharge rate. It will be less and less accurate over time, but it is the goal.

4. After get the estimated maximal and current strength, your computer can be show it on a low resolution bar to represent it is not an exact value. I think 8 level from zero to the maximum, it is less than the detail of the energy banks and can stay much longer on the last position if guessed below or the fight ending at the half of the bar if over-estimated. I think it is imaginable in real and contain enough uncertainty to fit into the concept of the original HUD and better than if missing completely.

I will use this during fight to determine if I has enough chance to win or better to leave if I can not earn a stable downtrend. It is too hard to calculate it in head but this equipment contain a computer to do it. Without this maybe I leave after some time if I think I can not win but in stable downtrend near the end, or stay too long and lose in a situation where I can not win due to the enemy always recharged to the maximum regardless of my efforts.

I am working on harder enemies (ShipVersion OXP is in my betatest folder) which will make this question is more important than before.


Second part is the summarized player display. I accept that the game is already well-playable with the current HUDs and you need to watch your energy level only to know when must to flee.
The main benefit of this will be shown if you install more and more shield and armour extensions.

I am working on the HardShips OXP to make better damage model with more armour sides. Using this can build ships where the base energy is a small part of the sum, but armours not showed in the current HUDs so this display will be more important in the future.

I think players with NumericHUD likes the exact values and want or accept data in the current numeric form, but other HUDs should get bars instead of numbers. I can do it in the next version.

Norby wrote:

1. A surely detectable thing is to hit or miss the target your last laser fire

There is already a difference in sound between laser hit and laser miss, so this is certainly detected. It's fairly subtle in the default sounds - BGS, for instance, has a much more obvious distinction. So that can help you tell if you missed or hit.

For a subtle clue about energy state, watch their exhaust plumes. Obviously you need to be up close to get a good look at them, but you can probably split into "serious damage", "some damage", "no or minor damage" just visually.

cim wrote:

Norby wrote:

1. A surely detectable thing is to hit or miss the target your last laser fire

There is already a difference in sound between laser hit and laser miss, so this is certainly detected. It's fairly subtle in the default sounds - BGS, for instance, has a much more obvious distinction. So that can help you tell if you missed or hit.

For a subtle clue about energy state, watch their exhaust plumes. Obviously you need to be up close to get a good look at them, but you can probably split into "serious damage", "some damage", "no or minor damage" just visually.

Quote for emphasis. Also, you can see when your laser hits your target. There is a flash effect.

All of these are part of the core game, and have always been. So I don't see a problem in the first place which would need an OXP solution.

Commander McLane wrote:

I don't see a problem in the first place which would need an OXP solution.

Ok. Due to the current version is enough good for me and there are no request to make an improved version I step to the next project.

Hi!
It is not a big problem but I've noticed some minor issues i'd like to share:
1) the digits are now part of the name of coriolis stations, space bars.....,
For example, you will now see: " coriolis station 2500", "the wanted dead or alive 500000" (space bar) and the digits are pronounced by spoken messages and it's also written on f5 screen.

2) "Cargo scanner oxp" is not compatible with "detectors". It is not working after i installed "detectors"

Hi, thank you for the reports. It is an old package, there are reasons why not available in oxz form in the manager. A less revealing variant is included in [wiki]Combat MFD[/wiki] which tell Damaged and Weak status only about your target, exactly as the core game do it in itself via the flashing exthaust plumes (below 40% and 20% energy).

The numbers are added to the names in an early version when it was not displaed via HUD elements and stay there for those who use a HUD without support for the big central numbers shown in the scereenshots. My built-in HUDs in [wiki]HUDSelector[/wiki] can show these but most others are not. If you want remove the numbers from the names then comment out the 500. line in detectors.js. Sorry but I do not plan any new version of this package with options to disable it.

The problem with Cargo Scanner sounds interesting (i.e. I can not imagine the reason), maybe I will check it once.

Hi!
I've just read that it's not recommended to use this OXP, it is obsolete so i've followed this advice and i've uninstalled it.
Thanks!!!!!!!!