Oolite Bulletins

Hi everyone,

I've been really enjoying Oolite after discovering it amid the Elite:Dangerous talk (Elite was my favourite game as a kid) and I've had a go at my first OXP: the Sonoran. I'm a big fan of Smivs' Contractor (please think of any similarities as 'homages' rather than 'plagiarisms') but wanted more of a hunter/trader hybrid to look forward to for when my current pilot finally escapes his broke-start adder.

Balancing: I wanted the Sonoran to be a good hunter/trader but also to fit well with the core ships, and so I limited all the stats to be no higher individually than could be found on core ships (e.g. the Asp's top speed of 0.4 LM), and I then tinkered until a realistic_shipyards formula I saw on the Caduceus page produced the same 150,000 CR as a Cobra Mk3:

0.0015 * (65 + cargo) * (20 + (Energy + Recharge)*10) * (((Speed-0.02)*3)^3*70 + (Pitch + Roll)*10) * (20+(Guns+Turrets+Missiles)*10)

which gave the Sonoran's stats:

Cargo: 15 TC
Energy: 5.5
Recharge Rate: 4.5
Speed: 0.4 LM
Pitch: 1.375
Roll: 2.25
Lasers: Front and Aft
Missiles: 2
(Price: 495,000)
(Size: 54 x 9 x 65m)

I priced it at 495000 rather than 150000 as it effectively became an Asp with a 15 T Cargo bay.
If I have linked things correctly hopefully the box download and screenshots should be below, I'm happy for people to alter it as long as filenames are changed etc. (I would be particularly chuffed if anyone would like to work some shader magic on it).

All feedback and (constructive ) criticism welcome, particularly thoughts on balancing and any errors spotted.

Download: https://app.box.com/s/j6pq424ss23cddzbpty3

Welcome aboard, Robin - that's quite an entry, and a nice-looking ship it is too.

Nice .-) And a good first post .-)

The Sonoran is a sweet ship, Robin - I just tooled one up to the limit and took it for a spin.

All works as expected... but one tiny detail: the laser beam seems to originate just ahead of the gun muzzle - intentional?

Excellent first post. Welcome to the friendliest board this side of Riedquat!™

Very nice looking ship! Downloading.

Beautiful ship .

Robin wrote:

I would be particularly chuffed if anyone would like to work some shader magic on it).

Oh, but there already is some shader magic there. There's nothing wrong in using Oolite's default shader.

spara wrote:

Oh, but there already is some shader magic there. There's nothing wrong in using Oolite's default shader.

<nods> Yep, it looks pretty good as is (and it's a treat to fly) - though it'd be cool to be able to add a decal.

Welcome Robin! Your ship is very nice, I like this flat hull!

You can use like_ship key in shipdata.plist to avoid double work and possible data errors when your pirate and player ships can go out of sync.

If you use full energy banks (x*64) then an energy bar in the hud cover the same energy as in a Cobra. The banks in your ship a bit (10%) larger than usual due to the additional half bank distributed between the full banks, but it is not a problem, just a small notice.

I put your ship into the [wiki]OXP_List[/wiki]. You can ask your login name from maik if you plan to make wiki pages to your ships or about your activities.

Thanks for the replies everyone, and for adding it to the OXP list Norby. Regarding the gun muzzle, when I tried placing the laser further back the beam showed through the ship and muzzle (maybe they aren't big enough?) hence the forward placement. I had similar problems with the exhaust nozzles when not at full speed but there I could just make the plumes smaller. I was aiming for the ship to be ~ Constrictor sized, but for a future version I may scale the whole thing up a bit because the concave profile makes it a little trickier to hit.

Robin I just wanted to congratulate you on what is a fantastic first ship design. I'm very impressed indeed.

If you want to have a look at how you can use shaders to provide additional effects I put together a shaders for Oolite guide complete with a resource pack containing example ship oxps.

Feel free to download by following the link in my signature strip below if interested.

There's also the Shaders' Outpost sticky in this very forum.

Hi Robin, and welcome to the Board (and the Dark SIde!).
That's a really nice ship - looks good and makes sense. Looking forward to more from you

I uploaded to the expansion manager this ship.

Took some years, but a decent wiki page is available now: http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Sonoran