Oolite Bulletins

A thought occurred to me upon re-reading the mighty* "Dark Wheel" novella, (see http://www.iancgbell.clara.net/elite/dkwheel.htm for full text). Here is the relevant passage:

Alex checked up on the planet Cirag and discovered that it was not listed with the Official Planetary Register. That was the reason for its unfamiliar name. Not to be registered was not in itself unusual. Only inhabited worlds were listed. There were millions of inhabited star systems of use to miners, traders and explorers, which could only be located by reference to the Galactic Gazatteer of Worlds. But Cirag was inhabited by intelligent beings. That meant just one thing: Cirag was an independent world, had refused Federation status, was dangerous, probably deadly, most likely the haven for freebooters and criminals, and almost certainly a system in which the general principle of 'laser first, talk second' was applied.

So the thought i would like to bounce around is this: would it be possible, (possibly throught the purchase of an expensive subscription to the "Galactic Gazetteer of Worlds", to add a large number of mysterious, dangerous and previously invisible worlds to the map, at a stroke. A whole layer of extra unregistered systems would suddenly be seen once the extra information was obtained / bough, (perhaps on a galaxy by galaxy basis), and an extra layer of danger and risk. Perhaps the information could be obtained as the fruition of an extra mission. But clearly a trip to an unregistered planet would not be undertaken lightly. However, for the most battle hardened of commanders, the rewards might sometimes be highly lucrative.

What say you space brethren? Is it a runner? Have you got the minerals?


(*ok so "the Dark Wheel" may not actually be mighty, but it's the closest thing to literature that the Oolite/Elite universe can boast.)

cosmonaut wrote:

(*ok so "the Dark Wheel" may not actually be mighty, but it's the closest thing to literature that the Oolite/Elite universe can boast.)

Well it wouldn't get a Pullitzer prize, but I think it does give you the "feel" of the game, and is a must read for Oolite newbies.

I like your idea a lot, but I'm not sure adding galaxies is feasible, that's a Giles question. Mind you if it is the possibilities are endless, I could see it developed into an OXP that took you through a galactic wormhole to unregistered systems............Raxxla would be a good name for it!

Well, as for must reads for new Ooliters:

http://www.alioth.net/Fiction/oolitestory.pdf

TGHC wrote: I'm not sure adding galaxies is feasible, that's a Giles question

Just to clarify, i wasn't actually meaning adding new galaxies, rather an overlaid map of unregistered worlds that would superimpose onto the known galaxy when one obtains the extra information. These world have always been there alongside the ones we know, but the extra star charts are what's needed to reveal their presence.

And just think of the possibilities: narcotic planets farming nothing but Raaxlian hemp at rock bottom prices; worlds where the Galactic credit is not recognised and one must use precious metals for collateral; black market backwaters where lucrative smuggling contracts await pilots of low morality; pirate planets so treacherous one could swear one saw the Witch King of Angmar flying around in a turbocharged Asp MkII. Yikes!

You could add some planets/moons w/ a OXP, but then you'd have to go w/o maps... But they're a secret anyhow, so it'd be ok not to have written evidence ?

And one could draw a map and use it as mission-text-page background, I guess.

You can define one location between each pair of planets (the pairs being those less than 7LY from each other) and populate it any way you like. With the addPlanet and addMoon commands you can put together a system, but it will not have a sun.

There is certainly code in the game to create complete system given a single random value, and perhaps this can be exposed for us in situations like this (if it isn't already). Then just change the name of the planet so you don't get the random name if you don't like it.

Then we need to be able to add information to the long and short range charts on an optional basis.

None of that sounds too hard.

Just to add to this, Giles has said that new systems can't be added, apart from using the scripted way to add planets between two existing worlds and misjumping to get there.

However, the scripting is fairly cool, since it allows the addition of a new system in some depth, including moons and stuff.

All you'd need is to add a method to add a scripted sun too - and you can have an entire system you can misjump to (which would of course be hidden).

cosmonaut wrote:

TGHC wrote: I'm not sure adding galaxies is feasible, that's a Giles question

Just to clarify, i wasn't actually meaning adding new galaxies, rather an overlaid map of unregistered worlds that would superimpose onto the known galaxy when one obtains the extra information. These world have always been there alongside the ones we know, but the extra star charts are what's needed to reveal their presence.

And just think of the possibilities: narcotic planets farming nothing but Raaxlian hemp at rock bottom prices; worlds where the Galactic credit is not recognised and one must use precious metals for collateral; black market backwaters where lucrative smuggling contracts await pilots of low morality; pirate planets so treacherous one could swear one saw the Witch King of Angmar flying around in a turbocharged Asp MkII. Yikes!

Rumors say there was a "welcome to the 9th galaxy" string in some old Elite versions code somewhere, but no one managed to activate it..

We've discussed before the possibilities of having hidden systems in Oolite - a long time ago now in the dim and distant past.

I'd proposed that we should have a whole overlaid map of invisible stuff. These hidden things could be uncharted planets, rogue planets, hidden pirate/military/research/Thargoid bases, carriers (like the Behemoth), solar sail ships, and/or the mythical deep space generation ships and dredgers.

This discussion is related:
https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?t=136

I think my first mention of this kind of stuff was here:
https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?t=21

In summary, I'd proposed a hidden galaxy maps overlaid onto existing maps, created using the existing galaxy creation algorithm. The system types would then be assigned based on proportions and the hidden system "planet" number. I'd suggested that you could reach these places through mis-jumps and emergency hyperspace jumps.

In thinking about this further, I'd say that a good mechanism to find these places could be to have a system-finding-scanner that works only in witch-space - possibly only when you're detained there by Thargoids. As you find new systems they could get added to your galactic map.

It was fun finding those links - interesting to see how many ideas we bandied about in the distant past have made it into the game or OXPs, and those that have falled by the wayside. Giles had a great idea once that still hasn't made it into the game:
https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?t= ... ght=mining

Sounds a whole lot like.... the Gates of Raxxla... An actual gateway to a galaxy full of mysteries and wonders that only few worthy ELITE pilots are able to access after they have proven their worth through combat and various exploits.


how about that?

A lot of ideas do fall by the wayside, but I recall where I dropped them and plan to go back for them later.

WRT hidden planets, dajt's making me think about this again. I'm thinking I might be able to do something like have some extra systems in planetinfo.plist that get sor tof tagged-on to the end of the current star list (they'll be literally uncharted until you come across them by populating some mission variable in a script). I'll have to make sure that all the pseudo-randomly generated stuff for a planet can be overwritten (including position!) and I'll have to rewrite code in the chart screens to allow the selection of the new systems, and ensure they have a unique seed value (different from the existing systems).

It's quite a bit of work - and I'm backed up on the todo list. But maybe in a couple or three weeks..

cosmonaut wrote: ↑Wed Mar 22, 2006 5:20 pm

TGHC wrote: I'm not sure adding galaxies is feasible, that's a Giles question

Just to clarify, i wasn't actually meaning adding new galaxies, rather an overlaid map of unregistered worlds that would superimpose onto the known galaxy when one obtains the extra information. These world have always been there alongside the ones we know, but the extra star charts are what's needed to reveal their presence.

And just think of the possibilities: narcotic planets farming nothing but Raaxlian hemp at rock bottom prices; worlds where the Galactic credit is not recognised and one must use precious metals for collateral; black market backwaters where lucrative smuggling contracts await pilots of low morality; pirate planets so treacherous one could swear one saw the Witch King of Angmar flying around in a turbocharged Asp MkII. Yikes!

Is this now doable with all the changes to the vanilla game code?