Oolite Bulletins

HAH, I bet ya'll thought you were rid of me. It's been a busy Summer. That gaming computer was a real bomb, but I've fixed all the crud in it now. New video card, new power supply. I've got all the proprietary drivers installed for the NVidia GeForce 9800 GTX. You would think it should all be moving along smooth now, but I was surprised to find that there are certain glitches in the ships I was working last Spring that haven't changed. I can't seem to get sensor dishes for one ship to revolve correctly. Not that it isn't cool, as the dishes circle around the ship like the points of a weird halo. Another ship I'm struggling with has view point problems. For instance, the view from inside the ship forward, I can't get it past seeing the front portions of the ship, which it shouldn't be seeing. Not with the ranges I've got in place. It's the same way with the interior aft view, and I think with the sides as well. Along with that, the only laser I can make work is the forward laser. Even though I have the aft laser clearly defined, and position coordinates correct, I can't get it to fire. Not even when using the interior aft view does the aft laser show. I've checked it over again, again, and am stumped. I came here because I've got Linux Mint 17 Mate installed, and wasn't sure if there are any known conflicts. Could I get someone to test the two problem ships, and see if you can find the problem? Just wondering. Nice to be back.

Good to see you back! I was wondering where you'd gone.. but not overly, as a lot of the 'old hands' around here seem to have vanished, of late.

So after all those hassles, it turned out to be hardware problems doing you in, eh? Not surprising, I guess.. there haven't been much in the way of OS problems with Oolite in a long time (other than fairly minor ones, and mostly with Windows, at that). Several other weird problems with Oolite and Linux that have been posted recently turned out to be hardware related, not due to Oolite or the OS.

I use Mint 17 myself, (Cinnamon) and can report there are no problems with it and Oolite.. so it has to be something to do with the OXPs themselves, I'm thinking. I should have some time in a few days to do some testing for you, if you like.

Diziet Sma, that would be great. There's no hurry, of course. Meanwhile, I'll get trying to figure out what I did wrong, LOL.

Did any Linux users have trouble opening the tgz package Oolite 1.80 is compressed with? When I try to unzip it, I get a warning,
If I'm not mistaken, that is saying it won't open for use with USA English UTF-8. I remember something in one, or more updates warning about lack of support for UTF-8, so I'm not sure I'll be able to open the newest version of Oolite.

Could you, please, post the command line you used to uncompress the tgz?

Um, never mind, I got it. Aren't you glad to have me back.

mandoman wrote:

Aren't you glad to have me back.

Actually, yes.

Smivs wrote:

Actually, yes.

I'm glad to be back. Now, I just have to remember how to put together an oxp again.

It is indeed good to see you here again..

mandoman wrote:

Now, I just have to remember how to put together an oxp again.

Don't forget to check out the new OXZ Guide, as well..

mandoman wrote:

Um, never mind, I got it. Aren't you glad to have me back.

Sure thing!

Diziet Sma wrote:

It is indeed good to see you here again..

Don't forget to check out the new OXZ Guide, as well..

Hmm, something new. Can't I just keep adding my oxps to the oxp list? It took me a year, or more, to learn how to do that, and create my own Oolite wiki page. I'll have to study that OXZ page a while. I don't mean to offend anyone, I'm just having a hard time seeing the point, unless it's to take a lode off of maik, and cim, which is not a bad idea. Looks like more work. I'll study it.

mandoman wrote:

I'm just having a hard time seeing the point...

The point is that the Expansions Manager allows players to find and download Expansions in-game. You don't have to find the OXPs (as they are listed in the manager) or manually download them or un-zip them or work out where to put them. That's all
It's very easy from the author's point of view as well - they are basically just zipped OXPs with a manifest,plist which the Manager can read.

Oolite has gone high tech while I was missing. I does sound better, so I'll get to work on trying to make use of it.